Chell

## Personality

Surprisingly, with the limited amount of human contact and numerous tests Chell has been able to keep herself from becoming jaded. Chell has only ever had one real friend and that is her companion cube, but she would like to think she’d be a good friend to a real living person. In her file it states that she is extremely stubborn and refuses to quit a challenge, which is true. She has never met a challenge or test she can’t solve, even if it takes her forever.

Due to being mute, Chell has learned to rely on a small pad of paper and pencil along with ASL that she remembered before she was in the lab to communicate so she tries to be patient when someone doesn’t understand her right away, though it can get a little frustrating if it takes too long. She has never known real genuine love, she can be a little wary of those who are automatically friendly with her, but she’ll learn.

## Powers

Chell can create linked portals from the blue and orange plasma that oozes from her left and right hands. These portals cannot go just anywhere unfortunately, she must be able to physically see where she wants to lay her portals. She can shoot them at very far distances though, so that helps.

While she was young, and the testing started to get more active, the doctors decided it would be a good idea to try and refit the bones in her feet, ankles and lower legs with a rubberier material so that when she fell from high up portals she would not break her legs every time she fell.

The recovery was incredibly painful.

## Talents

Chell can roll her tongue into a clover as well as shoot a portal to the moon. She is pretty good at gymnastics and thinks she is hilarious.

## Interests

She enjoys music, reading and her companion cube. She thinks she’ll like cake, but never having had any she is not really sure.

## History

Born Maria Casiano, Chell lived a happy life with her family in their small home down in New Mexico. She was born mute, but with her family’s help she was able to learn ASL quickly as well as read and write so she could communicate with almost everyone. Unfortunately, at the age of ten, Chell and her family started to notice a weird colored liquid that started to ooze from her hands uncontrollably. It was a few weeks later that the different colored liquids started to form portals on any surface she touched, causing the house to be filled with never ending opening to other parts of the house and even parts of the town.

It wasn’t long before a group of men in suits showed up at their door and told Chell’s family that they would be able to take care or her and help her with these new abilities she had possessed. All they would need to do was sign her over to them and she would be safe and happy with others like her.

Chell was taken to one of the Right labs and given the new name #1498.

Life at the lab was terrifying. No one knew how to communicate with her, doctors often getting upset when she wouldn’t respond and lashing out when she didn’t obey because she couldn’t ask when she became confused. After about a year of trial and error, Chell learned how to control the plasma for the most part, able to keep it from leaking out of her hands and only bring it out when she wanted it to. She became quicker, more agile and the doctors seemed pleased with her, so she felt like things were starting to get better.

That is until she accidently opened a portal too high and fell three stories.

With her legs broken, she was deemed useless for the experiments they wanted her for and was put away by herself for months while she recovered until they came to her saying they had an idea. Luckily, they decided to put Chell under for her bone reconstruction surgery. Unluckily, they refused to give her many painkillers because they did not know what it would do to her portals. It took Chell three full years to get back to the speed and ability she had before the fall and surgery.

With the new rubber bones in her legs and feet, Chell found that she could pull off more stunts with her portals. Some tests she actually enjoyed because they posed a challenge to her, even if they withheld food from her for failing, finishing a difficult test was the best feeling.

When Chell turned fourteen they informed her that she had been selected for a new experiment called ‘The Buddy Project’.

This project was where they took a subject and isolated them from everyone and starved them of attention so that when a special person came forward and gave them that attention, they would form a bond. The goal was to have that bond be so deep, the subject would do anything for their special person.

For three weeks, Chell was kept in a small room with a collar around her neck, unable to hear or even see any other people. She was fed through a slot that pushed a tray out and required her to push the tray back through once she was done. She was allowed no music or even her writing pad. All she was allowed to do was eat and sleep. That was until a tall woman with grey hair and smooth voice entered through the door that had been previously locked and introduced herself.

Her name was Doctor Glados Johnson. She was there to be Chell’s new friend.

Glados, she was told to call her, was unlike any doctor or person Chell had ever met before. She was the one who gave her an identity again, telling her to pick a name over a number and since Chell could not really remember her given name she picked what she liked best.

Glados also gave her something that she had never had before, a possession that was only hers and would help Chell out during testing. Glados called it the companion cube.

Things started out well, Chell would go into testing, learn how to use the cube to help and would receive praise for her work. She even started to become attached to her cube, able to ‘talk’ to it when she had a bad day or just needed someone who wasn’t Glados. It was after a little while that Glados started to give fewer praise and more critiques. The complaints ranged from questioning Chell’s intelligence when failing a test to passive-aggressive remarks on her weight and being an orphan. This had the effect they wanted, because it only pushed Chell to try harder and win Glados’s approval.

On the day of the ‘Final Test’ Glados came to meet with Chell like normal in her isolation room and told her that if she passed this Glados would give her something wonderful. A slice of chocolate cake.

Also, that she would be proud of Chell and Chell was determined to do her best.

The final test was immediately different. For one thing, it didn’t require a testing room. Instead, they put Chell on a conveyor belt that led to an incinerator and told her stay still until she fell in.

Chell failed the test.

In trying to escape, Chell used multiple portals to get herself from the incinerator into the watching room of test chambers, her open portals causing a few doctors who tried to run to fall though and into the strong fire. When Glados tried to tell her, she was not being good, Chell was overcome with anger and tried to push Glados through one of the open portals and into the fire.

Glados survived after being badly burned and Chell was taken down. Dragged back to her room and locked up until they knew what to do with her. Glados made sure the companion cube was destroyed in front of Chell and decided she was to be locked away. That is, until a riot happened in the labs by another test subject.

With his power to warp matter with his mind, #6362 had managed to get his collar off and started to destroy the labs and kill anyone in his way. After ripping the building apart, the power was lost and Chell was able to escape her room, choosing the crawl through the vents so that she would not come up against anyone while she had her collar on. It was in one of the broom closets she found Glados, badly hurt from a piece of wreckage that had fallen on her legs and her body still scared from the burning.

Chell had the idea to just leave her and let her die there, Glados even told her do so, her voice dripping with sarcasm and bitterness at what had become of her. When the walls started to shake around them, Chell saw how scared Glados truly was and decided to help her. Trying to find a way out proved impossible and Glados decided the only way to survive was to stop #6362.

The plan was to isolate #6362 in a room and surprise him by portaling behind him and latching his collar back around his neck before he killed them. They got him into one of the more intact testing rooms like planned, but while Glados was busy throwing everything she had at him from the watch room, Chell could not get behind him without him spotting her. After being hit with a flammable gel that burned, #6362 grew so enraged he was able to rip the roof clear off of the building.

It was the first time in years Chell had seen the stars and moon.

When she saw #6362 start to rip away the watch box to get to Glados, Chell was struck with an idea and hoped it worked. She looked up at the moon, held out her arm and shot out a portal, then quickly shot one behind #6362. She held on tight to a pipe in the wall as the vacuum from the portal sucked #6362 up and she cut the portal as soon as he was gone.

Chell was put back in the Right’s hands afterward but was told she would be transferred to a new lab. When asked, Glados told the Right that “I just want her gone.” Chell was taken to a new facility, where she was actually around the other inmates.

Chell received a package four days after arriving, which was weird because inmates never got mail. The package was large and when Chell opened it she had a hard time containing herself because inside was her companion cube.

Chell now goes about testing, but she dreams of seeing the moon and stars again. From outside the lab.