ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: Thanks Janus Kamaren and Masto Staly for reviewing my story. It inspired me quite a lot. I will continue to update WHTCF, don't worry.
REVISED DISCLAIMER: Half-Life is property of Valve, not Sierra. Anyway, no matter who's Half-Life is, it's definitely not mine, and I am not intending to abuse Valve's (or Sierra's or whatever) copy rights in any way.
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CHAPTER 2
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Doom looked left, then right.
The street looked deserted, the wind blowing a lot of dust that was gathered here after years of abandonment.
He exited the alley, pointing his pistol ahead of him. If something will jump out on him, he would have the time to shoot it, then take out a heavier weapon from his multi-purpose combat suit.
And soon, he had the opportunity to do so.
As he walked carefully down the street, he heard a teleportation sound from behind him. Doom was very tired of it by now - he had heard this sound quite a lot during the past few hours. He did not care whether it be a Demon or the new 'greenblood' types (that's how he called all the resent monsters that had green blood, and that were appearing around the city) - he would waste them on the spot in both cases. He spun around immediately, while half-falling to the ground. It was wise for him to do so - for a green globe of bubbling acid passed inches above his helmet visor.
The acid hit the middle of a lamppost that was barely standing by now, though it was in better condition than some of the other objects on this street. The section of the post that was hit melted very quickly, and the top part of the post fell to the concrete road with a thud, shattering the already crumbling light bulb at its end.
The old but reliable Colt M1911A1 spoken in Doom's right hand, spitting gouts of flames from its barrel. Green flesh exploded, and the being in front of him - a new type of greenblood - moaned and ran away, taking cover behind the twisted frame of what used to be a BMW.
"Shit..." muttered Doom under his breath. If only he had more grenades, he would make short work of this bugger. But he used them all up a long time ago, and as of yet hadn't had an opportunity to replenish his grenade inventory.
Yes, grenades were definitely his worst desire right now. So were bazookas, tanks and choppers. But those were merely desires, not reality. He will have to get along with what he already got.
His hands moved very quickly, and in a second he was holding his number one best friend. His name was Remington.
He moved very slowly around the burned car, keeping a healthy distance away. The sawed-off barrel of his weapon was pointing towards the speculated location of the tentacle-bearing monster, steady, unwavering.
Around the car he went, until....
TSSSSST!
Another globe of acid was hurled toward his feet from the direction of the car he watched so carefully. Doom leaped high into the air above the acid, just barely avoiding the thing, and it hit the sidewalk, splashing angry drops of the hazardous liquid.
'Damn it, another close call...' he thought, as the creature took cover again. He kept these thoughts private though, letting his shotgun speak for him instead...
Additional damage, this time in the form of big round holes, was added to the battered vehicle as Doom tried to bring the monster out of its cover.
And surely enough, the dim-witted thing caught the bait, running out of its cover and went straight to the direction of the alley from which Doom originally came onto this street. The creature, with its wobbling thick tail, was clear in Doom's sights. He was sure that he would not miss this thing, no matter the distance, when something unexpected happened.
Before Doom had the opportunity to pull the trigger, a flaming ball of fire came from a nearby roof of a four-story high building, hitting the monster dead in the head. The head was blown to pieces and the body collapsed on the road with a nearly inaudible thud.
Doom was all too familiar with this fireball and with the creature that produced it.
An Imp.
Doom could see its form clearly, standing threateningly on the roof, superimposed on the blood-red skies.
The Imp growled fiercely, and released another glowing ball of flames, this time at Doom. The fireball, forming around the Imps clawed hand, flew at Doom, who jumped to the side, dodging the burning inferno.
In a moment Dooms chaingun was unstrapped from his back and resting comfortably in his hands. He aimed it at the Imp.
Suddenly, the Imp was surrounded by green flashes of light, which illuminated its brown dirty fur. More of his kind appeared on the roof, ready to assist their monstrous friend.
"Not today, brownies!" Doom shouted and pulled the trigger of the heavy weapon waiting in his hands. Like an angry dragon the chaingun roared, quickly sending two Imps plunging downward to their deaths. The rest kept throwing fireballs at Doom, but their slow traveling speed was no match for Dooms natural cunning, as he dodged every single fireball thrown at him.
The roof was clean in no time.
Doom reloaded the now smoking chaingun and replaced it on his back. Then he pulled back out his shotgun, and continued walking in a random direction, seeking out anything that might be useful despite the toll of years.
Doom's life was hardly full of diversity - his only worry was how to survive. Entertainment had no place in his dangerous life.
He kept walking until....
BZZZZZWHIIIIIIIIIIZ
The sound of teleportation.
"This starts to be annoying!" Doom shouted into the empty air in frustration, as he pointed his shotgun in the direction of the sound, to his left.
His eyes looked around the area, seeing only the cracked gray wall of what used to be a large bank. It was probably full of money even now. But what use would it be in this dying world? Doom was fighting for YEARS now, and he never met a single truly human creature all this time, although he has seen numerous indications that he's not the only one left, over the years.
But he shouldn't worry about the bank. First things first.
Doom eyed the place carefully, when suddenly he heard an unfamiliar freakish screech, and felt something clamp to the top of his helmet, making deep scratches in the hard plastic.
"Ahhh shit! Get lost stupid freak!" he shouted angrily, grabbing the tiny pest with his gloved hands and throwing it at the concrete wall of the building.
The thing - a small pale creature with a blobbish body - didn't look like a demon, so Doom concluded it was one of the new types. It impacted the wall and fell to the uneven dirty sidewalk, but immediately jumped on his tiny hook-shaped feet again.
'This thing is pretty tough for its size' Doom thought.
With a single big ***BANG*** from his shotgun, the pest was dead. A green, wet spot marked the place where it once stood.
'Green blood. DEFINITELY one of the new types' thought Doom.
He reloaded his shotgun and prepared to resume his walk, when all hell broke loose, and quite literally.
From behind the corner of the street ahead, at least a dozen of the brown red-eyed electricity-shooting loafs he dealt with earlier came running, with a hail of fireballs hot on their tails. Most of the fireballs missed their marks, hitting walls and rubble, but one of them hit a fleeing brown creature straight in the back, causing it to drop like a roach, making a gurgling sound on its fall. It never got back up. Some of the 'Buggies' (Doom mentally labeled them that way, for their insect-like, un-demonically cute appearance) turned around and sent a hell of lightning charges back down the street at their unseen pursuers, who were undoubtedly Imps. The electricity was so blindingly bright that Doom could still see green stripes on his retina many seconds after the attack has stopped. The other Buggies used their comrades' bravery to retreat further up the street.
Although Doom couldn't see from his poor angle whether the Buggies hit the Imps or not, he was sure that nothing could survive that horrible lightning storm the Buggies unleashed at them.
Again, the demons surprised Doom, as he suddenly saw a new volley of fireballs speeding towards the straggler Buggies, dropping two of them and forcing the others to dive for some cover.
Speaking of cover, Doom was long since hiding inside a buildings entrance, peeking only far enough to observe the events without being detected. That was not display of cowardice, as the demons would surely think if they see Doom. Doom knew when to hold back and conceive ammo – this battle was between the Buggies and the Imps, and he wanted no part in it.
Suddenly, something hit him. Fortunately for Doom, it was only a thought.
Why the hell are the Imps, the most common good ole demon types, are fighting with the new green-blooded monsters?
Doom had often seen fights between various demons, usually when several of them wanted to eat the same prey. But full-scale civil war? Impossible!
Now he had hard proof that these things weren't from hell! Well, it wasn't HARD proof, but it was surely enough for Doom.
A flash of green light and the oh, so hated sound, pulled Doom out of his thoughts.
The street filled with Imps and pink Demons, who started to shoot and run at the hiding Buggies, respectively.
Demons (overall, not only the pink ones) were hardly tactical experts...
The Buggies, at least, appeared to have more intelligence than their rivals, for all of a sudden a green lightning bolt, unique to the Buggies, shot out of the window of a nearby building, followed by many others that came from multiple directions, hitting the newly arrived demons with pinpoint precision that impressed even the veteran of war Doom was.
As the surprised and overrun demons tried to defend themselves from the crossfire, Doom could see a swarm of orange dots of light rising from behind a far away building.
'Oh damn, not the flaming skulls!' thought Doom, as he watched the orange dots grow larger and larger, hurrying to the Imp and Demon's help.
The Lost Souls, that were accompanied, as Doom could now see, by a lot bigger Pain Elemental, screamed into the street, aiming for the windows behind which the Buggies that were butchering the Imps and Demons were hidden.
More green teleportation flashes followed, and this time more Buggies appeared, accompanied by the tentacled acid-spitting monsters he seen earlier, and by tons of the screeching blob-creatures like the one that attacked him just a few minutes ago. There were also quite a lot of a new kind of creature with them - small, yellow with darker stripes, running on three legs. Countless eyes covered its forward body section, with no visible head. They looked quite cute, at least from this distance, and Doom could see them jumping around pointlessly, skipping and chirping like some fluffy poodles. What the hell are they here for? To be decoys for the Imp attacks?
But he could not ponder this point further, as one of the vicious Lost Souls unfortunately spotted him.
With a horrible shriek it charged down toward him at horrible speed.
Doom could still remember how mesmerized he was when he first stared into the eye sockets of one of these flying horrors, while it was flying toward him at full speed, just like now. Well, the thing has scared the shit out of him then, but not anymore. He aimed and waited until the creature was close enough, then fired the shotgun, not before adjusting it to single-shell fire first.
The heavy shell smacked into the vile soul's flaming bone forehead, destroying the skull in a tiny harmless explosion.
Doom decided he had enough of this - the fighting looked like it was merely intensifying instead of subsiding, and he would not like to be spotted by more dangerous types than a single flaming skull.
He made sure that the monsters on the street were too busy fighting each other and not looking in his direction, and then made a dash for the street corner.
He made it without being spotted, and he was very thankful for that, but unfortunately, he forgot that this was the same corner from which the Buggies he first saw got attacked in the first place...
As he raised his gaze from the ground, breathing heavily, he saw the thing he least wanted to see.
Swarms of Imps, Demons and whatnots were frying, clawing and biting swarms of Buggies and other whatnots, who were zapping, clawing and biting them in return.
The fighting at the street he just left looked like a minor skirmish comparing to this mess.
The air was thick with flaming skulls, and the ground was crawling with screeching blobs, which tried to jump at the skulls overhead every time one passed lower than three meters (that's about 10 feet for you US folks) above the ground.
Doom took cover behind the remains of an old school bus, its yellow painting still barely visible beyond the layer of dust and dirt. Fortunately the occupied fiends haven't noticed little ole Doom, and he, understandably, did not regret it at all.
As Doom watched the battle unfold, he could see the pattern of it.
The new monsters were teleporting in big numbers and attacking the demons, who ferociously defended against their attacks, and counter-attacked the monsters. It seemed like the demons were winning, but just barely.
Doom could see what the demons so desperately defended - a big building that probably used to be a warehouse of some kind, perhaps for building materials. Doom knew that there was something valuable inside that building, which could not be found elsewhere. Gold or weapons, for instance, were out of the question. The demons were completely uninterested in such things. If they were, they would've emptied out the weapons factories and stores, and if that happened, Doom would've probably run out of ammo for his firearms and fuel for his chainsaw years ago, and wouldn't be here to watch all this. No, it has to be something the monsters wanted very badly to get, and what the demons already had.
Doom immediately wanted to take a look at this something, but realized it was impossible at the moment, with not one, but two inhuman armies separating him and the door. He couldn't hope to make it alive.
Doom backed out of the street, and into a cramped alley that led into a street paralleling the first one. This street was a hot zone too, so Doom, still unnoticed as before, continued to move away as fast as he could from the warehouse's location. Finally, he was far enough, so the battle couldn't reach here and the street was deserted.
With all that action going on in the city, Doom doubted that the demons had patrols over this area, so he considered himself safe for now being.
But one could never be safe enough when dealing with demons, so Doom went several blocks further from the fighting zone, just as a precaution.
Just as he suspected, all local forces of the demons were at the battle, so nobody was anywhere near enough to greet him.
He would return to that warehouse tomorrow, when he hoped both sides would be exhausted from fighting and take a break from the battle.
Then, he will take a peek at the thing the demons were so thrilled about. It must be something good, and if this thing could be used somehow against the demons, then he would finally have at least some hope of defeating the demons and liberating Earth and the surviving people!
The discovery of another race or faction aside from the demons was a little chilling though. But hey! Perhaps the human race could negotiate somehow with these newcomers! If it didn't work with the demons, that did not mean that it would not work on another race of nightmarish, clawed creatures, with the ability to teleport and…
Doom sighed deeply.
All these thoughts were rubbish.
He should rest and gather forces for his ride on the warehouse first thing tomorrow. THEN he would think about impossible things such as "liberation of Earth" and "treaty with monsters".
Doom went to the closest weapons store he knew, and loaded himself up with ammo. He would have to thoroughly prepare for the ride, or he wouldn't stand a chance...
AUTHOR'S NOTES: Well, did you like it? Interested in the story behind this peculiar war? Want to know what could be this mysterious yet important thing hidden in the warehouse? Then join me in my next chapter, pretty soon to come I guess.
PS: If you think the story by now is too much about Half-Life and too little about Doom, you would only get disappointed, because the story is only going to keep getting more HalfLifish. After all, Doom is an old ugly game nobody plays anymore, and HL is a hell of a 3D Shooter game, that is a hit even now, 4 or 5 years after its release. Don't worry, I'm never intending on abandoning the Doom concept completely though – if you'll get the feeling that the story lost connection with Doom at some point later on (MUCH later), be sure that its Doom side will resurface soon enough after that.