Well, this is embarassing. Usually, when I start a multi-chapter story, I aim to always release the second chapter pretty much exactly one week after the first came out. Yeah... that didn't go so well. School intervened, wishing to have a whole load of tests which put me out of time to write anything worthwhile for a few weeks. I'll just hope that it doesn't get this bad again any time soon.

Regardless, here's chapter two. Hope you enjoy. Test-solving is kind of hard to make truly interesting, but I hope I did a good job.

Chapter 2: Back in testing

Waking up felt... odd. Slow. Not at all like the comparatively sudden awakening that she had grown used to during her life. It took far too long for her mind to reorganize into something beyond mere existence which, whilst a comfortable sensation, she regretted lingering in once she found out where, exactly, she was.

An Aperture test chamber, within which one could find the pod she was currently sealed in. She was back in testing. What had happened? She knew she had awoken once before, in the central chamber, feeling like a corpse, but then the central core –GLaDOS– had done something; she had felt a truly odd sensation, lost control over her own body, and then... there was nothing. Her mind was blank. Now she was here, with no memory of being moved; she must have fallen into unconsciousness. For how long, she did not know, and it probably did not matter. Within the tests' stark-white (and gray) walls, concentrating too much on anything but the moment and the immediate future (as in, how to solve the test without dying) would only get you killed – she had been in enough close calls to figure that out.

Without warning, her pod's glass covering suddenly slid away, allowing her access to the entirety of the chamber she was currently in. Despite having to struggle for almost a minute before the entirety of her body (or, well, most of it – her toes were still not cooperating) once more heeded her command, she valiantly managed to rise from her resting position and stand up on unsteady legs on the chamber floor, held upright mostly by the merit of her long-fall boots' capability in such matters. In the background, the by now very familiar, female voice of a certain AI made its appearance, congratulating her for "successfully figuring out how to perform basic bipedal movement".

Then, of course, she remarked on the fact that, normally, humans achieve this within a few years' age, and that Chell herself was far older than said age, obviously a pointer towards "you really should have figured this out sooner if you were on level with average human intelligence (which is still very stupid, by the way)". She was being mocked already – how typical. Seems like they were back in old habits already.

She looked around. The chamber consisted of four clear, see-through glass walls, a toilet which someone had apparently forgotten to close the lid of, a portable wall was present on one of the sides in a bit of the glass' stead, and there was a hole next to it obviously meant for firing out the second one, there was a table on which a portal gun lay, and then there-

wait, portal gun!

Rushing forward, her hands reached out for the portal gun, grabbed it, and she relished in the comforting feeling it brought, as she held it in her usual position. It took a few seconds before she noticed the differences. The gun was polished white with a pair of green stripes and completely lacked the scars of her earlier ventures – this wasn't her portal gun! Of course, that one had been launched into space (at least, she hadn't seen it around since the moon event), but some part of her had still held on to the immature, naïve hope that she would find her own portal gun, were she to ever return within Aperture's walls again.

Well, at least she had a portal gun; hopefully she'd get to avoid Wheatley-style moronity tests (really, all the first one tested was the subject's own moronity), also known as 'warmup-tests' that one would see with the single-portal device, and go straight to the part where it was possible for an escape route to reveal itself. At least, she hoped one would, but GLaDOS would probably have learned from her earlier ventures by now. Telling herself that there was no escape would just lead her to her death, though; there would be an escape route, end of discussion.

With the practiced ease that came with dozens of tests' worth of experience with the portalling device, she fired two portals and, true to her aim, two holes in the fabric of space emerged, which she noted to be differently colored compared to her old ones. Passing through the forest-green portal in her chamber, she emerged through the lime-green one on the outside, and began to move towards the main chamber's exit. It opened as it was meant to, revealing the first of what was sure to be many an elevator behind the obligatory fizzler field.

The ride was shorter than usual as, by all appearances, the elevator room she arrived in was litterally stacked on top of the previous one, in a way that suggested that the previous chamber was only a few meters down.

Giving the built-in elevator camera a 'really?' look (why would you even need an elevator for such a short ride in the first place?), Chell stepped out as the glass doors receded, and she subsequently made her way up the room's stairs as GlaDOS babbled on about 'protocol'. Passing by the big sign reading '01', below which a warning for the blue gel was lit, she entered the test.

At a glance, the first test seemed simple enough, and completely devoid of any dangers. At least it wasn't so easy as to make it a 'whoever-made-this-was-an-idiot' test, either, so she had that. After taking a quick look around, she knew its layout, and already had a solution in mind.

The test consisted of two large buttons littered around the test's surface area, one connected to a fizzler field blocking a portable surface near the ceiling, the other wired up to an inactive, blue gel pipe surrounded by portable walls on several sides. The pipe released a slow drip of repulsion gel when triggered. There was also a door, out of walking reach, safely nestled within an alcove in the wall, and in another corner, to the left of the door's side, there was a row of portable walls by ground level.

Solving it didn't take long. Step one: trigger the gel and make sure that at least some of the floor area near it is covered. Step two: trap a drop of repulsion gel in a loop for a moment, using the portable walls near the pipe. Step three: launch said drop via the row of portable surfaces, so that the floor just beneath where the alcove begins gets covered in gel. Step four: stand on the fizzler-related button and fire a portal on the portable surface the fizzler covers. Step five: move back to the gel pipe, jump on the previously spread-around goo, fire the other portal beneath oneself and fly through it.

After following her plan to the letter, she found herself flying through the air, somewhat crashing into the wall on the other side, bouncing on the gel there, and then flying up to the ground by the exit. Ouch. That collision had not been part of the plan; she could feel minor pain in her left hand, as it had taken the brunt of the impact. Still, she was practically on the exit's doorstep now – out she walked, heading across the floor and out the door. That is the moment that the facility's ruler decided to make her voice heard yet again.

"You appear to remain proficient with the Aperture Science Hand-held Portal Device, despite your death. Did you know that 99.9% of all test subjects are unable to use their Aperture Science Hand-held Portal Device after they die?"

The test subject stopped, turned, and threw a disbelieving, sceptical glare at the camera situated above the doorframe – the AI was seemingly keeping more 'eyes' on her than usual. Still, dead? She was obviously not dead, as she was able to react to the statement; did the AI run out of things to say, thus ending up with stealing that purple-eyed fact core's inane 'facts'?

That didn't sound like the GLaDOS she knew. However, the prospect of her actually telling the truth was even more absurd. Admittedly, absurd was practically Aperture's middle name, and it would explain a number of those oddities she had felt whilst waking up (which she still felt (nope, still no heartbeat, and when was the last time she actually breathed?)) but honestly, this was probably just another one of GLaDOS' typical schemes to try and break her mentally. Aperture's current central core seemed to occasionally have that habit, when testing was going on.

"Oh, you don't know, do you?" she asked, rhetorically, before chuckling ominously.

Though a bit odd, and perhaps somewhat creepy had Aperture not already made her practically immune to that, Chell decided to simply wave the comment off as GLaDOS being GLaDOS before entering the elevator, continuing on undeterred.

The elevator ride was utterly eventless. Nothing of significance took place.

Passing through the open elevator doors, Chell was greeted by GLaDOS' usual banter, casually telling her that "This next test involves the Aperture Science Projected Non-Solid Anti-Gravity Displacement Tube, or Excursion Funnel for short. You remember those, don't you? The long, blue funnels blatantly stolen from me by the equally blue, utterly idiotic moron." She sounded a bit bitter there, at the end. Perhaps she hadn't quite gotten over that so-called 'disaster', after all.

With the AI waving the whole thing off with a simple "Anyways, back to testing", Chell glanced at the '02' test-sign, seeing the Excursion Funnel, Faith Plate, Cube Dropper, Don't-get-hit-in-the-head-by-the-cube and Laser warnings highlighted, before she entered the test itself.

It soon became clear that yes, the AI had definitely foregone the warmup tests. Whilst the chamber was clear of anything that would directly threaten her life, it was not exactly the simplest of tests, but she was a seasoned veteran of test-solving by now. Not a challenge.

The first thing that happened was that a laser-redirecting cube fell down almost straight in front of her; looking up, there was a dropper in the ceiling. Looking around, she subsequently spotted the exit, which was almost at the top of the test's fair height (to the right, as seen from the entrance) with a large glass pane beneath it, assumingly for foothold purposes. Near it, closer to the center, the two top 'layers' were separated by a fizzler-field. The right wall possessed two protrusions, each one in turn possessing one of those laser triggers of the kind which did not stop the laser (both connected to the door) and there appeared to be a standard-issue weight-triggered button on top of the right one, which linked to the fizzler.

To the right of her, built into the chamber's non-portable floor, there was a faith plate which, when stepped on, sent here on a flight path straight through the formerly-mentioned fizzler field, landing neatly on the glass next to the door. In addition, down at the chamber's floor, an Excursion Funnel (which she had just learnt the name of) sent its blue funnel straight up through the entire chamber into a section of portable wall in the ceiling, and most of the lower chamber's walls were of the white kind, allowing her to move the funnel around down there with her portals. Finally, there was a pedestal button mounted on the wall next to the exit, connected to the funnel.

Jumping back down, she let her portal gun's own carrying capability grab a hold of the redirection cube and, placing two portals, one next to her and the other within jumping distance of the button, she leapt through the air, landing on the button in question and thus shutting down the fizzler above her.

Leaving the reflection cube aimed at her portal on the wall, Chell leapt down and prepared for the next part of her test-solving plan, stepping into the blue, upwards-pointing funnel for the sake of getting a better overview of her task.

...And then the entire chamber went dark. The lights turned off, the funnel shut down, the laser turned off and everything generally went silent. Falling back to the complex piece of machinery mounted in the floor, which would usually ensure the funnel's continued existence, Chell looked around in a vain attempt to try and see what had happened. Last time, it had been Wheatley, but she had probably seen the last of that little, blue-eyed core back during her visit to the moon.

The announcement system seemed to appear functional, though, since a certain AI's voice rang out loud and clear through the chamber but a moment later. The words: "Oh. There appears to have been an overload. The Excursion Funnel required more power than what the system could handle, in order to perform its duties. Hold on, I'll put in a second power line." were spoken clearly, and the obvious receiver did not miss the hint. Just a moment after she walks into the funnel, said funnel, according to Her, suddenly requires more power than what the surely immensely capable Aperture grid could handle.

No, she wasn't fat, despite the AI's stubborn insistence that the truth lay elsewhere. Really, if one were to look at her, she did look like someone abnormally skinny by now, or at the very least not above a healthy weight. She had heard one too many of those 'fat' jokes by now; honestly, she was tired of them, and would much prefer if there could just be some form of new humour by now, preferably not at her own expense. Just to lighten the place's general atmosphere.

Another ten seconds later, the lights, fizzler, funnel and everything else came back on all at once, accompanied by GLaDOS' "There we go, you should be able to waggle through the rest of the test now", allowing the test to continue despite the minor insult. At least, it seems, that part of GLaDOS hadn't changed – taunting her subjects would probably always be a part of her testing habits. Besides, the insults could be rather amusing at times, though this was perhaps not one of those cases.

Skipping the 'overview' idea entirely, she stepped onto the ground-bound faith plate, and flew up to the exit. From there, she pressed the nearby pedestal button before firing her light-green portal, the one not next to the redirection cube, at the funnel's end, and watched in satisfaction as the cube retracted through it by the funnel's own force, turning around a few seconds later when the pedestal button's timer ran out. From there, she moved the aforementioned portal to be on level with the laser beneath her, distant enough from the laser catchers as to avoid collisions, and so the cube soon found itself redirecting the laser into the funnel.

Carefully moving the portal a little to the right at a time, just enough to force the cube to slide the same way without causing a fall or making it rotate, the funnel side of the slowly but surely began to 'clip' through the protruding panels near the wall. As the cube finally slid close enough as for the laser to go through the catchers, rather than next to it, said catchers activated and the door behind her slid open. As she turned, moving out of the now-solved room, she could hear the panels' efforts, which were tirelessly resisting the funnel's incessant pull – they were not meant to be dragged out into the funnel's centre, and thus would use their power to resist the funnel's own.

She passed through the fizzler in the exit, relieving the panels of their struggle against the funnel, and walked towards the elevator with steady and self-confident steps. Well, at least as much like it as her body, which oddly was a bit slower than she was used to, would permit.

Entering the elevator, the doors closed… and it did not move.

"The elevator is apparently experiencing an error" a certain AI noted. "[Subject Name Here], please stand by. An Aperture Science Rocket-Propelled Elevator Booster will arrive shortly."

Hold on, rocket-propelled? That didn't seem sa- the subject thought, and then suddenly the elevator shot up with several times its normal speed; merely through her boots' services was she able to remain standing, and even then it was by no means a comfortable experience. Of course, the moon had been worse by far, but that did not make this any better.

It eventually levelled out, after a few seconds, bringing much-welcome relief against the obtrusive G-forces. The elevator stopped, its doors opened, and the woman inside stumbled out. One thing was for certain: Aperture wouldn't go light on her this time either. She expected it, though, and thus, eyes steely with the determination to survive, she kept going. Even if escape took her a million years, she would never give up.

A/N: Well, there's the end of the chapter. Something I usually do when writing a portal fic taking place within the confines of the tests, is to actually create the chambers in Portal 2's own editor first, as to make sure that the test is actually proper and solvable by normal means. Of course, it's not always an identical replica, not only since I cannot realistically bother to put in my own, personalized sound files to fit in GLaDOS' voice (or add in any other events, for that matter), and in the case that an element not present in the editor is required, I might have to use a best-fit instead. Still, I'll probably have the test chambers popping up on steam during the writing process, named at least in part after the fic itself.

Regardless, comments and reviews are appreciated. That also means that you are free to criticise and, yes, even flame – if I get them, I have obviously deserved them, though I would prefer if you would not simply say, for example, "this story is bad" without giving me any reasons. If I do not know why, I cannot fix the issue, now can I?