Hi there guys, and I'm back with a new series of Fanfiction - this time it is for Portal! For those who are watching me for my Monster Hunter stories, I cannot guarantee their continuation at the moment as I have lost interest in the series. However, that probably won't be forever, so hang tight!

Anyway, welcome to my newest series - the story of Caroline II Johnson, Chell's daughter, 20 years after the events of Portal 2 - and how certain, possibly supernatural events lead her and her mother back into the mechanical clutches of Aperture Science - although, things are a little different this time...

This isn't a full-blown story by the way. Think of each chapter as an episode of a TV series or something, because this story doesn't follow an exact plotline. There will be no true conclusion by the end of this adventure apart from the one you create yourself, no true bad guys, no true good guys - the next chapter you read could follow on from the previous one or be about something completely different, just like in TV shows. Just be aware that that could happen so don't be too surprised or worried if you move on to the next chapter and it seems to have no connection to the last.

Please try and enjoy this story to the best of your ability. If you don't, I don't blame you - I believe it does need some sharpening to be anything close to decent. But if you enjoy it, please let me know! If not, feel free to advise me on what I'm doing wrong!

~ Lagiacrus

POV: Caroline II Johnson

I held my breath. My prey was in sight. So close, I could already taste it. Its antlers glinted in the light from the setting sun, its breath flowed from its nostrils as condensation and suffocated, vanishing in the air. My bow was steady, the arrow ready to pierce the beast's heart. This particular stag, the one with abnormally large antlers and an odd, creamy coat had mysteriously eluded my arrows for months. However, today was the day. I'd catch him and would wear his hide as a furry, fancy frock!

A twig snapped. The stag raised his head. My breath hitched, and I released the arrow. It catapulted through the air, slicing the very sky in half, before it took a detour through the windows of car park barriers, popped out the other side of them and embedded itself into the leg of the deer. Damn, it would take another arrow to fell him – but it was already too late, the stag charged hectically into the trees, blood trailing in a majestic arc from his flank. I relaxed, sighing, and attempted to comfort my rumbling belly.

"Sorry, Buddy, I guess we're going another day without food…" I grumbled, and looked out over the vast expanse of the car park where the deer had once stood. At its head was a large, rectangular white building with no windows and presumably no doors. All that adorned its face was a black, protruding collection of letters: "Aperture Labratories". Besides the overgrown potato plant sticking out of the top of the building, it was pretty bland and not much to look at – but I wasn't stupid. My mother had told me the stories of that dreadful place. She had experienced it first-hand after all.

Within its walls was a crumbling shell of a research facility, with labs and testing chambers stretching deep underground. The leader of this forgotten land, the very thing which is keeping even the outside of the building standing, was a master computer who went by the name of GLaDOS – and, personally, I thought she sounded awesome! Mom had told me all about her, too – she had no morality, no empathy at all – an enemy of everyone and everything, but all she ever wanted to do was carry out her scientific tests. She never got along with mom, apparently. On top of that, there was a huge variety of other robots, all managed and bossed around by GLaDOS. I often asked mom why she had wanted to leave all that behind, and each time she simply said; "GLaDOS told me to leave and not come back."

Sometimes I'd dream about it – getting to see the magical world inside those whitewashed walls, meeting GLaDOS and Wheatley and the Turrets and-!

"There you are," Mom appeared through the trees behind me, giving me her usual tired smile. "Any luck?" I frowned.

"I shot him in the leg but never brought him down." I replied, and she nodded grimly.

"I thought that might happen; there was no chance of a clear shot in this light," She laughed, "So I took the liberty of catching some squirrels." My face fell but my stomach seemed to jump for joy.

"Squirrels again?" I groaned as we walked back into the woods. We had something of a home setup there.

"Well, I caught some newts too, if you prefer…"

"On second thought, I'm fine with squirrels." Newts were second best.

We lived in something of a ramshackle fort, apparently built about thirty years ago by survivors of the alien invasion that wiped out the entire world's population of humans, the only exception being small rebellious groups that were clever enough to hide. When mom first left Aperture twenty years ago, the group that had lived in this fort took her in. The chief of that group, apparently, was my father – but it was only mom and I now. She had always refused to tell me where the others had gone. Over the years I had developed ideas, but I'd never felt the need to bring it up with her. If dad wasn't here with us, then he was obviously nothing special, right?

At night we lit the giant campfire at the centre of the fort, and then retired to bed in the 'chief cabin', which is where dad had once stayed with mom before I was born. Oh, wait, hang on – I've told you so much but you don't even know my name! I'm called Caroline, and welcome to my incredibly boring post-apocalyptic existence.

At night I liked to stay up and listen to the coyotes howl and claw at the wooden walls of our slowly rotting fort. It reminded me of how lucky mom and I were to be alive, in a world where the humans are the hunted, rulers having fallen from their station at the hands of the Combine forces. I often wished I could find somewhere else for us to go, somewhere safer, where nothing out here in the wilderness could touch us – but to this particular pack of mutated, monstrous coyotes, everything in this area was known to them – the places where we had lived or tried to hide – they also knew Aperture, and often stayed as far away from it as they could. I often wondered why.

That particular night, I had a strange dream. I saw a monstrous, gleaming white machine rotting away, the Aperture logo plastered on its scratched and splintered hide. It had moved upon noticing me – a bright yellow light from what I assumed was its face shone down on me. Vines and trees sheltered it from me, but it still acted terrified, like cornered prey. Ironically, I lifted my bow, and shot an arrow right into its eye. I never saw what happened next – a howl from the horrid beasts outside roused me from the dream, and I could barely remember what I had seen – all I knew was that it had been very peculiar, and that a white monster had been glaring at me with a yellow eye. Although, my thoughts drifted to the plain white building of Aperture. My desire to explore it was stronger than ever. What was that white creature and why was it in my head? Was it one of the robots? Was it trying to send me a message of some kind? Surely, the robots must have all malfunctioned and rotted away by now, even GLaDOS. The place would be unclaimed territory, gripped only by nature's creations. Nothing could have contacted me from in there, much less telepathically. However, I couldn't fight the urge any longer – I wanted, no, needed to see the fantastic underground world that had held my mother trapped for so long.

Luck had been on my side that night. Not only did I manage to get ready and arm myself without waking up mom, I also managed to dodge the coyotes and lose them, somewhere far behind me. My troubles continued when, as I reached the beginning of the Aperture car park, a violent whirring signalled a helicopter flying somewhere nearby. I ducked into the barrier checking station, and looked out of the shattered windows to see a dinky little thing, barely large enough to be considered a helicopter flying overhead, sending a spotlight down onto the street. Was it Combine? No, there apparently wasn't many of those left – most of them had just packed up and disappeared nearly a century ago. So was it other humans? There was a flutter of excitement in my chest but I didn't drop my guard. Not all humans were friendly, or so mom said.

It drifted by harmlessly, and I caught a glimpse of two men within. I waited until it had disappeared over the trees, and climbed out of the little building, continuing on my way to the derelict laboratories that had caught my attention and imagination for so long. When I reached the brilliant white wall, I placed my hand upon it – and then a thought struck me. How was I going to get in if this place had no entrance?

Well, even the strongest of defences has a gap the size of the eye of a needle, right? There had to be some way in, even if nature had made it herself. I'd just need to look around. I scaled a chain-link fence around the side of the structure and fell into a corporate car park, which had also served as a drop-off point for goods entering the facility. Unfortunately the shutters were locked tightly. After trying them for several minutes, my body finally gave in and I fell to my knees. This place was a fortress! Why were they so desperate to keep people out!?

There was the flutter of wings to my right. Upon the fence had landed a large crow, black as the night itself. She preened her feathers calmly as they shone in the moonlight, and I admired her for as long as she would allow. Then, she uttered a caw which shattered the uneasy silence of the darkness, and took off towards the building. I watched her curiously, and saw her peck once, twice, three times at the wall beside the shutters. What was she doing?

Suddenly, the wall was revealed to be a moving panel attached to a mechanical arm. It opened for the bird and she flew in. Without giving it a second thought, I dived in after her, and the panel closed behind me. Now, I was ingeniously trapped between countless mechanical arms, each attached to another panel that made the outside wall of the building. This was already impressive…

I snaked my way through the sea of machinery until I finally reached a malfunctioning arm facing the inside of the facility, which was agitatedly moving its panel back and forward, giving me a few seconds to dart through it. When it moved out of my way I leaped through it, tumbled along the surprisingly soft ground, and came to stop in a giant warehouse, stacked to the very ceiling with countless storage units, like the ones I'd seen on the backs of overturned trucks. The floor gave away at one point ahead of me, and I looked down to see a sheer drop into a bottomless pit. The storage units stretched down past it, and I gulped. This isn't quite what I'd imagined…

That crow had completely vanished from sight, but I could hear it calling out. I decided to try and follow its voice – the crow would lead me somewhere, surely.

I caught hold of a large metal rail above the bottomless pit, which stretched in multiple directions throughout the maze of storage containers. The crow's cries lead me left, so I began the timely process of inching my way along the rail, being careful not to fall to my doom. The rail, although flat at the top, was only about ten inches across – I could barely fit on the thing, much less use it as a bridge. Nevertheless, I made small progress on my hands and knees, but each time the rail wobbled or creaked under my weight, I found myself regretting my actions more and more. I also found myself regretting all of those extra newts I scoffed after dinner. There was a noise, like a sliding door opening somewhere in the warehouse. I froze, holding my breath. The sound of bright, tuneful whistling reached my ears. I resisted the urge to look around as the whistling edged closer, and instead decided to keep moving forward, as quietly as possible. There was another vibration when my hand slipped off the rail and my chin hit the metal, causing the whistling to stop. My chest swelled in fear as a fearsome whirring sound from behind me grew louder in volume, until the source of the noise was under me. For a moment, there was silence.

"…Ah! There you are! It seems we have a little intruder!" A British accent sounded from directly underneath me. I risked the look down, and saw a little metal ball suspended from the bottom of the rail, looking up at me with a bright blue light, supposed to be an eye. I recognized him from mom's stories – that was Wheatley, the Intelligence Dampening Core who took over the facility. But I thought he was thrown into space?

"H-Hi." I rasped, my voice wavering from fear.

"Well, I can't say I've ever seen a human attempt to use the management rail before! I must say, you look very odd sitting up there, if you don't mind me saying." He admitted with a nod, and the slightest hint of a smile appeared on my face. He didn't seem hostile, at least not at the moment.

"Uhh, would you happen to be stuck? Because, uhh, I could probably help with that, if you want- u-unless if you want to be up there, then that's fine, I'll leave you alone! But if not, then…" He ranted, my smile widened all the while. Mom was right, he was quite quirky.

"A hand would be nice, thank you." I admitted and he looked a little shocked, his blue eye shrinking to the size of a dot.

"W-Well, as you can see… I don't have hands. But, you can grab on to me, and I'll carry you to the walkway, uhh, if that's not too hard for you." He explained, and I reached out, grabbing hold of the handle just above his eye. Surprised, he shot back with a yelp and I slid off the rail. Trying not to look down, I desperately gripped the handle with both hands, and realized I was face to face with his big eye. Had he not been a robot, I would have felt incredibly awkward at that moment.

"Oh, sorry, sorry! Are you okay!?" He sounded petrified, he was shaking ever so slightly inside his metal casing.

"Yeah, I'm fine! Can we talk when I'm standing!?" I squeaked. I could already feel my grip slipping.

"Oh, yeah yeah! Just… gimme a second here…" He slowly maneuvered his way along, constantly checking on me and keeping me distracted from what lay below with small talk. He was surprisingly considerate, contrasting from what mom told me about him.

"So, what brings you to Aperture? Here to see the sights? Well, I guess they're sights, if you like the colours black and white..."

"We used to have a café here, years ago… I wonder if it ever had the cake I've been hearing so much about?"

"It's been a while since I last saw a human, you know! Oh, I LOVE the humans, you're a very intelligent race, very graceful too, although you can be a little stupid… A-Although I've never seen one as pretty as you, so you've got that going for you."

"Ooh, what's it like outside!? Is it true what the scientists told me, that if I breathed the air I WOULD DIE?"

"Right, hang on for just a moment more, Luv! Nearly there!" He assured me one agonizing minute later, and the second he stopped, I looked down, taking in the much welcomed sight of a mesh walkway, leading straight to a fire exit.

"Uhh… you can let go now…" He seemed to mutter, and with realization I let myself drop onto the walkway, accidentally landing on my back.

"Oh, I didn't want you to fall! Did you hurt yourself?" He spluttered as I clambered to my feet with a wince, pacing back and forth on his little rail above my head, looking down at me with a shrunken blue eye.

"I'm okay," I rasped. "Are you Wheatley?"

He seemed taken aback, if just for a moment, and he narrowed his eye.

"Y-Yes, I'm Wheatley," He spoke, his uncertainty from earlier not completely gone. "What's your name?"

"I'm Caroline. I'm the daughter of a former Test Subject." I stated bluntly and once again, he withdrew slightly.

"Are you HER daughter!? Oho, She's been busy, huh!?" He gave a nervous laugh.

"You don't need to sound so nervous, I'm not here to destroy you or anything like that." My eyes landed on the fire exit. Might as well see where it goes. He pursued me, running alongside me on his rail.

"Y-You're not?"

"No, my motives are ulterior," I grumbled. "Where's GLaDOS?"

"WHUH!?" His blue optical lens did a 360 degree spin in its casing, coming back to land on me and then going wide. "Y-You're here for HER!?"

"I'm not here to challenge her to a duel or something! I just want to talk with her."

"I don't think that's a good idea, Luv…" His tone was gentle but desperate, his words caused me to stop and look to him.

"She can't be that bad, right?" I could see from that look in his lens – yes, she was that bad. She was just as awful as mom had made her out to be. She was the icon of all evil, the harbinger of the end of this triumphant facility, the bastion of cruelty and cold-blooded murder. She was the deity of this place, a being of extreme raw power, a mechanical monster who just so much as had to glance at me and I was dead, the destroyer and saviour of Aperture Science - but this did not even deter me slightly. Without a second thought, I had him take me right to her, deep into the heart of Aperture.

It was troublesome getting into her chamber, but she had made no effort to stop me. She was an impressive creature, yes, but her age and experiences were definitely starting to show. Her white chassis had begun to strip of colour and shine, parts of minor importance were strewn about abandoned within her chamber, and her wide yellow lens was dimmed, like a half-shut eye. We regarded each other quietly for what seemed like a lifetime. Any moment I was expecting her to unleash hell down upon me, but she did no such thing. The spike plate did not catastrophically descend from the ceiling with the viciousness of an ancient warrior, the floor did not give away from beneath my feet and send me deep into the rumbling bowels of the incinerator, and her maintenance claws did not rush out of nowhere and grasp me, rending the flesh from my bones and knocking the air from my lungs. All she did was silently watch me, tilting her head somewhat to the side, perceiving me from a different angle. That yellow optic was so familiar - incredibly similar to the yellow light I had seen in my dream...

After an age of silence, her voice rumbled into the chamber like the growl of an enraged dragon who also happened to be in heat.

"To whom do I owe this pleasure?"

Her words were calm, her mannerisms even calmer. I could hardly believe that this was GLaDOS, the supercomputer that was singlehandedly responsible for the flawless deaths of everybody in this facility, including women and children. She seemed far too composed to be a serial killer, even for a robot.

"My name is Caroline," the second the name left my lips her entire demeanor changed. She reared back with a start, narrowing her lens like a suspicious eye. "I wanted to see your infamous facility."

"You are the offspring of that psychopathic mute, aren't you? I find that hard to believe – I fail to see how she of all humans could attract a partner." Her words contained no trace of emotion, but I felt she was talking with some venom.

"It was easy," I smirked. "She started talking."

"She named you Caroline." The computer noted. Silence settled again as I listened to the whirring of her hard drive. She was thinking.

"Yes." I finally responded when she said nothing, even long after the sound of the hard drive had stopped.

"I wonder if that was her attempt to trigger some sort of emotional response from me, or if she simply wanted to taunt me. Either way, her attempt was a failure." She blandly informed me before turning away, facing the back of her chamber.

"I have a feeling that is a lie." Before I knew what I was saying, she had snapped back around and a maintenance claw had snatched me up, leaving me hovering uselessly right above her eerily glowing lens.

"You have quite a mouth on you. It makes a change from your mother." I had a feeling she was angry, if the fact that she was slowly tightening her hold was anything to go on.

"Oh no, I inherit my awesomeness from my mother." I felt the need to clarify, and something like a gruesome laugh sounded from the suspended supercomputer.

"Out of all the things she is, awesome is not one of them."

There was a spark of electricity somewhere above, and in the next instance the entire chamber seemed to switch off like it had been unplugged at the wall. GLaDOS writhed in silence for a moment, before falling limp, hanging lifelessly like an animal caught in a rope trap. Her maintenance arm seemed to be locked in place. Unluckily, I could not get her to loosen her grip at all – I was effectively trapped in the grip of a possibly dead robot. Excellent.

"Files uploaded successfully. Commencing reboot." A voice sounded from high above, and I gulped. Files…?

The lights in the chamber switched back on, and GLaDOS' hardware roared to life. Her lens switched on, signalling her awakening and she lifted herself up, her mechanical gaze coming to rest once again on me. I did not break eye contact – I could not.

Much to my shock, her grip lessened and I was able to squirm out of her hand, sitting on the edge of her two metal fingers instead.

"You said you were… Chell's daughter." She reminded herself and I nodded. She regarded me for a moment longer, all sense of hostility gone.

"…How is your mother?" She then asked, but looked away like she was ashamed to be asking, her lens going dull.

"She's okay, I guess. As good as she can be." My response was steely – was this one of her elaborate tricks that mom had warned me about?

"Well, I suppose that's good." She responded and we fell into silence again. Various devices within her body shuddered and whined, like they were being worked too hard.

"GLaDOS, are you okay?" I don't know why I asked – maybe I felt obligated, because I was invading her personal space so profusely.

"I feel like something has changed." She sounded deeply troubled – there was more emotion in her voice than I ever would have expected. She looked back to me, her lens burning deep gold. "Why are you here? I have no doubt that your mother told you never to come here."

"I came here of my own accord, if you must know. I had a dream about this place."

"If you are the sort of human who chases dreams, you will be dead soon enough," Was her reply. Perhaps. "But that does not fully answer my question."

"Honestly, I wanted to see if you guys had bought the farm yet," I grinned in amusement as her lens widened in surprise. "If you had, I was going to make this place a fort!"

"Are you implying that it isn't already?" She asked with a hint of annoyance, and my smirk broadened. She didn't pick up on the fact that I was only kidding.

"Well, if it is, prove it."

A strange robotic sound came from her – something like a growl or a mutter. Her claw brought me closer to her one all-seeing eye, and she let out another strange laugh.

"Unfortunately, you remind me of your mother," Then, her lens widened as if she had been hit by realization, and she looked down at me, edging ever so slightly closer to my face.

"You will make the perfect Test Subject."

"What's in it for me?" I questioned with a smirk.

"Standard Aperture Science Testing Protocol requires that Test Subjects be rewarded with cake upon the completion of a testing track. Also and probably more importantly, I'll let you and your mother stay here in the facility." She stated matter-of-factly, like she was reciting an old textbook.

"…Will there actually be cake or is it all a lie?" My next question threw her slightly off guard for a moment, but then her optic narrowed in delight.

"…Finally, a human that isn't stupid. No, of course there is no cake," She seemed to purr. "We might actually get along, you and I."

And that, as they say, is that. Please let me know what you thought of this little introduction - I have much more to upload but I'd appreciate your thoughts first. Good points? Bad points? Points that are just plain weird? Questions?

This intro definitely isn't perfected yet and it has undergone many edits, so let me know honestly what you think. Although I do love the mischievous attitude I gave Caroline II which causes her not to give two hoots about anything. I am really going to enjoy writing from her perspective, especially when this series picks up.

Thanks for taking the time to read! It is much appreciated!

~ Lagiacrus