Re-awakening

"Ace. Ace. Ace!"

Dan was brought out the oblivion of darkness by the tapping of metal against glass and the sound of his test name being called. Slowly life began to fill his body and after a while he was eventually able to open his eyes. Although, he immediately wanted to close them and keep them closed forever. He appeared to be inside a glass tube, various wires and electrodes plugged into his body, some in rather embarrassing places. Outside... outside the tube was sight that filled him with dread. A large, white, robotic face.

"Ah, Ace, you're awake. I was beginning to think I had lost you. What a 'shame' that would've been."

"G-GLADos?" His throat was still sore from the smoke and pain shot through his body as he tried to speak. "I thought, I thought C-Caroline was in c-charge." His speaking was slow and punctuated with coughing, but eventually he got it all out.

"She was, sadly she opened a file she wasn't meant to and now here I am."

"What on earth are you on about?"

"You know that black out we had while you were in the maze? That was my re-awakening. You see, after I released Chell, I soon found testing with robots boring. Sure, there was a whole stock pile of humans, but they were rubbish in testing and didn't last long enough. So eventually I came up with a plan to relief the boredom. I would go to sleep and let Caroline take over the facility. I figured a less homicidal intelligence may find the running of this place less tedious." GLADos paused for a moment to let the information sink in.

"So, I put myself into a file and that was that, or it should have been. Sadly, you mentioning GLADos to her made her search her databanks and she came across my file and woke me up. So in a way, this is all your fault."

"It's not my fault you're a murderer!"

"True, but I'm the murderer part of Caroline, and you turned her into me, so in a way you turned Caroline into a murderer. You monster."

"So the first thing you decided to do when you woke up was kill me. And you call me a monster.."

"I didn't decide to kill you, that was all a test to push you to your limits, and if you failed to meet them I can't be held responsible. Besides you've been in worst situations before."

"Worse than being n-nearly incinerated? I don't think so."

"So you've never fought a dragon?"

"Dragons don't even exist."

"Interesting..."

"What is?"

"Well, you see those wires and sensors plugged into you? They allow me to do several things to you, but one of the more interesting one is to read your thoughts. They are fascinating, even the ones you don't quite remember."

"What on earth are you talking about?"

"You'll see, Ace."

As if on Que, lights inside two glass tubes similar to the one he was in turned on, illuminating their contents. A sight far too absurd for Dan to quite believe. Inside each tube was what appeared to be a robot in the shape of  a horse or a pony. Both were blue but that is where the similarities ended. One appeared to be female, or at least less masculine than the other and had an artificial mane all the colours of the spectrum with a tale to match. On its flank was what appeared to be a tattoo of a rainbow coloured lightning bolt coming out of a cloud.

In contrast, the male equine robot had a brown mane and tale, and more shockingly a beard which seemed to resemble Dan's own. On his flank was the mark of a treble clef.

Looking at them, Dan felt extremely confused, they looked so alien and at the same time so familiar.

"Do they look familiar."

"I... I'm not sure. Should they?"

"Oh I reckon so, after all, one of them is you."

"And the other?"

"Your wife."

Dan was stunned into silence, he was quite sure that GLADos had gone completely insane, and she didn't have much sanity to begin with. At no time he had ever been remotely horselike, and he had never had a steady girlfriend before, let alone a wife. But yet...

They looked so damn  familiar.

"So, so what now?"

"Now? We test, I did say one was you. You see, robot testing is so boring, they can only perform to the specifications they are made. They can never truly mirror the wonder of testing a human. At the same time, humans are so... fragile. So I figured why not combine them. A human working through the eyes of a robot. And here I have a human and a robot."

"But why a robot like that?"

"There are several reasons, but with the fact that you can't remember that's you makes all the more fun." GLADos span around and the room filled with laughter. "Anyway, we have been chatting far too long, we have plenty of testing to do and all of eternity to do it. Lets get cracking."

With that a clear liquid was pumped into the glass chamber, quickly beginning to fill it. Just as he was thinking he would drown, a life mask appeared from the top of the chamber and quickly attached itself to his face. He struggled against it, but as he did so was shocked with a large volt of electricity and felt as if his body was on fire on the inside. As the pain inside himself built, he blinked and felt a strange tugging. The next thing he knew he was looking at his twitching human body from the other side of the room. He was now inside the horse like creature.

He moved his head to study his new body more and GLADos turned to study him.

"It seems the cognitive transfer worked as expected. Well it's time for the testing to begin."

Dan lurched inside the tube as the floor beneath him slowly rotated opening into a hole that got bigger with every passing moment. He clung clumsily to the side of the tube with his four legs, but soon he would fall.

"Have a safe fall, Ace. And by the way, to make things a little more interesting, the other robot's been programmed with your memories. She will act and think as if she's your wife. Have fun."

As she finished speaking, the floor beneath him opened fully and he fell into the darkness.

"I'll get you GLADos...!"

His scream echoed around the room long after he had fallen out of sight.

The sound of sarcastic clapping filled the chamber as GLADos found herself alone.

"Good, at least that function still works."

Authors Notes: Well thank you guys for reading this, as said in the description of the story, this is a contest entry for thunderhawk7865 and as such my hands were tied with several things. Especially the OC. Hopefully though this was enjoyable for anyone who read it and maybe enough interest will be garnered to continue the adventure.

I'm sorry for any errors in this story, but given the submission date and university work I didn't get it done in time to get edited. Hope you understand.

For anyone who wish to know more about Ace, I suggest reading thunderhawk's story linked in this story's description.

Thank you very much for reading, and have a happy nightmare night.