A/N: Okay, note this: this story will be lengthy, probably up to ten chapters or more possibly if I can write it. Um, the chapters will pick up more in length as time rolls by. The last chapter as more than 3,000 words --- that was quite short for somebody who wanted this story to pick up good on the people. It hasn't at all. You guys review now, y'all hear? Anyway, I'll be adding sporadic thoughts to Gordon, not that they are random as in "silly" but rather they don't fit him. It's more of a satire, a humorous side of the story, you know?

Disclaimer: I don't own Half-Life 1, Half-Life 2 and all its episodic sequels.

Warning: Spoilers! If you haven't played Half-Life and its sequels and you despise spoilers, I suggest you do not read this. Other than that, enjoy fellow readers.

Half-Life 2, Episode 3

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Chapter 2: Enter the Borealis, Part 2

At this point, Gordon Freeman had the intensive feeling to say, "Are we there yet?" to the spunky Alyx Vance but he decided to go against it. After all, she was flying a complicated machine and his "distractions" fit cause her to lose focus, there ending in a result of fatality. Yes, yes, this was grim of him to think like this but the use of his lampoons such as that gave him the bravado he need. Of course Gordon was fearful; he had only flew in a helicopter once and it wasn't for the sake of a tour around Black Mesa. It was rather training, of course, for something chaotic to happen. Ironically, he thought of the Resonance Cascade back in Black Mesa and the events leading to its downfall.

Shit, why didn't I just go find a helicopter to get out of there then? He thought with some perplexity of why he didn't. Angry a little at himself, he calmed down and thought of what would happen if he did? Gordon had to admit it; he was the benefactor of the Cascade but he was also the people's savior indeed. Without him, the Black Mesa Incident would have destroyed and killed every occupant of the base. Even though he only saved a little of the Black Mesa faculty, it was quite enough. After all, Eli Vance, Isaac Kliener and Barney Calhoun were all friends of him indeed and they became beneficial and supportive factors in his endeavors. Not to mention he did save the skin of others, such as Arne Magnusson and left Alyx Vance with a decent way to be brought up correctly, even though the bleak future of which she was faced with wasn't a way a child should live.

It was a damn shame indeed but he was Gordon Freeman and he wouldn't let anybody tell him differently. Breen may have thought of him like he was a pawn to these people but he wasn't…

He was almost a messiah.

The messiah thing didn't blow Gordon Freeman's head up with inflating arrogance. He was flattered, really, but he was kind of saddened by their – almost blind – devotion towards him. Shit, he seen it in Alyx sometimes, like she would live and die with or for him. He knew that he didn't even deserve such attention like this, but he got it, but not all the attention was praise and devotion towards him. Some, like the rest of the world who wasn't a human sympathizer or a Vortigaunt, was hostile towards him and there were so many, armies of enemies who lined up to kill him and it started with Xen, the world of the hostile creatures who all wanted to kill him. And then, it grew to a more humanoid problem: The Combine, who was already desperate to snuff him out and now look. Their tower of power was devoured and they looked pissed, pissed enough to kill Gordon in anyway possible, in the most brutal way possible.

Gordon was then sent to endless armies of them. He wondered – in mid-battle sometimes – if this war would ever end.

He grunted out a solution to that wonder: it was in his hands now. He had the ability to change and form the world, even a little more than the man who was behind the controlling. Gordon was the boy and this place and its dependents were his toys. There weren't some things that he just couldn't control, no matter what he wanted to, like Eli's death or the Resonance Cascade…

Gordon fingered the holstered crowbar as he stared at what he was looking at: outside a helicopter's window.

Alyx, who seemed to be determined on this mission, glared at the skies intensively, never losing her focus. Gordon silently admired her indomitable, almost stony face.

Alyx spoke, "ETA (Estimated time of arrival) should be at least in a hour and a half, Gordon."

He nodded wordlessly, staring back at the windows outside. She laughed a little, "You know, I thought it was going to be trouble like the Combine or something."

He looked at her a little questioning. 'Did you expect Combine to come at us with a Hunter-Chopper or something?'

However…

'Speak of the devil.' "Speak of the devil." Gordon and Alyx said or thought dryly. The only difference was Gordon was bleakly thinking about it when he heard a chopping noise. Sooner coming to his vision, a Hunter-Chopper whistled by, angrily shooting at the two. Gordon growled at the Combine lowly. 'Does everybody in this universe attack first and ask questions later?'

Alyx herself groaned at the Combine's piercing bullets. "At this rate, we'll be shot out the skies with ease!" She averted her eyes from the window, and jumped up. Gordon looked panicked for a moment but thought more about it, as he seen her slam on a single green button. Must have been the autopilot mode, he thought, not giving it so much of another though.

She screamed, "Gordon, come here!"

He jumped up and ran to her with due alarm. She murmured, "Gordon, I can't keep the helicopter in autopilot mode completely. I'm going to need to get back to my position as soon as possibly. We need to take down that Hunter-Chopper. To do so, you would need some hard-arsenal against them. Usually, finding a Tau Cannon would be easy but this vessel doesn't have on. Gordon, you are going to need some explosives for this one. The good news is I found a rocket launcher."

The launcher came to view, with Gordon looking a little surprised: it wasn't the usual, standard RPG (Rocket-Propelled Grenade) he used. It was instead much more bigger. 'I bet "heavier" means better.' It was greenish looking and by the looks of Alyx – she was straining to pick it up – it looked heavy. Grinning crookedly at it, he bored his eyes at her, looking for the answer to his question, "Got some rockets?" He said quietly.

She motioned him to the back, showing off some rockets. "Last time I checked, we got about twenty in the back, so shooting them towards the Combine chopper should be a cinch." She looked at the RPG one more and motioned him to take it. When he did, she smiled a little. "You are pretty strong. And I thought you must be a little wimp under that HEV." He scoffed at her joke. She started again, however with a groan, she said, "Aw, there's only one rocket here that seems to fit in the RPG, Gordon. If you miss, you miss. There's no second chance, Gordon. You got only one shot at this."

He nodded, arming the RPG, putting on one warhead-armed rockets on the launcher. He turned to the big, steel door, where Alyx opened it. Gordon was almost pushed back by the force of the wind. It was violently blowing partially because of the speed the chopper was traveling at. He held himself at the position he was most comfortable with, albeit it was hard since the wind was working against him. He aimed his RPG at the chopper but then, it dropped to his feet due to the deadly precise aim of one Overwatch solider. It didn't hurt him, in face the bullet almost curved in his hand out of sheer luck. The bullet impacted to the steel wall.

"So, I see everything is going peachy back there, huh?" Alyx said, sarcastically.

Ignoring her, out of sheer focus, Gordon glared at the, almost robotic, figure, which looked back at him with a glaze. The solider then picked up his AR2 rifle, and shot at Gordon.

Thinking quickly, he jumped in the back of the steel walls of the helicopter. The pulsating rifle shots pierce the wind's angry blows and stopped when they hit the inner frame of the copter.

Gordon looked at his options here.

1) He couldn't use the shotgun – it was only good for short-range and the chopper was way off from being close.

2) His crowbar was like the shotgun: only good for short-ranger combat.

3) His pistol worked better at long range but it wasn't as precise, must less strong enough to take out an Overwatch soldier in a couple shots.

4) His RPG was good for one shot only and Gordon was afraid he'd miss and fail to bring it down.

Another time, the Combine shot his pulsating rifle out his AR2. Gordon hissed a little in anger. 'If only I had another… wait…'

Gordon crawled vastly quick over to the other side of the helicopter, search for other conventional weapons.

'Grenades?' He held up the said weapon. 'Nah, it's too risky to rely on grenades, besides my throwing aim is still isn't as good as I want it to be. Maybe I should have been a tad more sporty?' However, he holstered it, thinking they would definitely come in handy a part of his long day.

He searched more and looked at the next item. 'A Tec-9? Maybe that would work…' However, he thought of the distance the chopper was and thought against it. 'Maybe I can use it when I have to deal with armies of enemies at short-range. Thank god I know about weapons so much. I guess being a nerd pays off sometimes.' He holstered that gun as well.

However, he smiled when he fished out this weapon. 'Hey, an Assault Rifle and it has a sniper vision too. Good, it'll be easier to take down that stupid solider.'

Gordon quickly grabbed the weapon and, like a madman, dug around for ammunition. He smiled darkly when he did and armed the gun with a single clip of ammunition. He wiped the smile off his face and blew a breath. He jumped, almost like he was in a cheesy movie, and shot several bullets at the direction. Out of accuracy or just pure, sheer luck, he actually landed a hit in the stomach of the solider as it cried in static radio chatter. The solider discarded his weapon, in chance to grapple his abdomen in howling pain. Gordon sadly chuckled at that as the fallen man, probably was in fright, almost unimaginable. Gordon at this point was happy the enemies decided to wear masks. He didn't think he could look in a man's face he just shot.

However, the solider wasn't down too long, slowly reaching to grab his Pulse Rifle to shoot at Gordon. Gordon quickly used use of the telescope feature on his assault rifle, and sniped the Combine. In turn, the superhuman screamed hollowly one last time, going down permanently. Gordon sighed, briefly resting the rifle on his shoulders. However, the sounds of a coiling Tau Cannon going off stopped him from returning his seat at the front.

Alyx herself yelled over to Gordon. "Gordon, you're going to have to RPG that chopper. I don't think our chopper is indestructible now."

Gordon sighed, holstering the assault rifle on his back with the shotgun and he picked up the RPG and aimed at the chopper. He almost release the trigger but soon, almost sensing his moves, the enemy Hunter-Chopper slams into Alyx's helicopter. He almost fell outside as he held onto the doors for dear life.

Gordon gasped as he briefly looked down, wishing he didn't. He never truly realized just how they were and he wished that he were still ignorant to that. The height was… to die for or to die from. He averted his eyes from it, to look up at Alyx's terrified form, as she looked at him.

Alyx, sensing trouble, jumped up quickly to find him struggling to get up. "Gordon!!" She screamed, afraid at him falling. She quickly bent down to her knees and held out a hand to him. Alerting Gordon further, he looked up and almost grabbed her hand to be pulled up for safety but he spotted the forgotten. He stared quickly at the RPG and quickly reached for it. Alyx yelled at him. "Gordon, what the f-"

She was silenced when a rocket whistled in the air, square hitting the chopper head on. The screaming and cries of the two other soliders in the Hunter-Chopper was only deafened by the klaxon alarms of the falling helicopter.

Smiling at his handy work, he reached for her hand, which she unconsciously pulled up, in awe at Gordon's power. "God, Gordon! You are brutal!" She grinned at him as he nodded, smiling lightly at her joy. However, this elation was quickly snuffed out as their klaxon alarms quickly came on. A female voice from the chopper said immediately, "ALERT, ALERT!"

Alyx jumped back in her seat, swearing, "Shit, we're going down fast. Gordon, close the doors in the back. This is going to be rough!!"

He closed the doors, in an effort-full fashion and jumped into his seat as well, putting on his seatbelt. Turned out there was one thing the Hunter-Chopper left to damage them: their erratic shooting pierced the helicopter's already dented armor one too many and left them in freefall. Alyx and Gordon both held back anxious screaming, no matter how much they want to.

Alyx spoke up quickly, and loud enough for Gordon to hear over the alarms. "Gordon, if we don't survive this… I want you to know that I… I-it was a honor fighting by your side." She grasped his gloved hand, surprised to get a squeeze back and nod from him. He felt the same way.

Alyx smiled sadly and whispered a little. Gordon couldn't make all of it, but it sounded like, "… should have told you…" (1)

He let go of the breath he held too long – he was ready to face the end…

---

End.

Note: Jeez, this is like my first action scene I'm actually happy with. I hope I got a little some of it good for you guys. Now, I know the RPG-shooting thing was unrealistic but the game itself is unrealistic with the aliens. I mean it's a video game, right? So, many things could happen that are unrealistic. Besides that, I'm happy with my writing. I hope you are too. Nothing else to say.

Trivia

1) "Alyx smiled sadly and whispered a little. Gordon couldn't make all of it, but it sounded like, "… should have told you…"" – I'm being "ambiguous" here, but I'm sure you can figure out what I mean by this. I'm implying the infamous Gordon-Alyx pairing, like how the developers and the millions of fans want it. I believe when Alyx says "Gordon… take care of yourself" in several sections and segments of the game, she means to tell him that she wishes him luck and she loves – or to a lower extent, likes – him. Or when they are in the core of Episode one and she wants him to "hurry back" – said in a hesitant, worried tone, of course. I know she worries about him a lot, even when she doesn't even know him that well, but of course, it's Gordon, so it isn't much to know. Anyway, that's the pairing in this story: Gordon and Alyx.

Well, kiddies, until next time when I update this. Should be soon, I believe so.

Night.