Wake Up and Smell the Ashes, Pt. 1.
Wake Up and Smell the Ashes, Pt. 1.
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Arizona, May 14, 200-
There was little as wonderful as sleeping in. Nothing quite like snuggling up in your bed, letting the wonderful world of dreams come in to entice the imagination, and bring wonder and joy to even the most tired of minds.
"Mike, wake up!"
Unfortunately, as with all good things, it had to come to an end. Such it was for young Mike Cohen, the little boy doing his best to pretend to have not heard his mother's call. The little boy snuggled deeper into his bed-sheets, hoping that she wouldn't come up and would let him sleep in. It was a hope that was doomed for disappointment, but the stubborn young boy was determined to try anyway.
"Mike? Miiiike. I know you can hear me, young man." Mike remained silent as he continued to try and return to the land of dreams. He had been having a rather nice dream, though already the memory of it was becoming lost in his awoken mind. Something about portals and other worlds. Fantasy stuff, even he knew that, but he still found himself wishing it were all real.
"Michael S. Cohen, you get your little butt down here, that's an order soldier!" In an instant, Michael was out of bed and rushing down in his pajamas, the voice of someone he hadn't seen in person for months driving any futile thoughts of dreams out of his mind. Getting down the stairs as fast as his little legs could take him, Mike grabbed the wall-frame to twist his rapid momentum around into the living room, where he made a beeline for the hulking man in combat BDUs standing in the middle of the living room, hands on his hip in a stern, militaristic fashion. The effect, however, was ruined by the big smile on the man's face, a gleam in his eye as he watched Mike run over and hug his leg.
"Tommy!" Mike shouted as he hugged his older brother. "I never thought I'd see you again!"
"So I take it you did miss me, squirt!" Thommas 'Tommy' Cohen laughed as he ruffled his younger brother's black hair, their mother watching from the sidelines with a smile on her face. Getting down to one knee, Tommy looked Mike in the eye with an enormous grin still stuck to his features. "And guess what, squirt." He lifted a red beret from behind his back before putting it on his head. "I now officially outrank you!"
"Ah man, no fair." Mike huffed as he let go of his brother to look at the cap he wore: The red beret covered his brother's close shaven hair completely, an emblem whose meaning was lost to mike just off-center to it's right side.
"Sorry kid, but you know how it is." Tommy shrugged. "Little kids don't get into training, this was always going to happen." Mike rolled his eyes as he looked over his brother's uniform, an set of urban camo pants and an assortment of green pouches on a black armored vest standing his brother out as a true military man. "Though between you and me," Tommy stage whispered conspiratorially to Mike, "Officer training's a real ball-buster." Saying such a crude thing to his little brother earned him a quick smack on the shoulder by their mother.
"Tommy, language!" She hissed.
"Sorry ma, you know how it is." Tommy laughed.
"I was married to your father, rest his soul, I do know, and I refuse to have that kind of language in this house-hold!" The Cohen matriarch declared, to which even Tommy, who stood over a foot taller than her and out-massed her by a hundred pounds of extra muscle mass, could not help but wince under her gaze. "Am I clear?"
"Yes ma'am!" Tommy said with a grin, though the fear of riling his ma' up put an edge to his eyes. Mike couldn't blame him: Marisa Cohen was the best mom a kid could ask for, but when she got going, nothing could stop her. Deciding to give his brother an out, Mike was quick enough on his feet to point at Mike's vest.
"What outfit are you in, Tommy?" Mike asked. "Are you a Marine like dad was?"
"Sorta." Mike blinked at Tommy's odd answer.
"How can you 'sorta' be a Marine?" Mike asked innocently enough. Tommy stood up to his full height and brushed his uniform straight.
"It's a special unit I got selected out of basic for thanks to my scores." Tommy cryptically said. When he saw the pleading look for more details from his little brother's eyes, he cracked, if only a little. "But yeah, us grunts in this outfit are Marines. Though, not going to lie, they seemed to have picked up a little of every Branch for this uniform."
"Lord forgive me, but thank goodness your father isn't around to hear you say that." Marisa shook her head as she clicked her tongue. "I still remember his rants whenever your Uncle Floyd came over." The problem with being a military family was that sometimes, once in a blue moon, you got a maverick. And in the case of the late James Cohen, his brother's Floyd's decision to go Army instead of Marines was somehow worse than if he'd remained a civilian altogether.
"God, he'd chew me out for rubbing shoulders with Army Medics. I'd never hear the end of it." Tommy shook his head as Marisa waved for her boys to follower her to the kitchen for breakfast, which they obediently did.
"He'd chew you out just for wearing that beret." Marisa couldn't help but laugh. "You look like Army airborne!" Tommy blinked as he took the beret off his head and inspected it out.
"....Oh shi-" Marisa snapped her head to look at him with a glare. "-ttake mushrooms, you're right." He groaned.
"You boys take a seat, and I'll cook us up some eggs and bacon."
"Thanks ma, yours is always the best." Tommy said a genuine smile. Mike took his seat opposite of his brother at the small breakfast nook they had in the kitchen. All that talk of dad made him a little sad, but he'd died long enough ago that Mike only really had pictures and stories from his relatives to go off of. Though, he couldn't find it too upsetting. He had Tommy, who was always there for him before, so it wasn't all bad.
"Hey squirt, I got you something." Tommy said, leaning forwards with a wolfish grin on his face. Mike looked up, curious, when his brother reached into a pocket and took out a gift-wrapped object. Pushing it across the table, Mike took hold of the gift with wide eyes.
"My birthday isn't until next month, Tommy."
"I know, but I got word back at base that me and the boys might see a deployment before then." Tommy admitted, only wincing when he realized he'd said that loud enough for their mother to hear.
"Where are you going?" Marisa asked as she continued to prepare breakfast.
"They're pretty hush-hush about it, but word is something about a training mission right here in the States." Tommy honestly replied. "I just got my rank, so they haven't given me all the details just yet. I'll know closer to when it happens in a couple of days or so."
"You're going away already?" Mike asked, the disappointment etched on his face. "But you just got here!"
"It's not going to be for forever, squirt." Tommy said with an apologetic look. "I promise, I'll be back before you know. Now, you going to open your gift or not?" Mike paused before grabbing the wrapping paper and ripping it off in one go. One look at the item within and Mike's eyes widened with shock and awe.
"Is this a Zune!?" Mike gasped. Tommy gave him two thumbs up.
"Happy Early-Birthday, you musical goon! Try it out, I took the liberty of downloading some of my favorites unto it!"
"Nothing inappropriate I hope!" Marisa said with a dangerous edge in her voice.
"Nothing too bad." Tommy playfully uttered with a shrug. Turning it on, Mike hit the play button on the first song in the playlist, and all at once familiar chords from one of Tommy's favorite bands started to fill the air.
"This is great!" Mike squealed in delight. "Thank you, Tommy!"
"You can thank me at the birthday party with an extra helping of cake." Tommy chuckled. As their mother came over to deliver their respective plates of scrambled eggs and thick cut bacon, Tommy reached across the table to playfully tussle his younger brother's hair again. "Don't worry, squirt, this assignment will be over in no time!"
"Promise?" Mike asked hopefully as he pressed pause on his music player.
"Promise." Tommy said with a confident smile.
-
Eastern Europe, 'City 17', 202-
Tommy hadn't kept his promise. He hadn't come back from his assignment, and the world went to hell not many days after they had last seen each other. First had been the portal storms. Even from as early in his childhood as it was, he still had vivid memories of those chaotic first days: Their neighbors, the Johnsons, screaming in the middle of the night as some strange two-legged squid thing broke in and started to trash the living room. Of the mad scramble he and his mother had gotten into to get out of the neighborhood, the memory of what had once been their post-man shuffling towards them with his midsection ripped open as some strange creature had seemingly replaced his head.
Of when the Combine arrived and subjugated the world in a matter of hours.
Life after that had been a blur, after they had finished setting up their new rule and crushed any remaining holdouts of rebellious activity at the time. He still remembered being in his early teens when his mom was forcibly separated from him in one of countless transfers to various cities. Cities whose names were now long forgotten outside of backroom whispers, replaced by cold, unfeeling numbers.
So it was little wonder that as he inspected his MP7, Mike couldn't help but feel a grim sense of satisfaction as the stolen APC he and his fellow Rebels were in rumbled through the street.
"Alright, boys and girls, listen up." Mike glanced over at the speaker seated at the head of the APC's troop compartment. Joe Weathers, a dark-skinned man little older than Mike himself, and the man to break him into the Rebel life, looked over his subordinates as they settled in for their mission. "The job is simple: While our friends closer to the Citadel are giving our dearest Dr. Breen our sincerest regards, our job is to handle a group of Overwatch soldiers gearing up in the outskirts in one of the run-off junctions." Joe looked to each of them, his eyes locking into each of theirs in sequence. "We lost contact with the folks there, and their last transmission confirmed that Overwatch had sent a detachment to secure the area. Now that everything is in full swing, we're going to need to take out any Combine squads we can before they reach the inner city. Any questions?"
Mike raised his hand.
"Mike, your question?"
"Any Striders?"
"Thankfully no, it'll just be us and our mirror stooges." Joe uttered as he locked and loaded his magazine. "If there are no other questions, gear up people: It's going to be loud."
-
To say it was 'loud' was a quaint understatement: As Mike bobbed and weaved between the scant cover in the grass covered canal, it was pure cacophony as grenades were thrown or launched, rockets were fired, and explosive barrels were fired upon. Pure chaos. He managed to make it to a wayward shipping container just in time for it to block an incoming rocket, which he responded to by launching a grenade at the Overwatch soldier who had fired it. The grimly satisfying distorted yelp somehow managed to make it to his ears past the explosion, to which he grinned ferally.
"How'd you like that, you jackboots?" He asked to nobody in particular before taking aim and firing a score of rounds at an incoming enemy shotgunner, putting him down before he could make it to his position. That made it 5 under his belt already. "Joe, how many of these guys do we have to put into the dirt to win this thing?!" Mike asked through his comms device. The gunfire on the other end paused for a moment.
"Intel said this place was crewed by 50 soldiers!" Funny, it felt like they were only fighting, what, 16 at a time at any one point? Actually, now that Mike thought about it, the Rebels had sent in 50 of their crack shots to this place, him included, and yet it also seemed like there was only 16 of them in total fighting out there. He shook his head back into the game. Questions for later, right now they had Unis to take down. "Ah shit, listen Mike, we're trying to make a push for the bunker up here, but we're getting pinned down. I could use some help."
"On my way." Mike declared as he dumped the rest of his current magazine into a soldier that had run around the container but hadn't noticed him in time to react. 6 now. An alarm began to sound. He didn't know what that was about, but he took it as a sign to get moving.
Mike started the mad dash up the near by ladder towards the control room, hissing as stray bullets bit into him as he climbed as fast as his arms and legs could carry him. Just as he reached the top, he was just in time to see the bunker doors start to close. A harried sprint fueled by adrenaline saw him barrel towards the doorway before it could shut completely. He was already sliding beside Joe over some make shift cover as it was half-way closed behind them. "Oh geeze, you weren't kidding." He mumbled as he noticed an array of bodies in the bunker's main room. More makeshift uniforms than padded ones.
"I count 5 of them on the other side of the room." Joe declared. Mike took a look around and saw it was only him and Joe behind the makeshift barrier weathering the Combine's fire.
"Ah hell, we've had worse odds." Mike grumbled as he reloaded his weapon. "What the hell is that alarm?"
"I think the Combis ordered a strike in the area." Mike looked at Joe in shock.
"What!? Everyone's still out there! Hell, their guys are still out there!"
"Since when did Breen's boys care about little things like that?" Joe took the brief pause in the enemy firing to start to firing back, only to hiss as he grabbed an injury in his side. "They hit me bad out there. How're you looking?" Mike's response was to use the pause to take aim and nail any Combi's he could. 7. 8.
"Damn, I'm good." Mike quipped as he took cover again to give Joe a grinning thumbs up.
"You're killing machine." Joe chuckled. "Okay, so it sounds like they're down to 3. Between them and the air-strike, I think if we kill them and wait out the strike, this place will be under out control again. Mike pointed a thumb back to the where he just came in from.
"What about everyone still outside!?" As if to answer his question, the sound of the door slamming shut not too far from them reached his ears. Joe just gave him a sad look before reaching behind himself and taking out a shotgun from where he had it stored.
"Let's make this count." Mike sighed as he readied a regular grenade. He tossed it over their cover, and Joe gave the count down. "3. 2. 1. Now!" The detonation was followed by the two of them breaking cover, yelling their lungs out as they charged the enemy position. Mike fired at the one soldier caught out of cover while Joe kept the other two pinned with blasts from his shotgun. This soldier in particular wasn't just going to stand there and die without a fight, which it gave by raising its SMG and fired back at Mike. He wound up winning that little match up when the soldier crumpled first, but not before Mike found himself staggering from the bullets that had impacted him. Worse, he'd used up the entire magazine on that one soldier. Sloppy.
The remaining two soldiers tried to repeat their trick by tossing in a grenade, but the pair just kept charging forward, Mike switching to his pistol. Joe reached the enemy's spot first and blasted the first Combi he saw, killing it instantly. Unfortunately, the other was armed with the same weapon as the rebel and, with one trigger pull, sent Joe flying backwards.
"You son of a bitch!" Mike howled as he dumped his entire pistol's magazine into the Combie, which managed to get another shot off that struck Mike in the arm. But the angered rebel's munitions found their mark, hitting the shotgunner in the head and leading to its quick demise. 10. "That's what you get." Mike huffed and wheezed, his arm twitching from the damage done to it and the SMG rounds from before now being heavily felt in his chest. "Joe, sound off!" Mike turned around only to see his friend laying on the ground, motionless. "Joe?" Mike stumbled forward, getting down to a knee as he stared at his friend's face. In a way, there was a serenity to Joe's expression, his face blank and eyes staring endlessly at the ceiling. "Joe....Oh no." No sooner did this happen did the alarms stop and mere seconds later, the deafening impacts of explosive munitions outside detonating shook the world.
No sooner did it start was it already over. The strikes ended, and what followed was a deafening silence. Mike crumpled down next to Joe, eyes staring at the ceiling as he breathed heavily. He was sure he could find a med-kit to patch himself up, but at that moment, he felt too numb to do much more than lay beside his dead squad leader and friend.
"Well, we did it." Mike coughed out. "And all it cost us was, what, 49 people? For 50 dead jackboots? Yeah, real winning numbers there." He sighed as he let his hands fall to his stomach. He felt tired. Enough so that his lids were getting heavy. "Huh.....I guess it's going to be 50 for 50. Damn." Mike felt the sense of heaviness grow. ".....Ugh." With great effort, he turned himself over to his side and pushed himself shakily to his feet. "Nah. I didn't get this far to go out like this." He grunted as he forced himself to take one step after another to a storage area in the bunker. Sure enough as he entered, he spotted what he was looking for. "Bingo."
Stumbling over, he barely caught himself against the table as he reached out to grab a health vial and injected it straight into his arm. In seconds, he felt himself breathing easier as the regenerative gunk within healed his body to a state from 'dying' to just above that. Taking as many vials into himself as he could, Mike sighed as he stretched and walked back into the room. Standing over Joe with a mournful look on his face, Mike shook his head at the sad state of his friend before reaching down to scoop him up into his arms as best as he could.
"Come on, buddy, I'm not leaving you in here." Mike quietly declared as he lifted his friend into his arms and began to walk towards the exit on what had been the Combine's side of the bunker. "....Oh, what the hell." No sooner had he gotten outside was he faced with the sight of the Citadel, roiling clouds forming over it. As lightning crackled and thunder split the air, Mike winced as what could only be described as the mother of all explosions erupted and began to expand from the Citadel's top. "So much for my new lease on life." Mike uttered as he looked down to Joe with a frown on his face. "See you in a little bit, man." With that, the whole world turned white.
.....Mike wasn't sure what he expected death to be like, but he was fairly certain 'blank white void' was not up there in his assumptions of the afterlife.
"....Uh, hello?" Mike called out. "Anyone out there?"
"Mike?" Mike's eyes widened and his head snapped to look down. Still in his arms, Joe's previously static face was now scrunched in confusion as he rubbed his beanie covered head.
"Joe?" Mike uttered in disbelief, only to mentally catch himself. Right. Dead. "Joe, I don't mean to alarm you, but I think we're dead." Now it was Joe's turn to look bewildered as he took a look around at the white void they were in.
".....Man, I really hope this isn't Heaven, because otherwise I think we were ripped the hell off." Joe finally said after a moment of thought, earning him a laugh from Mike.
"God, that would really suck." He agreed with a grin. "How're you feeling man?"
"I don't know if it's the being dead thing or not, but I definitely don't feel like I got hit with a shotgun to the chest." Joe said as he patted his vest. Sure enough, the wounds were gone, as was all the blood that had covered him.
"Then I guess that means you're good enough to walk on your own." Mike dryly quipped before casually dropping Joe to the ground.
"Ow, that hurt you dick!" Joe complained as he rubbed his back as he got up.
"Okay, so we still feel pain. Not sure if that's a good sign or not on the this being Heaven thing." Mike said as he rubbed his scruff covered chin and looked around. As he turned around, he found himself shocked to see, in the distance, the rest of the assault team......And what looked to be equally confused Combine soldiers. "Joe, you seeing this?" Joe stepped over next to Mike and his eyebrows shot to the top of his forehead as he stared at the sight.
".....I don't think we're in Heaven, Mike."
"Damn, I think I see Mickey. I was really sure he'd make it there out of all of us." Mike winced as he squinted at the rebel in question. Before either of them could say anything further, a golden light started to shine from behind them. The pair turned around on a dime and got into uneasy stances, realizing they were lacking their weapons and were unsure if throwing a punch would matter much in the apparent afterlife.
"Congratulations, Denizens." A deep, rumbling voice called to them as the light grew closer and closer.
"....Is that you, God?" Mike cautiously asked.
"What? Oh, right, hold on." A mundane click fell upon their ears and in an instant, the golden shine disappeared, revealing-
"Is that a fucking yellow rat?" Sure enough, standing there with a little, speaker equipped bowtie was a 2 or 3 foot tall yellow rodent with a jagged tail, black tipped ears, and red cheeks was staring at them, a little cat's smile on his maw as it stared up at them.
"Greetings, former Denizens of-" The rodent took out what looked to be a cue-card from behind its back. "Half-Life 2! I am happy to report that due to your game being launched to the public, it has been completed and thus all viable Denizens of your world are welcome to join us in the Noosphere!"
".....Holy shit, a talking yellow rat!" Mike stared with a slack jaw before the creatures words finally processed in his mind. "Hold up....We're the 'denizens' of what? Our 'game'? The what-o-sphere?" At that, the rodent just smiled as with a snap of its diminutive fingers, the white void behind it disappeared in favor of what could only be described as some sort of processing area.
"Please, follow me for your registration and introduction seminar, and everything will make perfect sense when it's done." Mike took a hard swallow as he listened intently to what was being said. He glanced at the yellow rat creature, the expanse of void around them, then the almost DMV esq processing area behind it.
"Ah, hell." He stated. "We've gotten this far. Let's see where this goes."
[Hello, everyone! I'm TripleMRed, and this is a massive-multicrossover project I've been planning for some time now that I've decided to start the new year off with its first upload! All franchises and characters within this fanfic are property of their respective IP holders, and any and all music used also does not belong to me. I hope you all enjoy what I'm planning to cook up, so Happy New Year all!]
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Arizona, May 14, 200-
There was little as wonderful as sleeping in. Nothing quite like snuggling up in your bed, letting the wonderful world of dreams come in to entice the imagination, and bring wonder and joy to even the most tired of minds.
"Mike, wake up!"
Unfortunately, as with all good things, it had to come to an end. Such it was for young Mike Cohen, the little boy doing his best to pretend to have not heard his mother's call. The little boy snuggled deeper into his bed-sheets, hoping that she wouldn't come up and would let him sleep in. It was a hope that was doomed for disappointment, but the stubborn young boy was determined to try anyway.
"Mike? Miiiike. I know you can hear me, young man." Mike remained silent as he continued to try and return to the land of dreams. He had been having a rather nice dream, though already the memory of it was becoming lost in his awoken mind. Something about portals and other worlds. Fantasy stuff, even he knew that, but he still found himself wishing it were all real.
"Michael S. Cohen, you get your little butt down here, that's an order soldier!" In an instant, Michael was out of bed and rushing down in his pajamas, the voice of someone he hadn't seen in person for months driving any futile thoughts of dreams out of his mind. Getting down the stairs as fast as his little legs could take him, Mike grabbed the wall-frame to twist his rapid momentum around into the living room, where he made a beeline for the hulking man in combat BDUs standing in the middle of the living room, hands on his hip in a stern, militaristic fashion. The effect, however, was ruined by the big smile on the man's face, a gleam in his eye as he watched Mike run over and hug his leg.
"Tommy!" Mike shouted as he hugged his older brother. "I never thought I'd see you again!"
"So I take it you did miss me, squirt!" Thommas 'Tommy' Cohen laughed as he ruffled his younger brother's black hair, their mother watching from the sidelines with a smile on her face. Getting down to one knee, Tommy looked Mike in the eye with an enormous grin still stuck to his features. "And guess what, squirt." He lifted a red beret from behind his back before putting it on his head. "I now officially outrank you!"
"Ah man, no fair." Mike huffed as he let go of his brother to look at the cap he wore: The red beret covered his brother's close shaven hair completely, an emblem whose meaning was lost to mike just off-center to it's right side.
"Sorry kid, but you know how it is." Tommy shrugged. "Little kids don't get into training, this was always going to happen." Mike rolled his eyes as he looked over his brother's uniform, an set of urban camo pants and an assortment of green pouches on a black armored vest standing his brother out as a true military man. "Though between you and me," Tommy stage whispered conspiratorially to Mike, "Officer training's a real ball-buster." Saying such a crude thing to his little brother earned him a quick smack on the shoulder by their mother.
"Tommy, language!" She hissed.
"Sorry ma, you know how it is." Tommy laughed.
"I was married to your father, rest his soul, I do know, and I refuse to have that kind of language in this house-hold!" The Cohen matriarch declared, to which even Tommy, who stood over a foot taller than her and out-massed her by a hundred pounds of extra muscle mass, could not help but wince under her gaze. "Am I clear?"
"Yes ma'am!" Tommy said with a grin, though the fear of riling his ma' up put an edge to his eyes. Mike couldn't blame him: Marisa Cohen was the best mom a kid could ask for, but when she got going, nothing could stop her. Deciding to give his brother an out, Mike was quick enough on his feet to point at Mike's vest.
"What outfit are you in, Tommy?" Mike asked. "Are you a Marine like dad was?"
"Sorta." Mike blinked at Tommy's odd answer.
"How can you 'sorta' be a Marine?" Mike asked innocently enough. Tommy stood up to his full height and brushed his uniform straight.
"It's a special unit I got selected out of basic for thanks to my scores." Tommy cryptically said. When he saw the pleading look for more details from his little brother's eyes, he cracked, if only a little. "But yeah, us grunts in this outfit are Marines. Though, not going to lie, they seemed to have picked up a little of every Branch for this uniform."
"Lord forgive me, but thank goodness your father isn't around to hear you say that." Marisa shook her head as she clicked her tongue. "I still remember his rants whenever your Uncle Floyd came over." The problem with being a military family was that sometimes, once in a blue moon, you got a maverick. And in the case of the late James Cohen, his brother's Floyd's decision to go Army instead of Marines was somehow worse than if he'd remained a civilian altogether.
"God, he'd chew me out for rubbing shoulders with Army Medics. I'd never hear the end of it." Tommy shook his head as Marisa waved for her boys to follower her to the kitchen for breakfast, which they obediently did.
"He'd chew you out just for wearing that beret." Marisa couldn't help but laugh. "You look like Army airborne!" Tommy blinked as he took the beret off his head and inspected it out.
"....Oh shi-" Marisa snapped her head to look at him with a glare. "-ttake mushrooms, you're right." He groaned.
"You boys take a seat, and I'll cook us up some eggs and bacon."
"Thanks ma, yours is always the best." Tommy said a genuine smile. Mike took his seat opposite of his brother at the small breakfast nook they had in the kitchen. All that talk of dad made him a little sad, but he'd died long enough ago that Mike only really had pictures and stories from his relatives to go off of. Though, he couldn't find it too upsetting. He had Tommy, who was always there for him before, so it wasn't all bad.
"Hey squirt, I got you something." Tommy said, leaning forwards with a wolfish grin on his face. Mike looked up, curious, when his brother reached into a pocket and took out a gift-wrapped object. Pushing it across the table, Mike took hold of the gift with wide eyes.
"My birthday isn't until next month, Tommy."
"I know, but I got word back at base that me and the boys might see a deployment before then." Tommy admitted, only wincing when he realized he'd said that loud enough for their mother to hear.
"Where are you going?" Marisa asked as she continued to prepare breakfast.
"They're pretty hush-hush about it, but word is something about a training mission right here in the States." Tommy honestly replied. "I just got my rank, so they haven't given me all the details just yet. I'll know closer to when it happens in a couple of days or so."
"You're going away already?" Mike asked, the disappointment etched on his face. "But you just got here!"
"It's not going to be for forever, squirt." Tommy said with an apologetic look. "I promise, I'll be back before you know. Now, you going to open your gift or not?" Mike paused before grabbing the wrapping paper and ripping it off in one go. One look at the item within and Mike's eyes widened with shock and awe.
"Is this a Zune!?" Mike gasped. Tommy gave him two thumbs up.
"Happy Early-Birthday, you musical goon! Try it out, I took the liberty of downloading some of my favorites unto it!"
"Nothing inappropriate I hope!" Marisa said with a dangerous edge in her voice.
"Nothing too bad." Tommy playfully uttered with a shrug. Turning it on, Mike hit the play button on the first song in the playlist, and all at once familiar chords from one of Tommy's favorite bands started to fill the air.
"This is great!" Mike squealed in delight. "Thank you, Tommy!"
"You can thank me at the birthday party with an extra helping of cake." Tommy chuckled. As their mother came over to deliver their respective plates of scrambled eggs and thick cut bacon, Tommy reached across the table to playfully tussle his younger brother's hair again. "Don't worry, squirt, this assignment will be over in no time!"
"Promise?" Mike asked hopefully as he pressed pause on his music player.
"Promise." Tommy said with a confident smile.
-
Eastern Europe, 'City 17', 202-
Tommy hadn't kept his promise. He hadn't come back from his assignment, and the world went to hell not many days after they had last seen each other. First had been the portal storms. Even from as early in his childhood as it was, he still had vivid memories of those chaotic first days: Their neighbors, the Johnsons, screaming in the middle of the night as some strange two-legged squid thing broke in and started to trash the living room. Of the mad scramble he and his mother had gotten into to get out of the neighborhood, the memory of what had once been their post-man shuffling towards them with his midsection ripped open as some strange creature had seemingly replaced his head.
Of when the Combine arrived and subjugated the world in a matter of hours.
Life after that had been a blur, after they had finished setting up their new rule and crushed any remaining holdouts of rebellious activity at the time. He still remembered being in his early teens when his mom was forcibly separated from him in one of countless transfers to various cities. Cities whose names were now long forgotten outside of backroom whispers, replaced by cold, unfeeling numbers.
So it was little wonder that as he inspected his MP7, Mike couldn't help but feel a grim sense of satisfaction as the stolen APC he and his fellow Rebels were in rumbled through the street.
"Alright, boys and girls, listen up." Mike glanced over at the speaker seated at the head of the APC's troop compartment. Joe Weathers, a dark-skinned man little older than Mike himself, and the man to break him into the Rebel life, looked over his subordinates as they settled in for their mission. "The job is simple: While our friends closer to the Citadel are giving our dearest Dr. Breen our sincerest regards, our job is to handle a group of Overwatch soldiers gearing up in the outskirts in one of the run-off junctions." Joe looked to each of them, his eyes locking into each of theirs in sequence. "We lost contact with the folks there, and their last transmission confirmed that Overwatch had sent a detachment to secure the area. Now that everything is in full swing, we're going to need to take out any Combine squads we can before they reach the inner city. Any questions?"
Mike raised his hand.
"Mike, your question?"
"Any Striders?"
"Thankfully no, it'll just be us and our mirror stooges." Joe uttered as he locked and loaded his magazine. "If there are no other questions, gear up people: It's going to be loud."
-
To say it was 'loud' was a quaint understatement: As Mike bobbed and weaved between the scant cover in the grass covered canal, it was pure cacophony as grenades were thrown or launched, rockets were fired, and explosive barrels were fired upon. Pure chaos. He managed to make it to a wayward shipping container just in time for it to block an incoming rocket, which he responded to by launching a grenade at the Overwatch soldier who had fired it. The grimly satisfying distorted yelp somehow managed to make it to his ears past the explosion, to which he grinned ferally.
"How'd you like that, you jackboots?" He asked to nobody in particular before taking aim and firing a score of rounds at an incoming enemy shotgunner, putting him down before he could make it to his position. That made it 5 under his belt already. "Joe, how many of these guys do we have to put into the dirt to win this thing?!" Mike asked through his comms device. The gunfire on the other end paused for a moment.
"Intel said this place was crewed by 50 soldiers!" Funny, it felt like they were only fighting, what, 16 at a time at any one point? Actually, now that Mike thought about it, the Rebels had sent in 50 of their crack shots to this place, him included, and yet it also seemed like there was only 16 of them in total fighting out there. He shook his head back into the game. Questions for later, right now they had Unis to take down. "Ah shit, listen Mike, we're trying to make a push for the bunker up here, but we're getting pinned down. I could use some help."
"On my way." Mike declared as he dumped the rest of his current magazine into a soldier that had run around the container but hadn't noticed him in time to react. 6 now. An alarm began to sound. He didn't know what that was about, but he took it as a sign to get moving.
Mike started the mad dash up the near by ladder towards the control room, hissing as stray bullets bit into him as he climbed as fast as his arms and legs could carry him. Just as he reached the top, he was just in time to see the bunker doors start to close. A harried sprint fueled by adrenaline saw him barrel towards the doorway before it could shut completely. He was already sliding beside Joe over some make shift cover as it was half-way closed behind them. "Oh geeze, you weren't kidding." He mumbled as he noticed an array of bodies in the bunker's main room. More makeshift uniforms than padded ones.
"I count 5 of them on the other side of the room." Joe declared. Mike took a look around and saw it was only him and Joe behind the makeshift barrier weathering the Combine's fire.
"Ah hell, we've had worse odds." Mike grumbled as he reloaded his weapon. "What the hell is that alarm?"
"I think the Combis ordered a strike in the area." Mike looked at Joe in shock.
"What!? Everyone's still out there! Hell, their guys are still out there!"
"Since when did Breen's boys care about little things like that?" Joe took the brief pause in the enemy firing to start to firing back, only to hiss as he grabbed an injury in his side. "They hit me bad out there. How're you looking?" Mike's response was to use the pause to take aim and nail any Combi's he could. 7. 8.
"Damn, I'm good." Mike quipped as he took cover again to give Joe a grinning thumbs up.
"You're killing machine." Joe chuckled. "Okay, so it sounds like they're down to 3. Between them and the air-strike, I think if we kill them and wait out the strike, this place will be under out control again. Mike pointed a thumb back to the where he just came in from.
"What about everyone still outside!?" As if to answer his question, the sound of the door slamming shut not too far from them reached his ears. Joe just gave him a sad look before reaching behind himself and taking out a shotgun from where he had it stored.
"Let's make this count." Mike sighed as he readied a regular grenade. He tossed it over their cover, and Joe gave the count down. "3. 2. 1. Now!" The detonation was followed by the two of them breaking cover, yelling their lungs out as they charged the enemy position. Mike fired at the one soldier caught out of cover while Joe kept the other two pinned with blasts from his shotgun. This soldier in particular wasn't just going to stand there and die without a fight, which it gave by raising its SMG and fired back at Mike. He wound up winning that little match up when the soldier crumpled first, but not before Mike found himself staggering from the bullets that had impacted him. Worse, he'd used up the entire magazine on that one soldier. Sloppy.
The remaining two soldiers tried to repeat their trick by tossing in a grenade, but the pair just kept charging forward, Mike switching to his pistol. Joe reached the enemy's spot first and blasted the first Combi he saw, killing it instantly. Unfortunately, the other was armed with the same weapon as the rebel and, with one trigger pull, sent Joe flying backwards.
"You son of a bitch!" Mike howled as he dumped his entire pistol's magazine into the Combie, which managed to get another shot off that struck Mike in the arm. But the angered rebel's munitions found their mark, hitting the shotgunner in the head and leading to its quick demise. 10. "That's what you get." Mike huffed and wheezed, his arm twitching from the damage done to it and the SMG rounds from before now being heavily felt in his chest. "Joe, sound off!" Mike turned around only to see his friend laying on the ground, motionless. "Joe?" Mike stumbled forward, getting down to a knee as he stared at his friend's face. In a way, there was a serenity to Joe's expression, his face blank and eyes staring endlessly at the ceiling. "Joe....Oh no." No sooner did this happen did the alarms stop and mere seconds later, the deafening impacts of explosive munitions outside detonating shook the world.
No sooner did it start was it already over. The strikes ended, and what followed was a deafening silence. Mike crumpled down next to Joe, eyes staring at the ceiling as he breathed heavily. He was sure he could find a med-kit to patch himself up, but at that moment, he felt too numb to do much more than lay beside his dead squad leader and friend.
"Well, we did it." Mike coughed out. "And all it cost us was, what, 49 people? For 50 dead jackboots? Yeah, real winning numbers there." He sighed as he let his hands fall to his stomach. He felt tired. Enough so that his lids were getting heavy. "Huh.....I guess it's going to be 50 for 50. Damn." Mike felt the sense of heaviness grow. ".....Ugh." With great effort, he turned himself over to his side and pushed himself shakily to his feet. "Nah. I didn't get this far to go out like this." He grunted as he forced himself to take one step after another to a storage area in the bunker. Sure enough as he entered, he spotted what he was looking for. "Bingo."
Stumbling over, he barely caught himself against the table as he reached out to grab a health vial and injected it straight into his arm. In seconds, he felt himself breathing easier as the regenerative gunk within healed his body to a state from 'dying' to just above that. Taking as many vials into himself as he could, Mike sighed as he stretched and walked back into the room. Standing over Joe with a mournful look on his face, Mike shook his head at the sad state of his friend before reaching down to scoop him up into his arms as best as he could.
"Come on, buddy, I'm not leaving you in here." Mike quietly declared as he lifted his friend into his arms and began to walk towards the exit on what had been the Combine's side of the bunker. "....Oh, what the hell." No sooner had he gotten outside was he faced with the sight of the Citadel, roiling clouds forming over it. As lightning crackled and thunder split the air, Mike winced as what could only be described as the mother of all explosions erupted and began to expand from the Citadel's top. "So much for my new lease on life." Mike uttered as he looked down to Joe with a frown on his face. "See you in a little bit, man." With that, the whole world turned white.
.....Mike wasn't sure what he expected death to be like, but he was fairly certain 'blank white void' was not up there in his assumptions of the afterlife.
"....Uh, hello?" Mike called out. "Anyone out there?"
"Mike?" Mike's eyes widened and his head snapped to look down. Still in his arms, Joe's previously static face was now scrunched in confusion as he rubbed his beanie covered head.
"Joe?" Mike uttered in disbelief, only to mentally catch himself. Right. Dead. "Joe, I don't mean to alarm you, but I think we're dead." Now it was Joe's turn to look bewildered as he took a look around at the white void they were in.
".....Man, I really hope this isn't Heaven, because otherwise I think we were ripped the hell off." Joe finally said after a moment of thought, earning him a laugh from Mike.
"God, that would really suck." He agreed with a grin. "How're you feeling man?"
"I don't know if it's the being dead thing or not, but I definitely don't feel like I got hit with a shotgun to the chest." Joe said as he patted his vest. Sure enough, the wounds were gone, as was all the blood that had covered him.
"Then I guess that means you're good enough to walk on your own." Mike dryly quipped before casually dropping Joe to the ground.
"Ow, that hurt you dick!" Joe complained as he rubbed his back as he got up.
"Okay, so we still feel pain. Not sure if that's a good sign or not on the this being Heaven thing." Mike said as he rubbed his scruff covered chin and looked around. As he turned around, he found himself shocked to see, in the distance, the rest of the assault team......And what looked to be equally confused Combine soldiers. "Joe, you seeing this?" Joe stepped over next to Mike and his eyebrows shot to the top of his forehead as he stared at the sight.
".....I don't think we're in Heaven, Mike."
"Damn, I think I see Mickey. I was really sure he'd make it there out of all of us." Mike winced as he squinted at the rebel in question. Before either of them could say anything further, a golden light started to shine from behind them. The pair turned around on a dime and got into uneasy stances, realizing they were lacking their weapons and were unsure if throwing a punch would matter much in the apparent afterlife.
"Congratulations, Denizens." A deep, rumbling voice called to them as the light grew closer and closer.
"....Is that you, God?" Mike cautiously asked.
"What? Oh, right, hold on." A mundane click fell upon their ears and in an instant, the golden shine disappeared, revealing-
"Is that a fucking yellow rat?" Sure enough, standing there with a little, speaker equipped bowtie was a 2 or 3 foot tall yellow rodent with a jagged tail, black tipped ears, and red cheeks was staring at them, a little cat's smile on his maw as it stared up at them.
"Greetings, former Denizens of-" The rodent took out what looked to be a cue-card from behind its back. "Half-Life 2! I am happy to report that due to your game being launched to the public, it has been completed and thus all viable Denizens of your world are welcome to join us in the Noosphere!"
".....Holy shit, a talking yellow rat!" Mike stared with a slack jaw before the creatures words finally processed in his mind. "Hold up....We're the 'denizens' of what? Our 'game'? The what-o-sphere?" At that, the rodent just smiled as with a snap of its diminutive fingers, the white void behind it disappeared in favor of what could only be described as some sort of processing area.
"Please, follow me for your registration and introduction seminar, and everything will make perfect sense when it's done." Mike took a hard swallow as he listened intently to what was being said. He glanced at the yellow rat creature, the expanse of void around them, then the almost DMV esq processing area behind it.
"Ah, hell." He stated. "We've gotten this far. Let's see where this goes."
[Hello, everyone! I'm TripleMRed, and this is a massive-multicrossover project I've been planning for some time now that I've decided to start the new year off with its first upload! All franchises and characters within this fanfic are property of their respective IP holders, and any and all music used also does not belong to me. I hope you all enjoy what I'm planning to cook up, so Happy New Year all!]
' apron limply tied around his neck that barely covered his armored chest, was a 7'2 giant of a man. As Mike's vision finally met the man's own eyes, he saw a ghostly pale face, the red eyes and white hair of a man with albinism, facial features indicating Asian heritage but a having something off that made it difficult for Mike to quite place what it was. It was almost like his face was too perfectly symmetrical. Almost artificial.