Gordon Freeman analyzed the situation in flashes. Big green slug things. Two. Telekinetic abilities. Four ADVENT(?) troopers, splayed on the floor. One being carted off by big thug (muton?) Dropships overhead. Both sides.
Jane Kelly crouched next to him behind the fallen tree sticking through the side of the craft, its trunk still steaming from the recent UFO impact, shotgun clutched in her own gloved hands. Bradford, all pulse rifle and fury, had already blazed a path towards the crash site, announcing himself as the crack of a sniper rifle sounded overhead – Alyx Vance, perched in the helicopter they had rested on top of a nearby hill. With her, Lily and the still-unconscious Adrian.
They do not resonate as we do. Lily, Alyx, and Jane – brilliant, strong, and capable in their own right, Gordon knew the future ultimately rested with people like them. But what he had seen in that strange vision … it was like he knew saw in an additional dimension. He stared at his gloved hand, his thumb pushing away some of the mud and blood. It was like a thin smear of reality followed every movement of his hand, and with every curve of the knuckle he could see the layers of nerve, flesh, and bone beneath the HEV suit. He lifted his arm to the skies and saw no difference between the glory of the heavens, the crude matter around him, and his own flickering flesh.
And there was her. The flashbang to the soul, this "Annette Durand." She burned with a fire Gordon would not have thought possible, even through her wounds and fear. He looked to her and saw, not the white hair, the vomit, and the blood, but a great shape emerging from her back, purple and grandiose, an almighty dust cloud that latched itself on to her mind like a tick, further augmenting her power as it drew on something else. Gordon watched her be carted off in the arms of her bodyguard and made no move to stop them – one day she would be the bigger problem, no doubt, but at this minute, he knew Bradford burned with a ferocious rage and intent borne of far, far too much grief.
"Let's make this quick, Freeman," called out Bradford, dragging Gordon back to earth. Gordon grunted and nimbly vaulted over the tree trunk, gravity gun at the ready. It pulsed with an energy that matched his own, his heartbeat synching with its anomalous music. Gordon glared down at the twin grubs, each already bloodied, one with its belly to the floor, and the other latched to the wall like some maggot on the side of a garbage bin, their gazes fixed on Bradford, and then him.
Uncertainty distorted the air like a heat wave, but ultimately greed overcame all else. The wall-grub launched itself forward with a speed Gordon would never have thought possible. Bradford stood his ground, while Jane let fly with a retaliatory shotgun blast. The grub's face(?), already badly lacerated, spurted fresh green blood. It cried out, the noise echoing through the woods like some cybernetic elk. Then the entire UFO began to creak.
They pulled walls, flooring, debris, even the limp body of one of the little Roswell aliens from the ground. Gordon pulled back on the gravity gun bolt and seized a sharp and still-flaming piece of debris, but even it listed as the grubs pulled everything to them. They lifted to the air as one, a great nimbus of metal, wood, and soil surrounding them. Behind them on the hill, Alyx squeezed the trigger again, but this time the shot bounced off the grub's spinning defense mechanism. Jane fired her own shotgun, emptying the magazine, but little seemed to get through. For a moment, both sides surveyed the situation, only to come to the same, sudden, and mutual conclusions.
One – the aliens and ADVENT previously pinned by the grubs now stood to their collective feet, and pointed their weapons upwards; apparently these grubs could only hold so much in their "hands" at once.
Two – whatever long-term apathy ADVENT might have felt towards the Resistance, and vice-versa, clearly did not matter in the face of whatever the fuck these things were. One muton momentarily lowered its weapon at Bradford, grunted, and then stuck his plasma rifle back up at the sky.
Three – the grubs were now in a very active airspace. Two Combine dropships landed beyond the site and Gordon could feel the active absences of their soldiery approaching. However, said airspace was very contested. And those contesting it were livid. Exhibit A: a berserk ADVENT dropship.
Having unloaded its cargo and whatever fucks it had to give, the brilliant purple wingless craft met one of the grubs head on, the defense nimbus giving way to the sheer mass of the craft. For a moment, the dropship obscured the bastard aliens from view, only for the sound of shearing metal to fill the air. The grubs descended as the dropship fell into pieces, ripped apart by whatever hellish powers these things possessed. For a moment, the nimbus fell to pieces as the grubs hit their limit.
Crack. Another sniper rifle shot, narrowly missing and instead cutting loose another piece of interior UFO wall. Gordon fired his own piece of debris at the closest grub. It came within two feet of the grub before suspending, tendrils of energy licking its surface. The grub did not even bother looking at him, yet Gordon still ducked. His own projectile came back at him with ten times the force, flying into the distance and hopefully not starting a forest fire. Not tremendous.
"The flanks!" shouted Bradford, pointing. The glowing blue goggles of Combine soldiers took positions behind what remained of burning trees. Gordon nodded an affirmative that only he knew Bradford could feel, and sprinted towards the foes who would *not* hurl back his projectiles with twice the force.
Rounds punched at his chest, heavy and hard, kicking up blue sparks from the charged suit. Gordon picked up another piece of jagged debris from the UFO, its edges jagged and searing with heat. He blasted it at the first soldier he saw, peaking a tree and filling his chestplate with harmless pepper.
The soldier went down with a cry and a spray of lurid red. Gordon lunged forward again, taking up an opposite position to the burning tree and feeling for the fallen soldier's gun. Finding it, he rounded the tree and pulled the trigger until it went click, causing the other two soldiers in the squad to fall back.
Around them, plasma blasts lit up the night, interspersed with shouting and alien cries. A muton hurled a grenade at the melted-face grub. It snagged the emerald explosive, gave a snort of what sounded like outrage, and hurled it back with such force that the muton's face caved in. What remained of its head exploded shortly afterward.
A Thin Man spat poison at the other grub to no effect. The grub emerged from the cloud unperturbed, and promptly pulled the snake-person in with its mind by the heel, its limp limbs clawing at the metal flooring of the UFO all the while. Jane Kelly took advantage of the distraction to fire once more at the lacerated grub, only for the Thin Man to be violently jerked in the path of the blast, spraying the UFO with toxins as the faux-man died.
Gordon caught this only in glimpses. A soldier, goggles red, emerged from the treeline, shotgun barrel glinting. Gordon barely had time to duck as it slam fired three rounds at him and charged, its vocoder crackling with further medical jargon. Gordon pried his crowbar from his belt, lay it on the floor, and activated his gravity gun. The crowbar, to his relief, oriented itself point first as he caught it in the zero-point energy field. Perfect. He rounded the tree and fired it.
The crowbar buried itself point first between the goggle lenses. The shotgun soldier fell backwards with a groan, his shotgun falling from now-limp fingers. Perfect. Gordon placed his foot against the soldier's sternum and wrenched the crowbar free before turning his attention back to the chaos of the craft.
One grub now floated above the UFO once more, another debris field established around itself. The other lay on its belly and slid towards Jane and Bradford, who fired at it to no appreciable effect, peppering its side and face with splotches of green. The aliens and ADVENT once more lay pinned, and Gordon Freeman had been all but forgotten.
Thinking, Gordon pulled the grenade he'd "appropriated" from Adrian after he had collapsed in the mines, figuring it would be a better way for both of them to go out if push came to shove. An idea formed. The muton had been stupid, certainly, but not strictly for using the grenade. It is more an issue of velocity … and time. Gordon pulled the pin and dropped it at his feet.
It cracked once, then twice, then in rapid succession. Gordon, humming to himself, pulled it in with his gravity gun as the cracking intensified, waited a moment further, and hurled it at the encroaching grub.
Sure enough, the grub caught it about three feet from itself, not even turning to look at where the grenade came from. Only, instead of this time hurling it back, the grenade exploded. The already-devastated UFO blossomed with yet more fire and smoke, and Gordon felt the same stab of satisfaction he had seeing the Apache go down back at Black Mesa. Hmm, RPG wouldn't go amiss here. Even the other grub looked down at what happened with what might have been concern.
Jane and Bradford, shouting in savage triumph, fired blindly into the smoke, feeling the air with yet more green. The melted face grub now clawed its way free of the smoke, leaving a trail of green as if it were indeed some manner of slug, pulling itself along with its hands instead of its powers. The ADVENT rose yet again. A muton cracked his knuckles and roared. All beings, man and alien and beast and all combinations thereof, fell on the grub with gun and tooth and claw.
Jane Kelly lashed out with her sword, cutting deep. A muton grabbed the grub by the breathing apparatus(?) on its face and began to pull, pushing his legs against the face and bracing his entire body against the green monstrosity. Bradford had emptied all of his pulse rounds and now beat the creature incessantly with the butt of his gun, all a blind frenzy. In its pain, the creature thrashed and feebly lashed out with its arms, but any semblance of control it had over the situation and its powers no longer presented itself.
Behind him, Gordon heard a whoop, and a thunderous electronic cantering. Beyond it, though, he heard something else – the purring of an engine. So when three blue tripods, eight feet tall and full of malicious intent, emerged behind him, he did not panic.
The first received his crowbar to the optics, courtesy of his gravity gun. The other two separated as the first tripod's brain tried and failed to remember how to stand, deciding instead to bleed internally and fall over. Gordon vacated his cover and ran to the side, behind the UFO, as blue flechettes ploughed into where he once crouched. After a few moments of humming, they detonated. The sound of a car in the distance grew louder.
The hunters circled around Gordon, who pushed back into the open, plucking a heavy tree branch with his gun and hurling it a tripod, who sidestepped it, laughing. The other circled around, cackling with that deep electric bellow. Gordon did not bother turning around. The Thin Men, who had been waiting patiently out of sight for their shot, lit the hunter up with their plasma rifles. Gordon smirked at its screams.
The final Combine tripod, all vile intentions, lowered its head, antennae shaking with rage. It looked about ready to charge. Instead of backpedaling, sidestepping, or doing anything else of the sort, Gordon dug in his heels and looked the creature in the blue eyes. He let his mind stab out once, without even fully realizing it. The creature's optic equivalents dilated. That moment's hesitation was all Gordon needed.
The purr of that distant engine now became a roar. Sheckley, piloting what sounded like a Dodge engine but looked like a stripped-down muscle car, burst from the treeline, a vortigaunt in the passenger's seat. The tripod had just enough time to turn around before becoming roadkill, the reinforced bumper on the buggy sending it flying. It collapsed against the UFO with an ear-piercing scream and fell silent.
"Hey Freeman!" called Sheckley, before catching a glimpse of the UFO's ongoing chaos. "The fuck?"
"Shu'ulathoi!" hissed the vortigaunt, prying himself loose from the car. "Worthy prey!"
Gordon, never one to forget his roots, pointed the gravity gun at the first hunter's corpse and yanked his crowbar free. It now floated point-first once more, glistening with tripod fluid. And the target…?
One grub lay exhausted and bleeding, while the other swiped ineffectually at Bradford with its hands, unwilling to lower its debris defense field. Plasma blasts and bullets alike pinged off its telekinetic field, but with its defenses impregnable, it also seemed unable to inflict lasting harm. Still, it edged itself forward to Jane and Bradford, who would sooner or later have to give ground or meet it head on.
The vortigaunt assumed a combat stance as he channeled the green energies Gordon had been on the business end of so many times. The blast ploughed into the still-active grub, making it buckle. It turned to face the new threat as crackling green energy threaded its way through its massive form, and now Gordon could feel the mood of the thing shift from rage … to fear. It began to shake its massive head. The debris field intensified, and it ceased its effort to reach the humans. The second vortigaunt blast faltered as the damn thing pulled about half the UFO's collective mass to itself. The debris field lifted higher.
Gordon joined the vortigaunt's side, crowbar now pointed upwards at the ball of metal, wood, and flesh above them. He tapped the vortigaunt on the shoulder. It took one look at the physics cannon and knew what Gordon wanted.
"A lance from the heavens, Freeman!" called the vortigaunt, clasping his two main hands together. With what might have been a vortigaunt smile, he channeled the energy into the crowbar, which sparked green, smoked, and started to vibrate.
The grub lifted still higher, its comrade abandoned in place. Alyx fired again from the helicopter, punching a momentary hole in the defenses, only for it to be swiftly covered. Bradford shouted in dismay. The crowbar began to blur as the air around it distorted with heat and anomalous energy. The tension began to creep up Gordon's arm, like he was twisting something together until it could go no further.
"Steady, Freeman!" grunted the vortigaunt, sounding pretty tense himself. The energy ratcheted up a notch, and another. The crowbar now whined like a tea kettle, and the gravity gun sparked, its pressure gauge pointed firmly at maximum. With a start, the gun jumped, the orange shifting to vibrant green.
As one, the vortigaunt released the flow of energy with a snap. Gordon pointed the eldritch projectile at the heart of the still rising mass and released the bolt. With a snap, the crowbar flew like a javelin tossed by an angry Greek god, knocking Gordon on his ass.
The projectile met the debris field and parted it like it was cheap toilet paper. Inside, something screamed in terrible, terrible pain. The debris field collapsed abruptly, and everything fell to earth in so much reclaimed inertia. The grub hit the floor of the UFO craft with a sickeningly wet thud, its mass now turning from asset to liability. With a final heave, the creature fell still, the business end of the crowbar sticking out of its best approximation of a head, still crackling with green energy. The battlefield froze.
The final grub, all lacerated and exhausted, looked at its fallen comrade, then at the surrounding hostiles. With a jerk, it pulled itself free and lifted off, not even bothering with a debris field in favor of raw speed. It paused only to sweep a stunned sectoid off its feet in one arm, and take one final swipe at Bradford with another, who thankfully stumbled backwards just in time. Then, with a roar of emotion, it fired like a bullet from the UFO. Alyx, still quick on the draw, fired again, drawing blood and speckling the air with green. But this time, the beast did not slow. It retreated, bleeding, into the angry horizon, all greed and hope abandoned. This just left the survivors, a destroyed UFO, and a grotesque corpse.
"The Freeman thinks quickly, and strikes hard," said the vortigaunt, inclining his head. "In time, the Freeman will not require our assistance to power his weapon, so." The gravity gun already returned to its regular orange hue, the pressure gauge resuming normalcy. Gordon tapped it, disappointed.
Gordon joined Bradford and Kelly at the crash site. Jane smiled as Gordon approached, but Bradford just stared at the elephantine corpse. Then, without saying anything, he reached over to Kelly, yanked her machete from the sheath on her back, and fell on the corpse without a sound.
Two Thin Men and ADVENT troopers, the only other survivors, joined them in watching as Bradford, grunting with exertion but otherwise saying nothing, hacked, hacked, and hacked away at the still body of the grub. Green and yellow fatty tissue flew from the body yet Bradford did not slow, slicing deeper and deeper into the faces and side of the creature before the machete flew from his grip, sliding away. Without slowing, he began punching and kicking, and now the spit flew and the cries came, as Bradford punched the creature hard enough to draw blood on himself.
"Fuck you!" he screamed. "Fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you-"
Gordon wanted to intervene, but knew he had a place somewhere in the man's obvious grief. Jane retrieved her machete, expressionless. They just waited, silent, alone in the smoke and the blood.
John Bradford finally slowed with several deep, heaving breaths, his hands resting against the creature as its weight supported him. The breathing gave way to sobbing, and he pounded his fists several times against the creature's bulk, trying and failing to control himself. The vortigaunt looked to Gordon knowingly. The two of them took a shoulder. Bradford let himself be pushed away from the still corpse.
"You weren't there," he said, eyes low and glistening. "You were there before – before all this. You and Adrian. And you're here now. But not the in-between."
"Lily, and Alyx, and Jane," he said, turning to Jane now, "this is all they know. They don't remember. But I do. And all the bits in-between. All of it." His face sagged, and suddenly Gordon could see the age and the scars, faded yet still all-too-clear. "I've been doing this for so long…"
Gordon nodded. He looked back at the corpse of the behemoth he had slain. It lay there, a mutilated ruin, brained by a crowbar, its tongue forced out of its own body from the fall.
"You okay down there?" Alyx's voice came in low from Bradford's headset. The commander cleared his throat and pressed the piece to his ear.
"We're, huh, we're good. Nice shooting, Tex." He now turned his attention to the bystanders. "Just need to figure out what to do with the survivors."
One ADVENT troopers promptly raised his plasma rifle, only to have it forced down violently by the other.
"No you idiot, you can't shoot them! That's Gordon Freeman!"
"Oh." The slower ADVENT trooper shrugged. "Uh, what about the rest of them?"
"We surrender," said the Thin Men in unison, dumping their own plasma rifles in front of them like so much garbage. Jane sucked in a breath at this, obviously confused. Gordon and Bradford looked at each other, uncertain.
"So, uh, how we want to handle this, boys?" asked Sheckley, trying to sound tough. "I mean, way I figure it, two of 'em are traitors and two of 'em are POWs, so…"
"Hey, we're on the same side, man," retorted the more intelligent of the two troopers, pulling his helmet off his head to reveal the decidedly normal-looking human beneath it. "Way I see it, we were just unlucky to be on the coastline when a UFO landed and offered us better food and guns. Not all of us got cushy jobs sitting in old nuclear silos."
"I'm … not in the mood," growled Bradford, and Gordon stepped in front of the man slightly, hand extended.
"Whoa! No offense intended!" said the ADVENT soldier, backing up. He dropped his own weapon and raised his arms. His slower compatriot followed suit. "Shit, if the Thin Men are giving up, what chance have we got?"
"Any reason you gentlemen are throwing in the towel?" asked Bradford, almost making Gordon snigger. The Thin Men took a moment to translate the idiom internally.
"Him," they replied, looking to Gordon. "And you. And them." The corpse did not answer as they nodded to it.
"Whatever they are," said Bradford, the pain still all too raw.
"An Elder has fallen," continued a Thin Men, "yet you still stand, blazing with light."
"They're uh, not gonna send any more dropships," said the smarter trooper. "Pretty sure of that. So, you can, uh, shoot us, or send us into those horrible woods, or uh…"
"Surrender is acceptable," grunted a vortigaunt, making Bradford start. "It is the time of new allegiances. We will build on this ruin and make something new." The vortigaunt glanced up at the stars. "These servants are blameless for the sins of their masters. Forgiveness, is not ours to bestow. But we will strive to grant clemency, nonetheless."
"Jesus, a free pass from the vorts?" asked Sheckley, mouth agape. Then he shook his head. "All right, all right. Look, you guys take these Thin Mints on your chopper, I'll handle the two geniuses here with the vort."
"And the corpse," muttered the vortigaunt.
"Are you fucking serious?" asked Sheckley, gesticulating back at his comparatively small vehicle. "It's fucking huge, how are we supposed to-"
"You'll manage," said Bradford, clearly tired of the nonsense. He glanced at his two new captives. "All right, you can join the other hostage. He does janitorial work now, I hear. Helps with the rat problem at Black Mesa East."
"Good," the vortigaunt said. "Make them useful. We will dress the corpse and ready it for the Moira Vahlen. Coordinates to follow. All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well." He gave Gordon a deep bow, which he returned. He pointed once to the crowbar tip still lodged in the grub's presumable brain matter, and the vortigaunt nodded back in acknowledgement. I'll be wanting it back. How else will I open my boxes?
The Thin Men handed their weapons over to Bradford, who himself handed one to Jane. More Adams. The five of them returned up the hill and to the helicopter. Alyx and Lily did not question the new passengers, only gave them the side eye as they boarded the chopper bonelessly, each opting to take a seat next to Gordon, who tried to ignore how they stared. Not sure I like where this is going.
Adrian stirred in his sleep. John Bradford rested a hand on his chest, frowning.
"Not a peep from him, but he's stable," said Lily as she clambered back into the cockpit. "White Forest or Black Mesa East?"
"Gotta drop off the hostages and call in that body," replied Bradford. "Black Mesa East. I need to talk to Eli."
"Right on. Black Mesa East coming up." Lily punched her instruments and the helicopter whirred into life. "Sorry about the lack of support. Left ROV-R at home. Didn't think we'd be seeing that much action today." She paused. "Or ever. What the hell was that thing?"
Gordon gave the smoking ruin below one last look. Even high above, the grub, this "Shu'ulathoi" still looked massive.
"Dunno," said Bradford, his visage cast into shadow, lit only by the glowing green of his new plasma rifle, "but if I get my way … I'm going to kill. Every. Last. One of them."
Behind them, Adrian stirred, coughed, and then vomited. Something thumped on to the floor and made Alyx scream and almost stand up. Adrian twitched, reached into the puddle of vomit, and proffered something small and spiky in his hands before speaking his first words since Victory Mine.
"I think it's a girl. Hurray."
The helicopter flew over the dark woods below, the madness it left behind it still far greater than the madness developing within it.