Half-Life 2: Decaying Reinstatement

by antihero276

Post Episode 2. Corporal Adrian Shephard is awoken from his stasis to a dark world he is a stranger in. Memory distorted and sent into the Combine occupation of former America, he must fight his way through City 1, overseen by the Consul. With invaluable help from the hardened survivors of the Resistance and their leader, Anticitizen One, whose life and destiny is woven with his.

3. Chapter 2: Underbelly

He walked.

There was nothing else he could do but walk. Shephard walked, guided on by his night vision goggles, dwelling within his comforting green world. The familiarity of it. Passing chain-link fences. Ladders to higher levels, up to different manholes leading to the streets, and catwalks leading to doors. Passing abandoned work stations... eventually, he reached a few old, cobwebbed lights in an abandoned way station, shining down from overhead. Illuminating the tracks ahead. There were some empty, smashed up vending machines along the walls along each side of the tracks, without lights... and some closed and locked up ticket booths. There were some televisions and radios set up on some crates, but they were all broken down. And bodies, clad in rotted, torn clothes... reduced to grinning skeletons by the passage of time, or picked apart, torn to pieces. The world had moved on... and become something far different. The area was cluttered with garbage and junk... backpacks, toys, empty food tins, crates... everything abandoned, as though a mass of people had been here before, dropped everything they were doing. Or there had been a slaughter. There were bullet holes in some of the bodies, shell casings... but nothing else that gave a complete picture.

The place was derelict, and had been for years. He even found a single empty, rusted out subway car on the tracks and took a moment to look inside... to find many more bodies within, sealed like a tomb. He didn't know who they were, who they had been... but they were men, women and children. Small bodies, still clutching to their parents, even in death. He paused for a moment as he watched them, troubled by the sight. Jaw tightening in the mask. Before retracting from the window, stepping off the back of the subway car and continuing on down the tracks. Other than himself and the scurrying squeaking rats, nothing else breathed where he was, below the City. Not yet. But if what the old man had said was true, that was liable to change. He kept the wrench close, and constantly sweeping the area with his vision, his low, muffled breaths passing through the filters. Through it all, he tried to remember... where he had come from. What had happened before all... this. Each time he tried, he either drew blanks... or distorted images... like trying to remember a dream. It was frustrating.

Now and again, he passed a more open section on one of the sides, fenced off heavily... but he could glimpse from the tracks, through the gates and fencing out into parts of the city, out into the sewers and the sea. He stopped each time he came across one for a bit. It had begun to rain, heavily outside... the constant patter of the rain growing more audible each time he approached these open sections. He could see the distant lights of the helicopters, passing over the waters, searching them amid the night storm. He saw some of their search light covered boats as well, heading out to find him... on the chance he'd taken the canals. He could still hear the distant sirens, ringing in the night, consisting of an unknowable number of Combine. All of it out looking for him. For reasons only they knew. At a certain point, he was able to spot the hulking dark tower again through a crumbled section of wall... the Citadel, Sam had called it. He studied it uneasily through the rain with his night vision goggles. Hundreds... thousands of blinking lights were flying off it... part of the tower's illuminated midsection had retracted, like a living being's rib cage, releasing the same Scanners that had found him before. The tower was alive... like some sentient, eldritch horror.

Was it a common response, for a stranger being seen in their city? Or was he some kind of exception? Would they have gone these lengths to find anyone else? Shephard shook his head, and tried not to contemplate it... and what they had planned for him, if he too was caught. If not for there only currently being a single path to walk down, he imagined he'd get lost easily enough. He felt loneliness... down here, but didn't find it to be a bad or ignoble thing. He knew being alone... he remembered that, felt it. It was part of him. He was alone. There had been people, faces, that meant something to him... but he found it tiring trying to remember them, they kept flitting beyond his grasp. Or flickered... always there, but not quite. Instead, he kept Sam in mind. The kindness he'd shown. He remembered Sam as clear as his night vision. He'd only known him briefly, but it was a start. He was real, not an uncertain thing. The old man had put him on a path, a road in the darkness, that might yet make some sense. It was all he had, a goal, and the only hope he had left. He would never let himself forget the old Marine.

Around the next bend came the powerful echoing rapports of gunshots, that froze Shephard in his tracks. The shots rang all the way through the subway tunnels, before dying off into the distance. He rose the wrench and looked ahead, to the light and noises emanating from it.

He stood perfectly still, listening to what he could. He could hear the distant chattering of more synthesized voices, and the radios. And shouting... a man and woman's ordinary voices, ringing up towards him. The sounds of struggle. He was too far away to make out the words... but nothing about it sounded good. He felt no particular desire to investigate... to find out what it was, but he also didn't feel a desire not to look either. And turning around, finding another tunnel or going back to the surface was out of the question. Sam had instructed him on what to do, given him orders... and he wasn't about to break them for anything. Regardless of the feeling of wariness coursing through him. After a long pause, he began to move again, a little quicker, but still taking care to keep his movements as quiet as possible, avoiding crunching along some of the gravel along the way. He followed the light and the voices to their source. The closer he got, the clearer the voices got... and reaching the bend in the metro tunnel, Shephard paused and crouched down low, peering around it carefully. There was a big blur of illumination through his night vision lenses... powerful lights played havoc with the vision.

He blinked a bit painfully and turned off the night vision, allowing the nearly depleted battery symbol on his heads up display to recharge, while he looked ahead. It was a long stretch of tracks, that this time ran in two divided directions... he had reached a turn off point, in the tracks, where a train could be diverted... some cross junction. But a large metal gate had been dropped down over one side of the tracks, preventing any movement beyond it. It was another abandoned station... with a number of catwalks, stairs and ladders over head leading up to the surface, and the tracks were heavily illuminated, not merely by some of the stations lights, but by a floating light source. A blinking, beeping City Scanner floated over the scene, shining a spotlight down on the group of individuals in question, recording every second of it. There were half a dozen Civil Protection officers, clad in their familiar masks and black and dark green body armor and uniforms. They had formed a tight circular perimeter, and five of their mask's blue eyes glowed in the dark malevolently. Each one was brandishing the familiar electrical stun batons down by their sides, as well as a small caliber grey and black pistol, of a make he hadn't seen before.

They were watching over what was unfolding, as surely as the Scanner. Shephard saw at the head of the group was a CP Officer he hadn't before... in different attire from the others. He was a tall, lean figure and wore a long, flowing black leather trench coat over his equally dark body armor, save the red patch on his chest and the differing emblem on his shoulder from the others. The crimson all seeing eye resided on his chest plate and shoulder, standing out bright against the light. His mask and helmet, while white like those of his subordinates, was shaped differently... resembling more a mechanical skull than a mere gas mask. Where the other five's lenses shone a cold blue, his burned. The sight of the red eyes stirred inside Shephard somewhere, with familiarity, that he couldn't quite place. The red eyed CP officer was not holding the standard issue stun baton or pistols of his subordinates, rather down at his side he held an object that appeared to be a smooth metal socket wrench. The other gloved hand was holding a large smoking pistol, different from the others.. of a make Shephard realized almost at once. A classic Colt Python revolver, made with a blue grey steel of sorts. Off to the side on the tracks lay the bullet ridden fresh corpse of a man shot up beyond all possible recognition. Blood poured freely from beneath him, staining the same manner of blue boiler suit the men and women in the apartment complex had worn.

Next to his body, in the middle of the surrounding group of officers, were two other people the officers had trapped on their knees. Another young man wearing a dark balaclava hiding his face, this time in a raggedy outfit that looked pieced together from several. Another officer was restraining a young woman beside him. She had short, dark brown hair, with a pair of goggles perched up on top of it, and was wearing a pair of tattered, faded blue jeans. Wrapped around her was a long black leather coat, not unlike the one the officer in charge of the patrol was wearing, and the hood of a sweater poking out behind the collar. Unlike the officer in question, the symbol on the shoulder's armband was different, lighter... there were a couple customized features of the outfit, that he couldn't make out from the distance and close proximity of the officers. For his part, the team leader focused his attention on the young woman, and was addressing her, his synthesized voice deeper than others Shephard had heard before. There was all the cold amusement in it of a predator that had cornered it's prey.

"The Scanner identifies that you are the Green Subprime. Overwatch's records have just confirmed as much. Known ranking Resistance member. Companion of Anticitizen One. Wanted on numerous counts of terrorism, murder, arson, theft, possession of firearms, possession of stolen property, kidnapping, vandalism and verbal abuse. We've struck big here this evening, gentlemen. How do you plead in the face of these charges, Anticitizen Green?"

"Too hung over for this shit. In the meantime, go fuck yourself.", Came the young woman's dry, deadpan voice. Lined with contempt and disgust for the CP Officer. She looked right back at him with full defiance, her voice, like the CP Officer, echoing down the tunnel towards Shephard where he hid in the shadows. "You caught me on an off day, fellas. I fucked up. Woop dee do. Get it over with."

"Charming. And wearing the stolen uniform of a Peace Officer. You know what happens to CP killers in lock down? If not, you're going to find out."

"He didn't need it anymore at the time. Took awhile to wash out most of the bloodstains. Friend of mine took his boots before I got a chance. I'll take yours instead. Mine are falling apart. You might be mooks for baldy, but you have good taste in clothing. Beats wearing the rags you hand out to us. Why do you think we scavenge for shit?"

The CP gave a simple hand gesture to one of his subordinates in response. At once, the blue eyed subordinate struck her in the gut with the stun baton. She released a howl of pain, shifting on the spot as the volts passed through her body, her limbs shaking wildly. While she was down, the same officer that had struck her kicked her roughly in the side and then turned her over and punched her in the face with a gloved hand, before kicking her in the stomach, knocking all the air out of her. She gasped, laying bloody and helplessly for a moment, struggling to breath as all the Officers watched on pitilessly, and her friend struggled in vain to help her. The blue eyed officers were more amused than anything. After a long passing moment of struggling, she seemed to get her second wind, forcing herself to rise back to her knees, coughing and breathing raggedly. And then she began to laugh... it started quietly, and picked up to a demented, mirth filled, echoing laugh that carried through the entire station. Coughing and choking, laughing still, she spat up some blood on the red eyed officer's boots, wiping her mouth with her sleeve, looking back up at him with a grin.

"That the... best your guys can do, Elite? I've fought Zombies... that hit harder."

"Hardly. Laugh while you can, degenerate. We know why you are here. You and your friends came down here looking for an escaping undocumented Interloper. Undoubtedly with the intent of aiding and abetting. Taking him back to your base. Where is he?"

"Don't know what you're talking about. We were going for a walk, Jenkins broke rank and ran ahead, you guys murdered him for it. Didn't know running was an executable offence. This is supposed to be America, isn't it? What are you going to do to us now? Off world reassignment? Oh yeah, your portal tech is shit and Citadel 17 blew up. Oops."

"A lie among many. From the lips of a deceiver and a terrorist. Do not test me. I will ask you another question. If I do not like the answer, there will be consequences. Where is the entrance to The Hive located? Continue to play stupid and ignorant and you will regret it."

"Don't tell him anything, Rae!", Came the muffled voice of the her friend in the balaclava. He grunted and struggled against the officer holding him some more, in vain. "He's got nothing!"

The young man took a baton between the shoulder blades for his troubles. He yelled out in pain, the officer holding the electrical device against him, constantly stunning him. Only gradually did the baton draw back, leaving him twitching and writhing on the tracks. Face down. The girl watched on in deepening anger, at last looking back at the interrogator and responding.

"You're the big know it all. You have an army. Walking fucking alien tanks. Figure it out. What do you think is going to happen when my friends find out you caught me? Who do you think is going to come around knocking on each of your doors come tomorrow night?", She asked of him turn, a humorless smirk crossing her bloodied lips. A slight shift in atmosphere draped it's self over a couple of the Officers... they shifted uneasily, looking at one another and she didn't miss it. "Oh. You guys know. Your buddies look a bit nervous. Probably pissing their pants. Can't blame them. That'd be funny for the Scanners to record, your remains hanging from a street light when Anticitizen One is finished with you. Send it to Overwatch. The Citadel. The Consul. Your wives. If the Rangers can't find The Hive, why do you dumb fucks that only got lucky think you can? Hey, I'd stick my middle finger at the camera, but you know. Go ahead. Shoot me. See how long you live afterwards. Looking over your shoulders for the rest of your short lives."

"That will be quite enough. Negotiation is over."

The red eyed leader nodded to the subordinate that had beaten down the young man. At once, the boy was dragged back up to his knees, and grabbed by the hair, holding his head upright. Forcing him to look up at the leader. With a simple, almost lazy gesture, the Elite placed the barrel of the revolver against the boy's forehead. From his position, Shephard could hear the young man breathing raggedly with terror... and even the girl had been instantly shut up by the gesture. Fear and understanding widening in her eyes.

"I have orders to interrogate and take in Resistance members alive. Only if they are of some renown and importance.", The leader informed her, pressing the barrel of the gun deeper into the front of the young man's skull. He looked slowly, lazily back to the girl's suddenly contorted, panicked expression, as she realized what he was getting at. His finger was loose on the trigger, gently touching it in a teasing fashion."Postmortem scans reveal your other friend was of neither category. How important is this one? Let's see what the lady thinks, shall we?"

As if on cue, the City Scanner flew down closer to the captives, hovering in front of the young man's face. The ocular lens parted and shifted, and a glowing beam of light began to pass over his form. After no more than a few moments of scanning, the beam faded away and the face plates retracted. It floated back over the scene and continued shining down it's light. Simultaneously came the cold, oddly lovely, accented voice echoing through the station.

"Anticitizen Carmine matches no known records of Resistance hierarchy. Guilty of misdemeanors. Theft. Vandalism. Evasion."

"That's what I thought. Thank you, darling."

"Wait! Don't kill him! It's me you want, you son of a bitch! He's nothing to you!", The girl spoke up quickly, struggling forward against the man restraining her. Her eyes bulged wildly as they stared between the red eyed Elite and the hand cannon. "Hey, point it at me! That's my weapon, you point it the fuck at me!"

"Final warning. Where is the Interloper, where is Anticitizen One and where is the entrance to The Hive? You have five seconds to comply."

"Please, leave him the fuck alone!"

"Rae...", The young man spoke up at last tiredly. There was defeat in his voice, as his bloodied face looked over to the young woman. His eyes met hers, and he shook his head. Smiling at her sadly. "It's ok. Tell my brothers, and my ma-

The trigger was pulled, the thunderclap echoing down to Shephard, ringing in his ears. The front of the young man's head exploded into a pulp and he hit the train tracks unceremoniously, a blood covered CP Officer letting go of his collar. There was muffled laughter as the CP brushed off the front of his gore streaked armor with a lazy gesture, only making it messier, to the amusement of the others. The moment the trigger was pulled, Shephard was struck as well... by a barrage of images. Figures dressed dark, masked... and with glowing red goggles. They were coming at him and his team, firing, running quickly around, darting this way and that... jumping nimbly out of sight. Ambushing them. He breathed deeply, in a sudden panic from the alien memory, slamming back against the concrete wall, out of sight from the CPs. He heard his fellow Marines again, as though they were around him... and the world of the underground faded away.

In his mind's eye, two of the dark figures stood in a hallway, a masked man in an armored black bodysuit with an assault rifle, and a lithe masked woman in a catsuit. Assassins... Black Ops. Sent by the government, after the HECU had failed... to accomplish something. The man was grumbling about about messes they always had to clean up. A Marine wearing a beret sat on the ground in front of them, badly beaten and wounded, wearing the same power armored uniform as Shephard. He was breathing raggedly, defeated, legs shot out from under him. Thick streams of scarlet ran and flowed over the floor. The masked woman pressed her silenced Glock to the back of the private's head and promptly blew his brains out. He collapsed at their feet, blood draining... a Marine he'd known with years of training reduced to a broken, still body. The man and woman's red glowing lenses looked up, then... back at him. Seeing him. Shephard breathed hard and deeply, at the images returning to him. They were from reality... it had happened, somewhere, in a long metal corridor not unlike the winding tunnel. A shrill sound brought him back from that reality, and to another. One no less unpleasant.

"Carmine! No!", The girl was screaming from around the corner. Still breathing deep, muffled breaths through his mask, Shephard forced himself to look around the corner again, holding the wrench tightly like a life preserver. "I'm going to kill you, you bastard! Do you hear me?! You're fucking dead!"

"Impressive taste in weapons. These pre war models are getting hard to come by. Heh.", The Elite Metro Officer chuckled, along with his bemused subordinates. He turned the smoking blue steel revolver over slightly, admiring it, and looked back down at the young woman being held down. There was a boot pressed against her head, as she was forced to watch the blood and brains pouring from her friend's broken skull. "And you have a sense of humor. Good. The Curator will take that from you too, on The Island. Until then... she's all yours, gentlemen."

There was a ruckus of synthesized laughter. With another hand signal, the officers resumed their beatings, surrounding her and taking turns one after another on the young woman. Alternating between punches, kicks, baton swings and charged baton swings. She screamed, shouted and swore, struggling back in vain, as Sam had done. They did not strike lethally, and pulled most of the hits, but it made no difference. It all amounted to the same thing. They were doing it to send a message... to beat it into her. That they had power over her, and that she was nothing. That struggling meant nothing. Her life was in their hands, and the masked thugs intended to brutalize it, before delivering her to the professionals that would do worse. After they had their way with her... in God knew how many other ways than beatings. They probably wouldn't stop even when she stopped resisting. Shephard had seen enough. Too much. More than enough. If he had acted quicker... if he'd done something, maybe he could have saved the boy. Like he could have saved the old man, if he'd made a different choice. But he had frozen up... something about what he had watched had held him fast, lost in memory, what he had felt in it.

Now, anger replaced the fear the memory had elicited, and his heart was still beating quickly. Anger at himself for his inaction... and anger for the deliberately, pointlessly cruel figures in the distance. Hurting those that couldn't fight back. Abusing authority. Authority they had seized by force, stamping out any dissent or disagreement. He resolved himself to do what he should have done to the CPs back at Sam's apartment. What he would have done if he could have. Shephard stood back up, stepped out of the shadows into the middle of the track, and began to march down towards the group. He didn't think during the purposeful walk... his mind and will were locked down and joined on a course of action, and his vision burned. The Scanner, when the distance had closed dramatically, was the first thing to spot him moving closer. It turned over and shone a beam of light down on him. His shadow flitted along the walls of the station, beneath the Scanner's light and the one's along the ceiling high overhead. It issued him meaningless warnings in a cold voice that he didn't hear any longer.

And like it had in the apartment, it recorded him for The Citadel. More close ups to alert their forces with. It didn't exist any longer... only those standing ahead, in front of him. The officers beating the girl. Their leader, with an air of boredom, overlooking it. The blue eyed subordinates were the next to realize that he was there, one by one... they drew back from their orders and stood like statues in surprise at his sudden appearance, and his appearance it's self. The girl in the coat was the next after them to spot him, from where she lay at their boots, her bleeding lips parting unconsciously in numb shock. Eyes widening. Bruises already forming on her features. Shephard drew back the wrench over his shoulder, reached out with it and made contact. The Elite was the last one to realize what was happening, noticing his blue eyed subordinates and the beaten girl staring at him, and slowly turning back around to face him as well.

"What the fu-

The weight of the pipe wrench caught the helmet and mask of the leader with his fullest strength, breaking one of the glowing red lenses, part of the mouth piece and knocking him over to the ground like a rag doll, long coat flapping with him. The socket wrench fell out of the CP's gloved hands, and he nearly lost the revolver as he landed in a heap somewhere off to the side of the tracks. Shephard kept him and his position well in mind, as he turned his attention to the others. He struck the next one across the head as well, sending him flying against the wall... by the time he'd gotten through with knocking over the third, realization had returned to the stunned patrol, and some sense of order, in spite of the sudden terror hanging in the air. The fourth of them swung his baton at Shephard's face... Shephard rose the wrench just in time to block it, inches from his mask. It sparked blue, illuminating him further, clashing with the green light of his gas mask. With a twist, he slammed his arm into and shattered the CP's wrist and got the baton away from him, his synthesized screams filling the tunnel. Shephard swept his legs out from under him and brought down his combat boot on the back of his neck when he was down next to the girl, shattering his spine with an ax kick.

His screams died away almost at once... replaced by a sort of other scream, from his uniform... a shrill, carrying beeping, like a heart rate monitor flat lining. He liked the sound of it. The fifth CP cleared his pistol from it's holster and hurriedly snapped off a few shots in Shepard's direction. Most of them missed in his hurry and struck the ground behind Shephard... one of them struck him dead on in the chest. The pain of the impact, a muffled bee sting, coursed through his body, but his armor deflected the round. He was neither slowed, moved... or amused. The adrenaline surged through his body, either naturally, or from the suit, he wasn't sure. And the pain of the shot only made him angrier. In his lenses, the monitor signalling his armor's power meter had dropped to ninety eight... and already he was responding to the CP's gunshot. Shephard stuck the electrical baton into his stomach, and when he had doubled over screaming and writhing, caved in the back his skull with the wrench with all his might, breaking through the mask amid the sickening crunching of bone. The synthesized voice through the broken mask gurgled up blood, spitting it all over the place and collapsing backwards, twitching and dying, EKG meter beeping.

Throwing aside the Baton, he retrieved the pistol the officer had dropped. The armor's recognition software attempted to recognize the weapon, and how many rounds were left... red lights blinked on in his lenses, indicating an error on both accounts. Noting the technology was incompatible. Ignoring it, he emptied the rest of the clip into the fifth CP before he could do the same. The gun spat bullets with a slightly muffled manner... it didn't have much of a kick in his hand either, but they flew straight and true like a Glock. The CP was riddled full of leaking holes, armor and uniform shredded apart, and Shephard threw aside the empty pistol as the CP fell backwards, EKG monitor shrieking again satisfactorily. He turned back around on the remaining CPs... the third one he'd knocked aside was bearing down on him with a baton, shouting incoherent orders at him to comply. Just as the Scanner floating overhead was.

They shouted codes. They called for backup. None of it meant anything to him, then. The more time they spent shouting, the less focus they had on him. And they were afraid, which made them stupid. He gave them his complete attention. The CP was moving slowly, pathetically... still not quite realizing what had hit him before, and not fully recovered. It was a simple matter breaking his arm in several places with the wrench, twisting him around on the spot and locking his own arm around the CP's throat, disarming him of his weapons. The CP screamed and struggled to get out of his grip, with his remaining arm, in vain. With a quick jerking motion, tilting the CP's head to the side, Shephard broke his neck cleanly. Shephard let him go, and he fell to the tracks uselessly amid the monitor beeping. Shephard acted on instinct, every bit a honed machine himself. By now, the leader with the sole glowing red eye had stood back up, recovered, risen the revolver and aimed it down at Shephard.

Not wanting to find out how much bigger a punch the power armor could take, Shephard grabbed the second man he'd knocked over and put him between himself and the round that blasted out the barrel of the revolver. The roar echoed through the entire tunnel. The force was such that it nearly punched all the way through the CP... and nearly knocked Shephard over. Digging his boots into the tracks, he held fast, still gripping the body as he marched toward the red eyed Elite in the trench coat. The second round struck the corpse, and before a third round could get out, Shephard lifted and threw the man in the Elite's direction and rushed him. The Elite got out of the way of the body just in time... but the split second distraction was all he needed to get closer. Shephard aimed the wrench into the Elite's stomach, but the leader was able to slide back just in time. Instead he grabbed the Elite by the wrist and struggled with him over the gun. He tried to break the CP's arm, but his armor was too thick, and he couldn't get at a good angle. The third round went off in the air between them and hit the top of the tunnel, raining concrete and Shephard gritted his teeth, eyes narrowing intently within the mask. Ears within the helmet ringing.

This one was good. Strong. Skilled. Every bit as he was cruel. He'd recovered well from the blow to the face... his armor, mask and helmet were superior to the others, and he was more disciplined. He twisted around the Elite on the spot, kicking out at his legs where he could. He didn't dare remove one of his hands from the struggle... the impulse came to headbutt him, but with the gun between them it wasn't going to happen. It was difficult... but then, it was no less difficult for the Elite. Shephard could see one of his exposed blue eyes through the broken, sparking lens in the mask... it was narrowed with rage, exertion... and panic. By contrast, Shephard merely grew colder, even as his body grew warmer, the adrenaline surging through his veins as he concentrated with all he had on overpowering the other. The Elite's garbled voice emanated then from the damaged vocal synthesizer in his mask, washing over Shephard... getting the message across.

"Die... motherfucker!"

And then some.

The revolver inched back and forth between them... but the more it went on, it slowly inched back in the direction of the Elite... and with a push, Shephard locked his hand into the spot and stuck it under his mask's chin. There was a single moment, one that would stay with Shephard... as the Elite's eye realized the outcome and accepted it was over. Something was in there that might have been respect, as much as horror. Even as he continued to resist. The struggle had been brief, but brutal. Without a second's hesitation, Shephard squeezed the trigger and took off most of his head. Warm blood splattered all over his own lenses, blinding him, dripping down over them. He rose an arm to his mask and wiped it off, bringing back some semblance of vision. The struggling had stopped in an instant, as his ears rang painfully... and still the Elite stood, twitching on the spot, with what little remained of his head and helmet. Body not yet realizing it was dead. Shephard gently took the gun away and let him fall backward, breathing deeply as he glanced down, noting the bits of skull, hair and grey matter splattered on the front of his power armor.

Unlike with the CP pistol, the armor registered and recognized the revolver, an icon of it appearing in the weapon inventory categories. The ammunition tracker activated as well, indicating only a single round was left in the gun. All the while, the muffled whine of the EKG meter whined shrilly somewhere all around him, signalling death... deaths, a chorus of electronic sounds, while his own heart throbbed rapidly in his own head. His ears were still ringing, and took some time for the noise to fade away. There was a sudden flash of light behind him that brought him out of his reverie, and as the twitching Elite bled all over his boots, Shephard turned on the spot, holding the wrench and revolver down at his sides. The Scanner hovered nosily in front of him, documenting him, sending what had just happened back to Overwatch... and everyone else the footage would reach.

He found that he liked the idea of that. Wanted them to see it. Especially the one they called the Consul.

"Individual, you are charged with capital malcompliance. Anti-citizen status approved."

Without a single thought, Shephard leveled the revolver at it's ocular lens, peered down the sights and put the last round through it. The punch of the revolver kicked in his hand, and reduced the Scanner to scrap metal. It exploded all at once in mid air, sending sparks and heated, burning metal in every direction, raining. What was left of it hit the ground in a heap, among the rest of the dead. Only then did Shephard lower the smoking barrel of the emptied revolver, breathing deeply as the adrenaline continued to dwell. Killing had been instinct, all of it. He'd been trained for it. He was good at it. He'd done a lot of it. It hadn't felt like work, even as he had exerted himself. He didn't feel regret for what had unfolded... he had simply done what he had to. It had felt right. Fun, even. What he should have done to them earlier. What should have befell them sooner. He only wished he'd had the gun back at the apartment. They had brought it on themselves. What he did feel was a numbness, a distance from the violence, even as he'd carried it out. It took away his confusion, and gave him purpose. A goal. An objective. Clarity. He tilted his head side to side slightly, the muscles there having bunched up, popping them methodically. The low ranking thugs of the Civil Protection had been simple to handle... but if they started sending more like the headless Elite, it would be a problem very quickly. He had the feeling taking that one off guard had been the only reason it hadn't been him getting his head blown off.

It had been close. Closer than he cared to dwell much further upon. He closed his eyes for a few seconds. And slowly, very slowly, his breathing balanced out. His eyes within the mask opened again, cold, and moved among the bloodied bodies... of the CPs, and the two executed citizens... and they stopped on a wide eyed young woman lying among the bodies. Her face was bloodied and badly bruised, watching it all from where she lie. Her mouth agape. Their eyes met, his unblinking... and she spoke her first, astonished words to him.

"Holy shit."

Shephard looked back at her silently for a moment... then past her wearily, looking all around the abandoned station as if she'd not said anything. He surveyed the area for any more hostiles. He couldn't see any more of them coming, nor hear the blaring of radios. At least down the tracks she and her friends had come from. He turned on the spot and looked back in the direction of the tunnel he had come from, while behind him, he absently heard her rising back to her feet by herself, rummaging around among the bodies. He paid her little attention beyond that... instead, his attention was drawn over to the separate cut off tunnel, next to the one he had come from. He studied the metal gate for a few moments, before looking past it, to find lights on the other side. A couple of them flared and flickered, in danger of going out... but they continued to blink, illuminating through the gate the pathway beyond.

He could spot different light in the distance, probably coming from outside... and he was about to look on again, when something caught his attention. Eyes narrowing slowly. One of the shadows against the wall had moved. It was spread out, tall, inky and alive, and shifting like an entity that only partially existed. He watched it for a few moments. It was as though the air around it were dancing with heat, shimmering in the summer... or the desert, for that matter. A mirage, surely. Then a pair of divided, glowing green lights flickered within the shadow like beacons, apart from one another, and vanished again. Leaving only that rippling, towering shadow watching him. Shephard blinked his eyes several times, unsure if he was truly seeing whatever he was... or if it was a hallucination, when her voice shook him out of it.

"You must be our guy. Shephard, huh? When Sam said a soldier... we thought he was full of shit. Where the hell did you find that kit? How did you pull that off?"

Her voice came again from somewhere behind him. He turned back around slightly to find her kneeling next to the Elite with the missing head, nonchalantly pealing off his long leather boots and her shabbier pair. Putting them on, tightening them and standing again, testing them out... with visible satisfaction. Kicking aside her old boots she turned and moved over towards him, standing closely in front of him, holding an empty hand out. The other held and offered one of the pistols the CPs had been using, as well as a few clips of ammunition. She had also retrieved the tool, the socket wrench, that the Elite had taken from her. It hung from a tool belt on her slender waist... and for the first time, he got a good look at her in the light.

She was young... couldn't have been much older than eighteen or twenty. She wasn't tall, but she wasn't short either... though a fair bit shorter than him. She wore a blood stained white shirt under the open trench coat. Over top of it was some light body armor covering her torso, Kevlar, with the words I Love New York spray painted on it... within a red heart. Her coat had a yellow smiley face button pinned to the lapel, and another with a peace sign, while there was a strangely familiar orange symbol, stitched on to the armband on her shoulder. Her somewhat short, thick, wavy dark brown hair was a bit messy, from having been roughed up. The goggles she wore atop her head were a deep red. In spite of the beating she'd received, she did not look unpleasant... rather she still had that strong edge in her expression, like her voice. She had rallied herself quickly, and wasn't overtly intimidated by him, but there was deep unmistakable intrigue in her eyes. Fascination, that he wasn't used to. She continued on, just as steadily, gesturing to the weapon in his hand.

"That's my mother's hand cannon you're holding. Bastard got it away from me. Here, I'll trade you. Wouldn't dream of keeping you around deprived of a firearm. Though the way you swing that wrench around reminds me of the Doc. You'll get along."

Shephard studied the emptied blue grey steel revolver in his hand for a moment, turning it over. It was almost a shame to part with it... but it was hers. And he'd used it well enough. He passed it back to her and took up the other pistol, examining it carefully and sliding the clips into one of the pouches on his vest. Again the software in his heads up display, in the suit, tried and failed to recognize the weapons. At once, she reached into one of her coat pockets, popped open the revolver and began to reload the cylinder with long brass 44. shells. Modified to handle those shells, evidently... the Colt Python was supposed to be for 357.'s, he remembered. As she had done with the socket wrench she'd recovered, he hooked the pipe wrench back into his belt absently. Then he turned back away from her again, looking to the gate once more. The living, misshapen shadow that had stirred beyond it in the flickering light was gone. Shephard narrowed his eyes, looking for it again... just as uncertain if he'd imagined it or not. Finding himself mildly annoyed with the girl for her interruption. The distant blaring of sirens had picked up overhead, louder than before, echoing through the tunnels. He felt a tug on his bloodied arm, and a hand enclosing around his, pulling him out of his contemplation on the matter and forcing him to look back down at her.

"Hey, pay attention buddy. I'm the only one that can get you out of here. Come with me if you want to live. More of them are coming.", The girl informed him, looking back at him closely. One of her eyes... a vivid green, he only then realized, was already swelling from the hits she'd taken, but her tone was rock solid and ready for anything. She gestured with her revolver barrel to the corpses of the CPs spread all over the tracks. "When they die, it sends out a signal to their command, they can zero in on the last location of their units. They're all tagged. If we don't get back to Outpost 13, they'll box us in down here. We'll be screwed, and what Carmine and Jenkins died for coming down here to save your ass will be worthless. Do you understand?"

Shephard looked back at her silently and still for another moment, before nodding at last. It seemed to satisfy her. He did understand... this was her world, not his, he would defer to her judgement, as Sam had wanted. For the time being. Civilian or not, he had yet to see a proper official functioning chain of command. And from what he'd overheard from Civil Protection, he was starting to doubt he ever would. She didn't even have time to bring back the bodies of her friends, or bury them... instead she was seeing through the objective she had been given. Helping him. He would honor that. Still holding on to his free hand, she pulled him away from where he stood among the bodies, leading him past them, and back down towards the tunnel she and her group had arrived from. Shephard glanced among the bodies... to his handiwork, and that of the Combine. He was certain the tone had been set for what his time here would be like. It was going to get worse before it got better. If it ever got better.

He let her pull him along. He didn't know what the hell was going on... every bit of information was alien to him, what the hell had happened to New York? How far was the reach of the Combine? Was it just America, or all over the world like this? He remembered the dark tower... it didn't leave his thoughts, from the moment he'd first seen it... especially lit up in the stormy night skies as it was before. All the advanced technology and devices he'd seen that should not have existed... how much had he missed? What had he missed? How long had it been? And since what? The questions trickled in gradually, building up, and only leaving him that much more confused and weary. Frustrated with the way his mind grew blank when he tried to dwell on the most pressing questions. Ultimately it didn't matter... he was interrupted from his futile attempts anyways. Then, overhead and behind them came the slamming of doors, the tapping of boots racing down stairways and along the balconies overlooking the station.

Both Shephard and the girl looked up, to find teams of CPs streaming down from the surface through manholes and the metro station's main access points, pouring into the train station through doors. There were a few more of the Elites visible among them with red eyes, heavily armed and armored, guiding their blue eyed subordinates as they raced down the stairs, synthesized voices issuing instructions and long coats flapping behind them. Even the subordinates were more heavily armed than they had been before... there were pistols among them along with stun sticks clenched in each glove, but now their arsenal included black submachine guns of a make that, like the pistol, he hadn't seen before. A couple Scanners floated down from the surface with them, instantly shining their lights down on the pile of blood soaked, shot and broken bodies, and upon Shephard and the girl, all the dark clad CP's attention instantly shifting to them, weapons aiming down towards them. They began to shout over their suit radios for the pair of escaping Anticitizens to halt and remain where they were... but in an instant, they were already racing down the tunnel away from the station as fast as they could. Gunfire tore up the area behind them where they had been standing, roaring automatic fire, the bellow of their submachine guns. It only spurred Shephard on faster, the stomping of his boots and hers tapping along the metal tracks and gravel filling the tunnel, his muffled breathing loud in his ears.

Not far behind it came the noises of the CPs, the blaring of their voices, climbing down ladders and stairs, scrambling over the platform and down on the tracks they had just come from. Some of them rappelled down on lines from the opening sewer gratings above, other teams climbed down the available ladders, and some even simply dropped themselves down behind the fleeing pair, impacting heavily and rising again. Shephard looked back one time, to find separate patrols of glowing blue eyed CPs, and dots of red, all linking up and giving pursuit. Their eyes shone in the darkness. The times they got into it at least... but light kept shining their way, illuminating the white masked figures. By now they had reached the pile of bodies, and left some of their men behind with a pair of Elites to set up a crime scene, and occupy the abandoned station. More and more City Scanners flitted and levitated around the area, coming down from the city streets above... like the CPs some remained where they were, while others gave chase, recording the pursuing officers and the quarry of their pursuit along the way. The artificial woman's icy, accented voice carried back up towards them, overtaking even the low, guttural chatter and shouting of the CPs.

"Attention all ground protection teams, judgement waiver is now in effect. Capital prosecution is discretionary. Apprehend infection. Clamp. Sterilize."

"Move it soldier boy! Stop looking back! You heard the bitch! Go go go!"

She didn't have to tell him twice. He looked back ahead away from the swarming teams, to their path beyond, moving around winding bends, reaching an occasional divide in the tracks or two separate tunnels. She knew the way, and led them down the proper one each time. The best they could hope for was that some of the teams got divided during the pursuit, broke ranks, splitting their numbers and ended up lost. Even as he ran, and his heart raced, his mind worked out various forms of strategy. More gunfire rang out behind them, striking a wall near them and kicking up cement dust and sparks. The girl swore and ran quickly, keeping close to his side and keeping in step with him the whole way. She retracted her hand from his bloodied gloved one eventually when they had a relative head start, and reached into one of her pockets, producing a short wave hand held walkie-talkie. Pressing down on the talk button, she shouted into it as they fled the pursuing CPs, the echo of their voices and boots still not too far behind, regardless of a slight distance.

"Norton! Come in Norton! Carmine and Jenkins are KIA! Found Shephard! Get everyone at the Outpost armed and ready! Prepare to set up the sentries! They're following us!"

"Move your ass Rae! We've got reports of their teams converging on the tunnels! I don't know what the hell you did, but you stirred up the goddamn bonfire!"

"We're almost there!"

"Green Subprime and Interloper detected! Halt! Drop your weapons and comply!"

The synthesized voice shouted in front of them as they passed around the next bend, as the girl still held the radio to her mouth. Two blue eyed CPs of a patrol stood together with their pistols trained down in their direction. They'd rappelled down from the open grating manhole above them, a long dark rope hanging down from it. Shephard and the girl reacted on instinct simultaneously at the surprise, and blew them away before they could even get a shot off. Shephard shot one of them down with a few rounds, tearing through various sections of the body armor, while the girl blasted the other with a single round through the torso. They toppled aside on either sides of the track, blood pouring all over their uniforms and pooling, the EKG meters in their suits resonating and flatlining audibly. And posthumously informing their superiors and the other patrols where they had died. The last known location of their killers, Shephard realized wearily. Their system was organized and near flawless... more a military, a collective, than a conventional police force. If this was how Civil Protection operated, already he wondered how the group they called Overwatch ran things. The girl glanced over at him, a bit visibly started from the surprise, but unapologetic for her part in it. He was sure she'd done worse things to survive. They had paused for only a moment, and burst back into motion, leaving the bodies behind with the approaching patrols.

They passed the open manhole ahead that the CPs had come from, and as Shephard looked up, he spotted a third CP at the top of the line, preparing to rappel down. Shephard shot him three times in the back for his trouble, and he screamed, falling off the cord and landing heavily on the tracks behind them, writhing and dying slowly in pain. Shephard didn't give him a backwards glance, he continued on without stopping... and around the subsequent bend, another station platform and stairs came into view. It was smaller than the abandoned one before, and there were crates and junk scattered all over the place. There were a couple separate rusted subway cars on the tracks... and even a few actual cars... it looked more like a junkyard than anything else. There were railings around the platform, and metal crates positioned at certain spots, next to the main metal entrance door of the subway, and scattered at various other sections. There were some cement defensive barriers set up, and some sandbag positions... the place was strategically dug in, and had a good overlooking firing position down at the tunnels below. A couple dozen or more armed people were visible standing up on top the platform... for a second Shephard thought it might be more CPs, but he recognized the blue uniforms almost at once... makeshift, scavenged armor and the shabby, patchy coats and mixed clothes of Citizens.

Resistance members.

None of them wearing the blue or red eyes set in masks of Civil Protection. One of them that he could see, a woman with long tied back blonde hair, wore a thick white coat with a bright red cross stitched on one shoulder, and the other familiar orange symbol on the other... a medic of sorts. Every one of them had the same armbands as the girl on their outfits with the familiar orange logo... and one bald man stood at the forefront of the others, calling to and waving them over to the staircase. He recognized the voice as the man who'd been on the line, talking to Sam, and to the girl. The girl led him over to them, scrambling up the steps and on to the platform. As Shephard began his own ascent, gunfire rang out, striking and sending sparks along the stairs they climbed.

There were shouts as the men and women above took cover... and he turned back to the tunnel they had just left, to find another pair of CPs standing at the mouth of the tunnel. Raising the pistol in both hands, going to one knee, amid the shots ringing out Shephard peered down the sights and shot both of them down precisely, before the Resistance members could get the chance to. Another pair began to rappel down from the tunnel's ceiling close to them, and they hadn't made it half way before Shephard put the rest of the clip into each of them, scoring instant head shots each. Standing back up, he reloaded the pistol rapidly and climbed the rest of the steps with the startled girl and got on to the platform. He looked back over his shoulder, but couldn't see any more arriving, from either the tunnel ahead of the Outpost, or where the CPs had come. They'd managed to get far ahead of the main bulk of their forces in the metro tunnels... the only ones so far that had managed to find them were teams dropping from the surface. Only when he was assured did he turn to the others... to find a sea of assorted faces of the gathered men and women looking back at him, as though he were of another world.

For all he knew... he may as well have been.

"Jesus Christ.", The bald, middle aged man spoke for everybody when they had joined up with the group. Shephard felt his eyes, and everyone else watching him in stunned silence, sizing him up and looking over his blood stained equipment and armor in awe. No differently than the way the citizens in the apartment building had been watching him. Fear, awe and shock. Among other visible emotions. "You're a bad motherfucker. Sam wasn't kidding, was he? Just the man we need, now more than ever."

"Shephard, Outpost 13.", The girl in the long leather trench coat introduced him to the assembled Resistance fighters with a gesture and smirk. She quickly caught on to the way the others were marveling at him, and broke the ice, clearing her throat. "Outpost 13, Shephard."

Some of them welcomed him nervously. Most of them merely stared. All of them broke out into chatter among themselves all at once... and Shephard caught it all.

"Do you think he's really a...-

"Gotta be. Look at him!"

"Could be a spy... what the hell is he-

"-walked out of a military compound...

"Look at that power armor! The Doc is going to have a field day!"

A few of them nodded and murmured in agreement at these words, all of them holding their assortment of scavenged weapons closely, consisting mostly of Combine pistols and submachine guns... and a few SPAS 12 Shotguns. Shephard didn't say anything to them, in spite of the pressure he sensed from them to speak. As though they were waiting for him to say something. Again he felt that sense of distance, from the attention of too many people. He was no celebrity. He didn't even know any one of them. And he had no desire for the spotlight they were shining on him. He merely looked back at them warily, and turned again at the distant echo of radios and synthesized chatter in the tunnel they had come from, far beyond the fresh corpses of the CPs. There were more on the way, the EKGs had seen to that. Shephard rose the pistol in the direction of the bodies, and the tunnel opening, and he prepared for the worst. Now and again he glanced back to the others, while he listened in to the chatter behind him. At least the more important elements of it.

"We need to set up the sentries and get inside, Norton!", The girl in the coat interrupted the chatter at once behind Shephard, getting everyone's attention again. "Now! The rest are coming! Can we get any reinforcements on the radio?"

"We haven't been able to reach anyone yet, Rae. Evacuation is already underway inside. It's just us. We have to hold their forces here at the entrance of the station in the meantime, funnel them all in first while the others escape. ", The man leading the group, Norton, replied immediately, bringing her and Shephard up to speed. With clear reluctance, he looked back over to the girl and continued, rubbing his chin thoughtfully as he spoke. "We can't let them follow us beyond this point... if we don't bog them down here, they'll be able to track our route to The Hive. When it's time for us to go, we'll bring out the turrets to cover our escape. Then we can gradually follow the evacuees out the back platform and maintain a rear guard of the civilians if any of the bastards get through. If we do it right, we can get everyone out of here in time. Either way, this Outpost is royally fucked."

"Maybe... but we can take down a shit load of them before it is. Make Civil Protection at least think twice about coming down here again.", The girl replied with a grim smile... that the man returned agreeably. A couple of people in the group laughed tiredly, clearly worn out. She looked to all the faces around her carefully, stepping over into their midst and instructing them. "Everybody take positions and look alive! And you all better stay that way! Move out!"

The assembled men and women broke off into groups of two, each with a partner. They moved off into different sections around the platform, taking cover behind the sandbag and cement barriers, up close near the edge. Overlapping fields of fire swept back and forth over the platform's staircase, while others aimed down in the direction of tunnel, waiting for the arrival. Despite some competent tactical positioning, every one of them looked tired, overworked and disheveled... not up to par for combat. Not ready. Shephard watched them all, deep in concerned contemplation... when again it was broken by an interruption.

"Hey, uh... buddy. Shephard, wasn't it?", Came a man's voice behind him, and Shephard glanced back to find Norton still standing close. The bald man in the uniform was offering the dark Combine submachine gun he'd been holding. Shephard looked between it and him carefully. "Here, take this. It's an MP7, one of the Combine's work horses. I got another where that came from. You handle the USP good, let's see what you can do with a submachine gun. We don't have many weapons around here, much variety, we've been waiting for a resupply from The Hive... guess we'll be waiting awhile longer, huh? There are ammunition crates around the station, the last of what we've got, if you need some more. Better stock up now while you can, this is going to be a shit show."

Shephard nodded at the man gratefully at once, tucking away the pistol into a holster, and taking the submachine gun up in both hands, one on the handle the other on the foregrip attachment. As it had been with the pistol, his power armor's software attempted to and failed to recognize the make of the weapon... and the ammunition icon and weapon's icon remained deactivated. It annoyed him mildly... he had gotten used to the suit's capabilities... perhaps too used to it. Reliant. But he had used weapons and trained extensively before he'd gotten access to one... he would make do. While the man went off to retrieve another weapon, Shephard looked over the unfamiliar weapon, tilting it back and forth, fitting his hands on it. Wasn't too heavy, he'd have to see how well it worked. He looked over to one of the supply and ammunition crates Norton had referred to, and moved over to it while resistance fighters scrambled into their positions around the platform, digging in for the impending fight. He went to the closed metal container, next to the ticket office and the open metal door of the subway station. He retrieved some clips for the MP7, while looking over the Outpost.

There was nothing professionally military about the setup... this was the work of many different men and women of different backgrounds... but each without formal training. What they had managed without it was impressive... but even with the setup of the base, the scary efficiency and might of the Civil Protection, The Combine, was not going to make things easy for them. They had the training, the numbers, technology and resources. Not even factoring in the military branch they called Overwatch, if they ended up getting involved. But then, the Resistance fighters had been fighting and struggling against them far longer than he had been. He had fought before, difficult battles, but they had been far away, against much different enemies.

It was... different, having team mates again, people to fight beside, civilians or otherwise. Especially being the stranger that he was, in their midst. They seemed to accept him... now and again a few of them kept looking back at him where he stood... particularly the blonde Medic woman in the white jacket and backpack. She smiled back at him warmly, and nodded her head a bit encouragingly... and he did so right back, until she turned back around and manned her post. If he could inspire some kind of courage... or dedication, encouragement in these strangers, maybe that was something. He wasn't sure why he was, but it didn't matter right now. He had a difficult, if simple objective ahead. To defend the station and await further orders. He could handle that. He turned back around on the platform, intending to move closer to the stairwell overlooking the platform and take a spot on the front line, when he found himself facing a pair of green eyes again, keeping him where he was.

"It was my job to get you back to The Hive in one piece, soldier. It's still my job. You are my responsibility.", The girl they called Rae reminded him over the echoing, approaching sirens, where she stood next to him. As the reach of The Combine drew closer. She leaned in, her voice was firm as her eyes again... even though she had the same strange look around him that the others were giving him... she wasn't intimidated by him. She grabbed his arm and held on to it tightly, for emphasis with her words. "My friends died for you. You're sticking close to me all the way through this. No running off on your own. No more playing the hero. When it comes time to fall back, we go together when I say we do. So, consider your ass covered. Got it?"

He understood. She was pragmatic, disciplined... but he remembered her wild laugh, and youthful sneering defiance in the face of her own potential execution. There was a crazed fire in her under danger, first and foremost... but she was loyal to her cause and would do whatever it took to see that through. Her passion would not get in it's way. Whatever it was. He wasn't sure how he felt taking orders from a civilian... and one so young, he still wasn't sure about it, but he was in no position to object. He was realistic, in an unrealistic situation. There was no other choice in the matter. He nodded again at last, only slightly, but meant it... and it seemed to satisfy her. She smiled back at him grimly, patting his arm and retracting her touch with some reluctance.

"Good. Let's go kill some bad guys, soldier boy."

Leading the way, she moved over to the front lines of the platform and beckoned him with her modified Colt Python to take position next to her. Shephard knelt down behind cover beside her at once, looking over the side of the platform to the main tunnel. The stamping of boots and bustling of armor echoed all the way through the station, to say nothing of the blaring, angry synthetic voices. Shephard, along with the Resistance fighters aimed their weapons down in the direction of the tunnel, and Shephard glanced sideways along the line. Most of them were holding their breaths, and all of them were frightened. Regardless of how used to fighting The Combine they seemed to be, it did not get easier. He would be lying to say he didn't feel apprehension... but he focused ahead. Within moments, the Civil Protection forces were upon them, pouring through the opening, and the fierce firefight began. Shephard wasn't sure who fired the first shot... but the second it was fired, he was aiming up and over the sandbags and selecting his targets below. Automatic fire rattled out into the air, spraying along the railings and staircase, and Shephard returned fire at once, peering through the glowing red targeting reticle on the sights.

The weapon kicked in his hands forcefully amid the streaming of shell casings all over the platform... and he stuck to bursts of rounds, where most everyone else was squeezing down on the trigger. He shot down one of the officers running for the stairs, the whine of his EKG, among others, filling the air, along with synthesized screams. Beside him, Rae's Colt Python roared like a cannon now and again... like himself, she wasn't wasting any shots, and certainly couldn't afford to. Before he could target and take down another in his reticle, the force of a 44. round blew the CP off his feet. He glanced sideways at Rae, to find the girl offering him a grin of the 'you're welcome' variety. In spite of being in the middle of the firefight, the grin didn't leave her face... and over the gunfire he could hear her laughing her head off beside him, with each CP she dropped. It confused him, to say the least... he didn't take that level of pleasure from a firefight At least enough to lose emotional control.

He enjoyed it post battle, killing his targets... counting them, those that deserved it, but during, there was no pleasure to be taken. Pleasure was a distraction. There was only duty, and survival in the field. He doubted she really did... but he didn't know. Civilians in combat were unpredictable at best. He merely shook his head and aimed the MP7 in the air. A couple manholes had parted somewhere overhead, and long cords came tumbling down from the ceiling, on which several heavily armed CPs came down, firing their weapons as they descended. A few members of the Resistance, on orders from Norton, redirected their fire to join Shephard in greeting them, while the others kept the bulk of the CP forces pinned down amid the junkyard and rusted out subway cars. There were several of the red eyed Elites in coats visible among them, leading the CPs out of sight behind the subway cars, returning fire between the windows and doors, and sides of the train. They were accurate and even more disciplined than their more aggressive subordinates, but with them around marshaling the blue eyed CPs, they fell into line.

One of the Elites fired a burst of rounds into a Resistance member off to Shephard's left, at one of the sandbagged positions. He fell back, hitting the platform, surrounded in blood with most of his face missing, twitching and dying. Shephard retaliated in kind, lining up a shot at the Elite and emptying the remainder of his clip into him. It tore through his coat, the armor took most of it, but the last few rounds punctured through the Elite's midsection, and he fell out of sight beyond the subway car. Shephard assessed the situation while his hands reloaded the submachine gun on pure instinct. A couple other resistance members had been hit... the blonde medic was working furiously on one of them, injecting a glowing green syringe into one of their arms. Realizing it was death to keep rappelling down while the area remained unsecured, the stream from above of CPs had ceased, and instead Civil Protection radios blared calling for backup units to be activated. The reinforcements came, before long, from opposite directions, through both opposing tunnels. The flood of men that poured through the tunnels as reinforcements were not the same as either the Elites or blue eyed Metro Cops.

They were ordinary men in dark green CP uniforms, devoid of masks, insignia and all of the more advanced body armor the CPs wore. Instead they wore basic body armor resembling old flak jackets over their outfit, of all things, and old military helmets that left their human faces exposed. Young men and old men alike. They used another type of machine gun, different than the ordinary CPs, longer with a scope... more of an assault rifle, but Shephard wasn't in much of a position to get a good look. It had a distinct sound from the weapons the CPs were using. For a split second, Shephard had thought they were members of the US Army... backup, not for the CPs, but for them. They were not only visually distinct from the CPs in every regard, but familiar to him. In an instant, he felt foolish for having thought so. While they moved up front, completely disorganized, taking most of the brunt of the Resistance fire, the rest of the CPs had moved back behind various points of cover. Returning fire from their positions. Shephard almost hesitated at the sight before him... the human wave attempting to charge the front of the Outpost and scramble up the stairs. They weren't like the CPs... they were normal men... but they served the CPs all the same. His hesitation evaporated when one of them aimed and fired his rifle Shephard's way. Shephard took cover for a moment, then leaned out of his cover slightly, eyes narrowed, returning it. With several bursts he shot down his would be killer and three other men that had made it half way up the stairs. Their bodies tumbled back down, screaming and writhing in a heap, knocking aside several others trying to ascend the stairs behind them. They died so simply, and were so weakly organized, undisciplined, that he almost felt a pang of regret shooting them down.

Almost.

"Conscript flood incoming!", Rae shouted beside him, over the screams of the human wave of dying men. She blasted a pair of them away before reloading quickly, her hands moving expertly. From her covered position, as she reloaded she looked back his way again, shouting louder. "Keep them back!"

"Attention Conscripts. Not one step back. Traitors will be summarily expunged and recycled with the rest. Survivors will be compensated for their service. Citizenship demands sacrifice."

Evidently there was at least one ranking position within The Combine lower than the blue eyed CPs. Useful bullet sponges, comprising repurposed Citizens. Conscripts. When these men died, no suit EKG screamed, and their status was not reported to the CPs by the cold accented voice that commanded them to their deaths. Their lives were worthless. When they screamed as they suffered and died, there was no inhuman voice synthesizer... nor was their humanity hidden behind an inhuman mask. This was slaughter, and the wasting of lives, in it's most basic form. Old human wave tactics. A stab of anger coursed through Shephard, at how many lives the CPs were throwing away, hurling barely trained, obviously frightened conscripted Citizens at them. But Shephard wasn't sure who he was angrier at, the CPs or the Conscripts themselves for volunteering to fight their fellow citizens. Though he had doubts 'volunteering' meant the same thing to The Combine that it did to Humans. Poor dumb bastards. Yet his momentary sympathy grew increasingly limited, the more the Conscripts fired at him, and the more of them he was forced to eliminate. Kill or be killed. There was no room in the middle of a firefight for mercy and pity.

Now and again, CPs above on the street aimed down the open manholes in the direction of the Outpost and opened fire, lending in support, and forcing Shephard to return fire, keeping them pinned. The first part of the plan, drawing them into a funnel, had worked... as for the second part, it wasn't looking too good. A few blue eyed CPs broke ranks from their red eyed superiors and made for the stairs, attempting to rally and lead the Conscripts, take command of the chaos. Ordering the men to take up positions of cover where they could be found. This time making it all the way up to the platform before Shephard could deal with them. They were coming dangerously close to being overrun already, between the distant accurate fire of the CPs covering the Conscripts, and the Conscripts in turn shielding them. There were bodies everywhere... and the reinforcements just kept coming, scrambling over top of the other corpses, like they were possessed. Attempting to climb the platform railings and being shot down for their troubles. Shephard was dumbfounded by their loyalty, steadfastness. He wondered if they were being drugged up. Though it wasn't the case for all of them. To Shephard's momentary horror, some of the Conscripts in the rear tried to fall back, to flee back to the tunnels. The red eyed Elites shot them in the back with submachine guns for their troubles. It was one giant clusterfuck, expanding more and more. Even the Conscripts scored kills now and again, albeit it had less to do with skill, and more to do with the way they fired wildly at the Resistance fighters. Shephard held his ground near the staircase, holding them back with everything he had.

A couple other Resistance fighters had moved to join him and Rae at their barrier, giving them cover while they reloaded. The Conscripts were nearly on top of them, when suddenly a sharp, automated sound pierced the air, following by steady beeping. Two streams of glowing blue bolts were unleashed in a flurry on those trying to climb and scramble on top of the platform, and Shephard ducked low, turning around on the spot back to the entrance door of the Outpost. Two dark automated sentry turrets with a glowing red light had been set up, standing on tripods and positioned next to both sides of the doors. A couple Resistance fighters had set them up, and were still tinkering with them, fixing them to the platform. Blue pulse rounds tore men to pieces, shredding off limbs and eating through bone, spraying blood and bits everywhere in a wave of death. The automated turrets, each with that unmistakable orange symbol spray painted on the side, selectively targeted those it could get to, either close or far.

By now, swarm of Conscripts or not, even some of the CPs behind cover were no longer safe, the rounds punching holes cleanly through metal covers and striking them. Fire was redirected at the two technicians that had set up the turret, shooting one of them apart and injuring the other... but it was too late. For every CP that fell, so did a handful of Conscripts, all filing into a meat grinder with little in the way of meaningful tactics as terror overtook them. Shephard watched, numbly, as a few more of the Conscripts broke ranks and tried to flee the battle... only to be blown apart with the blasts of a merciless red eyed Elite's shotgun in the back. Blue eyed CPs close by him followed suit spraying down any of the others trying to escape... and the Conscripts seemed to catch on quickly they were caught between two layers of gunfire. Instead of fleeing or advancing, they hunkered down beneath the platform and stairs, taking cover and firing up when they could among the bodies and debris. It seemed to be good enough for their masked overseers, who redirected their fire to the platform as well, instead of shooting the Conscripts.

For the moment.

"Turrets are here people!", Norton shouted from somewhere behind them. "Fall back inside the Outpost! Repeat, fall back now!"

Shephard took cover again, reloading his weapon and glanced off to the side, to see teams of Resistance fighters one by one falling back away from their posts on the platform. The ones still alive, anyways. Shephard covered their escape, in unison with the turrets, which managed to keep the platform mostly clear of hostiles, while they continued to gather and swarmed below. Reinforcements continued to trickle in from the two opposing tunnels of the station. It was hopeless. Before long he felt a tugging on his shoulder strap, to find Rae gesturing for him to follow. To fall back away from their position and begin the retreat. Shephard nodded, keeping low and moved backward, firing off bursts of rounds everywhere he saw a target aiming towards them. Rae went first back to the door, where she and a few others continued to fire, taking cover around either side. Shephard reached the door at last, but instead of continuing through it and into the Outpost right away, he stood in the doorway between the turrets and targeted a distant Elite that had come into view around the side of one of the subway cars.

The Elite was using an assault rifle not unlike the ones the Conscripts were using, albeit more heavily modified, with a scope, laser sight and under barrel grenade launcher. Too big a threat, if he managed to use the grenade launcher. Narrowing his eyes, as the Elite fired back at him, he squeezed the trigger in turn. A couple of the Elite's assault rifle rounds struck his armor painfully and knocked him back forcefully. He grunted a low muffled sound of pain, and the battery percentage shrank down further. His own rounds flew home as well, shredding through the Combine's body armor and coat, dropping him to the ground in a stream of blood. Shephard couldn't hear his EKG or garbled mask noises over the madness... but it didn't matter. The primary threat had been eliminated, for the moment... the sentries could mop up the rest. He hoped to God more heavy duty weaponry like the grenade launcher wasn't brought in. Even as he knew it was inevitable.

"Shephard! We are leaving!"

"Attention malignant Anticitizens. Destruction of Conscript Units amounts to defacement of Civil Protection property. Vandalism is unacceptable."

Shephard was about to step inside after them, when he glanced back a final time. There were bodies all over the platform, pools of blood everywhere... most of them Conscripts, many of them Resistance members, beyond any of their help. Among some of the bodies at one of the sandbag barriers, someone covered in blood stirred, attempting to drag themselves along the floor away from the onslaught and towards the Outpost, struggling in vain. He snapped up the MP7 with the intent of putting a Conscript out of his misery... only to find that it was the woman... the blonde medic, in the formerly white coat. There were still dots of white on it, but blood oozed and ran over most of it... and he couldn't tell what was hers and what wasn't. Her blood stained hair fell in her face, and she collapsed to the deck, while the pulse rounds of the sentries shot over her head, killing and maiming everyone trying to scramble up. Shephard froze in his tracks. He knew the options he had before him at once. Help her at risk to himself. Leave her. Or put her out of her misery, as he'd intended if she had been one of the Conscripts. He chose in an instant, having no time to think about it.

He did his duty.

"Shephard!"

Shephard ran headfirst into the thick of it, across the platform amid the gunfire from both sides. He heard Rae swear behind him, followed by the roar of her Colt Python as she targeted the next Conscripts up the stairs. Sending them falling over the side. The other Resistance fighters at the door joined in with the covering fire, as Shephard reached the medic's position and knelt, looking her over. Assessing rapidly. She'd taken several rounds... but he didn't think most of the blood was hers. She was still semi conscious, but dazed, her hazy eyes blinking as they looked back at him in shock. Out of it. Shephard put her over his shoulder in a fireman's lift and carried her back away from the sandbags and platform, off the front lines. He felt her arms wrap weakly around him, and hold on for dear life. He aimed and glanced back as he moved quickly to the door, firing several bursts past the Conscripts and to the CPs harassing them with automatic fire. With only one hand at his disposal, most of the rounds fell short, less accurate, but they did discourage a few of them for a bit. A few of them. He felt an impact and then another, somewhere in his back, and he grunted painfully through his filter as the armor absorbed it. The battery monitor dropping lower. A third round joined it, this time bypassing the armor and striking him in the shoulder, where it didn't cover. He gritted his teeth together as the health monitor dropped lower. By contrast, the battery monitor remained where it was. And the suit beeped in his ears in warning, administering a tiny dose of morphine. The effect was not instantaneous... the burning throbbing in his arm stayed right where it was. Warm fresh blood poured freely from his shoulder, running down over his entire arm. He moved towards the Resistance fighters, Rae and Norton, and finally reached them, stepping inside the illuminated cluttered corridor of the station still holding the Medic. Standing among the other survivors and the equipment and lain out wounded stretching along the hall, all watching him stand before them with wide eyes.

"We're all inside!", Rae shouted into Norton's ear over the constant stream of pulse rounds from the turrets. The exchanging fire between them and the Conscripts and CPs. The tortured screams of the human tidal wave and the harsh synthetic voices barking inhuman orders at them. The cold synthesized woman's voice. "Seal the doors!"

Working together, Rae and Norton gripped either side of the large metal double doors, pushing them forward and closing them. Cutting off the view of the carnage overtaking the platform. The pulse rounds became muffled, but audible through the thick doors, along with everything else out there. Immediately the two of them began locking up the door, consisting of fastening a series of chains and padlocks around the handles. While Norton took out a small blowtorch and began to seal the crack down the middle, sparks flying about freely. Shephard watched it all, standing with the medic among the others. Hearing and feeling the bustle of people moving around him, all around the corridor, gathering supplies, ammunition and weapons. Taking positions. Tending to wounded. Bringing up more barricades to the main doors to help reinforce them. Shouting orders into radios. All carrying through their own duties. Shephard stood, the lone stranger among them. Ignoring the aching pain of his own wounds, the impact of them. A distant hazy feeling passed over him, a warm vertigo, and he knew gradually that the morphine was finally doing it's stuff, even while he hurt.

He drew a low breath, still feeling the pulse of the girl, hearing her own breaths near his muffled ones. He looked down to the floor... to find the blood trickling off her pants and boots, running down on to his own pair. His own armor, pants and BDU were covered in stains by now. It didn't matter. He watched them all work, and he kept silent over the shouting and madness unfolding, keeping still with the emptied MP7 down at his side. Something about it all, like the battle, brought things back to him.

He'd been here before... and if not literally here, somewhere little different. The way Norton blow torched the door... even the Medic he held. Or maybe he was dreaming... he felt tired, and a bit lulled, but didn't know if it was the morphine, his own mind, or both. He belonged down here... more than he had on the surface. Retreating from the battle angered him dully. He could have fought on longer than that, gave The Combine more of what was coming to them. His pulse still raced from the battle... the sense of it, and the desire to wade back into the fighting. Instead he was forced to play along with all these... people. Strangers. Who seemed to understand things much better than him. Regardless, he wanted to kill all the CPs out there. With the turrets assisting them, maybe they could have turned the tide instead of using it as a diversion for a tactical retreat. Maybe. At some point through the chaos, in the midst of his considerations, he felt a hand rest it's self on his arm, bringing him back from his haze.

Back to the grim reality of their situation.

"That doesn't look good.", Rae murmured quietly, carefully examining the shoulder wound. Her fingers trailed sympathetically over his bloody arm, avoiding the wound... and her eyes rose again, past him. To the blonde woman he had recovered, eyes filling with concern and recognition at once. "Neither does Abby. It's going to be ok. We're packing up the rest of the equipment and moving out the back. Most of the Outpost has already fled. The turrets and door will give us the time we need to do the same. There's a separate platform connected to the station they haven't breached. From there we'll take a few different paths and lose them deeper in the tunnels. Civil Protection won't venture where we're going."

Rae turned her attention to the backpack the Medic... Abby, was wearing. Reaching over she opened it up, and produced two separate syringes containing a glowing green fluid. He'd seen the Medic using one of them earlier on a wounded man. She moved in closer to Shephard and reached up with the first syringe, getting to work administering it to the other woman. Focusing hard, but speaking as she worked, her formerly wild eyed expression and playful manner was finally tired and a bit sad. A sharp contrast to the girl that had laughed in the middle of battle. She grew older than she was, before his very eyes. Sad and exhausted.

"I didn't think they were going to use the Conscripts. Not like that... not today. Poor stupid bastards. It's always a fucking mess when they get thrown into battle. We've been trying to get them to join us for years. Doc has tried. We've only managed to convince some of them to cross over. They're more afraid of The Combine, than they have hope for the future of the Resistance. They've been broken down, by the propaganda and the violence. The threats to their families. Those CP bastards must really have it out for you, to send as much as they have down on this Outpost. What did you do? Before all this? Who are you really? How did you end up here? Why do they want you so bad? You know, other then you kicking their asses before."

Finishing up administering the dose to the breathing Medic amid the hustle and bustle of the others, she leaned back, and looked up into Shephard's mask for answers. Giving him a searching look. Shephard merely looked back at her... and remained silent, shrugging his uninjured shoulder at her questions. Maybe if he knew, he'd tell her... but he was in no position to. He didn't know anything that she wanted to know... only what he felt, pain, the ringing in his ears. The blood running down his arm. His heartbeat. The combined weight of the woman, his gear, and his weapon. The movement around them. This was real, unfortunately. All of it. He merely wished it was a dream. That he was sleeping, somewhere far away. Rae smiled a little bit, but ultimately didn't push the matter any further. Instead she prepared the second syringe, pressing it to his forearm carefully, holding it gently. He didn't even feel it penetrate the flesh.

"It doesn't matter, I guess. You were here when we needed you, and you pull more than your own weight.", Rae spoke evenly, injecting the needle's contents slowly and carefully into his system. She seemed to know what she was doing... had probably done it before enough times, anyways. Almost at once, his heads up display updated the status of his health monitor. "There you go. That'll do until we get you both back to The Hive. I know I told you not to leave my side... but... just... thanks for going back for her. I should have done it myself... I just lose my head, in the middle of all that shit. It's kind of like a high. Helps get me through it. Otherwise I'd curl up in a ball. Scares the fuck out of me... all of it. I don't want to do this, being here. I'm not a soldier, training be damned."

Shephard looked back down into her vibrant green eyes at her confession, and nodded almost imperceptibly to her. He understood. She was not one of rigid discipline, but more a creature of instinct. Cunning. Even if she'd had some training, it hadn't been military training like he'd endured. Nevertheless, she'd done what she needed to, and had fought hard and well next to him. She was good with team work, despite seeming more an individual. They all had fought well for civilians, really. He was more impressed than he'd expected to be. As she finished up working on him, Norton at last strode away from the sealed doors and stood before the entire hallway. He spoke up loudly, his tone echoing through the corridor for everyone capable of hearing to hear, over the muffle of the pulse rounds and gun fire behind the doors. Heads turned all in the same direction, and both Shephard and Rae watched him quietly.

"Ok, listen up everyone! We've done about as well as can be expected, under the circumstances. The place is secure. All the wounded are accounted for and to be moved to the back platform now, in preparation for departure. I'll be staying put with a few teams of fighters to keep this passageway secure and defended. We need some security presence to remain in here until the last moment. I got through on the radio to The Hive, they're dispatching a freight tram cart with reinforcements to link up with the platform and make the evacuation of the wounded run quicker. The rest of us that can, will be moving out on foot, when the time comes. We're almost there people. Just keep it together, and do your jobs. You all know what it is. We've done this before, and we'll do it again. Move out."

The chatter resumed at once when he was done, and the movement of bodies, brushing past Shephard, Rae and Abby. Rae guided Shephard over to a wall, to keep out of the way of the others ahead and passing them. Clearing out the back. They lingered back for a time, standing together silently, watching the remaining security teams take up positions along the corridor. Close to or behind more makeshift barriers and stacks of sandbags, or close to ammunition crates, talking to one another nervously. Preparing barriers, handing out weapons and ammo. The familiar orange symbol had been spray painted on some of the walls of the place. Shephard took the time to look around a bit more... there were several different stairwells on different sections of the corridor, undoubtedly leading deeper into the Outpost... to living quarters, and all the other rooms comprising the place.

Nobody came down from any of them... everyone left occupied the main corridor, and looking down to the opposite side, he was unable to see the door through the line of departing people. At least until they reached the end, and the rear doors parted open for them, revealing another metal platform heavily illuminated. The doors were kept open for everyone. When the corridor was free of wounded, save Abby, Rae tapped him on the shoulder to follow, and they began to move, passing among the security personnel and their defensive positions. When they were halfway down the corridor, a muffled explosion rocked the entire Outpost. Dust rained from the ceiling, and all eyes remaining within the hall looked up, as the lights shook as well, flickering. Norton looked up at the ceiling along with everyone else, and said the natural thing.

"What the hell was that?"

Two more explosions came then, smaller than the one preceding it. From just outside the sealed doors, echoing through the corridor. When the echo had faded away, the muffled pulse round firing and beeping of the turrets outside had stopped. As did the gunfire of the Conscripts and CPs. There were distant murmuring, echoing on the Combine's radios outside... boots tapping on metal. The cold voice of their artificial dispatcher. Too distorted and far away to be understandable. He heard something she said, though... at least part of it. 'Vis'... whatever that was. The rest was lost among the garbled synthesized background noise. Up and down the corridor the security teams rose their pistols, shotguns and submachine guns slightly or held them closer, glancing among one another, looking around from their stations. It was dead silence in the corridor, save Abby's labored breaths in his ear. Every instinct in Shephard's being told him something was very, very wrong. He just didn't know what it was yet. He ejected the spent clip from the MP7 and popped in a fresh one, preparing himself for the worst. The magazine clattered to the floor, and Rae looked over at him, meeting his eyes... with the same dawning realization of horror. It came then... as a distant hum, at first. For a moment. Like distant insects buzzing. Norton, remaining over by the doors, stared hard back down at them and then to the locks, chains and seals. For a moment, he looked as though he intended to speak... but he never got the chance again. Then the hum grew louder... and pretty soon, it was carving it's way through the door amid the spraying of sparks and smoke, like a heated shredder passing through paper.

"NORTON! GET OUT OF THERE!"

Rae's scream came too late. The hum became a shrill whine, which became a scream, as a swarm of mechanical, blinking saw blades tore the sealed doors and locks apart... and before Norton could raise his weapon or arm futilely, the man in their path as well. A crimson pool splattered all over the walls, floor and ceiling as levitating saws with glowing red lights met bone and flesh, separating each, driving into every limb they could reach. Steadily ripping him apart. Norton screamed and screamed as they burrowed, and Rae screamed shrilly out for him again beside Shephard. For his part, unblinking, Shephard coldly raised the MP7 in both hands and put Norton out of his misery in an opening barrage of gunfire, shooting him through the head and cutting off his screams. His targeting reticle raising to the blood soaked machines encircling Norton's remains. They turned around, red blinking lights demonic amidst the sprays of blood dripping from their spinning blades. Dripping trails all over the floor. Thankfully, before they could swoop in his direction, his gunfire jolted the shocked security teams into action.

Into joining him.

"Manhacks! They're filling the underground with Manhacks!", Rae was screaming beside him, firing her hand cannon into their midst, breaking apart several. More swarmed in to replace them already, littering the bloodied floors with burning, heated scrap metal, mixed with Norton's severed remains. Tears were streaming from her face, along with snot. Grief infused into her features. "We need to get the hell out of here! Now damn it!"

"Hold the line!", Another voice shouted from somewhere over the gunfire, contradicting her. "The tram isn't even here yet! We can't let them reach the injured! Form up!"

Shephard maintained his spot in the hallway, rounds chewing apart the spinning discs, sparks spraying everywhere. Despite the amount of rounds flying in the area, a group of them managed to engulf another Resistance fighter in front of them in an instant, concentrating and sawing the screaming man to pieces, this time before Shephard could put him out of his misery. Parts flew up and down the hall, and if Shephard could smell it through the mask, he would smell the rusted scent of warm blood. Beside him, Rae had stopped firing, and was retching and crying while her shaking hands tried to reload her revolver. Vomiting all over the floor. She had already watched a number of her friends die horrifically that day... and whether she'd grown up in this world or not, she was only a young civilian woman. It wasn't something anyone could really get used to. Even he had to force himself to remain in cold control at the sight of the shredded men before them. Swallowing a wave of nausea of the sights. The fact she was even still in the fight said a great deal about her willpower. Still conscious atop him, he felt Abby's grip tighten, and she burrowed her face into his armor, away from the wholesale carnage.

A couple of the security fighters at the end of the hall towards the rear platform panicked and fled, losing their nerve, the rest held their ground, battling on. Soon, the seemingly endless swarm was mixed by another swarm, standing behind it behind the open doorway, firing when they could. The roar of the Conscripts lined up assault rifles took down a man next to Shephard... and another man swore loudly, reaching into his coat and producing a large cylindrical device. Pulling the pin, it began to blink red and beep, and he rolled it over to the entrance. At once, Shephard was down behind cover with Rae and the helpless Abby, and there was a deafening explosion that rocked through the corridor, and a series of others as many of the levitating blades went with it. To say nothing of the group of Conscripts too close to the blast radius. It rained body parts, metal or otherwise, and several lights were destroyed overhead, smoke engulfing the area. A fire alarm was activated, it's loud pulse buzzing through the outpost in warning of fires that would not be put out anytime soon.

There was only a moment or two of relative silence and peace in the wake of the blast... the eye in the storm... both Abby and Rae huddled close to him, Rae disorientated by ringing in her ears, from the dazed look she gave him. And then the battle was on again, Conscripts and Manhacks resuming their charge, as their CP masters remained back issuing them guttural orders. The swarm of Manhacks was reduced, and by now they flew in more of one consistent stream, instead of a concentrated bulk. Shephard and Rae were already back on their feet amid the smoke, firing into it with the rest of the Resistance, tracers flying both ways. Shephard kept low, firing around a metal crate, aiming low and sweeping several Conscripts off their legs out on the overrun platform. As they lay on the ground screaming for help, Shephard fired several more bursts among them, ending their screams. Now and again he could see all the bodies out there, and the CPs in the foreground... and he realized what the opening explosion had been that had shook the outpost. The street above, the surface and buildings were revealed through a gaping, massive hole in the ceiling of the tunnel system.

They had blown their way through it, a controlled blast, the cement of the road having fallen into the station. Rain poured down into the underground, while reinforcements ran back and forth on the remains of the road above, dropping down over the side on ropes, while Manhacks and Scanners levitated into the gap with them. APCs pulled screeching up to the hole in the street, deploying more CP reinforcements. They were swarming all over the front of the Outpost, and had the situation well in hand. The CPs... The Combine, drove on ever forward once they uncovered an Outpost or Station, turning from the organized tactics he'd seen earlier, to brute force when required. Combining the two. It was working too, and they had the means and resources to keep it up, the pressure on. On the contrary, Shephard noted looking around to the Resistance fighters, the rebelling citizens were only too human, and exerting all they had holding on to the Outpost, numbers gradually dwindling. The Combine and their forces were relentless. From somewhere behind and around them came a man's voice over an intercom rigged into the Outpost.

"The train's here people! You know the drill! Fall back and get the wounded loaded up! Now! We'll hold them here!"

"You heard him Shephard!", Rae shouted to him over the gunfire, slapping a gloved hand on the front of his bloodied power armor. "Time to go!"

Together they turned through the billowing smoke and kept low... but got no more then a few steps down towards the exit, when a bullet struck Rae in the side. She swore loudly, screaming out and hit the ground from the impact. Shephard turned back to her to see her, writhing on the ground, holding her side, and still holding the revolver. She wore light body armor beneath the coat, he noted again, over a sweater... but the round had punctured through it and into her flesh. Without thinking, he tucked his MP7 into his belt, grabbed her by the collar of the torn, bloodied coat and began dragging her across the floor. Through the blood and spent casings, amid the pounding gunfire from the remaining Resistance fighters around them. Realizing what was happening, and that Shephard was in no condition to defend himself anymore with both arms occupied, Rae took it up for him, blasting Manhacks that flew through the smoke towards them, detecting them. Their red glowing sensors shone even through the smoke, and always they brought the sound of whirring rotors. He had only made it a few yards forward to the exit, when she ran out of her six shots... and he felt a grinding bite in his leg, as one of the swooping razors impacted with him, nearly knocking him over. Shephard grunted loudly... the bite was painful and deep at once... but before he could draw his boot back and kick it, or do anything to it, the device exploded as Rae brought her socket wrench down on the Manhack with all she had. It exploded, still spitting Shephard's blood on the wall and floor.

Despite the pain, the shock of it, and the blood flowing down his pant leg, the adrenaline and morphine managed to keep him going, to say nothing of his will. The health monitor in his vision lowered again, while the power level was unaffected... the Manhack having bypassed the armor as the bullet in his shoulder had. He looked the wound over once, determining it hadn't struck an artery, and he kept going, while Rae reloaded her revolver and resumed firing, screaming and laughing. After what felt a herculean effort, Shephard reached the open back doors to the platform, still carrying both wounded individuals and a couple resistance fighters quickly moved out of their way, before covering them again. Firing down into the Outpost. The tram that had pulled up to the station from beyond a distant dark tunnel was a long open flat freight tram, unlike the rusted out passenger cars he'd seen earlier.

There was rust on it to be sure, and it looked hastily built, improvised, some smoke pouring off it's engine... but it worked and could hold plenty on it's surface, which was all that mattered. A single Resistance member was operating the train, standing behind the controls looking over the mayhem, while behind him a large group of newly arrived armored and well armed Resistance fighters with assault rifles of their own were climbing off the back... fresh reinforcements for the battle inside the Outpost. With them were a number of Medics in the same white coats as Abby, sent to help load the wounded on to the train and take care of them during the ride back. Shephard could feel more eyes from all sides moving towards him up and down the platform one by one. Pausing on him when they realized he was there... he could see lips parting with shock and awe, confusion at his appearance. He took it all in for only a second, ignoring the spotlight he had no power over, and continued doing what he had to. Shephard moved with everything he had, breathing deeply, over to the train and found a space on it, dragging Rae and hoisting Abby over towards it.

Kneeling down painfully, with some help from one of the other stunned Medics, he lay Abby down carefully and gently, looking back into her eyes. Despite the dizziness in them, she smiled back at him tiredly, recognizing him, while the Medic took over taking care of her. The injured Abby reached for his fingerless gloved hand and took it, gripping it appreciatively at him and nodded, unable to speak. He nodded back simply, unable to do much more. Shephard turned his attention back to Rae, picking her up in both arms and finding her a spot next to Abby. He stepped back on to the platform, watching the madness unfold on it, the scramble of so many people... and he spotted her socket wrench, dropped on the deck in the midst of it. He limped carefully over to and retrieved it, turning it over in his hands and looked back to the gradually filling freight train. More security forces rushing past him, staring at him in alarm as they did so.

"Shephard! Get your ass on the train! You're wounded too damn it!", Rae shouted and writhed among the wounded, trying to get off the train and back on to the platform. She was gently pushed down by one of the Medics, who was administering the same green fluid syringe that she had to him. Still struggling, her eyes moved to Shephard, and tried to wave him over weakly. "Don't you even think of going back out there! After everything we did to get you here! You need to come back to The Hive! Now! I have orders to get you there!"

Shephard looked back to the Resistance fighters, firing from the open double doors of the rear platform. He listened to the screams of dying men on both sides... the gunfire, synthesized voices, and whirring of rotors... and he moved over to the train. For a moment, Rae looked a bit relieved by his decision. Until she wasn't. Shephard leaned over her, eyes sympathetic and slipped her fallen socket wrench back into her hands. He merely nodded to her, hand settling over hers firmly... reassuring her as best he could, as he had Abby. He rose again and turned, climbing off the tram and back on to the platform, stepping past the rest of the wounded and Medics, as the last of them scrambled on to the train.

He felt hands tugging on him to go back to the train... a Medic or two concerned about his obvious bleeding, but he pulled out of their grasp with ease. He didn't look back, but he could hear her shouting at him angrily over the others, the moans of the injured. He heard every word, and pretended he couldn't. He heard every word, absorbed them, but didn't look back. Lest he lose the will to stay, and retreated. Behind him, the tram was finally reactivated by it's operator loudly. While Shephard regrouped with the newly arrived security teams holding the rear platform, limping over to them, it began to retreat out of the station. A low rumble and screeching on the tracks emanated for a moment or two.

Shephard closed his eyes and withdrew the MP7 from his belt, hearing the rumble of the freight train and her screams, until both were only an echo roaring away into the distance. The darkness of the tunnel. Lost to the chaos unfolding all over the Outpost. Moving on away from the front lines. He didn't look back over his shoulder to the platform, and tracks, the train had been on. She would understand, he hoped. She'd gotten him where he needed to be. He returned the favor. She was safe now, they all were. Too many had already died for him. This was where he belonged to repay them, first and foremost, on the ground with the men. Fighting, not fleeing. He'd already done enough of that, as it were. Injured or not. His leg continued to throb painfully, bleeding, but he ignored it, looking ahead to the platform and watching. One after another the well prepared security teams entered the Outpost, throwing themselves into the fray. Disappearing beyond the open doors. He stood behind and overheard the two closest bundled up Resistance fighters to him, who lingered behind their fellow security teams, bringing him back to the grim present with their conversation. Clearly they were in no hurry to get inside and join the battle.

"Is there any more backup coming for us? One of the gun trains, maybe? Do you think she'll show up?"

"Not bloody likely. Rae's headed back to The Hive, it's just us expendables here now. She has enough on her plate already. Barely leaves the tech or portal labs anyways these days. Unless its to go out and shoot some of them Ranger fuckers when they slip into the primary tunnels. Doubt she turns up for measly Conscripts and CPs. Who the hell knows what she's doing in the labs half the time. Planning what. Something big is going to happen, soon... something they're keeping from us. This here might be part of it. A diversion."

"I talked to a few of the tech boys up there. She doesn't let any of them in her place anymore. They think she's doing some experiments. Rae and X are the only ones allowed up there... even then, its not often. And I'm not about to ask them what the hell the deal is."

"All the cameras... she can see what we're doing, and who the hell knows what she's doing. Or what Walter and the rest of the science boys are doing below, for that matter. Probably opening more portals, cause another resonance cascade, like Black Mesa. Scientists scare the shit out of me, man. They're to blame for all this. The Portal Storms, the Seven Hour War. None of it would have happened if those assholes hadn't been fucking around with dimensional shit. Probably best nobody else goes up there anyways. Turning into Howard Hughes in a lab coat, for all we know. Section eight shit, if you ask me."

"Another resonance cascade scenario? You think something worse then the Combine is waiting beyond one of those portals?"

"Nothing surprises me anymore. I'd take Cthulhu over the Combine at this point. Best case scenario if it happens, whatever is on the other side hates the synth fuckers as much as we do. Like the Xenians and Vorts, even the Harvesters."

"And the worst case scenario?"

"Well. That I don't want to think about. It's gotten bad enough for my tastes. If we had it my way, we'd throw a nuke through that portal and close it. Like those bastards should have done to the Combine. Start opening portals and throwing nukes through, couldn't possibly make things any worse. Either way, forget the backup arriving. We are the backup, man."

"Fuck's sake."

"Amen. Look on the bright side. All we have to do is hold the outpost as long as we can, then pull back. Just focus on staying alive in the meantime."

"Easier said than done. Sounds like a goddamn suicide mission in there if I ever heard one. First chance I get, I'm getting the fuck out of here. Probably sooner."

"I heard that, man."

Both men laughed wearily and broke off from their conversation, finally realizing they were being watched by a silent figure. Slowly they turned back on the platform, to find him standing there, bloodied, masked and in power armor they'd never seen before. Their eyes widened visibly, the usual response... but unlike most, they adapted quickly.

"Goddamn. I heard about you, but I thought someone was pulling my leg. Well, least we got this guy. Stepped right out of Full Metal Jacket or Aliens from the look of him. 1,2,3,4, I Love The Marine Corps, right? Hoo rah!", One of them laughed again tiredly, waving him forward closer to them. Shephard did so, limping up to them, looking between them and past to the open doors. They were the last of the men on the platform, everyone else had gone inside and was fighting furiously. The man's partner spoke up next, shaking his head. "You ready to get back in there and kick some ass and chew bubblegum, buddy? Seems like you were born for it. Damn, man... you look just like I feel. You ok? Those don't look so good."

Shephard looked down to the deep wound on his leg, the fresh blood trickling... and merely nodded grimly. The two men chuckled again together a bit nervously, exchanging a look that said enough. They weren't going to press him, or delay him from his course of action. Shephard moved between them before they could say anything else, stepping past them in heading directly for the door. They drew back at once, the brief flash of fear obvious in their eyes. He was slowed by the wound, but he was not out of the battle. He looked back and gestured sharply for them to follow, and they did so reluctantly with an exchange of looks, readying their weapons. The adrenaline and morphine were helping, and the substance Rae had injected into him. There was pain, it didn't go away, but his mind was... away from it, to a degree. There were more important matters than how much it hurt. He could hear the two men talking about him behind his back when they thought he was out of earshot, and he ignored them, standing by the door.

Drawing a low, steady breath, Shephard rose the submachine gun and swept back inside the battle torn corridor of the Outpost. Peering through the glowing red targeting reticle, he surveyed the damage. The Conscripts and CPs had taken about a quarter of the entire Outpost and it's corridor, on the far end, and by now had cover themselves. Consisting of either the defensive barriers that had been used against them, or meat shields being propped up by Conscript'. Several teams of Resistance fighter's had been shot down since he'd departed the corridor... and Shephard ran back in, keeping low. He fired into the midst of the enemy, covering one of the teams while they reloaded, and taking down two Conscripts and a blue glowing eyed CP through the smoke and fire. He could see other glowing eyes in it, and taking cover behind some sandbags and a ammunition crate, he focused on targeting primary threats.

The two men he'd ordered to follow him, to their credit, stuck close all the way, firing wildly around the corners, as they each took turns reloading separately, never giving The Combine an easier time. Shephard wished they had more weaponry at their disposal, they were running on minimum... and with weapons he was unfamiliar with. Scavenged tech. If he could get his hands on a proper assault rifle... or an M249 SAW, he could sweep the entire corridor clear in a few moments, deny them further progress. Or at least a Sniper Rifle, to take out the red eyed Elites too far away for the submachine gun to contend with. He looked for more grenades, like the one the fighter earlier had used to great effect in the corridor... but luck wasn't on his side. He couldn't see any from his position, and wasn't in a position to look harder with the bullets passing by and overhead. The situation was deteriorating a bit at a time, and would not be getting any better. For them, anyways. They fought on, for minutes that felt like hours, killing more of them than they killed Resistance fighters... killed them and their Manhacks and the occasional Scanner recording the firefight. The difference was every one Resistance member lost meant more to them than the losses of the endless horde that fought for The Combine. The sirens and fire alarm blared all the way through, and Shephard took several more hits in the chest and stomach, and a round that glanced off his helmet, forcing him back behind cover. Leaning out and getting a shot was damn near suicide at this point. By now the Combine forces had advanced about halfway down the hall, the base would be all but theirs before long.

Rounds shot down good Resistance fighters, and a few Manhacks were able to fly through the gap in the defenses when the firing ceased or became less so, during reloads. A living saw blade shredded it's self through the barrier and throat of a man behind it not far ahead of Shephard, forcing him to kill both the machine and it's gagging, dying victim. There were no Medics left over, and even if there had been, no help would have been possible for the man. Shephard made the cold hard decision, when he was given no other option but to choose. If the man had the means to, he'd have thanked him. He would have, at least. There was no overt leader left over among the Resistance fighters... he was as close to one as it got, and even then he was a stranger to them and himself. As they were to him. Nevertheless, he was able to rally the troops with his presence, and keep them where they were, instead of fleeing. Maintain a sense of order and discipline as the battle went on. He burned through his MP7 ammunition and, keeping low, he double timed it back down towards the rear quarter of the corridor, finding one of the few remaining ammunition crates The Combine hadn't seized and reloaded his weapon. Filling some of his pouches with clips.

They would be out of means of resupplying themselves soon, and no help was coming... they'd need as much ammo as they could carry, when it came time to flee into the tunnels... but he'd known that, most of them had known that, when they had chosen to stay behind. Shepard turned back to the rear doors of the platform... nobody was manning them anymore. He saw the strategic value in doing so, especially in his wounded state. He didn't want to get anyone killed, and someone needed to watch over the situation. Assess the battlefield. He passed the remaining teams, going in the opposite direction of them, falling back to rear guard position and taking cover in the doorway. He popped around the corner now and then, firing down rounds at the barricades the Combine had taken over, clearing a couple of them... not that it mattered, there would be no advancing for the Resistance fighters. They could only keep slowing the permanent advance of the Conscripts and CPs. He lined up his shots, sticking to bursts only, as tracer rounds whipped by his head, and occasionally struck the door inches from his helmet and mask, sending more sparks flying. He alternated between firing low and firing high. Everywhere he could get a shot in.

He could hear the screams of the wounded, dying one after another, on both sides, but he threw himself into it, fighting as long and hard as he could, saving those he could, only to watch them being torn to shreds moments after. Ripped apart by bullets and blades. He was exhausted, but he didn't back down for a minute. Concentrating all he had on the battle. Too many lives were counting on his support. But no matter how hard he tried, one after another they died, and The Combine continued marching inexorably forward, over the bodies of their own dead. More Manhacks soared in through every gap they could reach, navigating around their own forces and homing in on every Resistance fighter they could reach, shredding them apart or injuring them enough to be helpless on the floor, when a blue eyed CP came by... summarily and casually executing them where they lie. By now, the Conscripts and CPs had taken over most of the Outpost, and held over three quarters of the long corridor. They had been pushed back to the brink, nowhere left to go but backwards.

Red and blue eyes glowed and burned hatefully through the smoke, reflected back in Shephard's glowing green lenses. Tracers continued to fly through the fog of war. He killed every one of them he possibly could, burning through clip after clip, losing himself in the battle, his surroundings save what was ahead... but they never stopped coming. As their dispatcher had ordered, not one step backwards was taken. The corridor choked with corpses and living bodies. Conscripts holding up corpses as shield for cover while CPs behind them fired over their heads. Another couple rounds struck Shephard in the side, and he grunted, the force of them nearly making him fall backwards. It did stagger him, forcing him to step away from the doorway and take cover, breathing deeply, attempting to recover himself to plunge back into the fight. His armor's power level had dropped sharply... but it didn't matter. It didn't matter how long the battle might last, he would fight in it. He had to. There was no other choice. Whether it meant his death or not. Only at the last possible moment could they retreat... and now was not it. They had to make the CPs suffer as much as possible, as they had been. Make them regret every inch they managed to take. He knew what needed to be done, and resolved himself to it, breathing deeply.

Semper Fi. Do or die. That was goddamn right.

Before he could take this path, and charge back around the corner, rejoin the Resistance teams as he'd intended, the option was taken from his hands.

There was the same sudden, heavy trudging movement of boots pounding on the deck in his direction on the platform behind him. Some mechanical whirring mixed in with it, climbing up on to the station. Moving quickly along it. Civil Protection and the Conscripts must have found a way around the Outpost, bypassed and encircled them from behind. It was the first thought that came to his shocked mind, heart pounding in his ears. They were going to have to fight their way ahead, while covering their own rear. If escape was even an option any longer. They'd waited too long and been outflanked and strategically outmaneuvered... the situation had gone from worse, to FUBAR. Shephard silently cursed himself, heart seeming to swell inside his throat. Shephard turned, exhausted, away from the doorway with the automatic risen to greet the next wave of Conscripts and CPs with fire and lead.

He turned in time to spot a long, blunt, red metal object swinging through the air towards his head. But not quick enough to avoid it. The world underground exploded in a haze of red. Everything went dark and he hit the floor heavily, MP7 flying out of his hands. The sounds of shouts, gunfire, and the buzzing of the Manhacks amid agonized screams faded away gradually. He dug his hands into the platform and tried to crawl somewhere, anywhere... hearing only his own labored breathing, and the ringing in his ears. He tried to find his gun. Tried to find the battlefield again. He was confused. Stunned. He fought to stay conscious, he fought a losing battle, like the one he had been before. His head rolled over to the side, to the tunnel... to find that the open blood stained freight tram that had carted away the wounded had come back while he'd been distracted by the firefight. In the place of the wounded was a large container strapped to the top of it... and a number of blinking lights on the objects within. They were remotely familiar. He knew their function, somewhere. Devices of some sort, he recognized sluggishly, the comprehension slow and distant. A sea of blinking red lights. A whole freight tram wired full of them. Along with two, large tank shaped opaque containers, on either side of the primary container.

Before he could figure out what they were, he felt himself suddenly being dragged backwards across the metal floor, as the surviving Resistance members fled around him in the same direction. Rallying to someone that hadn't been there before. He knew they were speaking, above him, but it was all lost in the ringing of his ears. His breathing and the ringing blocked it all out. He didn't feel fear... he didn't feel anything. Another world full of strangers beyond his grasp was unfolding over top of him. The security teams poured out of the remaining quarter of the corridor they had controlled, giving it up to the CP's inexorable advance. The last security team holding the doors looked over in his direction, nodded, and abandoned the platform with the remainder of the teams.

Boots and figures raced past and over him... and then a powerful force was picking him up in the air like a rag doll. He was thrown over a shoulder, fading in and out of consciousness. Something gripped him firmly, holding him in place, but it was a grip careful enough not to press against his wounds. An encased hand deliberately avoiding them. He blinked, raising his mask, looking back to the platform growing increasingly distant, as he was carried away into the tunnel Rae's train had come from earlier. Manhacks, Conscripts and CPs finally managed to kill the last of the Resistance fighters inside that hadn't managed to flee in time, and swept out on to the platform like a sea. Dozens of them. Hundreds of them. They were followed by levitating, flashing Scanners, aiming down the tunnel after them. Shephard's ears had cleared faintly... enough to hear their synthesized voices shouting down after them to halt. The Conscripts were staring back at him.

They seemed to see something that horrified them, jaws dropping and eyes widening... keeping their assault rifles lowered... but the CPs had no such problem. Preparing to fire, waiting for the order from their red eyed superiors that shouted after him. Shephard tiredly drew his pistol from it's holster, and gave them his response to their demands, firing inaccurately down at them, rounds whizzing through the tunnel. Striking the ground of the platform in front of them, or the walls around them. Sending sparks flying... Conscripts flinching, CPs holding firm. Somewhere distant, he knew he only had one round left. He aimed it at the closest red eyed CP he could find... seeing double of him. Choosing between them, he pulled the trigger. At that very moment, before he passed out for the final time, the entire tram, platform and by extension the entirety of the station that had been Outpost 13 was destroyed in a massive fiery explosion. The firestorm sprayed every which way and engulfed every CP, mechanical device and Conscript in his sight, and many beyond that he couldn't.

They died burning and screaming, either in ordinary voices or through distorted melting voice modulators. The inferno made their bullets explode... he heard what sounded like firecrackers popping after the massive boom, somewhere in his ringing ears. Ricocheting off walls and the platform. They danced in the fire, those that hadn't been blown apart entirely. Men covered in flames streamed out of the open doors of the outpost, collapsing on the platform or outright falling off it on to the tracks. Rolling around in vain to put out the fire, or remaining entirely still. Everyone burned one way or another, flesh, armor and uniforms sloughing off their bodies in layers. A great section of the tunnel's ceiling began collapsing on top of the station behind him as the force of the main explosion rocked the area like an earthquake... behind him. The mass of rubble forming at the end of the tunnel, and the smoke mercifully cutting off his view of the madness of the destroyed outpost.

Cutting off the access of The Combine's reach and pursuit after him... for the time being. Wherever he was going. Carried deeper into the darkness of the underground. Somewhere as far away as possible, he hoped. Shephard looked down to his emptied pistol... wondering how it'd had the power to create such an explosion. It didn't matter, he supposed. He had done his duty. It was worth the horrific screams he still heard inside his throbbing head. Screams he would never escape. That he would take to the grave. He felt the pistol slip from between his slackening fingers, fumbling with it and letting it drop. Within dazed moments, Shephard's masked face lowered and the last things he saw were the train tracks passing below as he lost consciousness again. The last thing he heard over the ringing was the steady, heavy clatter of someone's boots stomping on metal and biting gravel.

He wasn't alone anymore, he recognized... as it had been before. He found comfort in that thought. In another instant, it was all gone.