John Freeman: Total Carnage Chapter 2
I was beginning to think that I'd never find the time to write another chapter. But guess who's back?
Part two to my epic expansion of an EPIC fan fiction!
Squirrelking, I salute you!
John Freeman rushed the hapless Civil Protection Officer and hit him with the legendary crowbar of Gordon Freeman. The blow pierced right through the officer's off-white face concealing mask, fatally wounding the officer.
John noticed that the sounds of Overwatch Control desperately calling out for a sitrep were not blended with his enemies dying gasps. It would seem that most of the Combine command structure had evacuated the Citadel by this point.
One last lingering doubt was still in Johns mind as he ducked through the threshold and into the rapidly decaying apartment complex. Civil Protection travels in packs. While order in the lower ranks had fallen at this point in the battle, John found it strange that none of his allies had heard the altercation and come to avenge their comrade.
Halfway through the living room, the puzzle was solved for him. The faint sound of moaning could be heard from a door mere feet behind John Freeman. Then, something began to pound on the door. Weak from twenty-plus years of decay, the door quickly shattered. Up from the basement filed a dozen or so angry, frothing headcrab zombies! Some still had their relatively ordered CP uniforms intact, others had obviously been resistance fighters in a past life. Nevertheless, they were not a mindless horde, infested by an extraterrestrial parasite.
John instinctively brought the Gravity Gun to bear on this new menace. Struggling to level the gun, which was now glowing in an unnatural shade of blue, he pulled the trigger as quickly as possible, but could have never predicted the effects.
The blast hit the first headcrab zombie and sent it flying back, where it hit the next zombie. Both zombies turned photo-negative shades of white, and begun to evaporate even as they continued to fall. The stairs leading up from the basement were narrow, insuring that the initial zombie in this chain hit every zombie in the corridor.
John watched as the dozen or so headcrabs and their hosts disintegrated under the power of the enhanced gravity gun. Not wanting to wait for whatever horrors may still lurk in the basement; John Freeman made a beeline for the front door and continued his journey towards the Citadel.
Half a mile passed by in John's mad sprint for the unfathomably tall tower. He was getting closer now. At the outskirts of the city, the Citadel is just a tall stalk on the horizon. Now, it occupied a great deal of the skyline.
The clouds swirled around the tower, and John never once was able to make out the top of this behemoth.
The fighting had lulled in this area. John almost didn't see the Combine patrol cars come barreling down the street. John quickly ducked into an alleyway and watched as the convoy drew near.
It would seem that part of the Combine Battlenet was still active after all. The radios were squawking. "Anti-citizen Two spotted at Iryna Motor Depot. Reroute all available forces to intercept."
Anti-citizen Two was the Combine codeword for John's son, Henry. The resistance was having enough trouble escaping without reinforcements breathing down their neck, and John could use a ride. John hid in the alley, and waited for the convoy to approach.
I think my prose got a little wonky there in the middle. That's what I get for working on multiple projects at once!
On the spoke: Gravity Gun ownage, and John finally reaches the Citadel!