-=Chapter Twenty: The Second Epiphany=-

White Forest, 5:21 PM

The sudden resounding bang of the gunshot left the three occupants of the Command Centre in momentary shock, before all three of them ran for the blast door, the Gman leading the hurried charge by ripping the blast door back and snapping the large mechanical locking system violently and loudly. The door rocked as it crashed into its frame, sending loose chunks of metal rods and thin plating fluttering from the destroyed lock and onto the floor as the three ran outside.

The Gman crashed through the next door, looking around in the closest to panic he had felt in longer than he cared to remember, before his eyes settled on Freeman's body...

...standing tall and firing at the hangar door, yelling in rage and frustration at himself.

Having realised that the situation was not as critical as the three had originally thought, they relaxed — quite clearly — and merely stood in silence watching as Gordon emptied his magazine on the metal door.

From where he was standing, the Gman could see a blood splatter on that exact door. For a nanosecond he was confused, before he subconsciously patted the coagulated blood caking around his short cropped flattop style hair.

His thoughts interrupted by the incessant clicking of an empty firearm, the Gman returned his gaze to the disgruntled hero of the Resistance. Having emptied his pistol, Gordon's shoulders slumped as he stared at his pointless handiwork.

Holstering the handgun, he dropped to the ground and lay flat on his back, wearily looking up at the darkening sky. "What good am I to the Resistance?" he mumbled, loudly enough so that the people standing behind him could hear his rhetorical questioning. "The One Free Man, misleading the human race one misread screw up at a time..."

"And why do you think that, Dr. Freeman?" the Gman asked evenly, breaking the silence he and those with him had been upholding.

Gordon continued to stare up at the early twilight. "Think about it: Everything I've done has just led the human race down a path of detrimental ignorance. Every bullet that I encouraged to be used against the Combine marked another step toward the point of no return." He paused momentarily, sighing lightly, "And when I pressed that button down, in that very room right behind me... I thrust mankind past that point and into an irreversible spiral of self-destruction."

Sitting up slowly, Gordon bowed his head and closed his bespectacled eyes. "Now there's no way we can help the Combine, and that means no way they can in turn help us, like they were always supposed to."

The Gman, despite the sorrowful nature of the moment, could not deny himself a smile. "Dr. Freeman, you are making rushed conclusions. You must think, Freeman, think! Is there no way that you can turn this all around and prove to yourself that you are indeed the most important person to walk this Earth since the Combine regime came to power on it?"

"What way would that be, Gman?" Gordon asked, still looking at the concrete underneath him. "You just told me that when I changed the past, I destroyed any possible way of fixing all this!"

"I told you that the Prime Advisors were destroyed, and consequently you could not convince them that conquest is not the only way to achieve universal union!" the Gman answered matter-of-factly, watching Gordon as he sat on the ground. "Broaden your mental horizons, Freeman, and consider the ramifications of this situation! From where did this haste to pessimistically criticise yourself and your actions arise?"

"What are you saying, Gman?" Gordon demanded, turning his head to look back at the suited guardian. "How can I be anything but a destroyer?"

"Is that why you fought?" the Gman asked quietly. "Is that why you persevered through the illegal Resistance railway, through the sewers and the rivers to Black Mesa East? Is that why you held off legions of the undead in Ravenholm and platoons of Combine soldiers in the Outlands leading to Nova Prospekt? Is that why you struggled through City 17 and the bowels of the Citadel? To be a destroyer?"

Gordon sat in silence. "No." He answered finally. "I fought what I had seen as injustice. One minute I was sitting in a tram floating in space with you standing before me and offering me a job, and the next I was watching my fellow men being beaten brutally and forced to live in dystopia under the rule of a manifestly evil government of alien invaders being administrated by the man I worked for before you employed me. I didn't have any time to stop and consider what was really going on, or even consider anything other than what everyone around me was undyingly convinced of: the evil purpose of the Combine. I wanted to end that, avenge those suffering injustice under this Combine beast."

"Then we are the same, Freeman." The general spoke up. "We both strive to avenge victims of injustice."

"But you see, I didn't understand that. Now that I do, I can see what I was doing was not only wrong, but detrimental to the cause I was trying to uphold. I was prejudicial with my conclusions, and because of that I have driven the human race into the ground ever since I got here."

"Dr. Freeman," the Gman clasped his hands behind his back. "No matter what damage you think you have caused, I can promise you that what you did has saved the human race."

"How?"

"I will let you answer that yourself, Dr. Freeman: What was Dr. Wallace Breen trying to accomplish?"

"Obviously, he was a collaborator with the Combine. At first, I viewed this negatively, as if he were a traitor of his own kind. What I know see is that I was wrong, he was in fact trying his absolute hardest to help his species. He obviously saw that the Combine had different methods than we did, but unlike me he didn't immediately disregard them as wrong, but instead considered it from their perspective and accepted."

"So Wallace Breen considered their methods from a different angle, unlike you."

"Exactly."

"And how did this go with the public?"

Gordon smiled tightly. "Very badly."

"And how were your actions received?"

Gordon's smile widened. "Very well."

"So you see, Dr. Freeman, you were not harming the human race, you were giving them hope."

"False hope."

"Irrelevant, Dr. Freeman. Hope is still hope, no matter if it is genuine or fabrication, intentionally or not. If you had not given the human race spirit..."

"...then the Combine would have gone ahead with their plan, as they always intended."

The Gman stopped. "Ah."

"Ah indeed. See, that's the point: I don't need to exist as I do now. If you had just left me alone on Xen, I could have maybe found a way to escape and get back to Earth. Then maybe I could have lived out my life with little Alyx and Barney and Eli and everyone while the Combine went ahead with their plan and we looked on with ignorant contempt, before they finally completed their plan, possibly much earlier without my intervention and the prising I caused, and we would all realise that the Combine was trying to help us, just not in the way we expected as humans. If things had happened that way, then nobody would be dead. We'd just be trying to find a way to fight the Combine, a way that would never come without your help."

Gordon smiled, looking behind him at the Gman. "The Fissionists are at fault here too. You guys misinterpreted the Combine, like we did. But the difference is that you sent me in to follow this misguided mission and destroy a cause that was actually trying to conquer us to save us. Imagine how things would've been without them? We'd have run out of oil eventually, we'd have poisoned the atmosphere and heated up the Earth. We'd have killed ourselves off. With the Combine here, they've stopped that. They've removed our need to use non-renewable energy. They've rationed our food. They've conquered us and convinced us that we can live this way. And when — or if, I guess, after what I've done — they finally get around to cultivating us like everyone else, then we'll see what they were trying to do: they're trying to suppress us so that when they finally show their true colours, we'll appreciate them more for what they have to give."

The Gman smiled. "Indeed, Freeman, we made a mistake. But do you know what we didn't make a mistake about?"

"What?"

"Selecting you."

Gordon snorted. "You're still trying to make me feel better?"

"Of course. If you are still depressed as you are now, you will not be able to operate to your full capacity as Gordon Freeman. Remember, Dr. Freeman, that you are still my employee and thus you will follow my instructions. Now that I understand the error of my ways as a Member of the Fissionist Faction, I can adapt your objectives likewise. You no longer need to destroy the Combine, Gordon. You now need to make peace with them here on Earth."

"And then what?" Gordon asked. "If I actually can make peace here, what happens next?"

"The Combine are coming in seven or so months to evacuate us from this planet," the general explained. "We can send you to the Capital as an ambassador for the human race."

"But the Prime Advisors are destroyed."

"The Combine will have elected a new council of Prime Advisors by then."

"But I still don't understand how I couldn't have done all that before I destroyed the Citadel and the Combine Capital."

"Dr. Freeman," the Gman sighed. "There is one thing that you couldn't do then that you can do now."

"What's that?"

"Elect Earth as the Capital for the Universal Union organization we proposed."

Gordon stopped. Slowly, he stood up and turned around, the faint darkness veiling his face in a light silhouette. "Elect Earth as the Capital?"

"If the human race can sign some form of peace treaty with the Combine stationed on Earth, then you can be elected as an ambassador to announce this proposition with the Prime Advisors on the Combine Capital. Should we be able to make peace, I have complete confidence that the Fissionist Faction will back these endeavours however possible. After all, it is our duty to defend the universe, however we can."

"Your orders aren't to destroy the Combine, but aid them if it will be beneficial for the defence of the universe, right?"

"We will defend the universe however possible. If that includes pacification through this organization we proposed, then the Fissionist Faction will help in any way to make that proposal a reality."

"With Earth as the Capital?"

"The Fissionist has a good point," the general agreed. "The Combine are not so unreasonable as you may think. If you can convince the Prime Advisors of this proposal, then it would be likely they elect Earth as the head of the organization."

Gordon watched the three standing there, his gaze slowly turning to the elderly scientist who had kept his silence the entire time. "Well, Dr. Magnusson?"

Clearing his throat, Magnusson clasped his hands behind his back and raised himself up portentously. "It sounds like an intelligent proposition, from where I'm standing. Even if this general recently assassinated a colleague of mine... I think that you and he both have already cleared up that what the Combine and the human race have been doing this past year has been misguided. Besides, I think Freeman has done his fair share of damage to the Combine. I never considered peace an option, but should the opportunity arise I am entirely convinced we should take it."

"As am I," the Gman agreed, nodding solemnly.

"But the problem remains," the general interrupted. "How are we going to sign a peace treaty?"

"That's what you're trying to do, isn't it?"

"There's been talk of the Advisors in Geneva having something personal against you, Dr. Freeman," the general explained. "And the Combine is loyal to the Advisors. If the Advisors deem it necessary that they settle a score with you, the Overwatch will crush you beneath their feet at the first chance they get, like they've been trying to for the past year or so. Remember, you're still Anticitizen One. The Advisors don't know that we've had this discussion, so that label's going to stick until you make it public that you want peace. Even then, if the Advisors really do want you dead on a personal level then they won't accept any proposal you make."

Gordon frowned. "The Advisors want me dead?"

"You're the poster-boy for this entire uprising, Dr. Freeman," the general continued. "Of course, nobody's ever taken revenge against insurrectionists like you before, and the Advisors have never taken it that far. Then again, nobody's ever blown up half our Capital before either..."

"So you're saying the Advisors might want revenge on me?"

"I can't confirm anything, since all I've heard are rumours. People are saying the Advisors planned the nuking of Rostock just to kill you off."

"Shit..." Gordon whispered. "What are we going to do then?"

The general smiled. "The people those rumours came from would be glad to help you, should it turn out you're no longer trying to kill us."

"But I thought you just said the Combine are loyal to the Advisors."

"Well... yes, but the Advisors are supposed to be loyal to the Prime Advisors. A vendetta against the Resistance would be strictly prohibited, since we are operating as law enforcement until we can cultivate your species. Suffice it to say that if worst comes to worst, the Prime Advisors have the final say and if the Advisors here on Earth try to oppose their orders, the Overwatch will take action against them."

"The Overwatch... rebelling against the Advisors?"

"It's possible. But unless there's hard evidence showing the Advisors' opposition to the jurisdiction of the Prime Advisors, there will be people who refute any conjecture made against them, no matter how convincing it is."

"Hold on, I'm confused. What do you mean?"

"I mean that unless proof is given in the hypothetical event that the Advisors really do want revenge on you, then there will be a split between the Overwatch: those who accept the conjecture without solid evidence in favour of obeying the Prime Advisors, and those who will deny it and continue to obey the orders of the Advisors."

"And what will happen if there is a split?"

The glossy gold of the general's eyepieces glistened in the twilight. "There will be bloodshed."

—

Less than twelve hours after Dr. Breen's first Breencast to the Combine forces on Earth in over a year, a second one began airing at exactly 5:30 PM. Apart from this being rather unusual, nobody thought much about that after seeing that it wasn't Wallace Breen on the screen before the millions of soldiers watching.

It was an Overwatch soldier, bearing a French insignia of five stars on his shoulder.

"Men of the Transhuman Arm of the Overwatch," the general began. "I am Soldier 46859, the five star general of the French Overwatch. This afternoon, at approximately five o'clock post meridian, a coup d'état was staged in the Palace of Nations at Geneva, Switzerland. As many of you may be aware, this is the location of the Advisor Council Chambers. It was built in 2003 as a gathering place for all Advisors, should the Citadel become unavailable for said purpose."

Everyone in proximity to a screen was now watching this general talk, calmly explaining that he, assumedly, had just overthrown the Advisors from their place in Geneva.

"As you all know, at eight am this morning, Dr. Wallace Breen, our administrator and diplomat for the human race, made an announcement that the Advisors had seen to the nuking of the German city of Rostock, a large Combine-controlled urban centre containing an estimated one hundred thousand Overwatch troops. Along with admitting most of these brave soldiers had no idea there was a nuclear device ready to detonate within their city, Dr. Breen also announced that the Advisors had done so to destroy Dr. Gordon Freeman, the infamous leader of the Romanian Resistance and the core for human morale all over the globe. While this action would be celebrated in most situations, it was not so today. Because, fellow members of the Overwatch, when a hundred thousand of our brothers are massacred to kill one important figure in the human insurrection, that signifies no cause for festivity."

For the second time that day, the soldiers watching were split. One side sat disgusted at this horrible decision, infuriated at the lack of faith this general had for his superiors. The other side watched the screen intently, staring in silence at the man on the screen or whispering excitedly to one another.

The Overwatch had been split.

"And when something so drastic, so opposed to our true purpose happens, as it did last night... those who can take action have it upon themselves to do so, and right the wrong that the Advisors have caused through their ignorant haste and arrogant determination to destroy. Today, I took action. Today, I have made a genuine allegiance with our administrator and sworn to fulfil the promise the Advisors made to him all those years ago, when we first arrived: to make peace with the human race, and cultivate them under the banner of the Universal Union. Wallace Breen tried, so many times, to convince his people that this is why we are here. Unfortunately, his people ignored him. Today... I want the entirety of the human race to know that we want peace with you, no matter what sick misdeeds the Advisors have committed against you these past two decades. That is my promise, and if I fail to deliver on it then so help me I will surrender myself to the Advisors and allow them to do with me whatever they see fit. After all, they have now labelled me as an insurrectionist, just like the late Dr. Gordon Freeman. Perhaps they will destroy me with a nuclear weapon also, in a city full of innocent members of the Overwatch who have given their entire lives to the Combine.

"And so, fellow members of the Overwatch, I ask you to decide: will you follow the legislative body of these corrupt Advisors, or will you take a stand against them and strive toward our true objective, the one we were given by the Prime Advisors two decades ago?

"Decide for yourself whose side you are on."

At that moment, every Breencast screen on the Earth cut to black, leaving every single onlooker on the planet standing in silence.

Then the muttering started. A low murmur of conflicting opinions and beliefs that slowly rose in volume until they were anarchistic yells in a rioting crowd.

"What evidence is there?" a Belgian officer demanded to his soldiers angrily, staring back at the blank Breencast screen not a metre from his seat. "This ridiculous revolution is based on mere conjecture! The Advisors are fighting this uprising the same way we have been this past year! That general is a fool, a radical idiot whose judgement is obscured by arrogant haste!" the officer stood up suddenly. "I, for one, will not stand for this tomfoolery! This general will see what kind of action the Overwatch is going to take, and I swear that he will not enjoy one second of it!"

All across the planet, riots broke out. Soldiers opened fire on each other, some Resistance members took advantage of the chaos and celebrated the anarchy, some discussed whether the general was being legitimate, others still were confused by the sudden outbreak of Combine violence for what they understood was for no reason at all, having missed the controversial Breencast.

No matter what side you were on, no matter whether you were fighting for the Advisors or the French general, one thing was certain.

There was indeed bloodshed.

White Forest, 5:49 PM

"Decide for yourself whose side you are on."

The recording ended, leaving the Gman to lean back and welcome discussion.

Gordon scratched his goatee thoughtfully. "Well, I think we all know what we're going to be doing now."

"And what's that?" the Gman asked, cocking an eyebrow.

The general and Dr. Magnusson both looked at Gordon, who smiled and leaned forward in his chair. "It's simple," Gordon explained, "that general is our one chance at making peace, and that means we need to talk to him."

The Gman nodded. "I agree."

"You got that recording from the Fissionists, yes?" Dr. Magnusson inquired.

Nodding once more, the Gman smiled. "After the general and I had explained everything to them, the Fissionists interrupted us to show the Breencast. I must say, it was quite interesting to think how quickly the Overwatch must have split after it ended."

"The Fissionists have accepted the proposal, right?" Gordon asked quietly.

The general nodded. "I was scared shitless, I can tell you that."

"So they'll be helping us?"

"However possible." The Gman affirmed.

Gordon smiled, nodding his head slowly. "Right. Well, gentlemen, I believe it's time to have a little talk with that French general."

"There's going to be one hell of an opposition," the general reminded Gordon. "half the Overwatch is going to be doing anything they can to restore the Advisors to power."

Gordon shrugged. "That's how I like it. Anyone who gets in the way of the peace I've denied my species this past year is going to get their brains blown out."

The Gman smiled. "That's the Gordon Freeman I know."

Gordon chuckled to himself, patting the USP Match in his holster. "And he's here to stay."

Borealis, 5:51 PM

"This is going to be interesting."

"It'll be a hell of a lot more so when I'm in the fray."

"You won't be the only one, Corporal Shephard. This cannot be allowed to come to fruition. There is a possibility that Gordon Freeman will try and accept this general's proposal, and we cannot allow that to happen."
"Because it'll mean peace between the human race and the Combine?"

"And if my doppelganger is backing Freeman, it is undeniable that the entire Fissionist Faction will too. That totals to three powerhouses that will get in the way of exacting my revenge on the Fissionists."

"So you want me to kill the French general."

"No, not yet. If Freeman does try to accept his proposal, then he'll meet with him personally. If that happens, you can take them both out at one place."

"And then you'll deal with the Gman?"

"Exactly."

A loud clap echoed in the enclosed space. "I'm looking forward to this."

"So am I, Corporal Shephard, so am I."

—

-=END OF PART II=-

And that, people, is the end of Part II. Yes, I know I said there'd be only two parts, but splitting it in three means that each section is equal and different. Part I lay the foundation for the story, Part II built up from there and Part III will be the final culmination of everything that's been leading up to it.

Part I was half action half plot-stuff.

Part II was mostly plot stuff with a little bit of action.

Part III is going to be mostly action, with maybe one or two important plot things that you are going to go crazy over. It's gonna be the rollercoaster ride you've been waiting in line for all this time, and I'm sorry for the ridiculous wait. But now, it's finally time to bust out the big guns and blow everyone to shit, because Freeman's got a place to be and there's a hell of a lotta soldiers trying to stop him, not to mention a corporal with a vengeance and a doppelganger Gman.