We haven't got our content pages for EP1 up yet, but this I wrote up might help aid people in the right direction as to the story. It isn't great, but here it is:
A rippling explosion was just moments away from devouring both Gordon and Alyx. Gordon had just done critical damage to the dark fusion reactor in an attempt to thwart Dr. Breen’s escape from Earth, gone against his dire warnings “You don’t know what you’ll unleash…” and delivered the final blow to the Combine Citadel. The portal array was collapsing, the reactor was approaching critical, he’d never make it – but his perception of time was lost, and again he was taken away from the unfolding events of the world, lost and confused…
The so-called ‘G-man’, Gordon’s ever-ambiguous employer, now well aware of his abilities, placed him in stasis – timeless cold storage wherein it was kindly brought to Gordon’s attention that several offers for his services had arisen, and the ‘G-man’ was contemplating them. However, he politely reminded Gordon he was unable to elaborate, and departed before anything else could be said. Locked within the darkness between dimensions, Gordon was left ponder what had unfolded.
“Tell me Dr. Freeman, if you can, you have destroyed so much, what is it exactly that you have created? Can you name even one thing? I thought not.”
Breen’s comments still echoing through Gordon’s mind – was he right? What had he achieved?
Within moments of being encased within his timeless prison, a white opening appeared within the blackness of space and the illusive figure of the G-man entered, a sinister smile across his ghostly face. Gordon’s time had come again. Had he taken up one of the offers? So soon? G-man opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out. A faint blue illuminated the black void. The G-man blinked, and worriedly cast his look left and right, thoroughly unexpecting the breach. A low, almost grunt liked chant filled the silence, and a series of spiralling energy attacks began to push the G-man back, keeping him at bay. A row of ethereal Vortigaunts appeared – the source of the incursion.
Looking a foul combination of both confused and deadly, the G-man re-adjusted his tie and cast a threatening look. Two Vortigaunts appeared and grabbed Gordon by the arms – pulling away. As he felt himself departing his timeless prison, the G-man uttered a final few words.
“We’ll see about that!”
Gordon reawakens to the sound of falling rock, a low mumbling and a voice all too recognizable. His eyes open to Dog, who proceeds to pull Gordon out of the rubble. Alyx is with him. Over the moon to see that he is alive she runs up to him and embraces him, before gently backing away, slightly embarrassed. Gordon is reunited with his gravity gun, and Alyx brings him up to speed on the situation. She’s slightly confused as to how she escaped, only remembering fragments of their time spent on the tip of the Citadel. “Breen falling. A large explosion and…Vortigaunts?”
Gordon’s former colleague at Black Mesa, Eli Vance, is heard over the sound of the Citadel. Ecstatic, Alyx clambers up onto a ledge, saying that they’ve been attempting to contact him for hours. According to Alyx, Eli and Judith escaped the Citadel via one of Dr. Breen’s escape pods. Speaking of – what happened to Breen?
As Gordon follows he is given a chance to look up at the Citadel. A mass of swirling energy has replaced the tip, where Breen’s reactor was once located. What had he done?
He reaches the location of the monitor, to see the welcome face of his friend, Eli. Alyx informs him that they have found Gordon, but before Eli can respond Kleiner shoves his way onto the screen to bring them up to speed on the situation. The Citadel is in a critical state, and the core is on the verge of a cataclysmic meltdown – and its only moments before it blows and takes City 17 with it. As for as Kleiner is concerned, this is an excellent development – until he learns of Gordon and Alyx’s location. “Well, were still at the Citadel…”
Eli becomes faint, worried for his only daughters survival. Thankfully, Kleiner has an idea. Apparently, nothing but direct intervention in the core could delay the meltdown. It’d buy the evacuees of City 17 time, and save Gordon and Alyx’s life. It is agreed – they are to go back into the Citadel and attempt to delay the reaction. A brief farewell to her father, Alyx closes the monitor and makes her way around to the other side of the edifice. Gordon and Dog follow, the latter almost losing his life to a piece of debris.
After a short discussion on how they are to reach the Citadel, Dog conjures an ingenious idea. Retrieving an old van he beckons Gordon and Alyx to enter – he’s going to toss them across the chasm. After a cheery farewell he throws the van, and it reaches. Unfortunately the van falls into a broken vent shaft and begins a dangerous descent into the depths of the Citadel. Following a near death experience when the van falls into an abyss, they begin their journey to locate the now critical core.
The Citadel is beginning to fall apart. Energy spheres run loose, power conduits are exploding and Stalkers are attempting to repair what they can. It’s no longer the towering, monolithic structure that evoked both fear and conflict. The source of the Combines power in City 17 is crumbling, but not even Gordon could have expected how much a resounding effect his actions would have…
Eventually, they both reach a circular shaft, bathed in red. Glancing through the glass floor below reveals a series of ‘Synthetic escape pods’, and a chute leading upwards. Slightly worried, Alyx hacks into the command console to attempt to pin down a route to the core. Suddenly, Dr. Breen’s kindly yet sinister face appears. He is negotiating safe passage off Earth in light of the resistance’s success in City 17, but finds the destination they have set the teleporter to deliver him to is untenable. The Advisor suggests a host body. Somewhat bewildered Breen protests, but with little choice he reluctantly agrees. Something startles him, and the feed dies.
Alyx panics for a moment, firmly believing Breen to have perished in the reactor explosion. Suddenly, the monitor screens flicker to reveal the Combine advisor staring out at them. It disappears almost as swiftly as it appeared. Something is then shot under the floor from an unknown entry point. A fairly large, organic looking Synth appears below you, and at its snout lays the hideous upper portion of a Combine Advisor. A frightening thought flashes through Gordon’s mind – is that Breen? In his…host body? All too plausible. With escaping Earth out of the question, he could have resorted to his one last option to evade death within the exploding reactor chamber and transported into the host body. He perishes the thought. It couldn’t be…nobody could have escaped that reactor chamber.
The escape pod rises up into the chute, and the ever-curious Alyx knocks on the glass panes. Suddenly, they are both stricken with an indescribable pain as the escape pod disappears up the chute. Slightly caught off guard, Gordon and Alyx both hastily leave the evacuation chamber.
Slightly taken back they both continue their journey through the Citadel, also managing to recharge the gravity to the state it was in back in Breen’s reactor. The vast halls and pod chambers have been doused in a severe orange mist, further indicating the Citadels critical state. As they pass along a series of walkways and watch in awe as a group of Striders manoeuvre their way through the falling debris in an attempt to escape, a dropship veers into view, passes overhead and shakily grinds into the opposite wall, exploding somewhat and descending rapidly into the abyss. After re connecting several energy bridges they take a doomed lift down to the core and narrowly escape a plunge as they rush hurriedly towards the blast doors leading towards the reactor. The clock is ticking.
Gordon and Alyx enter through the blast door and make their way towards the control room ahead. Gordon notices something familiar on the monitor addressing the troops – the Advisor? Before he can ponder the thought they are attacked, and with the super gravity gun in his hands and Alyx at his side he makes short work of the elites. The image of the Advisor disappears. Alyx approaches the console, slightly confused as to why there are soldiers still at the core. The large panels open to reveal the extremely unstable reactor core – pulsating and throbbing dangerously, it’s already close to collapse. Oddly however, Alyx mentions it would appear the Combine are deliberately attempting to create a meltdown – but that would destroy the Citadel? Either way, Gordon has to go into the reactor and attempt to stabilize the core. There’s still time to buy a couple of hours, but they couldn’t override the meltdown even if they wanted to – it’s too far-gone.
Rather reluctantly, Gordon steps into the elevator and takes the plunge – leaving Alyx back in the control. She smiles, comforting Gordon somewhat – but taking a step into a de-stabilizing reactor is far from Gordon’s idea of fun…
Within the massive reactor core Gordon began by re-connecting the energy bridges leading to and from the control rooms. Having disposed of some troublesome Stalkers out to hinder his mission to stabilize the reactor, Gordon reached the first control room and began to stabilize the core. Crawling through energy orb conduits and repairing some of the extensive damage to the control rooms he succeeds in re-activating the remaining devices. The pulsating core reduces its size dramatically and the three rotating arms that remain around the Core move back into place. The Gravity gun returns to normal.
With the core stabilized Gordon returns to the overhead control room to greet Alyx, who’s happy to see him – bearing news both good, and bad. Whilst his actions within the core have stabilized the reactor, it’s not going to last forever and chances are it’ll only be a few hours before it expands again and begins it’s destructive course towards the Citadel outer walls.
Whilst Gordon was in the core Alyx did some snooping around in the Combine’s data and has come up with results. Due to Gordon’s to destruction of Breen’s reactor, he also took out the Combines tunnelling entanglement system and the Citadels only portal, which has inadvertently left the Combine cut off. Whilst good news it’s left the Combine with few options, and they’ve resorted to more drastic measures. In order to get a transmission out to the Combine universe they are going to have to destroy the entire Citadel in to punch a hole through interdimensional space. Alyx was right before, the Combine were trying to create a meltdown.
Fortunately Alyx has made a copy of the transmission and is eager to get it back to her father and Dr. Kleiner at the outpost outside the City. However, there is something else. She’s picked up a message – from Dr. Judith Mossman.
The monitor flickers and Judith appears – clad in a green overcoat.
She begins her message by explaining she has pinned down the location of the ‘Project’, and is fairly certain once she’s had a better examination of the site she’d be able to say for sure. Despite being somewhat hazy on how much of it may have survived intact or whether there’s anything remaining that could compromise their work if it were to be discovered by the Combine. Suddenly the feed flickers, and Mossman hectically glances right – she’s been discovered! Cutting it short she makes a run for it as the wall opposite explodes and soldiers pour in, gunning down resistance forces in the area. The monitor flickers again to reveal a snowy vista – a coastline, but more importantly, or worryingly, a small, unknown synth entity leaps toward the building. The feed dies.
Mossman is searching for something in the Arctic, and she’s in trouble. Worried Alyx takes a copy of Mossman’s message and the Combine’s transmission with the sole intention of reaching her Father. Gordon and Alyx depart the Core control room and make haste towards the nearest Razor train station. After a close encounter with Combine soldiers they manage to board the last outgoing train, and make for the wasteland outside the City – leaving the disintegrating Citadel far behind.
Pleased with the turn of events Alyx ponders as to the contents of the transmission, and praises their lucky escape – before she notices they are travelling in a Stalker cargo. Caught somewhat off guard she reluctantly wanders over to the open pod, and stares at the inhuman race of the Stalker. Stalkers are the ultimate fate for the human race. Essentially slaves stripped of all humanity, immortal in that they’ll never age and forced to lead a life of horror and regret.
Suddenly the train begins to vibrate violently. Alyx hurries over to the controls before realising something has caused the train to crash as it grinds uncontrollably off of the tracks. They both black out.
It’s only moments before Gordon regains consciousness – waking to the sound of vile, horrific screaming and Alyx’s pleas for help. Struggling through the wreckage he reaches Alyx – pinned to the side of the overturned car by a Stalker pod – the creature screaming in her face. Using the gravity gun to free her, she coils up in the corner – in almost child-like fashion, attempting to recover from the experience. Eventually, calmer, she clambers down, thanks Gordon gently and they depart the train.
Once Alyx has recovered she explains the now dire situation. They are both now stranded in the ruins of City 17, in the same boat as the rest of the evacuees – on foot to a train station in attempt to evacuate the city and avoid the Citadels imminent destruction.
Making haste they begin their journey through the lower levels of City 17, which is now infested with Zombies. As they continue they come across a Combine troop train, which has also de-railed. Within the mangled remains they find the rotting corpse of a Combine soldier – with a Headcrab latched to his head.
Following Alyx’s ‘Zombine’ joke, which Gordon doesn’t really find particularly funny, another Zombine, this one now on it’s feet and charging towards the closed door – pulls out a grenade and explodes on the spot, opening the door. As they progress through the under levels they find them themselves face to face with countless more Zombines, regular zombies and even fast zombies. With the aid of a few barnacles to stem the flow, they soon reach a multi storey car park wherein it is revealed exactly how much damage the destroyed reactor has affected City 17.
Antlions have now flooded into the City due to the failure of the Combine’s containment system. City 17 is now alike with the rest of the world, a rotting wasteland infested with Xen wildlife. Shutting off the Antlions burrows with burnt out cars they make a final stand within the underground whilst waiting for the arrival of a maintenance elevator. The sickening inhabitants of the area pour in. They both make it onto the elevator however, despite it being a little too close for comfort.
Eventually they reach the surface, and begin the Urban Flight…
