The whole underground section of the powerplant was a labyrinth filled with twists, turns, and so many more headcrabs that roamed around.

There seemed to be one around every corner we made, lurking in the shadows of this abandoned section of the facility. Me and Shephard were fortunate that I had telepathic foresight to know exactly where these little menaces were, otherwise, we would have had a major problem on our hands. Dealing with them was not the issue, as these creatures made for easy target practice. It was their insidious methods of attack that kept us at a lengthy distance from them, and we weren't enthusiastic about having one of those things latching onto our heads and becoming those wandering hosts that moaned to anybody to end them.

We killed several of them as we traversed these industrial catacombs. Shephard took out those spotted from a distance with his rifle while I coaxed them out into the open with some fire so Shephard could kill them when I wasn't stabbing them with the end of my staff's secret blade. Eventually, Shephard and I came across a catwalk suspended above an area filled with old generators and other large machinery.

I sensed a surfeit number of headcrabs dwelling down below in this area, the most I had detected up until now. Me and Shephard braved a look over the guarded ledge and found a truly revolting sight. Dozens of the little monsters were lingering down on the floor amongst the machinery and what looked to be organic secretions sprawled around the walls and all over the floor almost like webbing, but not quite so. It was more of a reflective oily facet, rather than a stringy material to make structures for themselves. It very well could have been excrement and a whole lot of it. Knowing these beasts prospered by living in their filth took them well below the negative numbers for me.

"Oh God…" Shephard looked down with disgust at all the vermin fostering in this possible hive.

"Truly, I have never encountered a more repulsive species," I inferred as my whiskers and ears twitched from the uncomfortable wet clicking noises that were coming from all the headcrabs down below.

"You're telling me," Shephard agreed. "The fact that they've been weaponised just makes this all the worse. That's probably what happened down here; they found out about the stakeout in their basement and let loose a whole horde of these things to take them out. I guess they prefer an infestation of mind-raping kickballs over plucky freethinking squatters any day."

Shephard had quite an uncouth way of describing things, but he had a point. Perhaps the Combine was directly responsible for this given their affinity for using them to clear out discovered rebel camps. Regardless of what happened, neither of us liked coexisting with these monsters any longer, nor did we particularly like looking at them anymore, and this unsightly image below us pushed me over.

"Hmm…" I pondered out loud. "Before we cross, why don't we clear out this infestation first? Assuming that this is where this colony cultivates."

Shephard looked at me. "How do you envision working that out?"

"I'm not sure. It's more of an experiment," I offered as I commanded the blade in my staff to retract before planting the hilt on the floor. "I'm curious to see how reactive all that oily material is…"

I could see Shephard's eyes grow wide behind those lit green lenses. Without any objection, he lifted himself from the railing and stepped back from the ledge, silently telling me that he wouldn't get in my way. I smirked gratefully before angling the spearhead end of my staff down towards an open patch of the residues. It opened up seconds before I shot a fireball out the opening, and within seconds the whole lower level erupted in a billowing fire that engulfed the whole lower chamber, burning all of the evil creatures to sizzling carcasses that popped from the intense heat.

Shephard began to chuckle devilishly as he returned to the railing, placing both of his hands on it as he looked down and watched. "Yeah, here we go," he said with satisfaction. "Going right back to Hell where they should have stayed. Watching things burn alive ain't really my panache, but I'm making an exception for these things."

"Quite," I agreed, feeling some satisfaction myself as I watched all of these creatures succumb to the flames. If nothing at all, this served as a proper way to honour the poor humans down here who fell victim to these awful things by finally destroying where they elected to cultivate. Shephard then looked at me again.

"Well, I definitely know which exterminator to call when I get an infestation in my future house if I find one."

I felt charmed and smiled back at him. "I suppose I'll add it to my resume, then." Now that the pungent smell of burning putrid flesh had risen high enough to grace my nostrils, I felt the strong compulsion to move on. "Perhaps we should keep moving now. I don't wish to be around when the air turns noxious," I said, pinching my nose.

"Right, right. You don't got a mask," Shephard nodded in understanding as he hoisted his rifle abreast again. "Let's giddy up, then."

I hurried across the catwalk to evade the putrid smell as quickly as I could while Shephard leisurely strolled across behind me, hardly troubled by the burning fumes thanks to that respirator of his.

Minutes later, we eventually did happen upon a service lift that looked to take us out of this dungeon of pipes and old system consoles.

Our only concern that made us apprehensive to take it was that it was not an original structure, for it was a Combine instalment. We came into a room filled with Combine consoles and monitors with a plethora of heavy cables running across the floor with the lift placed snuggling in the centre of the wall on the far end of the room. The lift itself was a simple platform, large enough for five people with a glass surface, and looked to run up a fame made of four metal bars that would take us straight up through the ceiling, what was left of it anyway.

Much of the human-made ceiling looked to have been blown out when the Combine asserted themselves; there was enough pebbly debris still all over the floor to be evident that they didn't do a clean job of it either. Seeing no other way out of these old concrete and metal depths, Shephard and I resigned ourselves to take this lift and see where it would take us. Shephard got a curious gander at all the advanced alien technology humming around us before we stepped onto the glass platform, which was quite thick and felt strong enough to take bullet shots.

The operating device looked rather easy: a simple button with an indicator light next to it that was currently lit green. Shephard dutifully pressed the large button and the green light turned red before four thin panels that had been suspended above the lift slid down right in front of its entry point seconds before the lift began its ascent. A deep and subtle hum droned around us as we passed by the upper levels of the original floorplan, which were all in a shared state of abandonment and disrepair.

After three more floors, a wall of cold metal then completely obscured our vision as we entered a long shaft illuminated by a series of rectangular lights that would persist up until we reached the top. Until then, Shephard and I were forced to wait in anticipative silence as streaks from the outer lights shone across our bodies in sequence, one after the other as we ascended. If there was any reassurance that I had of Shephard relinquishing his mistrust of me after our little trek downstairs, I did not feel it anymore.

Shephard's mind was blank, and I sensed that was deliberate. That itself was not what saddened me, it was Shephard's own mistrust of me. Being that my new empathetic abilities were beginning to mature in me, I was being fed small portions of what was going on inside his heart, and he was not pleased to be confined in this space with me. He could barely look at me.

I knew that this was neither the time nor the place to try and make further amends with him, but I had a feeling that we wouldn't have a moment to ourselves like this again in a while. I wasn't a soldier, but I worked within a tight unit back in my realm, and I knew that a team couldn't function efficiently if there was discord―especially when it was silent like it was now. I tried thinking of ways to heal his trust in me as we idled in silence, but as it turned out, Shephard didn't feel content remaining in it either.

"You doing okay?" he asked me, giving me a little glance.

I met the eyes behind that mask perhaps a bit too quickly. "As well as you, I believe," I replied, twisting my staff's hilt on the glass as it rested on it.

"Good. Because I'm fired up," he said, looking ahead again for the moment. I managed a little smile; I could sense an attempt to rouse me a bit in a positive way, even if it was a little meek. It was the thought that counted, and I was able to know he had that.

Shephard soon looked back at me again, this time to the holster secured around my right leg. "Hey, you're sidearm's gone," he noted, leaning over a bit.

"Yes. I lost it at some point during our flush," I recalled. "Never you worry, Corporal; I'm more than equipped to tackle what may await us," I said, motioning my staff slightly with a tighter grip.

"Hmm. Even so," Shephard added, "you should always have a backup weapon if you find yourself with nothing else."

Shephard then unlocked his pistol from his own holster and offered it to me. "Here. It uses the same mags you put in your satchel."

I took the black pistol and examined it, pulling its slide back to check that it was loaded. It wasn't the same model I took from the armoury, but it was relatively compact. "Nine millimetre, yes?"

"Affirmative," Shephard nodded, pleased with my answer. I smiled modestly as I slid my new firearm into my holster. I had been preoccupied with all kinds of matters throughout my time on Earth, but I was just now starting to acquaint myself with the different gauges of ammunition that these purely mechanical human weapons used. I found myself quite impressed with their intricate mechanisms in comparison to the energy-based weapons that were more prominent in the Lylat System.

"Well, I hope you realise that now you're the one without a secondary," I addressed. "How do you plan to amend that?"

"Chances are we'll pick off a lobotomised rent-a-cop somewhere down the line. I'll just take what they've got on hand then."

"Very well," I shrugged. "I hope you're a tight shot."

"I didn't graduate from sniper school for nothing."

While it wasn't a whole lot, this little exchange did inspire a little hope that the two of us would fully reconcile soon enough. Shephard did not seem like the type to paint others black given his aura. All things good things required time to happen, and I prayed that we still had it while trying to escape this Combine deathtrap.

Moments later, the lift arrived at the top of its track.

We were greeted by an open hallway with dusty tiled floors and a high circular ceiling. The walls were lined with massive pipes that ran along them horizontally. While clearly no longer in the bowels of the facility, we were still thick in it. I had an educated guess that we would be contesting with enemies that were far deadlier than headcrabs up here, and judging from my telepathic sweep of the area, they were not far away.

Shephard was the first to emerge from our nestled cover as he poked his head out. Once he saw that both coasts were clear, he motioned for me to stay behind him as we emerged into the open with his assault rifle at the ready while I covered our flank with my staff, heading in the leftward path. We were both flying blind here, so it was anyone's guess whether we would be going the right way or not.

The hall was long and vacant as the hum of machinery still predominated the soundscape, making it a little trick to trace any enemy chatter if there were any. Even though this hall looked largely pristine, evidence of the Combine was abundant with their cables running along the ceiling as well as massive holographic monitors hanging by the ceiling around various corners projecting various propaganda, particularly recruitment segments to join the Combine Overwatch, hinting at a possible civilian workforce stationed here.

Another unsightly peripheral were the few health stations we passed. I had a very low opinion of them after finding out how they administered aid thanks to witnessing Aaron using one of them. I felt queasy just looking at them and looked away, something that Shephard did not. "Oh hey, a charging station," Shephard observed, speaking in a low tone of voice as he slowed our pace to look.

"They use maggots to heal people, Corporal," I informed with repulsion. "Don't bother with them."

"Yeah, but not the one right next to it," he pointed it, coaxing me to see what he was pointing at. Alongside the familiar health station was a model I hadn't seen before; it was a bit more corrugated in design and had a dirty grey palette with glowing orange seams. "I'm gonna check that out for a second. I think I can use it."

Feeling curious after he said that, I opted to follow him to this station. "What makes you think that?"

"The Doc had been tinkering with my PCV for a little bit some time ago. You know, this big chunky thing on my person," Shephard said, tapping his bulky armoured vest. "He said he could convert it to power stored in energy outlets like these. Said that I can run on what the soldiers do now. He had the frame and guts of one in his lab, so that must have meant he knew what he was talking about."

Shephard soon stepped up to the power station and opened a small panel next to his right shoulder strap. He began to pull out a tiny hose with a plug on the end of it. He looked at it for a few seconds as he ran his two fingers around it. "Let's hope he pulled it off…"

Shephard then inserted the cord's plug snuggly into the open outlet on the module, and automatically the charger on the wall churned to life as a little bar of light that had been glowing on the module began to shrink horizontally, accompanied by a soft electric droning sound before the charger appeared to run out of juice. The whole module went dark, prompting Shephard to nod in satisfaction as he unplugged his cord before he extended it out further before the cord itself slinked back into his vest with moderate force from an apparent pull-back mechanism.

"Huh. Guess he did," Shephard remarked with surprise as he closed the little cover back up.

"How can you tell?" I wondered.

"My vest links up to my mask," he explained, "Our issued gear used experimental tech called 'Bluetooth', or something like that. Wireless connection. Gives me a readout of my lifelines." He then began tapping one finger on one of his goggles, suggesting that's where he could see them.

"Fascinating," I said. "Cornerian troops have equipment similar in function, but they're more like lightweight armoured suits rather than vests that only protect the vital organs."

Shephard looked off for a moment, blank with his stare, but I could tell he was hiding a little smile behind that mask by the way his cheeks raised. "I'm not sure what's weirder sometimes," he said. "All this Combine crap, or knowing that we've been getting outdone by dog people in the next universe over this whole time."

That gift of an informative lull did not last as we had to keep moving.

Even though I did not detect Combine signals near our block, I found myself becoming less trusting of the facility itself. Their metal structures prohibited any telepathic breaching and I had to assume that their instalments were much more present than what I currently saw, so I relied primarily on my nose and my ears for sensing enemies. Combine chatter was distinct enough to be heard amongst running machines, and units did, in fact, have an anomalous odour: pungently sterile.

Shephard and I carefully navigated these lonely, vacuous hallways amongst the sounds of machinery. Amongst intermittent blank walls were various Combine propaganda plasters written in those alien glyphs and boldly displaying the angular crescent emblem of their empire. The omniscient face of Dr Breen was on nearly every piece that we passed, and even a few of his breencasts were being shown on a few of the giant monitors in the hall.

"Foot-licker," Shephard commented with spite as we passed one of them, though his gentle and pampering voice could be heard reverberating around the facility even when we weren't near a monitor. I shared his sentiment. Puppet leaders seemed to be the most irritating kind of tyrant, and Dr Breen practically gushed his insincerities right out of the holographic screens whenever speaking reverently of the Combine.

After several more minutes of wandering these empty halls, which only grew more unnerving the longer we didn't encounter personnel of any kind, we eventually did― kind of. I wished I had kept my thoughts from jinxing us when we encountered them.

For the first time since our infiltration, I sensed Combine soldiers coming our way and urgently told Shephard to take cover, which happened to be behind an old forklift with flat tyres idling to the side with a tarped crate in its forks. I kept my now-retracted staff close to my breast as I stole myself a viewing point through a small opening in the space between the abandoned vehicle and the wall.

The hallway diverged between four separate pathways several metres ahead like a five-way intersection, and a Combine soldier was coming from one of the halls to the right as the sound of its treading boots grew louder with its approach. When the soldier appeared into view my jaw opened in surprise. I had not seen a soldier like this yet.

Its padded uniform was all white with bold black boots that covered its calves, black gloves, and a bold red arm plate on its right arm with a variant of the Combine logo on it, with the designation C03 right underneath it, similar to what the metro cops wore. Its white helmet was unique and frightening, for there was only a single red optic in the centre of its face, glowing an ominous bright red as it walked leisurely down the hall holding its pulse rifle.

Shephard was no less put off by the appearance of this augmented terror, and I was left to realise, same as him, that this bright uniform signified elite status amongst its ranks. The most colourful warrior on the battlefield was often the most important, at least in my experience. The white soldier wasn't merely strolling for the sake of it, as a row of pods could then be seen floating in midair just behind him in a line, revealing a group of eight as they floated out into the open using levitation means I could not see.

"Lesion Keep to Grid Point Eighteen," it announced over its internal commlink, its filtered voice heavily brisk and unfriendly-sounding. "Union workforce cleared and vacated to level eight dormitories; all shifts met satisfactorily. Maintaining routine servitor transfer to your sector. Ensure northwest reactor passage swept of tonal assets as per standard protocol and report."

"Uhh…affirmative, Lesion Keep, that is affirmative," another voice then spoke up on the receiver, sounding considerably more 'human' with its discernible lack of artificial confidence in its reply. "Malignant detention centre depository awaiting allocation. Check radial status for node changes; sectors ten and thirteen on standby for clearance at perimeter crosswire."

"Copy."

The soldier was almost out of sight down the next hall by the time it finished its check-in with the train of hovering pods trailing behind it. They looked to be prisoner pods of some kind, but dangling just underneath them were pairs of fleshy nubs each with what looked to be stilts of some kind nailed into them. They couldn't have been human, could they? If any unconscious thoughts were coming from the pods I couldn't sense them due to their psionic-resistant metal construction.

"Malignants…" Shephard whispered, deciphering what the soldier was saying through its staticky chatter. "That's what they call rebels, right?" he asked, briefly glancing back at me.

"Troublemakers of any sort, yes," I confirmed. "Do you suggest we follow that soldier to see if that's where it's going?"

"You read my mind," Shephard affirmed. He was about to stand up when he suddenly froze. "But I really hope you didn't…" he uttered, much more coldly than he usually spoke. He resumed his rise and began to walk close to the wall, hardly waiting for me to follow him.

His tone made my throat clench a little. There was unmistakable anger in him when I heard him say that. Not a lot, but it made ripples in my mind. I began to worry that this would cultivate in a manner that would not end well if it remained unresolved, but time may not have been generous enough to allow that to happen.