Ruffle Butt
Note: I obviously don't own any of these characters.
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One day Alyx and Gordon were fighting the Combine. Alyx turned to Gordon and said, "Gordon, it is time. I must tell you the great secret of the resistance."
Gordon was poised at attention, but Alyx could not reveal the secret because suddenly the G-man appeared in the street with a kitten. "Gordon, you cannot stop me," cackled the G-man. "I have already caught your kitty and I am going to ruffle him right here in front of you and there isn't a single thing you can do about it!"
"NO, NOT MISTER FUZZY BUTT!" shouted Gordon, reaching desperately to save his kitty. He was too late. The G-man petted Mister Fuzzy Butt backwards. Gordon screamed at the loss of humanity.
With an evil laugh, the G-man disappeared. Gordon and Alyx were left standing there on a pile of dead Combine. "Gordon, who was that strange man? And what evil things is he going to be doing from now on?" asked Alyx.
"I don't know, Alyx. But so help me god I am going to track him down and right this wrong he has done to me," said Gordon. "AND HE STILL HAS MISTER FUZZY BUTT!"
###
Earlier that day the G-man had stood before his employers on a fourth dimensional plane while they wearily uncurled. G-man couldn't give two fucks about them. They had pulled him out of the military and put an alien in his head. Good thing the procedure hadn't worked—instead of being wiped clean to make room for the alien, G-man's personality had merged with Mork. They retained both sets of memories, but neither of their identities survived.
They were one man now, for better or for worse. One man who resented the control this mass of innumerable energies held over him. G-man kept a sneer off his face as they spoke to him in a manner for which there are no words. You will be unsupervised for twenty-four hours, they told him. Feed the resistance the data we have prepared. Monitor Freeman. Then they left.
The G-man stared blankly across the schizophrenic horizon. It slowly dawned on him that he was a free man for the rest of the day. Something sparked in his lizard brain.
There were no longer any restrictions. He could do anything he wanted, and there was nothing he wanted more than to get back at that asshole Gordon Freeman who had ruined his life. Rubbing his hands together in glee, G-man plotted all the evil things he could do before deciding to ruffle Mister Fuzzy Butt.
###
So now G-man walked down the corridors between places, kitty in hand, prepared to fuck with Freeman until such a time as he was forced to actually do his real job. The kitten was thoroughly ruffled, and mewed at him. "Silence," scolded the G-man. "I'm plotting evil things. Gordon Freeman will not be able to find me where I am, so I will be free to ruffle you as I please." G-man had never had a kitty before, and like a child he just had to do everything he could to annoy it.
###
"Holy hot dicks from hell," said Dr. Kleiner as the striders shot at them. "Are you sure this is the right way to go?"
"Yes," shouted Barney as he followed Gordon through the rubble. "We're about to capture a Combine teleporter! We can teleport into Breen's office and make him answer for what he's done!" Just then, the building around them exploded. They were exposed!
"Barney, assist me!" shouted Gordon. Without waiting for a response, Gordon leapt over a wall with a rocket launcher in one hand and a pulse rifle in the other. He shot blindly into the striders and combine until they all fell, but he ran out of ammo just as the Combine reinforcements arrived. "Shit!" said Gordon. He looked on in despair as ten hundred Combine Overwatch troopers charged down the boulevard towards him in a hail of bullets and pulse grenades. "No!" he shouted, and his voice reverberated through the street. "I must persevere-if not for the human race, then for Mister Fuzzy Butt! I will survive! I will live on to save you, Mister Fuzzy Butt! Never fear, dear friend, for no force of man or machine can keep Gordon Freeman from his kitty for long!"
With that last heroic cry, Gordon Freeman pulled out his crowbar and fought tooth and nail with the mass of Combine forces as they beat the ever living shit out of him. It was a battle seemingly without end as more and more Combine fell before the might of the crowbar, only to be replaced by more and deadlier enemy soldiers. Screaming like a banshee, Gordon fought with the satanic fury of the damned as he smashed in every Combine skull within arm's reach. Finally he crushed the last Combine beneath his gore splattered crowbar. He stood in a pile of death and surveyed the scene around him
The rebels cheered behind him, for they had done absolutely nothing to help and were glad that they would never have to get off their lazy asses again. They would later create a hobo colony in the city square, just because they were too lazy to go home.
But for now, Gordon met Barney and helped Dr. Kleiner into the teleporter building. "Can you change it so that it will accept our coordinates?" asked Barney.
"Yes, of course," said Kleiner. When he was done, Gordon shot him in the back of the head.
"WHAT?" shouted Alyx, who was still there. Barney pulled out his gun and shouted, "WHY DID YOU DO THAT, GORDON?"
"I'm sorry, Alyx, Barney, but I have to do this on my own," said Freeman. "Mister Fuzzy Butt is in danger, and only Dr. Breen can tell me where he is. He was in cahoots with that G-man back at Black Mesa. He'll know how to get in touch with the snake."
"OH MY GOD ARE YOU SERIOULY HIJACKING THE REVOLUTION TO SAVE A CAT?" shouted Barney. "ARE YOU FUCKING STONED? THERE IS NO WORD FOR HOW STUPID YOU ARE RIGHT NOW!"
"I'm sorry Barney, but I can't even imagine how many times Mister Fuzzy Butt has been ruffled and tickled without my express permission while I have been wasting my time in the streets with these working class assholes. I have a science degree, so I can do better things with my life than you will ever know. And right now I am going to track down a pan-dimensional government worker and take back the kitty he stole from me. Don't bother trying to stop me; you won't be able to follow me through anyway," Gordon sighed at the stupidity of everyone except himself and turned towards the teleporter.
"No, Gordon! I won't let you risk your life without me!" Alyx ran to Gordon's side, and as the teleporter activated she left for the citadel with him.
"GODDAMN I HATE ANIMALS!" said Barney.
###
"Fuck it all," said the G-man as he looked upon the dead Isaac Kleiner. "I was supposed to give him the data from my employers, but Freeman has foiled me." In his arms the ruffled kitten was squirming. It wanted to play, but the G-man did not know what play was and instead just held it in an angry manner. While the G-man was figuring out what to do, Mister Fuzzy Butt chewed the buttons off his suit.
Luckily, the G-man did not notice because just then Barney came back into the room with a stretcher. "Goddamn those bums outside," said Barney. "They won't help me take away poor Kleiner's body, eh? We'll see who's getting rations today. You've all made my shit list." But then he looked up and saw the G-man. He set the stretcher down next to Kleiner and said, "Oh, but at least someone is here to help. Come here man, help me lift Isaac."
"I've got to ask you something first," said the G-man. "Where did Freeman go through that teleporter?"
"Oh, up to see Dr. Breen. Stupid dick wants to get our greatest enemy to help him rescue a cat, of all things," said Barney. "God I hate him sometimes. It's a shame I'm not the hero of this story. Now here, help me out."
"I think not," said the G-man. He then straightened his tie and walked out of the room. He was worried. Freeman was clearly onto him.
Back in the room, Barney smoked an entire cigar in ten seconds because he was just that angry with his life right then.
###
Gordon and Alyx stepped out of the teleporter in Dr. Breen's office. "Here we are, at last!" Gordon said. "Finally, I will rescue my kitty."
"I don't know." Alyx frowned. "Gordon, are you sure we should be sacrificing the resistance to save a cat from that bad man? I mean, this is the fate of the world we're throwing away for your selfish ends."
"Alyx, you don't know who that man truly is," Gordon said. "That asshole ruined my life by keeping me in stasis for twenty years, and on top of all that he has now stolen my kitty. If we were talking about any other man and any other kitty I would agree with you. It would be totally unacceptable for me to trade the human race for a cat if that cat was not Mister Fuzzy Butt. However, that is not the case right now so you can just forget about it. And let's not forget that everything the G-man does is offensive to my delicate conservative sensibilities, so now that he has stolen my kitty I must crush him with my very soul."
A sound broke the silence.
It was the sound of slow clapping.
Gordon and Alyx turned around.
"Bravo," said Dr. Breen. The vile propagandist stood behind them with a wine glass full of scotch in his hand. "You have tracked me to my lair—apparently looking for the very man I've been trying to reach an agreement with for decades. How fortuitous. Now that you are here, perhaps he can be made to see reason."
"I knew it!" Freeman shouted. "You've been in league with him all along!"
But to Gordon's surprise, Dr. Breen sputtered with laughter. "In league with him? No, no, my dear man." He gestured for Gordon to come closer, and then said in a stage whisper, "He works for other people." Breen straightened and continued to speak normally. "No, my benefactors have taken much offense at the actions of Shephard's employers, but he and I are living on a much smaller scale then those forces of the universe. Converting him would be a great mark in my favour, I think."
Breen pulled out a gun. "Of course, some men can only be converted with the death of their forces. Even Hitler knew to kill himself once everyone around him was dead. So this is goodbye, Freeman."
A shot was fired. Gordon flinched, but when Alyx gasped he realised he had not been hit. Looking up, he saw Breen slump to the floor, the scotch mixing with his blood as he died. Standing behind him was the G-man, with a smoking gun in one hand and Mister Fuzzy Butt in the other.
Gordon met the G-man's eyes. The fed had a scarce few flecks of Dr. Breen's blood on his face, but he did not move to clean it off. All the hate he had endured through the world had deadened his gaze, and he stared at Freeman with an insect intensity that made a lie of his humanity. Freeman, too, had the cold gaze of a man wronged too many times by the world, the gaze of a man who had been pissed on by god, thrown into war and had his kitty stolen. The world may take your family and your lovers, and the devastation may break you-but on top of all the pain the world causes, if the fates won't even let you have a kitty then you know it is truly a black world indeed. Gordon Freeman met the G-man's gaze and held it.
Gordon glared. "You."
The G-man sneered. "Me."
Gordon laughed in the G-man's face. "I've got your name now, Shephard! You can't hide from me anymore, because I will find a phonebook eventually! Now, hand over Mister Fuzzy Butt and I will punish you lightly."
"You may have discovered my name, but I will never give you back this kitty! I shall keep him ruffled forever for the shit I have been through because of you. No," and then the G-man's voice became tinged with regret. "I was sent to kill you, back then, but I couldn't manage it. And that made the evil goddamn insurance agent put me in stasis! That guy was a freak—he looks just like me but he talks like a dumbass." Gordon snorted to hear the G-man insult someone else's speech impediment, since his was pretty bad. "All kinds of shit happened that made me what I am today, but I'm not bitter. That's why I'm not going to kill you."
"Well I'm going to kill you!" shouted Gordon.
"No," said G-man. "You're going to do as I tell you. Ruffling your kitty is all the revenge I need to take for what you've done. Did you know that when I was watching you at Black Mesa, I discovered another soldier who had the same name and face as me? I've got him in stasis until I figure out what to do with him. You can join him."
"NO! WHAT ABOUT MISTER FUZZY BUTT?" screamed Gordon.
"I'm going to kill him." And at that the G-man put an hysterical Gordon back into stasis. Then he turned to Alyx. "I lied. I wouldn't hurt a cat. Here you go." He handed the cat to Alyx, who just stared at him. But Mister Fuzzy Butt was happy so the G-man smiled, straightened his tie, and left.