One clean shot, Alyx reminded herself as she steadied the sniper rifle on the grass, aiming for the guard's head. One clean shot before he notices them.

She lined up the shot and fired; not where she wanted, but it went from one side of the guard's head to the other, and he wasn't going to be getting up from it.

She smiled and looked around, scoping out a new target.

The shot startled Vagabond, who jumped and looked back.

"It's just Alyx, don't worry." assured Gordon.

The whirring of the tracker bot's wheels began irritating Gordon. "That thing's gonna give us away, Nathan."

"Oh don't you be such a pessimist! It's perfectly fine."

A shot rang out, piercing the tracker bot and causing it to explode in a brilliant shower of lights.

"Run!" Nathan cried out, grabbing the broken bot and charging forwards. Gordon dove behind a rock, and Vagabond ran towards the tower, having spotted a break in the barrier. She signaled to Gordon for him to follow, but he gave a signal for her not to pursue her entry. She sighed and still slid in.

Gordon growled slightly; these two were going to get themselves killed. Wasting time mulling the pros and cons, he followed Vagabond in.

Alyx peered up from scanning her next target at the sound of the commotion. It wasn't a good sign. She focused in and spotted Nathan running towards a CP unit; she quickly picked the unit off in hopes that it would be a signal for Nathan to follow Gordon and Vagabond inside. He didn't quite get the memo, as the shot caused him to dive into a ditch.

"Augh..." Alyx bit her lip and scanned around for another target, unaware of the nearby footsteps. A thunking sound in the snow finally alerted her to danger; a primed grenade landing nearby began to beep, and she flew up from her perch. She began to run, only managing to get out of the kill range before the device went off, rocketing her forwards and dropping her on the rounded end of a tombstone, knocking her unconscious.

Vagabond pulled her axe out of its holster and leaned up against a wall. She reminded herself that, like all tests, there were guns all around and only one good solution. It wasn't a super-colliding button, but it was a solution.

She closed her eyes and listened deeply; footsteps were coming to the door nearby; one good swing could dismember or stun a man, and such an act would likely cause confusion in any other team members.

The door flung open, and Vagabond struck, smashing the axe through the back of the Combine's helmet and flinging blood about, staining the snowy grass and the axe itself. A flatlining tone pierced the air as she yanked her axe out, the body of the now lifeless Combine unit slumping in a heap.

Useless weapon, huh? Alyx was completely wrong.

An explosion went off in the grave site, alerting Vagabond that now was a great time to duck inside.

Charging inside, she narrowly avoided getting spotted by a pair of guards by running down a side hall. A pair of shots made her jump again, diving into a room with an open door. The three occupants leapt from their chairs in surprise; all the unhelmeted CP units seemed confused as to Vagabond's appearance, and Vagabond was genuinely shocked that They appeared to be doing a rather normal thing like drinking coffee.

After the shock wore off between the two parties, Vagabond charged, driving the axe into the nearest guard's neck and severing his carotid artery, then sidekicked the second closest guard into the table, causing him to stumble and trip and drop to the floor. Removing the axe, she went for the last guard, only to get a gut full of electroshock baton in response.

Wincing and grabbing at the point of contact, she stumbled back just as the third guard swung the baton at her. She recovered fast enough to hold the axe up to parry, then push away the baton, deciding to ram the top of the axe into the guard's nose, breaking it. She then pulled the axe up to split the guard's head open, but was stopped promptly with a shock to the upper spinal cord, making her scream and drop the axe as she dropped to the ground.

The second guard shocked her again from behind, and the third guard kicked her in the stomach, causing her to curl up. Not feeling satisfied, the third guard tazed the downed Vagabond a few times, causing her to yelp in pain.

"Let them know upstairs that we got one." The third guard commented, poking at Vagabond again.

At the back entrance door, Gordon drew two pistols out and fired a pair of shots into two guards charging out the door, dropping them. He stepped over them and into the building, looking around for Vagabond. There was no sign of her anywhere; he had to go by process of elimination. He took the right corridor, hoping to make some progress.

Despite an alarm light blinking, the hallways seemed too quiet to Gordon. He cautiously leaned up against the wall, both pistols at the ready as he slid slowly, making the least amount of noise that he could manage.

Approaching the wall's end, he leaned slightly, inspecting the hall he could immediately see; no guards on the floor above's walkway, at the very least. As he leaned back, he heard radio shouts, followed by bullets whizzing past his skull as their submachine guns rattled away.

He ducked behind the wall, preparing himself for the two he could hear approaching; as soon as they turned the corner, he pumped several rounds a piece, point blank, into them, dropping them both.

Another Combine from the previously unoccupied walkway opened fire, grazing Gordon's left shoulder. He hissed and ducked further back into the walkway and holstered the pistols, pulling the assault rifle slung around his shoulders into a firing position before jumping back out.

He gave a spray of suppression fire, then took aim while the Combine had ducked, deftly taking out the soldier.

A few shots from a pulse rifle rang out from behind, piercing the HEV's energy shield and partially embedding themselves into the back of the suit itself, causing Gordon to wince and duck back behind the wall. The rounds were easily removable, but stung terribly and drew blood to the surface of his skin.

The suit began rattling off about his life signs dropping. "No shit," he muttered back to it before jumping out and spraying the hallway with the rest of the assault rifle's clip. He ducked back and ejected the empty clip, swiftly replacing it.

The nearby door burst open, and a pair of shotgun wielding soldiers plowed through, giving Gordon enough time to shoot up the left soldier before the right soldier unloaded a round of buckshot into his torso, kicking him off his feet and dropping him like a sack of potatoes.

The suit chirped again, and a haze enveloped him as it loaded him with a vial of morphine. The soldier stood over him, placing the still-warm muzzle against his forehead.

"Don't shoot!" A voice –unfiltered, Gordon could tell– spoke up as a pair of boots marched over. "Well, well, Dr. Freeman. You keep on popping up everywhere, don't you…"

It was a CP unit, helmetless, but unrecognizable.

"Get him up and in a cell. I wanna chat with him. Get the other ones downstairs, while you're at it…"

A pair of soldiers who were accompanying the CP grabbed Gordon by the arms, lifting him up to his feet. The shotgun soldier then proceeded to ram the butt of the gun into his gut, then drop it atop his head, knocking Gordon out cold.

Out in the snow, a quivering figure shook in a ditch, clutching a thoroughly murdered bot.

"Nathan William Spurling, you are the most useless human I have ever known; when I need you the most, you're all burnt out from overworking on that stupid code…"

Muttering to himself, knowing Nate could not hear him, Wheatley sighed as a greenish light flickered in front of him, taking a humanoid shape before fully forming. The burly, brown haired man wore his trademark green scaled scarf in a more insulating matter than he typically did.

"Hey Fritz, calm down. Screaming at yourself ain't gonna help."

Fritz. What an annoying nickname. It made the personality core fume; he was highly faulty from corruption damage and visibly bearing the blackened lines of burnt-out circuitry across every inch of skin on his body, but certainly he didn't need to be regarded as if he were a malwired toaster.

"What do you want, Rick?"

"Ya need some help survivin' out here, pal? I think we should look for that smart aleck there; Gordon. Yeah, he knows these Combine guys like the back of his hand. I think he ran after Chell."

"We'll get lost in that building!"

"Did you say lost?"

A yellow light flickered and formed up to a younger blond male, wearing a wool skiier's hat decorated in constellations.

"You know you can ask me for help, Wheatley! I'm your navigation expert!"

Wheatley grumbled. "Fine, fine. We'll go inside…"

"Let me lead!"

"Do what you want, Girard."

Wheatley calmed down, letting the sub-routined Space Core shift all motor functions to his control.

Getting up, the plucky yellow core gently setting the bot down. A sudden radio squawk greeted him before an electric shock baton rammed into Nathan's back, dropping him to the ground.

"Ahh!" He turned over, then began kicking at the CP, continuing to still get shocked by him. The charges kept triggering adverse effects with cognition, making it harder to function.

"Stop! Stop!" He curled up in a ball, hoping the CP would get the point that he surrendered. However, the CP continued, shocking him until he started twitching and losing sense of what was going on.

Defaulting to a panicked and injured state, Girard could think of only one thing to do: going limp, and reciting a mantra to distract himself from the pain.

"Selene, Phobos, Deimos, Dactyl, Io, Europa…"

The CP stopped, and, realizing that the rebel had buckled, holstered his shock baton and dragged him inside.

Waking up in a cell several hours later and clothed in some sort of blue jumpsuit attire, Vagabond felt miserable. Her ribs ached, there was blood in her mouth, and she was handcuffed and facing down, her head tilted to the side, her arms snugly secured around her backside. For a moment, she thought she was back in Aperture, but she was certain that she wouldn't be greeted with handcuffs. Only tests...and maybe a slice of cake. No, scratch the cake. Where was she, and what was up with the wrist binding...?

A door from behind her opened.

"Are you awake yet?"

The voice was cold and metallic sounding, yet surprisingly human in diction. The boot steps approached her side, yet she did not acknowledge their presence. She had a strict 'no communicating with authoritative machines hell-bent on killing you' policy.

"I can see that you're awake, you rebel scum. Now get up."

The position she was in did not make her ribs feel any good at all, but she was not going to comply.

"Get up!" A sharp kick to the side rolled her flat on her back, letting her handcuffed wrists slide away freely. She winced, but did not speak.

"You're gonna make me get you up, aren't you? Fine."

The CP grabbed her by the hair and brutally yanked her up to her feet, then dragged her over to the wall.

"Now, are you gonna tell me where the rest of your friends are hiding?"

She glared at him intensely, every ounce of hate she possessed rocketing at him through her narrowed lids.

"Do you think they will save you?"

She just continued to glare.

"Nobody's gonna save you. Nobody's gonna find you in here, understand?"

Nothing but glares responded to him. He reached and began to draw out his shock baton, but she would have none of it. She lunged forward and tackled the CP to the ground, knocking the shock baton from his grasp and sending it rolling across the floor.

Even though it was difficult to maneuver with her hands behind her back, Vagabond jumped up and dove for the shock baton, being careful as to identify the shocking end as she rolled over and blindly grabbed it. The CP got up and ran for her, and was rewarded with a kick to the groin followed by a kick to the chest. making the CP stumble and giving Vagabond enough time to use the shock baton to aid in getting back up.

Giving another good kick to the chest, the CP fell to the ground, allowing Vagabond the precious time to turn around and drop on the CP, letting the shock baton do its work.

The crispy crackling of the shock baton and the shaking of the guard's body told her she had landed on target, and she sat until a flatlining sound filled the air, the CP stopped moving, and she smelled a faint hint of something burning.

She rolled away and tossed the shock baton away, focusing on getting out of the current predicament she was in. She decided that first things were first, and she needed her hands out in front of her.

After much struggling and maneuvering, she managed to get her hands under her torso and out from behind her legs. Taking a brief breather, she slowly got up and checked the CP's body for useful items.

The CP was also carrying a pistol and a keyring, both of which she took. She pocketed the keyring and decided to take the pistol; she wasn't in physically good shape to actually fight another person. She looked around and spotted a ventilation shaft at the base of the floor nearby, she'd have a bit of a squeeze, but it was better to go incognito than to attempt to run out into the hallway.

She kneeled down and inspected the grate. Trying to open it without damaging the grate was a no-go. If only she had some sort of leveraging device, she could pry it open...

Luckily for her, she discovered that the screws weren't properly tightened.

She fiddled with the screws, one by one, getting them out and tossing them into the far corner before gently removing the grate.

She went in feet first, scooting in slowly. She grabbed the pistol and pulled it in with her, then cautiously pulled the grate back in place before leaving. Scooting backwards through the grate was difficult, but manageable.

Her feet touched a wall, and she found that the vents stopped at a t-junction. She maneuvered herself cautiously and randomly picked a path to go down, head first.

After a longer crawl, she heard noises. Chattering noises, metallic noises.

Oh, she'd have her revenge tenfold!

She crawled closer to the voices to find a terrifying sight: Alyx, also dressed in a blue jumpsuit and baring a bloody lip, handcuffed to a chair with a CP yelling at her.

"Tell me where the rebel base is!"

"I don't know where it is! Fuck, I hardly know those people I was with!"

"How did you escape the White Forest?"

"Fuck if I know!"

"So you just magically floated out?"

"Pretty much!"

Her response was met with a shock baton's less friendly end, causing Vagabond to fume.

She could not bear to watch her new friend suffer, but from her position, she couldn't do much about it without alerting her position. She shimmied towards the grate and gestured wildly to Alyx, who saw her. She began to sign, hoping Alyx would understand her.

[Do not say anything! I am going to try and trip him with this chain on my wrists!]

Alyx didn't say anything, but gave a confused look. She didn't understand signing. Wonderful.

She shook her head and cautiously slid her hands and wrists through the grate, actively trying to gesture, with arm wiggles, the act of tripping the guard.

Alyx's eyes lit up, and she gave a devilish grin. "Okay, okay, fuck this...what do you want first...?"

The CP shifted his stance, trying to look more broad-shouldered and tall. "Why don't we start at the beginning...?" She could see his shit-eating grin through the opaque helmet.

"We...we were running out of gas for our buggy in..." She seemed to stop mid-sentence as she stared away at the ceiling corner above the vent in bewilderment. "...the fuck...?"

"Huh?" The CP turned around and followed her gaze, completely dropping his guard.

Sucker. Only one clean shot before he notices.

Alyx clenched her teeth and pushed up and forwards as hard as she could with her feet firmly planted on the ground. She launched up and headbutted the CP, connecting nearly halfway up his shoulderblade. The blow jolted the CP forward in a stumbling fashion towards the vent, a foot sliding near-perfectly into Vagabond's unnoticed and wide open gap between her handcuffed wrists and the vent grate.

She pulled back as quickly as she could, locking his lower leg against the grate. With a yelp, the CP dropped to the floor, letting go of his shock baton.

"What the hell?!" His cry of confusion amused both women, and Alyx steadied herself, then turned the chair on one leg and fell forwards and on her side.

"Hurry! The screws are rusty! Give it a few good shoves!"

The CP began kicking at the grate as Vagabond pulled back and slammed her weight against it as a counterweight, making sure to not let the man go. The frame shook and creaked against the rusted screws.

"Again!" Alyx cried, rolling over onto her front, pinning his head between her knees in an effort to distract him further.

Vagabond rammed again, popping one of the screws out while sending shooting pains up her shoulder. She certainly couldn't try that again. Carefully shifting weight, she leaned against her other shoulder and slammed a third time, popping another screw.

The riled CP's legs flailed about, the strength pulling Vagabond against the grates with enough pressure to cause the weary frame to buckle and bend, giving her just enough room to climb into the room.

Vagabond squealed in joy and let his leg go, quickly yanking her arms free of the grate. She scrambled to a crouched position and pulled the pistol from her pocket, taking a close aim before firing a pair of rounds into his neck. The sound of the flatline was a welcome relief, allowing both ladies to exhale deeply.

"Oh man, I owe you a drink." Alyx commented. "Can you help me search for some keys?"

"Oh! I have keys!" She set the pistol down and pulled the keyring from her other pocket.

"Nice! Does it have a handcuff key on it?"

"...I don't know..."

Alyx turned her head. "What do you mean, 'you don't know'?"

"...I don't know which key is for these things."

"C'mere. Lemme see the keys. I can tell ya."

Vagabond, staying crouched, slowly walked over and held the keys out in front of Alyx.

"Can you hold out the keys one by one for me?"

Vagabond slid the first key away from the bunch; that looked more like a small key for a locker.

"No, next one."

The two went through nearly two dozen of the keys until she held up a small key with a single notch.

"That one!" Alyx's eyes lit up. "Perfect! Unlock my handcuffs and I'll help you out."

"Okay!" Vagabond plastered a wide and joyous grin across her face while getting up and leaning over Alyx, examining the handcuffs. Deciding that obviously the big hole with the groove that matched the key's was where the key went, Vagabond slipped the key in and turned it left.

The clicking sound was all Alyx needed to pull her wrist free and swiftly stand up, pushing the chair away from her.

Alyx smiled and hugged Vagabond tightly. "That was awesome! I'll take it from here." She took the keyring and got both sets of cuffs off their wrists, pocketing the handcuffs in separate back pockets.

Alyx bent down and picked up the shock baton, removing its power core and pocketing it. "Gordon'll be happy to see this baby." She then rifled through his belt loop, taking his revolver and pair of clips, handing a clip to Vagabond. "We need to get going. I'm guessing you offed your guard too. They'll be all over us soon. We need to bolt."

Alyx swiftly dove over to the door, pistol at the ready. "It's clear. C'mon, we're blowing this popsicle stand."

Alyx slid the keys in Vagabond's unoccupied pocket as the two left the room, carefully scouting every little corridor with pistols raised.

Three floors above the fleeing heroines, Gordon's eyes fluttered open, still in a mild daze from the concussion. He found himself handcuffed to a chair, his wrists bound around the back of the chair with a pair of handcuffs, in a room which was clearly the Lead CP's office.

The setting was less disheveling than the fact that he was feeling cold. His HEV Suit was designed to regulate and maintain and optimal external body temperature for optimum physical performance, in conditions ranging from a frigid arctic tundra to a boiling hot reactor core room.

Discreetly looking down, two things crossed his mind: 'at least the suit's not malfunctioning', and 'where did my suit go?'.

The wrinkled and stiff blue denim Citizen uniform that was popular in Combine-controlled cities had replaced his HEV suit. A sudden chill jolted up his spine, and he made an effort to keep a blank expression in case he was being watched.

"Oh good, you're awake. I was just starting to regret letting you sleep the...rather swift knockout shot off."

Oh, he was being watched. That CP Captain, with his perfectly coiffed brown hair and highly punchable face exposed to Gordon as if taunting him to try and punch it, stood cross-armed on the opposite side of the office desk.

"You feel like talking? You still look a little green around the gills. What does that suit of yours pump into you, anyways?" A beat passed between sentences. "Oh nevermind, my boys will find out once they figure out how to pry it open."

Gordon had to feint; he had to be sarcastic to the point of distraction and irritability to drop this man's guard. Alyx had taught him that. Make him be so angry, he couldn't think straight anymore. He had been working on refining his natural talent to break down shakable people and leave others some level of annoyed with only his sharp tongue and wit. This was it, mano y mano.

"Well, Dr. Freeman, your silent stoicism certainly lives up to its reputation." The CP Captain snickered as he walked around his desk and began circling Gordon.

"Well, maybe you'd be more willing to speak if you knew that the four of you are all incarcerated right now, and eventually one of you will break. Personally, I've got money on the other guy in your group, seeing as how he's been rambling on and on for the last few hours to himself like a lunatic."

He pulled his shock baton out of its holster and grinned. "However, making you break first, Dr. Freeman, would be worth every last penny."

He tapped the end of the baton against the chair, the crackling sound of electricity giving giving Gordon only a few milliseconds to clench up before the jolt of energy shot through his shoulder. He clenched his teeth and grunted, flinching as best as he could with the handcuffs.

"How'd that feel? Be honest; I'm looking to maim you, not kill you. For the time being." He smiled as Gordon looked up and glared. "Oh? Good. Well, now that we have that out of the way, I would like to inform you that's the lowest I go on shocks. With your cooperation, you'll never have to feel that again. Something tells me that we're gonna go a lot higher than that before we're done."

The CP Chief rounded the chair, leaning in to come in at eye level with Gordon. "Alright, first question, very simple: Where is your leader?"

...He didn't know? Curious. Gordon decided to answer as best as he could; the logical chain of succession, Gordon surmised, would likely fall to Kleiner or possibly even Mossman, and if not, possibly even Magusson, or maybe even Alyx herself. He had no idea who was actually alive now out of the bunch, even Alyx at this point. He'd have to improvise.

"Present."

The Chief snorted.

"We know you're just a figurehead, Freeman. The rabblerouser. Now where's Dr. Vance?"

Wait, they didn't even know about Eli? How disconnected from the world were these guys? Well, granted, he doubted that word might have spread about...that...even if the two of them had been rocketed ahead decades, as predicted in his worst case scenario theory.

"We lost contact with him ages ago."

Granted, even if everyone was alive, at least drawing attention to himself would give them even longer to hide out and recover and debate who was in charge.

The CP Chief drove the shock baton into his shoulder, letting the charge dance through him for a noticeably longer duration than the first time. His arm muscles contracted roughly, his fist clenching tightly as he kept himself from kicking the Chief in the gut to make him go away.

"Are you gonna tell me the truth this time, Dr. Freeman?"

"I am!"

The Chief spun the baton and jammed the tip against his thigh, sidestepping to avoid the kick it caused as the bolt ran its course. A soft groan of agony escaped Gordon's pursed lips.

"We know you were all up at the White Forest, Freeman!"

"We lost contact!"

The CP Chief grimaced and rammed the shocking tip into Gordon's stomach, sending waves of spastic nausea through every inch of his guts. Coughing and sputtering, Gordon began regretting his decision and looked around for the exit. He had to take this guy out and find the rest of the crew.

"Do you think I'd believe you lost contact with your base? Your branch out here's been intercepting our transmissions for the last two weeks since the White Forest incident. You gonna tell me you aren't sending those back to base?"

Gordon turned pale. It had only been two weeks. Two weeks, and a million miles away. It felt like forever. His silence, however, seemed to embolden the Chief. A wide grin spread across the man's face as he stood up and began walking towards his desk.

"You didn't think we were just going to sit here not noticing our signals getting siphoned off? You and that ladyfriend of yours are getting rusty."

He chuckled softly as he pulled a handheld radio out of his desk drawer. "You see this?" He held it up and gave it a little wiggle. "This goes directly to the two guys of mine downstairs who are interrogating your little ladyfriend and that Lizzie Borden wannabe who tore up my mess hall."

He approached closer, then leaned in and looked Gordon eye to eye. "If you don't wanna give me a straight answer, I'll just give them the word to send them down to our Stalker Processing Wing. We already have quite a few here, but an extra pair wouldn't hurt."

Gordon glared silently, maintaining his cool as the chief smirked before pulling away and turning towards his desk.

"I thought you'd get the point. I think I'll just give them a ring to see how they're-"

Gordon didn't let him finish his sentence; he leaned the chair's weight forwards and charged, bodychecking the chief into his desk. Before he did anything else, he then drove his knee into the chief's wrist, making him drop the radio. Kicking the radio across the room, Gordon kicked the back of the chief's left knee, dropping him low enough to knee his face into the desk, knocking him out cold.

He briefly contemplated finishing him off, but decided against it...for the time being. Main priority was the handcuff keys.

After searching for, acquiring, and finally using the keys to free himself, he took a deep relaxing breath and grabbed the radio. He then pocketed the handcuffs and keys, and stook the baton and the pistol.

First thing was first; to free the girls. As he began to leave, the chief stirred, making Gordon jump, pull out the pistol and fire a shot through the top of his head. Change of plans, the prime objective at the moment was to relocate his calm and collected brain, then to get downstairs to save the girls.

"Puck, Miranda, Ariel, Umbriel, Titania, Oberon..."

Wheatley continued to stumble about, eyes alight in a blood red hue and flickering as he struggled to recover and restore a calmer, less bloodthirsty state of thinking in...wherever the hell he was.

"Co-co-corruption is at seven-ty-fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiive-five-five-five..."

Even without a single piece of circuitry binding that annoying voice to his files, it still remained to antagonize him. However, its presence distracted Wheatley from his own utter malfunctioning and snapped him back into reality. His eyes stopped blinking and settled back into their cerulean irised state. A steady feeling of something wrong settled within him, and the shaky core chalked it up to his surroundings; the creepy gasmask-faced individual who had electroshocked him into a catatonic state certainly left a chill in the air.

"Dysomnia...Selene, Phobos, Deimos, Dactyl-"

Wheatley spun around and glared daggers at Girard. "Shut up!"

Girard screamed and jumped as best as he could, given that he had been tied to the chair, succeeding in dropping the chair on its side.

"Huh?" The guard walked over and put the chair back up on all fours.

Wheatley circled behind the chair, a wide and wicked grin creeping across his face. He leaned in over Girard's shoulder, ignoring whatever it was that the guard was saying to Nathan. Girard sat perfectly still, staring at the guard as he collected his nerve.

"If you can continue being innocuous, I will find a way to get us out, alright?"

"Are you sure about that...?"

"I'm going to just...run some subroutines. Keep this body going as I always do. You just distract this guard and, when I finish figuring out the plan, I'll just assume control and take it from there. Got it?"

"...okay..."

Wheatley slipped back down to a subconscious level, letting Girard focus on the guard.

"Where is the base?"

"What base?"

The guard pulled his shock baton out and tazed him in the gut.

"Your base, rebel!"

"I live in a building..."

"We know that's just an outpost, now where is your headquarters?"

"I have had just about enough of this fool's nonsense. Shove over, Girard. I'll handle him."

Wheatley took control of Nathan's body and immediately lunged, using every ounce of weight and power to rocket himself into the guard. He landed atop the guard and pinned him to the ground, leaning the top of the chair's back into the guard's throat.

"Now shut up and stay put." Wheatley drove his knee into the guard's arm, preventing him from being able to move it and shock him.

Untying his hands from the loose knot it was secured in was simple; had they not considered that he would try to escape?

"You're a bunch of bloody morons if you thought I would be sitting around babbling until the end of time." Wheatley grinned and grinded both his knees into the guard's arms. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have more important things to do than to play with you."

He reached down and pulled the gun from the guard's holster and fired a shot into the guard's helmet, eliciting a flatline from his suit.

The sound was music to Wheatley's ears; the pain he had been feeling seemed to sublimate, leaving a wonderful rush of excitement.

He fired another round into the guard, getting nothing more from the corpse. He frowned, then grabbed the pistol's extra clip, as well as his keyring.

"I wonder if they all make that sound..." Wheatley pondered aloud as he exited the room. He looked around for more guards, finding a pair and quickly firing upon them. Both of them dropped to the floor, their dual flatlinings pleasing Wheatley greatly as the sound bounced off the walls.

"It's a wonderful symphony...more! More!" Wheatley cackled and charged down the hall, grabbing their ammunition and rushing out to find more guards to kill.