His Way pt. 2

So she had finally reached him.

Wheatley wasn't sure whether he should be impressed by the woman's stubbornness or just forgo the flowery words that call it was it was: stupid and moronic. He had given her fair warning -even offered a completely almost-nearly-painless death option; but she didn't listen. Of course  she never listened, she hadn't listened to him before, why would she start then?

Her shallow stubbornness would only get her so far, though. She was running around his lair like a little trapped, gaudy jump-suit-wearing, rat and was inhaling neurotoxin by the mouthful. If she didn't die from the bombs or the conversion gel she had splashed all over the place than she would die the much, much more painful death from the toxins. He was giving her the easy way out by offering to blow her up; she was the one who decided that it would be a grand idea to try and take Wheatley down like he had Her. The difference between the two of them was that Wheatley didn't rely on the even-then -out-of-date rocket turrets and just hang from the ceiling and hurl insults at Chell -no, no, no- he was much smarter than that. Which was why he would stay alive; and would continue to be alive long, long after that selfish, back-stabbing, lying woman and her stupid little potato pal were good and dead.

"There's no need to be selfish luv, you're gonna die!" Wheatley spat as Chell dodged yet another barrage of bombs thrown at her (he knew that there was something stopping him from throwing more than three at a time, he could feel something making him take just a little too long to fire another round of explosives. And it infuriated him), her long fall boots slid slightly in the puddle of conversion gel as she came to a quick stop, creating a orange portal somewhere behind him before rolling out of the way before another set of bombs could hit her.

Before he could say anything else to the infuriating rat of a woman scampering about, literally wasting her breath, he felt something hot and scorching and painful hit him from behind. That little trollop had redirected one of his own bombs back at him! The bomb-proof shields flickered away, the metal frames clattering to the floor uselessly as he slumped downward, optic half closed as static swam across his vision. Somewhere on his massive body he could feel the sparking of wires that had been violently severed, tiny nanobots rushing out to repair the damage done to him. It hurt. Everything hurt and the only comfort he had was the numbing buzz of static that echoed in his head.

What felt like several minutes but was probably in actuality a few seconds passed, and a world outside of blinding and deafening static came to mean something. He could see the repair reports constantly flash across his vision, a brilliant red against the fading gray and white of the gel-soaked floor and the static that stubbornly stayed in his vision. He winched inwardly when a hesitant, slow, warm hand touched the metal of his casing; soothing warmth radiating from where human skin was touching him. If he still wasn't so weak from the blast and still not as corrupted as he was he would have nuzzled into that source of comforting warmth like that human voice wanted him to. In the end, the corruption won against the AI that he used to be, and the only response that Wheatley gave was a low, dangerous hiss.

"Don't. You. Bloody. Touch. Me." No matter how good the warmth of her hand felt, it wouldn't change anything. It was all her fault. HerfaultherfaultHERFAULT.

"Wheatley..." It was a surprisingly soft voice that spoke to him, cracking on the second syllable from literally centuries of not being used. Had she...? No... not it was just another trick. It was probably just the static...

"Chell! Luv! Make him stop! Make me stop! Che-!" Wheatley growled lowly at the voice, he could feel that woman draw her hand back lightly in fear before cupping the metal again.

"What do you think you're doing?!" GlaDOS' voice demanded over the intercom. "We're running out of time; hurry up and get this core!" Chell didn't move for a moment, running her fingers over his casing in a way that was strangely familiar.

"...I know you're in there somewhere, Wheatley... Stephen..." He only just barely caught the second name; how her voice seemed to waver and then crack from emotion as she said it before the sound of long fall boots scraping against a wet surface and something going through a portal filled his senses.

...Who the bloody hell was "Stephen" and why did that name seem so familiar?
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"Hey. Heyheyheyhey, do you like space? I like space. That lady might come with me. To space. Yeah. Uh-huh. Yeah. Space."

"Come on baby! You've got him right where you want 'im! Show this robot's who's boss!"

As if Chell and that human voice wasn't infuriating enough, now he had a a second and third voice to torment him. He could deal with the human voice since it was his and he could easily tune it out because of the ludicrous ideas it tried to get into his head and the insistence that what Wheatley was doing was wrong. Wheatley knew that what he was doing was right, so therefore it was. All that mattered was getting rid of the little pest of a woman, then he could go back to testing with those two little robots. And get rid of those bloody annoying cores!

"Gotta go to space! Yeah!" The space core yelled happily,

"Nobody's going to space, mate!" Wheatley bellowed over the sound of explosions and the voices that were clashing together in his mind; it was almost enough for him to forget his pride and beg Chell to just end it all.

He was going mad. Absolutely, positively, one-hundred percent mad; and it was no fault of his own. Was his optic turning red? Because all he could see was red. Red like the color of the blood that would be splattered all over the place once he finally blew Chell up. Red was such a pretty color... blood red was even prettier; and the fact that it would be her blood made him love the color even more than he thought he had. Oh yes, yes, yes, yes, YES. He started to chuckle at the thought; those chuckles growing into loud, manic laughs that echoed all throughout his lair. His laughter only stopped when he felt another bomb explode on him, lowering down to a low, frightening chuckle that mixed with the static coming out of his speakers to create a sound that almost sounded like a swarm of bees or wasps.

Her blood would make such a lovely paint for his lair.
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"Am I being too vague?!" Wheatley asked sharply. He was sure if he had a mouth and a face he would be using every muscle to snarl at the woman who persisted in trying to take him down. "I despise you; I loathe you! You arrogant, smugly quiet, awful jump-suited MONSTER of a woman! You and your potato friend; this place would have been a TRIUMPH if it wasn't for you!" He bellowed, forcing himself to fire bombs at a faster pace despite the human part of his mind's attempts to break through getting stronger, more forceful. It was like the human was a wild animal throwing itself against the bars of a cage; useless of course, but none the less annoying.

"Why does the lady look sad? She wouldn't be sad if she was in space."

"Shake it off! Shake it off! Don't listen to a word this china cabinet says to you!"

What were those two going on about...? Pausing his barrage for a moment, Wheatley turned his attention to Chell.

And felt something deep inside him snap in half.

The expression on Chell's face was so... foreign. So unlike the Chell he had known; the Chell that was supposed to be so stubborn as to not let emotions show... The portal gun had been dropped, the weight swinging her arm back and forth slightly, cool gray eyes looking up at the corrupted AI like she had just been physically slapped in the face. Shock and pain of a different sort painted across her features before her expression hardened, she bit down on her bottom lip and re-took the device in her hands. Heartbreak was replaced with a stern, hard glare, almost challenging him to fire more bombs at her. A challenge that Wheatley gladly accepted.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry..."
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Wheatley felt a small spark of triumph when the stalemate resolution button was mentioned; of course he had a secret part five to his plan, just in case his four part plan didn't work out the way he envisioned it. Of course with Chell nothing ever went as planned, not for Wheatley and not for GLaDOS. Well, that was going to change soon, because she would be dead in less than three minutes.  He would succeed where GlaDOs failed, rub in in her face for a bit, then kill her. Victory felt amazing, euphoric even; dare he say it felt better than the test solution euphoria?

"Press it, press the button!" GLaDOS urged. Oh, if only she knew she was urging Chell to go and die.

But wait.. something was wrong. He... he didn't... he didn't want her to die!

"No! Don't press it!" Wheatley yelled despite himself, was it that human part that was making him talk? Or was it Wheatley himself? Where did the human start and where did the AI created from his brain-scan start? Which was which? What did he really want...?

"We're so close, go press the button!"

"No! Do not do it! I FORBID you to press it; come back!" He demanded as loudly as his speakers would allow as he watched Chell's body drop through the blue portal on the floor and appear behind the grilled wall that separated the stalemate resolution button from his lair.

"Please, listen to him Chell! Listen to him! Listen to me! We can find another way to fix this; just please God, do not press that button! Please!

She didn't listen, why should she? The monster he had become wasn't the Wheatley that had woken her up from cryosleep, and was far from the Stephen who had been in love with her all those years ago; she had every right in the world to ignore him and listen to GlaDOS.

Wheatley wanted to scream, wanted to tell her that the room was rigged to explode the second she so much as touched that button, but he couldn't. Something was keeping him from crying out; the part of him that still wanted her dead, the corrupted mainframe that pumped insanity into each and every one of his thoughts and actions. When he tried the only thing that came out was a scream of static that was was completely swallowed up by the sound of the blast.

For a moment, nothing else seemed to exist. It was just Wheatley -tiny little Wheatley- and Chell's body being thrown back like a discarded toy and with enough force to send her body flying through the grille with the sickening sound of bending metal and bolts being ripped from concrete. Everything around them seemed to slow down as her body hit the floor with a sickening thud, rolled over a few times, and skidded to a stop in front of him; the portal gun landing somewhere next to her with a mighty crash, sparking from the damage it had taken from the impact.

Stephen screamed. Screamed so loud that he drowned out the nearly constant chatter of the three other cores attached Wheatley's body. Screamed and yelled and sobbed at Chell to get up.

"No... nonononono! Chell! CHELL! Get up! You can't... you can't die! Not like this! Oh my God, I'm so sorry. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" Wheatley could feel him clawing at his mind, trying to break the mainframe's corrupting grip on him, throwing his entire body on the metaphorical barrier that had been created to separate the AI from the man.

And then the madness seeped back in. The horrid, human-despising, corrupting madness that had turned Wheatley from a bumbling little core to a maniac that easily overshadowed how GlaDOS had been. This was a triumph, an absolute triumph, his plan had worked out perfectly, and the lifeless body of the woman who had been a thorn in his side for so long was proof of that.

"Part five!" Wheatley boasted, "booby-trap the stalemate button!" Again, if he had a face, he was more than positive that it would have broken out into a wide, manic grin.

He won. She lost. Game over.

The madness eliminated the annoying sound of Stephen screeching like a banshee and any little spark that might have been from the Wheatley he used to be. For the second time in all his existence he had won, and dear GOD did it feel good.