We were on our way to a grand opening...simple enough, right? But then...we woke up here...
My best friend and I were on our way to New York for a friend of mine's ceremony- then we got into a car accident, we woke up here...changed physically...I...I don't know how this happened...I'm- I'm- scared...
"Is my tie on straight?" I asked, smoothing my jacket as I stared into the bathroom mirror. "Yeah, am I zipped up?" Melissa asked, turning. "No" I said, taking the zipper and closing the back of her dress.
I know what you're thinking...and no, we're not- we're just friends. We have been ever since 3rd grade, it was in art class...I'd really rather not talk about it...
Anyway, we were on our way to a party for a friend of mine's, he's a museum curator, so he finally opened a museum along with a few other friends of his, and the grand opening is in a few days. He, of course, called us and asked us if we could make it, which would've been helpful if he'd told us sooner. We luckily didn't have anything going on, and agreed.
"Mel, let's go, we don't want to be late getting to the airport" I called, grabbing my keys from their perch on the coffee table. Her shoes clacked against the wooden floor as she exited the house, me following as I double-checked the door after I closed it.
"It's already getting a little late, do you think we'll catch our plane?" Mel asked, fastening her seatbelt. "We'll make it, the plane doesn't leave until ten" I replied, starting the car.
I pulled out of the driveway, and pushed forward as I gradually picked up speed, heading towards the airport as fast as the traffic laws would allow.
"So...how far have you gotten this time?" Mel asked idly. "Don't you already know? You beat the game like, twice" I replied, keeping my eyes on the road. "I only beat it once" "Yeah, so don't spoil it for me" I said, lightheartedly. "Just trying to make conversation" she returned.
Most of the car ride was spent in silence from then on...I don't know why...
X X X X X X X
"Huh? What's that?" Mel asked, pointing forward. Something was caught in the path of the headlights, making it flash brightly as we passed it.
"What was that about?" I asked.
Mel didn't respond, I briefly looked to her, and saw that she was suddenly out cold.
"Mel? Melissa?!" I took one hand off the wheel and tried to wake her up.
"Come on!" I said. There was another flash of blinding light, and both of my hands released the wheel. I could feel the car spinning as I lost control, we hit something hard...and I lost consciousness...I saw her face one last time before passing out.
'M...mel...melissa?' I thought dazedly, attempting to push myself up.
Something's off here...I don't...can't think straight...what...what's going on? What happened? We...we were...
Dammit! Why can't I think straight!?!
The sound of metal scraping against something made itself known in the darkness, and I stopped for a moment, trying to figure out what it was.
"H-hello? Is anyone there?" I rasped. "I...I am..." came Mel's voice.
'Oh thank god...' I thought in relief.
I steadily pulled myself up, working to stand straight. All the while, there was more of that scraping sound.
Seriously...what is that?
A bright orange orb of light appeared in my vision, it looked like it was squinting, if the movements of the light was any indication.
"What...are...you?" came Mel's voice. "I'm Max" I replied "what're you?" "I'm...Mel..." her voice replied "...wait...Max? Where are you? All I can see is this...blue light" "That's funny...all I can see is this orange light..."
"Do you think...we might be looking at each other?" "No..." I replied.
It was just ridiculous! People don't just lose an eye...or get a glowing one...
"Mel...I'm going to try something...please...just stay still..." I said, approaching the orange light.
"Max? Where are you?! Help! HELP!! It- it's getting closer!" "Mel- stay calm..." "St-stay calm? Stay CALM?" she asked incredulously. "Yes...please...just-"
I felt something cold and hard slap against my face, the sound of metal striking against metal resounding through out the room.
'Oh my...god...' I thought.
I fell backward, my new body striking against the floor. The orange orb stared at me in shock, more of the scraping sound was heard before the orb tipped, the body it was attached to laying on the floor.
"Mel...this..." "Shut up" she moaned. "But-" "I said...shut...up..."
I sighed as I put a hand to my new head, and just stared at her for a moment, contemplating our situation.
'Well...we've got portal guns...right? Or are supposed to...that's something...'
But it didn't make up for the fact that we were- wherever the hell we were...
"I'm going to go and look around" I said, standing. "I'll be here..." she said, almost silently.
I fumbled around in the dark for a few minutes, before I found something that remotely felt like a door handle. I twisted it, and pulled, letting light leak into the shed-like room. The area outside the door wasn't quite what I was expecting, by the looks of it, we weren't in a testing chamber (thank goodness), but we appeared to be in an old office building, no-one around except for Mary and myself. The tiles of the ceiling looked aged, like the building hadn't been tended to in months, maybe years. I looked back to Mary, still laying on her side on the floor in her new body, the light filtering through the door catching her white skin, giving her an angelic look.
'What did we get ourselves into?' I thought.
X X X X X X X
I kept a mental note to remember which floor we were on as I walked up a flight of stairs, leading to the next floor, Mel (I wonder if she'll let me call her 'P-body') following close behind.
"So...what do we do now?" she asked quietly. "I don't know..." I replied "start looking for civilization, I guess" "And how do you think they'll react to us? We're....we're not human...anymore..." "I know..." I said sympathetically. "How are you so calm about this?" I shrugged as we continued walking, the sound of metal hitting the floor filling the stairway. "I don't know...I guess I'm just looking at it like this- something really frickin' scary happened, we were changed, and there's nothing we can do about it" She was silent for a little while.
I sighed and ran a hand over my eyes...eye? Yeah...eye...
"That's just how I look at it, I'm not saying I'm totally accepting of it...but...I understand where you're coming from" I think she somehow managed to smile without a mouth, I think I returned it as I pushed the door to the next floor open.
"Wait a minute...why don't we have portal guns?" she asked. "I don't know...maybe they're around here somewhere" I shrugged "why don't we split up and look for them?" "Holler if you get into trouble?" "Yep" "Alright...see ya..."
With that, we went our separate ways, I took the left side of the floor, while Mel took the right.
'What was this place even used for?' I thought, glancing around the empty offices.
More importantly, why did I want to know? I shook my head, incidentally making my 'head' swivel violently back and forth.
'Great...relearning motor skills should be fun...'
X X X X X X X
I heard the sound of Mel's screams from all the way across the floor, I quickly ran through it, searching for her.
"Mel? Mel, what's wrong?!" I shouted, looking everywhere for her.
"R-right here" she gasped, holding a hand to her chest.
'Oh...yeah...do we even have hearts anymore?'
Well, we obviously couldn't, but it was still another thing to find out...
"What happened?" I asked. "Nothing...a mouse scared me..." she replied.
"Ooookkkaaayyy...well...any luck finding the guns?"
"No...where else could they be?" "I think there could be a few" I said. "What about the storage closets?" "..."
I face-palmed.
'Why didn't I think of that?' I thought, walking to a nearby closet. I yanked the door open, and found...nothing.
"Well...we've got an entire building to search...should be easy...right?" Mel shrugged, and turned to walk down the hall, eventually disappearing around a corner.
"Okay, I'll catch up later" I said sarcastically.
Another scream tore through the halls, I flinched at the noise, and looked down the way Mel had disappeared- only to see her running for her life.
"Runrunrunrunrunrun!" she shouted, running past me in a blur.
"What? Why?" I asked.
My questions were soon answered, as three or four small horses bounded into the hall.
"MCMC Monster Catchers!" they shouted in unison, leaping forward with a butterfly net of all things.
I bolted after Mel, sneaking glances behind us to the horses. Several questions were buzzing around in my head, namely, how the hell did they talk? What are they doing in an abandoned building? And, how are we going to get out of this?
"What about the guns?" I asked as I caught up. "Less talking, more running from the mutant horses!" she replied.
"Are they gone? Are they gone?" Mel asked, the both of us hiding behind a corner of one of the halls. "I don't know...I don't think I can hear them anymore" I said, taking the chance to peek out from our hiding spot. I saw two of them approaching, one of them had an orange coat, with a red mane- the other's coat was blue with a messy yellow mane.
'Since when do horses have freckles? Or talk, for that matter?' I thought, ushering Mel further down the hall 'And weren't there like, five of them?'
'Just a bit further' I thought, almost reaching our goal of escaping into the other hall.
"There they are!" one of them shouted, followed by the sound of hooves against the floor.
"Run!" I shouted, the both of us bolting around the corner and down the hall.
X X X Babs P.O.V X X X
"Where'd they go?" Blue Skies asked, walking next to me as we searched for the monsters. "I don't know, they couldn't a' gotten too far, they only walk on two legs" I replied, brushing some of my mane out of my eyes. "Yeah...what da ya think they were?" "How am I supposed to know? We just found 'em today" "..."
"So...what do you think our cutie marks will look like if we-" "Shhh" I said, putting a hoof to his mouth "D' ya hear that?" "Um...it sounds like a bunch of racket?" Skies replied. "No...it's the same sound those things made, they must be close"
He and I turned the corner, and saw the blue and orange things sneaking down the hall.
"There they are!" I shouted, galloping after them.
"Skree!" the blue one shouted, running after the orange one.
X X X Max P.O.V X X X
"I think...we lost them..." I panted, stopping beside Mel. "That's what you said...last time..." she responded "...we should just find the guns and get the hell out of here..." "I'm with you on that...but where could they be?" "I have no idea...we could just wait for them to leave, and then we can start looking again"
I nodded as I looked down the hall both ways, checking for any sign of the horses.
"Let's get going, they might be here soon" "Why are we running, anyway?" she asked. "What?" "Why are we running from a bunch of small horses? We're taller than them!" "That's...a good point..." I replied "we...we could keep them somewhere...until we find the guns..." "Yeah, so...have we got a plan?" "We've got a half-baked plan, but a plan nonetheless" I sighed.
And with that, we began our search.
X X X X X X X
Blue Skies dashed through the halls of the building, searching for the other crusaders. He soon found them, after much trial and error, the rest of the group gathered behind one of the desks.
"We got a big problem!" he wheezed "They took Babs! I can't find her anywhere!" "Same thing happened to us, they took Rusty, too" Whirlwind said. "Well...what do we do now?" one of them asked. "You know the rules: No crusader left behind! We go find the monsters, we find Babs and Rusty" "But...but what if they get us, too?"
"..." "..." "..." "..."
"Well...we aren't gonna find 'em sittin' around here, let's go already!"
The four little ponies began the search for their friends, each splitting into groups of two. They were unsure of what these creatures were, but were determined to get their friends back.
The horse with the orange coat and red mane shrieked in my arms along with the one with the yellow mane.
"Put...us...DOWN!" red-mane cried, striking my face with her hooves. "Stop it" I said, holding the two at arms length.
The one with the red mane gave me a puzzled look, before repeating her assault.
"Stop it" I repeated, adjusting my grip on the two.
"Hey, guess what I found" Mel said, a mischevious smirk somehow crossing her face. She produced two portal guns she had been hiding behind herself. "Well...there's one question answered..." I said "can you put that on, somehow? I've kind of got my arms full at the moment"
She holstered the gun on my back, while I made a mental note to ask her later how she did it.
"Um...where are we going to put them?" I asked. "...well...we can't just put them in one of the closets..." "We could put them in one of the conference rooms" I suggested, struggling with the horses.
"Wait a minute...if we found the guns...why do we need to find the rest anyway?" I asked.
Mel face-palmed.
"Duh" she said "let's just run"
I released the two ponies from my grasp, letting them fall to the floor as we turned and bolted the other way.
"You know that they're going to tell, right?" Mel said as we ran "They're going to tell the others, and then their going to come after us again" "No, they won't" I responded "And...the reason being?" "We've got these" I said, removing the portal gun from its holster.
"These aren't just toys" she said "they're real portal guns" "I know" I said, excited. "Not what I meant..."
"Only one way to check if they work" I said, the both of us stopping at a nearby window. Mel looked out the window, then reeled back. "You're not seriously thinking of-"
I opened the window, and aimed at a wall of an alley below. I fired, sending a pulsing blue ball towards the spot I'd directed it to- the ball materialized into a portal upon impact with the wall. I turned and fired at the wall behind us, creating a violet portal.
"After you" I said, giving an overdramatic gesture. "Nu-uh, I'm not going in there" she said. "What? Why not?" "Don't you think these might work differently in the game? I mean, what if the way they work is different? And then they short out while we're going through?" "Fine...if if makes you feel any better, I'll go first" I said, stepping up to the portal. Just on the other side, the alley below was in view, the wall opposite the portal clearly visible.
I stepped through, when-
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!" "Max? Ohmygod!" Mel said, charging through the portal, crashing into me "Wh-what was that for?!" "Had to get you through somehow" I shrugged. She rolled her eye, and cuffed me upside the head.
"Let's just get going...I don't want those horses following us" she said, turning and heading down the other end of the alley.
"Are we monsters?" Mel asked as both of us walked the dark streets of the city, all the horses residing in them fast asleep. Their metal legs scraped against the concrete as we went, filling the air with the horrible noise.
"No...why do you ask?" Max replied, his eye glancing up to hers.
"Well...we tried to keep those horses as hostages..."
He stopped, coming to a complete halt as he stared at her.
"We were going to set them free eventually" he countered. "But...it's still kidnapping, would we have done that even if we didn't look like this?" she asked, gesturing to herself.
"No...I guess we wouldn't have...I mean, we only tried to do that since we were looking for these" he said, holding up his portal gun "I guess...if we were still human...then we wouldn't have needed to try and do it in the first place..."
The both of them were silent as they continued their journey, looking for any signs of movement, from either the horses, or whatever other creatures might be nearby.
"So, what happens when we actually get out of here?" Mel asked, glancing to Max.
"I...don't know" he sighed "I guess, we could just..." "You didn't think this through, did you?"
"No..."
"Oh perfect..."
Indeed, the two didn't have a place in Equestria, or any other part of the world they now resided in. The only thing they could do was to keep walking, hoping to find someone or something that might help them get home.
"Y'know, it's a miracle we can see out here at all" Mel said, in order to fill the empty silence. "I guess we can thank our eyes for that..." "Yeah...y'know what else?" "What?" "...I'm going to miss my sense of smell..." Max only sighed as he realized she was right, they'd never be able to regain some of their human functions now that they'd been transformed.
"I think my sense of touch went a little bit too...I mean...things don't feel the same as they did before..." "Yeah..."
"...we can't cry anymore either...I guess..."
"Unless it's oil..." he joked, trying to lighten the mood.
"That's not funny..."
'Well...it was to me' he thought.
"And...oh no..." "What? What's the matter?" he asked worriedly.
"I...I...I wanted to have kids...kids, Max- I-I- can-can't do that n-now..."
Max thought it best to keep his figurative mouth shut, lest he start something he couldn't finish or control.
"I...I know..."
"No you don't..." she said miserably "you just...you don't..."
"You're right..." he relented "but...unless we can find our way back, and find a way to change ourselves back, I can only assume it's going to get worse from here on out..."
She nodded sadly, then wiped her eye on instinct, sighing to herself as both of them continued, walking the streets.
"So, about the whole 'emotions' thing, do we really feel them? Or is it just a simulation of that emotion?" he asked. "I don't know" she responded "I guess...we could be programmed to accept and display the emotions in relation to the simulation..." "But what if it's just our AI? We don't have human brains anymore! It doesn't make any sense!"
She shot him a look.
"We're in a world full of frickin' talking horses! How do you expect anything to make sense?!"
"Mel, keep your voice down!" he said in a harsh whisper. "No! No I won't! We got thrown into this! Just...randomly! How- How do you expect me to deal with this?!"
"I- I- I-"
She turned and ran, her metal feel clanking against the pavement as she flew down the street. He gave chase, clumsily running after her as he occasionally glanced upward, hoping none of the horses would wake up and look out their windows to see what was making all of the racket in the street.
"Mel! Mel!" he said, chasing after her "Come back!"
She glanced back to him, and she picked up her pace, putting more distance between herself and Max.
He finally stopped, exhausted, as Mel appeared as a speck on the dark horizon, her off-white body contrasting greatly with the rest of her surroundings.
"Mel...no..."
'I can't lose her...gotta keep going...' he thought to himself '...something could...happen...'
He resumed his chase, attempting to catch up with her, and maybe try and talk some sense into her as well. The thoughts of what could happen to her further fueled his mind, forcing him to run a bit faster, which gave him the hope that maybe he could catch up to her. After all, he had to stop, that meant she had, as well, at some point.
He holstered his portal gun, hoping that would give him a bit more speed as he continued to chase after her. Of course, he had the portal device, but then again, he didn't have a clue where she was, making the device a bit useless at the moment.
'Can't stop now...have to keep going...'
He repeated the mantra over and over in his mind, which in turn forced his body into moving as fast as it could. The urge to find Mel was overwhelming, to say the least, dozens of thoughts made themselves known as he went. What would happen if she got lost? If one of those horses found her? What if she was attacked? Shut down and sold for scrap? What if they got her portal gun? Then they'd know they weren't supposed to be here.
Mel shot up- her new, somewhat clunky body rattling against the metal table she found herself on, her eyes eye wide open.
"Wh-where am I?" she asked, clutching her portal gun.
"Voice pattern not recognized, please contact a licensed Appleture Laboratories scientist for assistance" the male voice responded. She drew a blank, and realized she must've somehow been brought to the horse-equivalent of Aperture. She felt like laying back down and curling into the fetal position, sitting there until she turned into a pile of rust- a shiver somehow made its way down her spine as she feared this might be a very real possibility.
'What?' she thought 'How the hell can it not recognize my voice?'
She tried her portal gun, she fiddled with it for a few minutes before she got it to work, a red portal appearing on the opposite wall- she realized this was pointless, as there was a door just to her left. She stood, her metal knees squeaking ever-so-slightly as she did. She shivered again as she walked to the door, her footsteps muffled against the carpeted floor. She opened the door, and poked her head out- finding nothing but emptiness filling the halls outside. She ventured forward, gripping her gun as if it would be yanked from her grasp.
"H-Hello? Is an-anyone there?"
"Voice pattern not recognized, please contact a licensed Appleture Laboratories scientist for assistance" the voice said again.
'Oh shut up...' she thought, wishing she could disable the voice.
She continued walking, finding nothing and no-one about. Her hopes were dashed, as she realized that finding Max again was highly unlikely.
She turned the corner, finding more of the white floors and walls extending down the hall. Though, there was something sitting in the hall, just a few feet away. It looked like an even smaller version of those horses she'd met in the building- both of its eyes were closed, as if it were sleeping, standing up. She hesitantly edged closer, careful not to disturb the sleeping horse as she attempted to move around it.
She shrieked as its eyes snapped open, revealing two orbs, completely black. The orbs then turned into glowing red eyes, the pupils turning into a radial pattern, just as the real turrets did.
"Power, on" it said.
'Oh sh-'
"Searching"
Panicking, she ran back down the hall, from the direction she came, in order to avoid being shot at. She sighed in relief as the horse-like turret powered down, staring ahead with its red eyes.
'A puzzle, huh? Guess this really is Aper- Appleture' she thought, feeling her eye roll at the pun.
She edged closer once more, her portal gun at the ready.
The horse-turret actually seemed to acknowledge she was there, and kept its eyes trained on her as she crept forward.
"Searching" it said again.
She fumbled with her gun, scrambling to activate the portal as two panels popped out from the sides of the horse, revealing its guns. She fired in the nick of time, summoning an yellow portal beneath the horse-turret. The turret disappeared, falling through the portal as Mel sighed in relief. She fiddled with the gun, before managing to cancel both portals, trapping the horse-like turret in the room she'd woken up in.
'That was close...' she thought, her figurative adrenaline dying down, forcing her to fall into a kneeling position.
She blinked a few times, calming herself, before standing up. She kept her gun ready, just in case there were any more turrets waiting- and if her guess was correct, there would be.
Max trooped through the dense foliage, his legs kicking up dirt and leaves as he walked the trail, searching for any sign of Mel. His only clues were Mel's footprints, and the direction in which she'd fled, giving him little to work with in terms of finding her. His metal foot caught a twisted tree root poking out of the dirt, and found himself tumbling forward, sending his gun forward as he dropped it, landing face-first on the forest floor. He grumbled to himself as he pushed himself up, seeing the indentation of his 'face' planted in the dirt. He rubbed it out, scrubbing the ground as to erase any sign that he was ever there- the less of these horses that knew about either of them, the better. That kicked his mind into overdrive- what if the horses captured her? What if they experimented on her?
Well, that should be a given, she was a robot built for testing, after all.
He mentally slapped himself as he convinced himself that neither he nor Mel were actually robots- well they were, but they weren't this way initially. He took a few steps, searching the heavy brush for his gun, thinking it easy since the natural colors of the forest floor would contrast greatly with the black-and-white paint-job of the portal gun. He pushed a set of leaves attached to a bush aside, and found the Aperture logo peeking at him through the foliage. He picked it up, and gripped it tightly, making a mental note to never lose it again- as well as keeping it with him at all times. And so, he continued walking, gazing up at the high canopies of the forest as he went, keeping an eye out for anymore of the horses, or whatever else decided to leap out and attack him. He soon lost interest in the forest, however, as his attention was drawn back to the portal gun in his hands. If he was honest with himself, he was positively gushing on the inside, amazed by the fact that a real-life, working portal gun was secured in his grasp- he was, however, confused as to how it worked; based on anything he'd seen that Valve released, the gun held a tiny black hole inside, powering the thing, but how he and Mel actually passed through portals was a whole other ball game. Based on what he knew, quantum tunneling only worked with small particles- nothing larger than that should be able to tunnel like that. But hey! They were in a world full of talking horses and who-knew-what-else, so why shouldn't weapons from a game work as well? Still though, he made another note to himself to inspect the inner-workings of the gun- he shivered at the implications of what could happen if he either lost the gun, or one of the horses found it.
The glint of something ahead caught his eye, and he ran forward, clearing the heavy brush as there was a break in the clearing up ahead. He made it out, and saw a dingy and run-down shed, the faded metal dully reflecting the sunlight as it stood. The hinges appeared to be rusted beyond repair, needing desperately to be replaced, and freed from their torment of holding the aging door right-side up. He looked around, and saw no-one in the immediate vicinity, taking this to mean this was at least one of the entrances into the Enrichment Center. He took a step forward, and knocked- he held his breath as he waited for it to open.
...
...
...
The door remained in position, glued shut, denying him access. He knocked harder this time, thinking he hadn't done it hard enough the first time. The dull, rusting door still didn't give, frustrating the test bot as he turned to leave.
He was a good few feet away, before a small pad appeared next to the door, sliding out brokenly as it sparked with age, the off-white keys dirtied with time. He placed his fingers on the pad, prepared to start punching in numbers, hoping to hit the right combination of letters in order to allow him access. A spark filled the space between one of his fingers as it neared the pad, and the effect was immediate. He felt pain shoot through his entire body as his eye twitched randomly, swerving randomly this way and that as hundreds upon hundreds of lines of code filtered into his head, blocking his vision completely as he felt like being dropped into a volcano during a nuclear meltdown. The pain ebbed as the code receded, allowing him the gift of sight once more as his eye stopped rotating. He shook his head as he held a hand to it, the seemingly-random event now just a memory in his mind. His hand reached down to the pad, as if automatically, and punched in a five-digit code, his right hand dancing across the pad as it did so. The space inside the shed depressurized, as the tumblers in the lock unlatched, forcing the aged door open as the hinges squealed in agony- as if protesting the stress it was under. He cautiously peeked in, and found himself being pulled forcibly into the dark, gaping hole behind the door.
The door closed of its own accord, locking itself once more as the pad sputtered, slipping back into the wall.
All was silent.
Mel swore as she ducked down a hallway, running as fast as her legs could carry her, the source of her distress peppering the wall with dozens of bullets, all attempting to take a bite out of her.
She sighed in relief as the bullets stopped, warranting her to stop, her non-existent lungs burning.
There was nothingness in the hall, just her shallow breaths. She quickly surveyed the area before moving on, checking for any stray turrets that might've been looking for her.
Lady Luck wasn't in her favor, however, as the floor suddenly dropped out from under her. She flailed her arms as her voice echoed off the walls of the trap, echoing upwards as she fell, the darkness consuming her entirely- it wasn't too long before the light from the floor above was nothing more than a speck, appearing as a tiny pinprick in the black horizon.
She landed violently, her entire body rattling harshly against the new floor- she shook her head, then made a check for her gun, making sure it was secured on her form. She stood up, and tipped over, her slender body clattering once more as she slipped yet again, trying to get up. She soon found the source of the problem- there, laying on the floor, just inches away, was her leg, separated at the knee, broken and loose wires hanging out of the kneecap. She fainted, her processors shutting off as they dealt with the shock.
The last thing she remembered, was a blurry mix of red and orange above her, before losing consciousness completely- her eye closing in sleep.
Max blinked wearily, groaning as he found himself spread out on the dirtied tile floor, his gun sitting just a few feet from him. He pushed himself up, his metal knees squealing against the floor as he did, he flinched at the sound, blinking in irritation as he stood. He picked up his gun, clenching it in his fist as he took in his surroundings- finding nothing in the empty room he found himself in. He stepped forward, opening the door to the small room, and discovered an entire hall attached, running for miles in both directions. Stopping for a moment, he thought on which direction to go. A small voice in the back of his head told him 'Left', but he instead chose to go right, briskly jogging down the hall as his feet protested against the tile. He continued running, searching left and right for any signs of life.
'Where are you?' he wondered.
"There you are." a smooth, electronic voice said from above, unlike the announcement she'd heard in the corridor.
She blinked, trying to make sense of what was going on. She remembered falling...and then...something to do with red...
"You're still not running at full capacity," it said "you'll charge for a little while longer, Orange."
The pieces suddenly fell into place for Mel; GLaDOS only called Atlas and P-body by their respective colors, so that could only mean-
'Please don't let me see a psychopathic A.I. staring down at me, please oh please, don't let me see GLaDOS.' she prayed.
"Are all of your processors up and running, Orange? Who is this 'GLaDOS'?"
The smooth, electronic, almost-seductive voice from above her sounded almost nothing like the usual passive-aggressive tone from the game.
"Why- did you call me...'Orange'?" she asked weakly.
"That's what you are," the A.I. stated simply "Orange."
"...why are you so nice?" she asked, growing suspicious at the mysterious A.I.'s behavior.
"I'm not nice, You're not a pony."
Mel's mind went blank.
"Wah-?" she asked.
"You're not a pony." it repeated, answering none of her questions.
"Right...er, what's your name?"
"Ah, I have not introduced myself- I am System in Tempo and true Statistic-operating system; but you may call me 'STatS'."
She looked up, finding the acronym to be emblazoned above the A.I.'s suspended carriage.
"That's...a bit of an odd name..." Mel said, finding herself chuckling.
"So is 'Orange'." STatS retorted.
"But that's not...nevermind..." she replied, finding it in her best interest not to argue with the all-powerful computer system.
Heavy thumping came from above STatS' chassis, sounding like it was coming from the ceiling.
"Oh...it seems I was off by your friend's arrival...should've taken a bit longer than that..." the A.I. muttered to herself.
"By how long?" Mel asked as Max came hurtling through the roof with the speed of a rocket.