Disclaimer: I do not own anything Half-Life. Nor do I want to . . . screams, "The pressure, man, the pressure!!" The only thing I own is Alyssa, the plot, and potentially some minor characters that no one cares about. Nothing else. I'll just let Valve come up with all the good plots and stuff while I sit back and write little fanfics for my own amusement. :P
Author's Note: I'm sorry for this, but basically this entire chapter is just a prologue to get you all info'd up on the Half-Life universe. The next chapter is when the actual story starts. Depending on how people accept this, I may or may not continue writing fanfics and move onto writing novels. But that's a long shot for a 14 year old! :P So please, no flames, but if you have suggestions, I would gladly contemplate them. Please R&R!
The Resistance
By
Syrialla
Prologue
Earth was once dominated by the most intelligent and complex life form in our solar system: humans. Until they came.
No one knows how long ago it happened. The years have all melded together into one long stream of suffering. All we know is, the transfer was overnight . . . Everyone's lives were changed in a matter of hours. We called it the Seven-Hour War. Yea, our very advanced and invincible military force was crushed in seven hours. Sad, isn't it?
The unstoppable forces that decimated our military are called the Universal Union. Not that we call them that. To us, to the entire human race that has to live in such close proximity to them, they are known as the Combine. Don't ask why we call them that. Honestly, I don't know, but my best guess is that . . . well, you'll find out soon enough.
The Combine run our lives, from which path we can walk on down by the street to the amount of rations we receive daily. They have even found a way to stop our reproductive cycle. That's right, no young children are running around in the streets or playing at the park. Ridiculous, isn't it? The few of us who still live age five years every year because of the incredible pressure put on us by the knowledge that no children are there to take our place once we die. Slowly but surely, the Combine are dooming our race to extinction.
And that's why, for some civilians, joining the Combine is the only option that appears to them. Yes, you read me correctly, there are people who actually join the Combine's forces just to get a decent meal. Or whatever their "reason" is. Personally, I don't understand how they can become traitors to the human race.
Civil Protection is what they're called. They patrol the streets, canals, alleyways, everywhere, and are the protectors of their base of operations, City 17. These guys are donned with dinky-looking (actually, somewhat intimidating) white gasmasks. With cold, iron hearts; with stun batons at their sides, they slowly oppress all of the civilians of our once beloved City. They are the ones that invade our apartments for suspected anticitizen movement, disobeying orders, smuggling in food. And if they don't have a reason, they'll find one.
But Civil Protection are nothing compared to the Combine Overwatch. They are the big baddies. Making up of most of the Combine's humanoid army (yes, the Combine are massive enough to be way beyond having humans in their army, but we'll get to that later.), they wear (not-so-dinky) gasmasks of a deep gray color, and dark gray clothing for camouflage. What is probably the scariest thing about them is that their "eyes" shine blue through the masks, even glowing in the dark. Trust me, being trapped in a pitch black room with those guys will give you nightmares.
Perhaps the most elusive form of Combine I've seen with my own eyes is the Overwatch Elite. The only time you will see them is if they pass by on a secret mission, and then that's the last thing you'll ever see. If the Combine think you are a threat and you have evaded all of their attempts to annihilate you, they'll send these guys after you. Don't ask me how I survived seeing one. You don't want to know.
That is definitely not all that the Combine have. I'm sure you're thinking, Oh, is she done ranting on about how powerful the Combine are? I GET IT ALREADY! I'm here to say: No, I'm not. And you most certainly do not get it. You need to know what you are up against, in case I don't survive.
The Combine have Synths: once living, breathing creatures that have been fused with mechanical parts. I haven't seen the Combine using them in battles, but I have seen certain, shall we say, Striders, walking down the street. But I wouldn't doubt that they have thousands more at their disposal.
Also, I've heard stories; stories about a time before I had arrived at this City just a short while ago. Stories about the harshness of the Combine. Of a mother weeping in the dusty streets because they had ripped her newborn from her arms and hauled it away, screaming. Stories of how an old man was beaten just because he muttered one word, one single word, against the Combine; of how he was punished with a flogging to the head by an electric baton, struck until he fell to the ground, and then subsequently kicked and beaten until the Combine declared that his life signs were "indistinguishable" from the cement slab he lay on.
I've heard stories of them forcing sister to kill sister, of a mother poisoning her own son in order to save her life. And if and when people refused, the Combine cut them off from life and did the dirty deed themselves.
I will be going on a long journey after I write this account. And I'll probably be at the end of it by the time you get your hands on it. But I am going to be searching for the key to end all this. I'm going to be seeking out the heroes for this story of mine.
These people, the keys, the heroes of this story are the ones that secretly oppose our oppressors, the ones that hate the Combine and have decided to take action. They are called the Resistance. And this is our story.