//------------------------------// // Chapter 5: An Old Friend // Story: Half-Life X MLP: The Lost Timeline // by GordonFreebrony //------------------------------// The scene at the Books and Branches library was anything but normal. Inside the main room, the six friends were sitting in uncommon silence, their coats covered in a greenish-yellow slime. They were all staring at a man in an orange suit, who was almost completely covered in the slime. Only his head and a small circle on his side were uncovered. “So, what does this mean, and why do you guys suddenly have tattoos?” Came the deep voice of Gordon Freeman, still looking at the crowbar image that had appeared on his ass. “Well, I think that you just received a cutie mark. We have had them for a few years now; they appear when we discover our talents. Although I’ve never seen one appear on anything other than a pony.” She gave a small, strained smile, trying to ignore the subject that literally filled the room. “What the hay were those things?” The question echoed forth from the back of the group, a small, blue pegasus with a rainbow mane having asked it. “I’ve never seen anything even close to those. If I had been ready, I totally would have been like POW, and KERSPLOW, but then you showed up and you looked like you had them covered, so I kinda, stayed here.” Her boasting was subdued, almost forced. Gordon eyed her, and then addressed the group in front of him. “Well, ummm, remember those aliens I told you about in my written account? That was a headcrab, those things that create the zombies. That’s what I have had to deal with the whole fucking time at Black Mesa. And you want to know the worst part? I had just got this suit cleaned swimming through that damned radioactive water system to turn on that reactor. Damn facehugging headcrabs! I finally find a peaceful place and they just HAVE to follow me. Story of my damn life.” “I know a spell that can get rid of that.” Said Twilight, and with a quick flash of her horn, the blood disappeared from his suit. “Thanks” Gordon looked over the ponies again, feeling oddly protective. “Okay, we need to get out of here. More of these damn aliens will probably start pouring in, that’s one of the reasons I kept moving. We should head somewhere defensible. Any Ideas?” “Uhhh…. There’s Canterlot, we could help protect the Princesses, in fact we should, but there is probably stampedes of panicking nobles filling the streets, we wouldn’t be able to get in. If they saw someone like you, we would probably be attacked. I think I know a way to circumvent the city, but that would mean going over the mountain through a magically guarded, avalanche filled, pass, in which we probably wouldn’t survive, or we could go under the mountain. We should try the pass first.” Gordon stared blankly at her for a moment, once again studying her face to see if she was pulling his leg. However her eyes betrayed nothing, except maybe the fact she was being serious. Gordon facepalmed, rubbed the bridge of his nose for a second, and then looked back at Twilight and her friends. “You want to bypass being underground for a short while, and would rather try to fight your way through guarded, dangerous, very life-threatening mountain pass? Are you insane?” “Umm, its safer than going below.” She replied plainly. “SAFER?!?!?! SAFER?!?!?! Look, I don’t like rushing though tunnels any more than you, but so far it seems that the pass is the more dangerous. What’s so bad about the tunnel?” “Well, It’s more of a labyrinth, really, stretching for miles, and it is filled with dark things I would rather not name.” “Let me guess:” Gordon began, turning his voice into a deeper, Gandalf-style voice, It was in ancient days, back when the world was untainted. The ponies felt themselves to be superior to all, and deserving of the worlds wealth. They built a massive mine, nay, a city, and they mined through the stones, searching for precious metals and stones. Eventually, the closest veins ran dry, and they searched even deeper for more, but they dug too deep and too greedily, and unearthed an ancient evil that still stalks the empty halls. Am I close?” Twilight’s jaw dropped. “That’s an almost direct quote from the Book of Mareia, but that book is in the Canterlot Library. How did you know?” Gordon groaned, facepalming himself again. “Mareia? MAREIA? Your telling me there is a pony mine, deep under the earth, called Mareia, filled with an ancient evil that’s worse than a magical death trap of a mountain? Tolkein would be proud.” “You knew the foreman?” Gordon began to bang his head against the wall. He stopped and turned towards Twilight. “I’m going to skip getting covered in snow. We’ll take the mine.” “O-ok” said Twilight in a voice reminiscent of Fluttershy, then her voice took on a more sarcastic tone. “I guess with you we might be able to get past or defeat it. Even though nopony has ever come back from there except the princesses. I hope you know what your doing.” Gordon snorted, “Twilight, I never know what I’m doing unless I’m inside a damn laboratory. I survived on instinct alone.” Gordon gave a ‘confident’ smile, and then opened the door. The street outside was completely different from when Gordon had walked in yesterday. The streets were empty of ponies, but there were a few headcrabs scattered around. Some of the buildings had holes in them and had partially collapsed. All of a sudden, a bright orange, almost red pony burst forth from one of the buildings down the street. He had an hourglass cutiemark, and was shouting with joy despite the destruction around him. For some reason he wore a bowtie, a hoofcuff, and a trenchcoat-like thing. He had a pair of goggles on his head. As he ran past the library, Gordon caught a snippet of the pony’s words. “… GINGER, GINGER AT LAST! Don’t know why it HAD to be this body, but GINGER!” The pony shouted in a British accent, disappearing in to the blue double-doored building down the road. Gordon blinked. It’s brown now… The blue must have been a trick of the light. Gordon dismissed the obviously insane pony and turned his attention back to the street. He saw something that made him smile. Directly across the street, almost hidden in a shallow crater, was a headcrab. Behind the headcrab, a hole in the building opened up to look like a cave. He turned back to the ponies inside, and smiled a large, creepy smile. “I’ve wanted to do this ever since I got these grenades.” He said, looking at the now thoroughly confused ponies. Gordon began speaking again, this time in a bad English accent. “Brother Maynard! Bring up the Holy Hand Grenade! E AY ES U SOM NI NAH, DOM MA ES E WECK WE AM” The ponies scratched their heads as Gordon sang and pantomimed brining out a chest, holding a grenade in the middle of his hands. “How does it, uh... how does it work?” “Ummm… Don’t you know Gordon?” Twilight asked, unsure of what was happening. Gordon looked at her, surprise on his face, then again he shouted out in his bad impersonation of an English accent. “Consult the Book of Armaments! “Armaments, Chapter Two, Verses Nine to Twenty-One. ‘And Saint Atila raised the hand grenade up on high, saying, Oh, Lord, bless this thy hand grenade that with it thou mayest blow thy enemies to tiny bits, in thy mercy. And the Lord did grin, and people did feast upon the lambs, and sloths, and carp, and anchovies, and orangutans, and breakfast cereals, and fruit bats, and large –‘ “Skip a bit, Brother. *ahem* “and the Lord spake, saying, 'First shalt thou take out the Holy Pin. Then, shalt thou count to three, no more, no less. Three shalt be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shalt be three. Four shalt thou not count, nor either count thou two, excepting that thou then proceed to three. Five is right out. Once the number three, being the third number, be reached, then lobbest thou thy Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch towards thou foe, who being naughty in my sight, shall snuff it. “Right! One... two... five!” [For legal Reasons, I would like to credit the above quote to Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Monty Python] Twilight looked curiously at him, completely baffled at his strange behavior, and fell into her habit and automatically corrected him. “You mean three!” “Right, Three!” Gordon said, throwing the grenade towards the headcrab. The headcrab pounced on the sudden movement of the grenade near it, at which point the whole thing blew up in a spectacular fireball. The shockwave was large enough to rattle the windows of the library. The ponies, upon hearing the explosion ran backwards, stumbling when the shockwave hit. Twilight automatically slammed the door against the sound. “May I ask WHY you felt the need to do that?” she spat at Gordon, taken off-guard by his strange behavior and the massive explosion. Gordon looked over to her, a manic gleam in his eye. “The best way to stay sane in situations like this,” he said, “is to take every chance life gives you to entertain yourself. That particular thing was off of a skit from one of my favorite cult classic movies. Don’t ask.” Twilight shook her head at him and surveyed her friends. Most of them were still shocked, partially covered in the green blood. Fluttershy was absolutely terrified hiding in another pile of books. Twilight cast the cleaning spell on them, attempting to sooth them, and herself, in any way possible. She began to speak, preparing a pep-talk-like speech, when the door burst open. Gordon jumped, drawing his crowbar and preparing to beat the living tar out of whatever was there. The dust cleared, and in the doorway stood a swaying zebra, a large Mohawk on her head and an extreme amount of gold rings on her neck. Gordon noticed that she was covered in cuts and bruises, and seemed to be holding herself up by sheer willpower. “ZECORA!” shouted Twilight, rushing over, the rest of her friends following behind, their fear forgotten. “Twilight, my friend, I fear I may be nearing my end.” The zebra said, collapsing. “No, no, don’t think like that, you’ll be fine.” Twilight said, tears in her eyes. Tears streamed down the rest of the ponies faces as they looked at their friend, who was slowly dripping blood on the ground. Gordon stepped forward, sensing the despair in her posture, and put a hand on her shoulder. She looked up at Gordon as he knelt down next to her. “I’m sorry Twilight, but she’s right. I doubt she’ll live long. It’s best we make her comfortable while we can.” Zecora saw Gordon next to her, and she jerked away. “You… You are… man… He is not... man… For you he waits… but don’t give in… Don’t listen to him. All of Equestria is… at… stake…” Zecora interspersed her words with huge, shuddering gasps. She finished her thought, her head falling with a thump back to the ground and letting out a long breath. Every single pony in the room began weeping loudly. Twilight turned and buried her muzzle into Gordon’s armored shoulder. Gordon just patted her back, understanding her pain. Gordon thought on the last words of Zecora, remembering how they felt… familiar, as if he had heard them in a past life. Gordon dismissed the thought, filing it in his already overstuffed ‘Think-About-It-Later’ drawer in his mind. He turned his attention to the mare on his shoulder. “Shhh… Shhh… I understand… I understand, but there is nothing we can do.” Gordon said to her, trying to calm her down. “We need keep moving.” Gordon knew that if he gave them time to mourn, the aliens would most likely kill them all. Gordon looked at the ponies around him, their muzzles crusted with tears, and he saw the pain in their eyes. He saw Pinkie standing there too, her colors subdued and her normally bouncy mane completely straight. A sound began to fill the room from an unknown origin. Gordon could have sworn it was a trumpet playing taps. Gordon stood up, gently moving Twilight aside, and opened the door again. Just to slam it shut and lean against it. “Maybe we could stay here a little longer.” He said to the ponies as they began to stand up. Pinkie got up from her slumped position next to Zecora’s body, and walked over to Gordon. “No, y-y-your right… We c-c-can’t stay here, we need to get to Canterlot. Protect the princesses.” She said, choking on sobs as she did. “No, it’s ok, we can stay” said Gordon, strain in his voice. “No, we need to MOVE!” Pinkie shouted, all the pain and surprise and anguish filling her shout. Gordon and the other ponies jumped, and Gordon was pushed roughly aside as the surprisingly strong, yet diminutive pink pony opened the door, revealing a scene that looked right out of a horror movie. There was a veritable army of horror outside. Dozens of things stood there, seeming to stare at Pinkie as she stared back. Most of the things were bipedal and wore labcoats and khaki pants. Among the bipeds also stood a few in military gear and some in the security uniforms. There were also a number of ponies. Each and every one of them had a headcrab covering their entire head, with a huge, sideways, gaping maw in the center of their chests, ribs sticking out and looking like demonic teeth. The bipeds had three claws instead of hands, their arms grossly disfigured and their entire bodies covered in blood. The ponies stood on four legs, their colors almost completely lost in the blood that covered them. They had grown two small appendages from their forelimbs, similar in appearance to their bipedal counterparts.’ Gordon looked out at the scene which he had tried to spare the ponies from, and then noticed something. Each one of the zombies was standing there, seeming to stare at Pinkie. Gordon looked too, and immediately took a step back. Pinkie was literally glowing with red anger, the aura pulsing around her. Her mane whipped into demonic shapes while lightning bolts sprung from her eyes. A harsh, ominous music sprung up from nowhere, causing the zombies to visibly flinch. Then Pinkie opened her mouth and began singing along with the music, sounding like she belonged in a death metal band. You dare to hurt my friends? You try to crush my soul You wish to see our lives end? I’m not some frightened foal I wont bow to your will, I’ll fight to see us survive. I won’t hesitate to kill Gordon backed away as she continued to sing, literally killing the zombies where they stood. Lightning flew out, killing anything that tried to approach her. The ponies could only stare at this new, dark side of Pinkie, the images burned into their retinas. You have brought this anger out Now don’t try to even pout I will crush you all beneath my heel. Do you see how this has made me feel? I’ll cut out all your hearts, I will fuck you up inside, I will make you final suffering last! Mercy is lost in the past! You have brought out my wrath You have chosen your own path Now Die Die DIE DIE DIE!!! All at once, a huge shockwave went out from Pinkie incinerating the few remaining zombies and headcrabs who had survived. Gordon could only stare in amazement at Pinkie, his respect for the over-excited creature growing, but then he saw that she was sobbing, and whispering to herself. “That’s not me, that’s not me.” To Gordon’s surprise, Fluttershy was the first one to walk up to Pinkie, holding her and comforting her with random, kind words. The other ponies seemed to recover, slowly going over to comfort Pinkie too. Gordon walked past the group, surveying the battleground in front of him. Not even a single headcrab remained, and everything was charred and burnt. How the hell did this happen? I’ve never seen anything like that before. Where did that come from? It’s like I’m in a messed-up cartoon. What did Pinkie Pie do? No, don’t answer that, remember last time. Think puppies. Cute, fluffy puppies. Gordon continued in this manner, alternatively reeling in wonder and trying to distract himself, until a hoof smacked him in the face, hard. “Hey, no need for violence!” Gordon said, his crowbar already up in a defensive posture. “We’ve been ready to go for an hour while you stood there. We buried Z-Zecora, and made out closure. Lets go before we join her.” “Oh… Umm, yes, right. This way” said Gordon, picking a path at random. “Mareia is this way.” Twilight said, pointing a hoof in the opposite direction. “Oh, right… I knew that, just checking to see if you did… hehe.” Gordon said. Twilight rolled her eyes. “Lets go.” The group proceeded through the cramped alleyways of Ponyville, following Gordon. Gordon, for his part, always checked around the corners, his MP5 out, ready for anything, but there was never anything there. The friends stayed quiet, shocked by all that they had seen in the past hour and a half. Gordon felt as if it eerily quiet, his battle-hardened senses working in overdrive from the supply of adrenaline pumping through him. Suddenly, a loud bang reached the group, followed by a few more, and the sound of something hitting flesh. “That’s 9mm fire! Only the guards have that!” He rushed forward until they came to the next street. In the middle of the road stood a man in a blue uniform, a helmet on his head, a bulletproof vest on his chest, and a gun in his hand. An MP5 and a SPAS-12 hung from straps on his back. A crowbar was on his belt, and a .357 was in a holster. In his hands was a Glock 9mm, and he was shooting at one of the zombies. It finally went down, the guard doing a full 360 looking for any other threats. He saw Gordon in his Orange suit and did a double-take, then he raised his pistol. “Please tell me your part of the science team, and not some military goon in a HEV suit.” Said a familiar voice. Gordon broke into a smile, lowering the gun and taking a step forward. “I’m part of the science team, and not some military goon in a HEV suit.” Replied Gordon, “ and Barney, I do believe you owe me a beer.” “Gordon?! Gordon Freeman? Man, where did you come from? Last I saw you, some military types were dragging you away. I tried to help, but the, oh, what did the scientist call it? Oh, yeah, the ‘Resonance Displacement’ something or another had me in it's clutches. I teleported all over the place. After teleporting around, finding some jerk trapped in your locker, and then almost escaping on the company jet, I teleported AGAIN, and found myself here, being faced by another mob of these zombie things. Now I… WHAT THE HELL ARE THOSE?!?!?!” Barney’s eyes had fallen on the ponies behind Gordon. This is gonna take a while thought Gordon, as he began to explain.