A sharp, screeching hiss broke through the silence of the glowing grub lit subterranean tunnels. Gordon jerked, spun around and ended up blasting a hole in the antlion trailing behind him with his shotgun, yellow bug guts splashing over the ground.

He cringed and gritted his teeth, trying to get his hands to stop shaking. They were dead still anytime he needed to use them in a pinch, but once a twitchy trigger finger was a detriment to how well he could function in a situation he was all nerves. His ears were still ringing from the last two shots. Grumbling to himself, he pulled the squishy, spherical sac from his makeshift belt and gave it a quick squeeze.

Nothing for a minute, then another hiss and Gordon ended up with a second batch of gore on the walls.

"Goddammit."

He made sure to set the shotgun on the ground before calling in more reinforcements. When the antlion arrived, he still managed to reflexively whack it with his crowbar and flinch back, but the dumb thing just stood there and looked up at him expectantly, the area directly left of its eye dented and one antenna slightly crooked.

It should have saddened him somewhat that destruction was his first response when confronted with something strange and alien. As a scientist he'd always identified with the poor sap in cheap sci fi films that wanted to keep the creature alive and study it, maybe try to learn its language or understand where it came from. The reality was that his survival instincts had turned him into a killing machine. And most of him was actually perfectly fine with that, too, because it kept him alive and it kept his priorities in order. Generally his transformation into a fauna leveler was only a pain if it led to being laughed at by Alyx Vance.

When they'd first met out in the Wasteland she'd seemed so…awed, to see him. Just like everyone else he'd encountered since touching down in this Orwellian apocalypse. Gordon hadn't given it another thought, only focusing on the task at hand and giving her the briefest of acknowledging nods for her help. After they were separated in Traptown he hadn't expected to see her again, now used to most of the people he met dying after their introductions, after he'd gotten used to them following behind him. But at the end of the line, there she'd been, covered in blood and scrapes with more ammo than he'd managed to reserve and a welcoming grin on her face. He'd been a little awed to see her, too.

A list had started forming in his mind of all the people he felt comfortable believing in since the accident, a short, highly exclusive one, and she'd made her way on there without even trying.

So it damaged his pride a bit when she made fun of him back at the checkpoint for throwing tactics out the window and barreling through hordes of antlions to get there. Evidently, subtlety and manipulation was the common strategy for these creatures, and she'd laughed, handing him the pheromone control pod and snickering when he stared at it in his palm cluelessly. He'd dealt with a lot of alien weapons of warfare that could be used by human beings at Black Mesa—but it wasn't like he'd majored in xenobiology and could understand these things by sight.

According to her he liked doing things the hard way. It was more that nobody had told him there was an easier one to begin with.

He glanced back at his chittering, damaged companion. Maybe it was everyone else that did things the hard way.

The tunnel widened into acid carved caverns, and he gripped his gun protectively. The engineer antlions were controlled by a different set of chemicals, and he didn't feel like having his head melt off just yet. He could hear them skittering with their thin, hard legs somewhere nearby, and crouched by the wall, listening.

There were two, maybe more. He didn't like his odds then. One was manageable—as long as he made sure its spit hit his suit, and not his sadly unprotected face, then no real damage would be done. But a second could fire while he was distracted, and the over spill might be too much.

Without a second thought, he peeled off a piece of the pheromone pod and lobbed it over the wall at the working insectoids, sending his follower off in a frenzy. While the smooth white monsters grappled with their speckled, fragmented brother, Gordon sprinted for an adjacent tunnel where he could continue out of range. He went unnoticed over the hissing, spitting, and finally, crunching, that echoed off the walls.

Sacrificial lion, as it were.

Oh, perhaps there was some benefit to thinking in a combat situation. At least his fear had numbed enough to make it possible. A part of him wondered if Alyx ever felt that kind of terror, that ate away at your mind and stomach while the world was falling down around you. It didn't seem like it. She planned ahead, smiled far too often, laughed too much.

Two more big bugs burrowed in behind him like obedient attack dogs. He gave them a passing glare and continued on.

If he had to be precise, he hadn't quite come to an opinion on her yet. She was inscrutable, like most human beings. Easily impressed but prone to making fun of him, cheerful but grim when she thought he wasn't looking, competent and experienced but deferring to his abilities whenever possible, talkative but always on topics that deflected attention specifically away from herself. She had buffed piercings in her left eyebrow and dyed red hair and a coat so patched with tape that you couldn't tell it was lined with fur. She'd said something about particle storms that almost made him laugh out in the Wastes and even let him have a go at the Gravity Gun when Dr. Maxwell offered it up for her to take along.

Ah, well. Opinion formed, then. Gordon liked Alyx.

Now he just needed to know in what particular fashion he liked her and he'd be all set.

The texture of the tunnel walls changed from dark and acid worn to white and smooth as he made it into a larger cavern, the incongruity snapping him from his thoughts. The two antlions skuttled around the entrance, as if they were afraid to enter or just expected him to turn around—a very bad feeling began to settle in his chest.

He flicked on his suit's flashlight to get a better look in the dim lighting, the different walls appearing to be part of some large outcropping in the center of the room. There were rolls of rock over its shape, a marble pattern that stretched up into the darkness of the ceiling. The material seemed almost translucent, actually, lines and shapes vaguely visible under the surface. Curiosity overwhelming his sense of caution, he reached out a gloved hand and pressed a palm over the strange substance.

It squished slightly.

…This was an organic structure.

The world around him rumbled and roared, and Gordon let out a soft growl.

This was why he didn't do stealth.