Unsure of just what was going on, and just who her new acquaintances were, Vagabond continued out of the building as fast as she could go. Whoever the guy with the headhopper on his head was calling, they didn't sound like nice people if they were supposed to be running away from them in a hurry.
With Nathan in his condition, these two were her only safety net against whomever was coming to try and kill them. The woman with the gun didn't seem too sure about his survival chances; of course, she should have seen this coming. He had been a wreck since day one, and it was bound to catch up with him. Completely fine with it, so long as these two didn't just skip town once they were in the clear.
They made it back to the hospital in no time flat, and Vagabond quickly unlocked the doors, letting the others in. She looked at Nathan, who appeared to be unconscious and had recently stopped heavily breathing and twitching frantically; if there was any hope for him, she'd have to give in and be a little more...verbose.
...No, she could direct the man named "Gordon" straight to the Auto-Doc with just a few gestures.
She locked the doors tightly, then tapped Gordon on the shoulder. He looked at her silently, waiting for whatever she was about to say. She pointed at Nathan, then gestured for Gordon to follow her.
She lead the brightly suited man to the Auto-Doc, and once they secured Nathan to it, she led Gordon out while the machine handled whatever had happened to him.
The woman sat impatiently, loading up her pistol in an agitated fashion. She heard Vagabond and Gordon walk in, and she looked up.
"Finally. What's his status? Can we get some guns going before they get here?"
"Alyx..."
Gordon's voice surprised Vagabond a bit, but it was steady and calm, unlike Alyx's. Alyx looked down at the ground, sighing deeply.
"I'm sorry, Gordon. Just...she's running around with an axe, and he didn't have anything at all. We're down to three of us to defend this boarded-up place, and I'm the only person with a halfway decent weapon right now."
"An axe is fine." He gave a smirk, and Vagabond didn't understand why. It was probably some sort of joke between them.
"Fine. But I'm gonna either need a lot more ammo, or a much bigger gun. Miss, uh..."
Vagabond looked down the corridor. It was silent. She was fine now. She looked back at Alyx.
"Call me...Vagabond."
Still as scratchy and soft as ever, she mentally muttered to herself. She cleared her throat, hoping it would help. They needed her to continue if they were going to live; they seemed like fairly decent people. It was important.
"...Alright then...Vagabond..." Alyx seemed a bit at a loss for words. "Do you have any ammo or guns here, or do you have just the axe?"
"We...have guns...I think...he handles...all the machines..." Vagabond began walking to the electronics wing, gesturing for them to follow her.
She sounded better, but it was hard to put all her sign language back into actual words she had to speak again.
As Alyx and Gordon approached the wing, an alarm went off. Surprised, the two jumped and stepped away, making Vagabond chuckle.
"You are...okay...c'mon..."
She waved them in, revealing and flicking off a hidden switch panel in the wall as they continued on.
They approached a room stocked with all sorts of defensive equipment, and Alyx's eyes lit up.
"Perfect, there's a box of bullets here for me. Gordon, you should grab a weapon for yourself...and before you ask, a crowbar isn't exactly the kind of weapon we need." Gordon dug into a pile in a locker, examining the various weapons inside while Alyx approached Vagabond.
"I hate to be rude, but it's no time for an axe. Do you know how to use a gun?"
"...not these..."
Alyx gave a confused look. "How have you managed to live so long out here with the Combine snooping around using nothing more than an axe between the two of you?"
Gordon snorted humoredly, promptly causing Alyx to sigh.
"...What...who...are the Combine?"
Both Gordon and Alyx looked at Vagabond strangely.
"You don't know who the Combine are?"
"...no..."
Alyx sighed. "Okay...the Combine are a group of humans and aliens who want to capture and enslave you, if you're lucky. But since you're wearing that lambda symbol on your arms, they're just gonna kill you. Is there anybody else besides you two?"
"...not counting you two?...no..."
Alyx sighed deeply.
"Well...let's do what we can. Here, take my gun. it's really easy to use, just point and shoot. I'll grab this rifle here. Gordon, whatcha got?"
He turned around, holding up a crossbow and a large bag of bolts.
"Perfect. How's the roof for sniping? Do we have explosives?"
"I found grenades." Gordon reported.
"Okay, that's great! Can you get us up on the roof?"
"...Follow me."
Vagabond walked out of the room, and Gordon and Alyx looked at each other.
"I like this girl. She seems nice. A little spacey, but nice."
She led them up to her morning perch, and retrieved her binoculars for their benefit. They scampered over to the side of the roof and looked around. The uncomfortable sound of a vehicle approaching steadily prompted Gordon to load his crossbow.
Vagabond scoped around and spotted a truck with several people on board, then quickly pointed them out to Gordon and Alyx. The trio quickly took defensive positions behind an air duct nearby, over which they would have the best chance to spring an attack at the oncoming troop.
"Alright, remember, just aim and shoot. It's okay if you miss; I'll see where you're shooting and we'll both get it, okay?"
The vehicle stopped and the sound of boots rushing against concrete filled the air. Vagabond looked around and spotted a person wearing a suit similar to the one she owned a few blocks down; she aimed for the neck and fired a pair of rounds. The person crumpled to the ground, a loud flatlining sound filling the air.
Alyx, bewildered, looked around the vent to inspect the shots; she had hit her mark well. She could only look at the greenhorn marksman with an agape mouth.
"…W…well done."
The woman gave Alyx a thumb's up.
"Alyx, can you give me a little suppression fire when they get closer?" Gordon asked.
"You bet. You pick off the stragglers, okay Vagabond?"
With an accordance all around, the trio quickly looked around the air duct; several more Combine and CP units had come into view and were closing in around the hospital. Vagabond's crack shots had apparently alerted them to their location; a necessary evil.
"Quite a mixed bag they've got…and they're a little disorganized...what do you think, Gordon?" Alyx asked.
"We're lucky."
"If there was ever a bigger understatement to come out of your mouth, Gordon, I've never heard it." Alyx grinned. "Okay, Gordon, I'm dropping some cover fire. Get ready. You too, Vagabond."
Alyx reached over and shot off a round of bullets in no particular rhyme or reason, disorienting the incoming units long enough for Gordon to lean over and snipe the farthest back shotgun-toting soldier before he could become a problem. He leaned back in and began to reload as Vagabond leaned out and shot at a few of the CP units who were running towards the building, killing one of them and crippling the others.
A grenade sailed onto the roof, and Vagabond picked it up and tossed it back. The mid-air explosion sent debris and a minor shockwave through the area nearby, making Vagabond pull away and cower behind the air duct.
"If you see one of those, don't toss them back! Just shout 'grenade' and point at it!" Alyx ordered.
A loud explosion rang through the sky, drawing everyone's attention for a moment. A large cube-like object sailed down and landed on the Combine transport, crushing in the roof as it bounced off and rolled about.
Vagabond knew what it was, despite it being twice as big as she could recall. That was a Weighted Cube.
What was it doing out here?
It had managed to draw the attention of the two soldiers it had landed by, who merely poked it with the tips of their guns.
The cube responded with a whirring sound from underneath its mass; it slowly rose from the ground as six mechanical legs emerged.
Vagabond quickly positioned herself against the middle of the duct, covering her head.
"What is it?" Alyx asked.
"...Her."
"Huh?" Alyx poked her head out, just in time to see the cube's mechanical legs raise it to full height and the front panel's central circle open, revealing a well-guarded laser scope.
"I see you."
The chirpy, happy voice greeted the two soldiers, then the top circle in the cube's design opened up. Out shot a wide-nozzled beam emitter, which pivoted and aimed at the closer of the two guards. A quick shot emitted a pulsed grid of red laser light, firing through the top half of the soldier. Burnt marks lined the suit from where the grid connected and ran through the soldier, but it wasn't until the soldier crumpled and oozed blood did the other soldier have any idea that the laser itself had simply shot through the armor and diced his partner like a potato on the inside.
He wasn't any more fortunate, as the cube-laser turret hybrid swiftly rotated the laser emitter around and diced the other soldier up faster than he could pick up his gun to fire.
Vagabond yanked Alyx back, then pulled both her and Gordon close to her behind the duct.
"What is that thing?" Alyx queried.
"Hers..."
"Who is 'she'?" Alyx looked around Vagabond and at Gordon, who was just as bewildered.
The two blasts had drawn the mixed Combine units' attention towards the mobile cube turret, and the closest unit opened fire.
"Projectiles detected..."
"Shields up, squeaky!" The shield's voice declarer sounded a few steps deeper in tone, and more relaxed, to boot. The beam emitter tucked back into its frame, and from the edges of the cube, thin white panels pushed out slightly, then emitted a translucent blue light that covered all the edges of the cube, even protecting the legs. "Give'em hell! Ramming speed!" The cube charged blindly at the soldier, missing.
"Secondary sensors activated."
"YEEHAW!" With the deeper voice's cry, the cube changed directions swiftly and leapt at the soldier, the bullets from his gun simply hitting the light wall and dropping to the ground. Upon connection, the soldier's non-metal attire caught fire, leaving the unit to flail and try to put itself out.
"Take that!" The deeper voice laughed, then dropped its top shield to re-emerge the beam emitter. "BANG! BANGBANGBANG! Hehehe."
A few shots to nearby targets left the CP's and soldiers to the same fate as the first two.
"Oh ho...I'm a bad man...let's do this!"
Gordon broke out of the grip and looked out, firing a bolt into the back of the last remaining CP's head.
"No!" Vagabond yanked him back in and held him tight.
"All targets down. Great job movin' and lookin' there, Squeaky!"
"Nice shooting, friend!"
The sound of a helicopter's wings slowly began to fill the air.
"Whoa! Audio, up!"
"What's coming, Squeaky?"
"Sounds big."
"Alright, I'm going up top..."
The beam emitter pulled back in, and the top panel pulled back completely as a black-armored, green optic-bearing rocket launcher emerged. "Okay, what have we got here...?"
The helicopter shot quickly across the sky and hovered over the hospital, where it spotted Gordon, Alyx, and Vagabond and opened fire.
"Whoa, that thing's a big metal bird with weird spinny wings! Permission to fire!"
As Vagabond, Alyx, and Gordon ran out of the gunfire, the rocket turret spotted them. "Hey, it's the lady! And she's got friends! That thing's trying to kill'er Squeaky! Dig in, this's gonna be a doozy!"
"Fortifying position." The six legs rapidly slammed into the blacktop like a team of jackhammers, digging a small hole for the legs to set in.
"Rockets away!" A loud pulse of beeps sounded a lock-on, and a rocket launched from the turret, slamming into the nose of the rocket, doing enough damage to dent the nose slightly.
"DIRECT HIT! NEXT SHOT!" The turret locked-on to the tail and fired, denting it and sending the helicopter into a fatal tailspin out into the distance. "BULLSEYE!"
"Good job!"
Vagabond looked down at the little tank of a cube in wonder.
"Hey lady! You and your friends can come out now! I got all the bad guys for ya!" The green optic beam focused on her, making her duck behind the wall nervously. "It's okay, lady! We came to help ya! The boss sent us to help ya out! C'mon down, the marshmallows are supposed to be here by now!"
"Well, your call, Vagabond!" Alyx called out, still crouched and far from the edge of the building.
"...just...keep the weapons..." She slowly stood up, and Gordon and Alyx followed her lead back downstairs.
