Author's Note: And here is the 5th chapter!!! After a very long break, I finally wrote it! Unfortunately, with the beginning of the busy (BUSY!!!) 2nd year in highschool, I don't think I'll have much time to write… especially considering my guitar lessons… oh well, I'm sure I could steal an hour or two (or three or four or…) to write the next, 6th chapter. I bet you'd expect it a lot after this one!
And to Blizrun – first of all: that monster WAS a gargantuan! I was just kidding when I said it isn't! How thoroughly you've been reading the previous chapter anyway? And about the idea with Freeman saving Doom, or the Administrator… those all are good ideas, but unfortunately (for you) I already got other stuff planned for little Doom (and Gordon…) You'll see… If I were you I would use those ideas in your own stories though. They're good. They just don't have a place in mine, that's all.
ON THE LAST CHAPTER: Doom was hurled toward an unfamiliar destination via the alien Portal™. What awaits him on the other side?
Enough babbling. Let's get to the juicy part!
***********
CHAPTER 5
***********
His attention was entirely focused on the little blobs of pale flesh ahead of him. Those things were not very fast or maneuverable, but when they leaped… they were completely lethal.
Suddenly, the first Headcrab screeched and leaped, aiming to his head. His Glock has eliminated the problem with a couple loud "POW"'s, but there were more of its kind from where it came…
In a fury of screeches, exploding gunpowder, lead bullets and sharp hook-shaped claws, half-a-dozen tiny corpses fell to the floor, bleeding green all over the metallic plating.
He breathed in relief. Those Headcrabs were nasty, but not much of a threat to his health, as long as he was armed and ready for anything.
He reloaded, then reholstered the pistol, then drew his M4 carbine (he scavenged it from a marine's corpse several hours earlier). Checked the ammo… more than enough.
Suddenly, like it was all part of a planned performance, his ears detected the familiar sound of a teleporting being, directly behind him.
His reflexes served him well – his finger depressed the trigger of the black-colored tool of destruction in his hands even before he fully finished the spin.
---DATATATATATA!---
(((MOAN)))
THUMP
Another Bullchicken has met its fate, facing probably one of the most dangerous men currently trapped in the Black Mesa Research Facility.
But then…
***BWIIIIZZZZZZZZZZZ***
Another teleportation sound, again directly behind him.
His reflexes were as sharp as ever, when he spun around and allowed the bullets to rip apart their target…
---
When the devious Knight lifted it's mighty paw, Doom was ready for anything.
Anything but what actually happened.
Suddenly, a green flash blinded his eyes. Doom screamed in agony, but could not hear himself – his hearing has been damaged too.
He felt the floor slip away as gravity suddenly decided to stop working. Doom's eyes have stopped aching, but everything remained black. He floated through the darkness, with a feeling like he's falling to a bottomless pit, with only the sound of his own breath accompanying him.
Then, he saw something… something green… like a glowing ball in the distance…
In a tiny fraction of a second, the green globe has grown a thousand-fold, engulfing Doom entirely. A flash of green light followed, as strong as the first one, and Doom was suddenly blinded and deafened by a strong light and… and gunfire?
As the confusing thoughts and impressions rushed into his stunned mind, he suddenly felt sharp pain inches above his right knee. The HUD of his helmet showed him that his combat armor was pierced at that spot.
Doom, although not very bright, was experienced enough to realize that there's one hell of shooting in this place.
And he's standing right in the middle of it.
His feet sprung into action, seeking for cover before his mind could even follow, and in a moment he was already crouching behind a metal crate of some kind. The shooting immediately stopped.
So whoever was shooting out there, Doom was obviously his primary target…
Suddenly, realization dawned upon Doom. He went through the portal! And now he's in a very unfamiliar place, in some kind of bunker or facility, probably underground judging by the layout of the corridor.
Doom re-checked his armor status.
Apparently, his suit was pierced in four different places before he managed to get to cover.
Well, wherever he was currently located, Doom was going to survive. He'd better show this bozo, whoever he was, that he should be more careful when messing with a veteran of Phobos…
Doom popped out of his improvised cover, a shotgun pointing to the direction where he assumed the enemy would appear…
He immediately saw his enemy.
The enemy saw him too.
Doom pressed the trigger, only to see most of his spread bounce off of the gleaming orange armor his opponent wore.
With silent determination and cool professionalism, Gordon Freeman fired back…
---
"Lieutenant Peterson, sir!" the Corporal spoke into his communication gear. "This is Corporal Baker calling Lieutenant Peterson! I have visual of Gordon Freeman, fighting some guy in a green HEV suit or something! They are 30 meters ahead of us, sir, and they still don't have a clue that me and my squad are watching them! I repeat…"
"No need to repeat that, I have perfectly fine hearing, Corporal." Came the response on Baker's frequency.
"What are your orders, sir?"
"Isn't that obvious Baker? Kill Freeman, or better yet, capture the motherf***er!"
"But… but this other guy…"
"Order your squad to capture and interrogate him. You say he's armed? If he resists, you have my permission to use lethal force – shoot to kill. If anything unexpected happens, I will take full responsibility. Any more questions, Corporal?"
"Sir, no sir!"
"Good. Very good. Now make me proud and get that pesky Freeman once and for all!"
---
---DATATATATATATA!--- ---DATATATATATATATA!---
Streaking bullets filled the air around Doom, as he aimed the shotgun at the orange figure and repeatedly squeezed the trigger.
The only effect it seemed to have on the orange guy was purely psychological – Doom could've swore that he saw a few shells hit the man's chest, but without much effect besides a few barely visible scratches. This armor of his seemed to be at least equivalent to Doom's own.
Doom continued to pump the shotgun and fire frantically. His opponent at least made visible effort to dodge or hide from Doom's fire – so he wasn't invulnerable after all, or else he would've ignored the shells completely.
***CLICK***
Oh-oh… Time to reload…
Doom ducked under cover and started working frantically to insert the small shells into the shotgun, all the meanwhile hearing the sound of ricocheting bullets mere inches above his head.
There, the shells are in place.
Doom waited, and the moment his opponent stopped shooting popped out of cover.
The sight was very pleasing – his opponent was reloading his weapon as quickly as he could, but wasn't hiding behind any cover.
Time to take the initiative on this battle…
The man's eyes widened behind his large spectacles, as the entire spread Doom shot hit him perfectly in the torso.
The momentum pushed him back and upwards, causing him to fly through the air like a missile and land on the floor, rolling slightly and stopping on his back. Doom aimed at him, waiting for him to move, but the body remained silent.
Looks like he finally got him!
Doom came out of cover, and approached the man.
Lying spread-eagled on the floor, he looked pretty pathetic – his glasses, while surprisingly intact, were sitting very askew on his nose.
Doom approached the body, and kicked it slightly.
No response.
Doom crouched besides the body to check for pulse – only to find a handgun pointing at point-blank to his unarmored neck.
"Fooled ya, didn't I?" sneered Freeman at the foolish man in green. "Now put down the shotgun very slowly, or else I will be forced to severe the connection of your spinal chord with the rest of your body!"
Though Freeman couldn't see it through the helmet, Doom gritted his teeth in rage.
Nevertheless, he complied, fearing that the man is serious.
"There, much better!" Freeman was visibly relieved. This man, while easily fooled around, was a very tough nut in battle. Actually, the last time Freeman was sweating like this was when he was dodging the three tentacles in the rocket room… "It'll be even better if you raised your hands up high… there you go! Good boy! Now, I don't have the time to chat, I wish I did but that's unfortunately not the case, so I'm going to ask this only one, single time…" Freeman stared at the figure, clad in advanced armor like Freeman has never seen before. "I'm Gordon Freeman. And who the heck are you?"
Doom thought what should he answer… But then, something funny happened. For some reason, the tricky man suddenly pointed his handgun to a direction somewhere far to Doom's left.
'This is it!' Doom thought. 'This is the time to strike!'
But all his thoughts were smashed to pieces and forgotten, when a single shot, emanating from Freeman's pistol not 20 inches from Doom's face, rang through the air.
Doom waited, stunned.
Then, he heard a thump of a falling body behind him. He looked behind him, to see a body of a man, wearing… wearing 20th century US Marines uniform! He was also lying in a pool of red blood, centered on his head.
Doom looked at Freeman, and although Freeman couldn't see Doom's eyes, they understood each other perfectly well.
A ¼ second later, Doom's hand shot toward the shotgun on the floor nearby. Simultaneously, Freeman retrieved a black carbine from somewhere within his strange suit.
"Go go go! Get 'em, marines!"
Marines stormed into the wide corridor from different directions, weapons screaming and booming. Grenades sailed through the air to the location previously occupied by Freeman and Doom, but both heroes were by now far enough from the explosions.
---DATATATATATA!!!--- ===BLAM! shunk chunk BLAM! shunk chunk===
Marines dropped to the floor like flies.
The remaining ones started to retreat, laying covering fire. Doom and Freeman immediately followed, dodging the bullets and hiding from view whenever they could.
Doom used simple sign language to attract Freeman's attention. 'You proceed, I'll go around. Attract their attention, I'll come on their tops from behind' Doom told Freeman in military hand signs.
"What? I'm not military, I don't know what this means. Just tell me what you want"
Doom rolled his eyes. What an idiot.
"I want to flank them. Go on this way and attract their attention, so that I could sneak on them from behind and waste them". All this, of course, was said during constant motion and between shootings.
Freeman nodded and went charging to the marine's direction, while Doom climbed a nearby ladder he saw, to a ledge hanging above the room in which they fought.
---DATATATATA!---
The sound of Freeman's weapon was instantly drowned in the sounds of many similar rifles, shooting back at the bold scientist.
Doom went on, but then his plan was nearly ruined when a soldier suddenly leaped in front of his face, and landed the butt of his rifle right into the visor of Doom's helmet. Although the plastiglass was armored, it was hardly in good condition after years without any kind of maintenance – white cracks spread like wildfire and obscured part of Doom's vision. The soldier, a corporal judging by the rank insignia, pointed the barrel to Doom's cracked visor and prepared to fire.
Unfortunately for him, Doom wasn't quite as stunned as he hoped he'd be.
---DATATATA!---
The sound nearly deafened Doom, who ducked just in time. The bullets passed harmlessly above his head, and he was free to kick the corporal's nuts, what he did. The corporal folded in two, dropping his carbine in the process.
Doom sneered.
There was no need to kill the poor man. He removed the now-useless helmet and prepared to move on, when a wave of long-forgotten memories full of pain washed over him…
-
There he was, back on the horrible moon of Mars, called Phobos.
"Henson here! Walton is down! I repeat, Walton is…" the voice in the combat commlink was abruptly cut and replaced by static.
Flynn wasn't paying attention.
He was busy at trying to survive what will be later called Phobos with a capital P, and a silent meaningful look in the eyes.
Currently, the battle was simply called Massacre by its participants. At least by the human ones…
Flynn tried to pop out of cover, but the hail of fire and energy forced him back into the trench. Hearing a sharp scream Flynn looked to his right. One of his comrades wasn't as quick as Flynn at getting back to cover. He paid the price – his body now lied, beheaded, at the bottom of the trench.
Just another body in a growing pile…
Suddenly, through the babble of panicked voices coming out of the commlink, Flynn heard other voices, a lot closer to him.
"Grenade!!! Grenade!!!" "Evacuate the trench!!" "Taggart, move your ass!"
Flynn suddenly realized everybody was running out of the trench, ignoring the murderous shooting outside. At least a dozen troops were instantly hit and fell slowly to the ground, buying some time for the others.
Although Flynn Taggart knew there wasn't much chance to survive outside the protective cover of the deep trench, he also knew that if he stays, certain death awaits him. The demons adopted standard Human grenades they have managed to procure – only they were improved by unholy magic, increasing their yield by nearly 1.5 times.
If Flynn won't be out of the trench by the time the grenade that fallen into it went off, he wouldn't be merely beheaded – he would be utterly vaporized.
Flynn panicked (like most of the soldiers by now) and started to frantically climb the steep wall of the trench, slipping several times on the dust that covered any horizontal surface on this tiny god forsaken moon.
Here! He's almost out of the trench! If he could just climb a little bit…
BOOM!!!!!!!!!
Although there wasn't any atmosphere at Phobos, the shockwave freely passed through the ground. Flynn was blinded and hurled out of the trench by the explosion. Like in a dream, he saw himself lifted into the air, then falling slowly, like a leaf, due to the low gravity conditions.
Although the fall seemed slow in comparison to a full 1G fall, it was fast enough to push all the air out of Flynn's lungs when he hit the ground.
In addition, he heard a very faint hiss of air escaping out of his suit. Because his head has hit the ground when he landed, hi visor was now cracked.
Cracked. Just like now. And that was the small detail that reawakened this long lost memory.
Doom could remember how he tried to get back up, only to feel horrible pain in his broken right arm. The air was slowly but surely escaping through the cracks in his visor.
It's a matter of minutes until he will die of decompression.
Of course, the harsh realities of Phobos will not allow his that much to live. Flynn could see, through the haze of shock and pain, that an Imp was heading directly towards him, a very evil grin on its face.
Flynn was horrified. He has heard many stories about soldiers tortured and eventually eaten alive by Imps and Demons. He preferred decompression.
As he was struggling to grab his sidearm with his undamaged but weak right hand, he realized there was no time. The Imp was already towering above his prone form.
Flynn has already reconciled with his imminent death.
But he was allowed to live, when a very precise Plasma round slammed into the skull of the demon, wasting him on the spot.
"Get up Taggart, you're going to be just fine" It was his superior, Lieutenant Mikell!
Flynn looked up. His commander looked at his helmet and gasped - "Oh shit, your visor's screwed up…" suddenly, fireballs grazed the area surrounding the two. "Platoon #6! Covering fire!" screamed Mikell into his com-unit, and instantly loyal troops rushed into enemy fire to cover his and Flynn's retreat.
Eventually, everything turned out to be fine. Flynn was brought to a pressurized mobile field hospital and his visor was replaced. The fracture in his arm was treated, but it was really bad. Flynn would probably find it difficult to aim with his right hand for the rest of his life. That's what driven him to learn using his left hand instead, until he mastered it just like his right hand before Phobos.
Reinforcements came within short order, shuttles with the emblem of the United Nations landed on the dust-covered improvised landing fields, and the demons were pushed back.
From this day on, Lt. Mikell was a close friend of Flynn's, occasionally coming to his house for dinner after the war has ended.
It was especially painful when Flynn saw him, a few weeks after the beginning of the Earth invasion, roaming around the streets with a pack of other soulless zombies. Flynn, now Doom, was forced to kill him when he confronted him and his buddies. Yet another friend lost.
-
Doom has returned to reality. It was time to execute his plan…
-
Dead troops, worth of an entire squad, were lying around in pools of blood, unmoving.
Doom and Freeman were breathing heavily. Both were hit multiple times. Both armor was seriously damaged and required some kind of repairs. The HEV suit Gordon wore detected a minor fraction in his ribs.
Gordon didn't require the suit to explain the sudden pain in his chest.
But, during the past hours, Freeman endured much worse…
Doom didn't know what to think of all this. Where is he? What is happening? Was he transported back in time by that portal in the warehouse? Now that his mind wasn't busy at thinking how to outsmart the hostile marines, he discovered that all these questions must have an explanation of some kind.
Surprisingly, Freeman's own thoughts were very similar.
One second he was breathing heavily, tired, along with Doom, and in the next one, his drawn Glock was pointing directly at the now-bare head of Doom.
"Where were we before we were interrupted? Weren't you going to tell me who the f*** you are?"
For a moment, Doom was startled. He also felt somewhat betrayed, but quickly realized that for this obviously civilian person, fighting side by side meant nothing more than doubled firepower and increased chances for survival. There wasn't any pride, any feeling of honor, respect, like soldiers or mercenaries sometimes feel.
And now, Doom's life was basically at this man's hands.
"All right, lower the gun. I'll tell you the whole story"
"I'm listening" Freeman replied. His gun hasn't moved an inch.
And Doom told him.
He told him everything, from Phobos, through the break between the wars, and then the apocalyptic invasion to Earth, from which Doom was somehow spared. And the latest events of his life, the new creatures appearing on the streets, the great battles of these creatures with the demons, and the portal through which Doom has ended up here.
Though listening politely from the outside, Freeman's thoughts haven't held much promise for Doom.
'The man must be nuts. What is this shit he's talking about? Demons? Invasion? Spaceships?' Freeman was pretty sure this man was a survivor of the Resonance Cascade, just like Freeman himself was. It seemed that the events, the deaths, the chaos, the monsters loose throughout the facility, have seriously affected this so-called 'Doom's sanity. Perhaps his advanced armor is some kind of new toy they were developing for the military. Who knows.
Freeman only knew that he couldn't leave such a threat behind him. This man was definitely dangerous – although Freeman wasn't sure if it was for his potent weaponry, skills of war that is every marine's wet dream, or his possible insanity.
If Freeman would've taken the time to think carefully, he would've remembered that Doom first appeared from thin air, accompanied by a green flash, just like most monsters. He would've also realized that Doom's tactical skills, posture and knowing military sign language were clues to his military origin, what was impossible if his 'experimental armor' is really a Black Mesa product. If that was the case, a scientist should've tested it.
Anyway, there were many more tiny clues to prove Doom's mental healthiness, but Freeman didn't had the time, nor patience to seek them out.
He was sure this man is insane, and his finger tightened on the trigger.
He was preparing to blast this man into kingdom come…