milliways_bar | Entries tagged with chell

Maybe it's the Bar's way of telling Chell she should try out wearing something other than cargo pants and tank tops. Maybe not. But when Chell sets foot in the Bar proper, her hair abruptly turns red and her comfortable clothes turn into something... not hers.

Chell does not find this funny. (If she remembered what it meant, she would find it even less funny.)

But at least she still has her ASHPD and Companion Cube, so it's mostly okay.

testsubject1498

Chell still does not trust the Bar. Something about disembodied (or, well, emwooded?) people telling her what's what.

But she has extended some small measure of trust that the things she consumes here are not going to poison her. So she is seated at a booth with a cup of broth (one of the few things she can stomach in her slow trek towards solid foods; GLaDOS tended to feed her guests with intravenous nutrients). The Companion Cube is snugly settled on the seat opposite her, along with the ASHPD (in a padded duffel bag the Bar kindly provided her for easy storage).

She is also thumbing through a clothes magazine. Judging from her expressions, she doesn't think much of most of its contents (but she's been wearing Aperture Science for long enough).

thekidfrombrooklyn

In light of his conversation with that Green fella, Steve exchanged some of the books he previously took out of the library for others. He's read them carefully, making notes, looking for anything about tree gods, about sacrifices, and about ash trees.

It's like putting together a jigsaw puzzle, he muses, when half the pieces are missing.

When he goes to the bar for some food, Bar gives him a note and a thick packet of pages. He has no idea what an internet is nor a meme, but the packet makes for interesting reading as he eats his supper anyway.

When he's turned the last page, Steve sits for a moment, thinking. The pages say the more you know the more likely the creature--this "Slender Man"--is to find you, but that bridge has already been crossed, as far as he's concerned. Slender Man has his scent. Has Bucky's. Has that of a lot of people, if Claudia's note is anything to go by.

"Bar," he says, "can I take over for a few hours tonight?"

Permission granted, Steve writes this on the Specials board:

Tonight's Specials
Non-alcoholic
Hot cocoa
Hot apple cider

Alchoholic
Irish Coffee
Hot Buttered Rum

Your first drink is on the bartender if you can give me any information about this creature:

And below the specials, Steve draws a quick ( picture )

He's in intel-gathering mode now.

Down at the end of the bar, Jack Green is carving tiny charms from a piece of ash wood.

He is also observing.

[ooc: Bartending ~~open, but Jack is not available for tagging at this point. He's just watching and listening for now~~ now in slowtime as of 11:40 MST. Thanks!]

testsubject1498

A portal opens in the ceiling, briefly. For a few moments, anyone looking up through it would see yellow fields of corn and a dark-haired woman carrying some kind of gun(?) and a burnt cube staring back down at them.

She shrugs silently and jumps through. The portal closes as she slowly takes stock of her surroundings. (if) It's another test, then it's the first one she's seen that incorporates other actual human beings (unless they're all highly-developed androids).

Regardless, Chell carefully begins making her way through the bar, a little jumpy and overly cautious about not touching anything unfamiliar (which is everything). Anything, at this point, could be a trap.

acts_of_gord

OOM:

At the White Forest base of the Resistance, a very long day is coming to its end.

Barney Calhoun has some things he needs to discuss with his friend.
Alyx needs to make sure both Barney and Chell are okay, and in the process hears about something... very strange.
And then, well, a certain HECU Marine finally meets up with the Vances...

[tinytag: Alyx Vance, Gordon Freeman, Adrian Shephard, Barney Calhoun, Chell Johnson.]

hecu_marine

OOM:

Hang your collar up inside
Hang your dollar on me
Listen to the water still
Listen to the causeway
You are mad and educated
Primitive and wild
Welcome to the occupation

Here we stand and here we fight
All your fallen heroes

[tinytags: Adrian Shephard (Half-Life: Opposing Force), Barney Calhoun (Half-Life: Blue Shift, Half-Life 2), Chell Johnson (Portal). Special voice appearance by Adam Baldwin.]

hecu_marine

[OOM: The soldiers of the Combine do not know fear.]

[Tinytag: Adrian Shephard (Half-Life: Opposing Force), Chell Johnson (Portal), Barney Calhoun (Half-Life: Blue Shift, Half-Life 2)]

hecu_marine

OOM:

Hello helicopter, are you here to stay?
Bodies rust in motion, fighting night and day
Well it's kill or be killed
And one day we'll get the best of them
Hello helicopter, will you be my friend?
Will you take me away?

[tinytag: Adrian Shephard (Half-Life: Opposing Force), Chell Johnson (Portal), Barney Calhoun (Half-Life: Blue Shift, Half-Life 2)]

subject-lj-here.livejournal.com

OOM:

But I'm not dead (I'm in Pittsburgh)
And now I can't get out of town
But I'm not dead (I'm in Pittsburgh)
They've got me all strung, come cut me down

[ tiny tags: Adrian Shepherd, Chell Johnson ]
possible spoilers for HL2: Episode 2.

hecu_marine

Shephard's gone over his few personal belongings and his bills as best he can. "Look," he says to the Bar, "I'll do my best to get back here with somethin' for my tab next time, but right now I got squat to pay with. Me'n Chell need to get back to base. I make it back here, you can have whatever I picked up between now an' then, all right?"

The Bar doesn't seem to object to that too much, so he heads over to one of the tables to wait for Chell while he goes over his gas mask one more time for maintenance purposes. It can't hurt. He doesn't have to wait long, though; Chell turns up a bit later, similarly ready to go.

They'll be leaving a note this time. Shephard doesn't ever want to hear that Freeman clown's name again, but, hell, he's important to Chell; if it means she doesn't have to worry he's not gonna put up a stink about it.

One note later, it's time to leave.

[Adrian and Chell are heading back to the Valve universe, but the post is open to anyone who wants to tag! Just indicate which one, or both, you're tagging. Tinytags: Adrian Shephard (Half-Life: Opposing Force), Chell Johnson (Portal).]

hecu_marine

Adrian's selfbow worked out all right, but it reminded him that he's got bigger responsibilities than just studying and preparation. He's prowling the Bar restlessly this morning in search of Chell; far as he's concerned, it's time to go back.

'Course, he'll talk to other folks if he runs into them first.

[tinytag: Adrian Shephard (Half-Life: Opposing Force), Chell Johnson (Portal), Jerry Lukacs]

aaaaaaaagh_sky

OOMs: War. War never changes...
Infancy
Age ten
Age sixteen
Age nineteen
The surface

The door opens on a dank, rough-walled tunnel lit only by a handful of lamps. A thick-bodied figure of average height slips through and glances sharply about. It's wearing the sort of helmet and body armor one might reasonably expect of riot police, and the bloody blue jumpsuit arms and legs don't seem to give much of a lie to that. Neither does the pistol in the figure's trembling hand.

On the other hand, the fact that she (it moves like a human female) takes a step forward, leans a hand against the wall, and then slumps down to settle herself in a heap with her back against the wall and her knees drawn up against her chest? Not really indicative of riot police behavior in any sort of way.

[Tinytags: Annabelle Newfield, Percy Jackson, Chell Johnson (Portal), Ellen (Vault 101 Dweller). Spoilers in OOMs for Fallout 3.]

hecu_marine

It was sopping wet in Shephard's room last night, so after some discussion, he and Chell got two emergency substitute room keys from the Bar. He doesn't really care, to be honest- one room's pretty much like another around here, and he's planning on going home soon anyway, whenever Chell's ready. For now he's just in one more holding pattern. About the only thing that was in his room that has him bothered was his stack of books on Marine Corps history and tradition, but he'll deal with that once his room is dry again. For the moment he's pursuing one of said traditions out behind the Bar. It's one that DI Barnes back at Santego made damned sure every single man of Adrian's unit knew backwards and forwards, with one frontal lobe tied behind his back:

"This is my rifle. There are many like it, but this one is mine. My rifle is my best friend. It is my life. I must master it as I master my life..."

Not that he needs to recite the whole thing before target practice, per se, but when you haven't got your usual structures around you, it's nice to have something deeply familiar to fall back on. He'll start target shooting just as soon as he reaches "So be it, until victory is America's and there is no enemy, but Peace."

[tinytag: Adrian Shephard, Chell Johnson (Portal), MC P3FES]

hecu_marine

Diligence ought to be rewarded, the way Adrian sees it, and he's been diligently training his ass off since he got to Milliways. Back home he'd be trying to scare up enough people for a game of rugby, but he's not sure how you go about doing that with a bar full of people from all kinds of worlds where rugby probably doesn't even exist.

Bar, perhaps sensing that a cooped-up, bored military man is not necessarily the best thing for local health, has done her best to distract him from his interest in modern blood sports. Unfortunately the distraction has taken the form of a box of balsa-wood toy airplanes and rubber bands to run the propellers. He's taking the opportunity to find out just how much he can crank those suckers before they snap in half or get lost in the rafters.

If you get hit by plane remains... we're so sorry.

[tinytag: Adrian Shephard (Half-Life: Opposing Force), Chell Johnson (Portal)]

hecu_marine

The thought of running up a tab doesn't go down well with Adrian, but he really doesn't have a choice; he had thirty dollars in his wallet when he left for Black Mesa way back when, and his credit cards are all run through banks that no longer exist in his world. So he'll deal with that with the Bar, although he won't like it.

For now, though, he's got breakfast and a sewing kit. He's seated at one of the better lit tables and mostly ignoring his breakfast so that he can work on repairing his uniform. The fatigues've been through hell, both at Black Mesa and in the wilds of Pennsylvania; they could do with quite a bit of work.

He's humming something low and bluesy under his breath as he works, but he seems cheerful nonetheless. Feel free to bother him.

[tinytag: Adrian Shephard, Chell]

hecu_marine

After he and Chell arrived last night, Adrian Shephard took the best resting option available to him and sacked out on one of the couches near the fire. Nothing's trying to kill him, nothing's likely to sneak up on him and eat his legs, nothing's likely to happen that'll make him need that gas mask any time soon- why not sleep? It's been a while since he's had reason to feel especially safe.

No one's told him yet that it's probably a bad idea to sleep in public in Milliways. Doubtless he'll learn sometime soon, but for the moment there's a twentyish man in Marine urban combat fatigues and heavy combat vest sprawled on the couch and occasionally snoring. It wouldn't take much to wake him up.

[tinytag: Adrian Shephard, Chell]

subject-lj-here.livejournal.com

[OOM: And magnets spin the compass in an embryonic flame
Somewhere is the promise of an uncharted trail
With seven hundred branching limbs and seven hundred ways to fail
To the East a reflection of the new moon in the West
Her timeless watch is quiet over tides of her unrest
To the North is the current of a man breathing out
Giving birth to the breeze to be inhaled in the South
...
And for a moment, we're the same as always, same as always... ]

Two people enter the bar, both exhausted and dusty. One is familiar to this place: a woman with a white device in her hands, wearing an orange jumpsuit. The other is a newcomer: a Marine, uniform not as pristine as it once was, but recognizable.

As Chell looks up, confusion, annoyance, and then relief flashes across her face, and she turns to her partner. "Adrian... welcome to Milliways?"

[Tiny Tag: Chell Johnson, Adrian Shephard]

Two pups, two muns! Tag one, tag both.

acts_of_gord

Gordon is settled in at a table near the Observation Window today, quietly cleaning his shotgun.

Not his pulse rifle, his shotgun. When he got up this morning the chocolate slab was gone and the door to Room 287 was back. He's in an amazingly good mood.

That may change when he sees what's lurking in his bottom dresser drawer, but we shan't disturb the poor man with that just now. Feel free to disturb him with just about anything else, though!

[Tinytag: Gordon Freeman, Chell, Alyx Vance, Annabelle Newfield]