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Chell is the protagonist of both Portal and Portal 2. Little is known about her past beyond her being abandoned at birth and her stubborn will to live. She wields only the Handheld Portal Device throughout her entire quest for freedom.
Portal
In Chell's first adventure, she awakens in a Relaxation Chamber, seemingly naturally. There she is introduced to GLaDOS for the first time, albeit more sane. During her first exposure to the facility, Chell is subjected to a number of tests that push her mental capacity to solve, as well as her physical body as she must to endure being shot at by the number of turrets and other hazards around the facility. During the testing, GLaDOS tempts Chell into completing the chambers for some cake at the end. As Chell finishes the last test, GLaDOS indicates that she must now be eliminated as per protocol.
The player must act quick on their feet if they want to escape the pit of fire that GLaDOS tries to send Chell down into. From there, the player guides Chell through the inner workings of the facility, avoiding the different pieces of machinery that would otherwise kill her outright. As the player progresses, GLaDOS will chime in and attempt to coax the player into ceasing their escape with more cake or death, as nonthreatening as she sounds at the moment. As the player progresses, they will be exposed to the inner workings of the facility, coming to the conlcusion that there is no one else here, either dead or just gone, while the technology is still alive.
As Chell nears GLaDOS, the chambers become more dangerous with the introduction of the rocket turrets that appear, meaning certain death if a rocket hits Chell in any way. After overcoming the final obstacles, the player is met face to face with GLaDOS herself. Some dialogue is spoken from GLaDOS before her Morality Core drops from her being. After sending it into the furnace, GLaDOS turns more sinister and explains that core regulated her thoughts, meaning she can now perform even more vicious actions, such as flooding the room with deadly neurotoxins. From there, the two do battle until there is one victor.
Portal 2: Lab Rat
Portal 2: Lab Rat is a comic that follows the elusive and schizophrenic Doug Rattmann, responsible for the odd murals and scibblings on the walls of the inner parts of the facility. The comic takes place during the time after Portal and before Portal 2. After Chell had destroyed GLaDOS for the first time, she remained unconscious from the resulting explosion and actions afterwards. During this time, Doug Rattmann is seen running through the facilities, watching Chell perform during GLaDOS' tests, while at the same time, the reader learns more about Doug's past and his interaction with GLaDOS. He is accompanied by a Companion Cube that talks to him, indicating his mental instability.
He tests his luck in a scenario between turrets and his destination, but is harmed in the process. Despite hs wounds, he pulls himself to the nearby terminal, only to realize that the cryo-chamber Chell was placed in, by the Party Submission Position device, as well as the other test subjects, were offline. In a desperate choice, he places Chell's cryo-chamber back online, at a date set well into the future. After his work, he crawls into a Relaxation Chamber and goes to sleep. It is unknown what became of Rattmann aftwards.
Portal 2
Portal 2 is the official continuation of Chell's story. Set in a distant future, she awakens to a rather decaying room, with the frantic sounds of someone pleading outside the room she's in. From here, the player is introduced to a loose personality core, named Wheatley. He begins to explain that he was put in charge to look over those set in stasis in the cryo-chambers, but he had forgotten to check up on the test subjects. This is drawn from the comic, Lab Rat, where all the cryo-chambers but Chell's was offline, meaning everyone was dead. Panicking, he takes control of the room and begins to move it out of that area of the facility in hopes to avoid the imminent explosion announced by the intercom. Moments later, he rams the room into a different section of the facility, launching the player inside.
The player finds themself back inside the testing facilities of Aperture Laboratories, where the player must navigate their way around to find a way out of the facility, until they're confronted with the remains of GLaDOS. Wheatley attempts to find a way out by leading the player to a large chamber of switches, attempting to find the one that unlocks the escape pod out of the facility. This causes the unfortunate revival of GLaDOS, who takes the player back to the testing chambers once more, built under GLaDOS' own mechanical hand. The player will be subjected to even more tests this time around, involving new mechanics such as Aerial Faith Plates and Thermal Discouragement Beams. During the testing, GLaDOS will constantly taunt and torment the player with words and even affecting the testing environment.
Wheatley, previously assumed to be destroyed by GLaDOS during her revival, appears time and again to tell you of his tale of escaping GLaDOS and how he plans to break you out of the facility. Much later, he appears once more, hurrying the player into the inner workings of the facility, where he guides them to different sections. The player will have to guide Chell deep within the bowls of the factories and turret production line to get back to the upper levels, given the opportunity to sabotage the facility production and even the neurotoxin that GLaDOS holds in high regard as her tool of destruction. There they will find themselves in a situation where GLaDOS traps them and attempts to kill them, but fails from the work that was performed within the inner sections of the facility. After some time, the player will be given the option to make Wheatley the new overseer of the entire laboratories. Upon doing so, Wheatley is put onto GLaDOS' body while her core is left on the assembly machine. Unfortunately, the power goes to his head and turns against the player. After further taunting from GLaDOS, he mangles her core onto a potato and shoves both of them deep within an ancient salt mine, housing Aperture's hidden history.
As the transition takes place, they player will find them self and the now potato-based OS GLaDOS falling down what seems to be like an endless shaft, before cratering at the bottom. Moments later, the player awakens to see the massive salt-mines before them, witnessing GLaDOS being carried off by a crow. The player will have to guide Chell through the new envrionment and progress through the forgotten world of Aperture and learn of creator himself, Cave Johnson. The testing facility takes place in "test spheres", which are literally gigantic spheres molded from asbestos and steel that contain all sorts of tests within. This section of the story progresses through the timeline of Aperture's first steps into the world of science, and exposes the player to Cave's ingenious, and rather crackpot, ideas to revolutionize the science industry. This will also be the place where the player will learn of the first mention of Black Mesa and Cave Johnson's increasingly desperate struggle to find willing subjects for his experiments.
Nearing the end of the older facility, the player will reunite with GLaDOS and learn of the story of Cave and Caroline, and the possibility that Caroline was merged into machine, namely GLaDOS. From here, GLaDOS becomes more willing to work with the player and helps them through the rest of the story. When the player guides Chell back to the modern Aperture Laboratories, they find it in a wreck under Wheatley's command, along with the core overheating and creating the possibility of a massive explosion, destroying the entire laboratory. The player will have to navigate Wheatley's increasingly demanding testing demands while trying to find a way to his chambers and stop him from destroying the facility. After defeating Wheatley and reuniting GLaDOS with her mainframe, the player will see Atlas and P-body looking over Chell. GLaDOS will explain how discovering Caroline changed a few things about her, then promptly deletes Caroline's memories from her memory banks. After much contemplation, she decides Chell isn't worth the trouble and sets them free on the elevator to the surface. Chell will find herself on the surface moments later, amidst a field of wheat, free at last.
Gallery
Chell first-person view.
Chell in Portal.
