Half Life: Pandemic

Chapter 8: The Uprising

29-32 WEEKS AFTER OUTBREAK

Prior to the destruction of Nova Prospekt, the Resistance began preparing for an all-out battle against the Combine in City 17. While Gordon Freeman and Alyx vance were stuck in the time loop caused by the teleporter accident, both the Combine and the Resistance became aware of Nova Prospekt's destruction. Gordon Freeman and Alyx Vance were presumed dead in that event, but the Resistance continued the battle in the uprising regardless. Barney Calhoun, one of the Resistance leaders, took the lead of the Resistance army during the absence of Freeman.

Gordon being able to destroy Nova Prospekt, one of the Combine's heavily guarded stronghold, demonstrated that open aggression wouldn't necessarily result in the annihilation of the Resistance, and that an all-out uprising against the Combine would defeat them and liberate humanity.

During the first week of the battle, the Resistance took to open rebellion across City 17 to engage the Combine troops occupying the sector. At this point, the Combine were still busy attacking the rebels occupying the Wastelands and the coastlines, but switched priority to the battle in City 17 when the Resistance was the first to launch the attack.

The large army of the Resistance and the opposing Combine occupying City 17 were locked in an urban combat, engaging in violent battles in the streets of the city. Eventually, Civil Protection were being defeated by the Resistance and were not able to gain control of the uprising, causing them to call for the Overwatch to take over them in the city. The loud battles in the city caught the attention of the infected that are still outside, but they however could not find any form of entrance into the main city.

City 17 had been completely turned into the warzone when the Overwatch took action, engaging in far more deadly and destructive battles which resulted in the damage of streets and buildings in the city. Because the Overwatch were able to match the army of the Resistance more easily than the Civil Protection could control, a stalemate occured between the Resistance and the Combine. During the uprising, the Combine's usage of heavy weaponry destroyed many of the streets and buildings. In turn, the Resistance took down multiple Combine structures such as the Breencasts.

When Gordon Freeman and Alyx Vance finally return from the time loop, they landed in the teleporter in Isaac Kleiner's lab in City 17. At this point of the Uprising, the Resistance took control of the suburban areas, while the Combine took control of the city center and other pivotal buildings. Kleiner realizing that the two are not dead, informed Barney Calhoun and the Resistance about their return. Gordon teamed up with Barney and the both of them began leading the Resistance together during the Uprising.

Freeman led some of the rebel troops to attack the Combine occupied barricades and buildings before travelling throught the city's underground tunnels to reach the city center. At this point, the Overwatch noticed the presence of Freeman, sending an intense counterattack on the Resistance. In result to this, bombardment shells and the heavy Combine synths and units have destroyed several Resistance positions. The center of the city was largely destructed due to the Combine's heavy weaponry and use of pulse artillery, otherwise also known as "Dark Energy".

However, thanks to Freeman, the rebels were able to overcome the Combine's assault after taking down a major barricade. But after doing so, Alyx Vance was captured whilst scouting the rooftops of the buildings. Now that the Resistance army was able to reach the city center, Gordon and Barney led an attack on the Overwatch Nexus, the center of Overwatch activities. The two Resistance leaders manage to enter the Nexus and take down several power generators, open the building for the Resistance reinforcements to enter and even destroyed a powerful Combine Suppression Device located on the roof.

The Combine, in attempt to regain control of the Nexus, deployed an army of Striders into the area. However, the Resistance reinforcements along with Freeman's help, took down all the Striders and succesfully secured and gained control of the Nexus. Now that the Resistance are controlling the Overwatch center of activities, this allowed them to attack the base of the Citadel. The Overwatch infantries were pulled back and the defense was now turned over to the heavier synths. The Combine gunships and Striders inflicted heavy casualties among the Resistance army, but were not able to keep them at bay. Gordon Freeman led the final charge towards a prominent horse statue, which then penetrated the Citadel.

Eventually inside of the Citadel, Freeman was captured in a Combine Pod, and was transported into Wallace Breen's office where he meets Alyx and Eli Vance, who were also captured as well. However, Judith Mossman betrays the Combine and releases the three from the pods. Judith and Eli escape from the Citadel while Freeman and Alyx remained to stop Breen from escaping into the Combine Overworld through a portal rift. Later on, Freeman overloads the Citadel's dark energy reactor, causing a massive explosion killing Breen and destroying the top of the Citadel.

The Vortigaunts managed to rescue Gordon and Alyx who became trapped in big piles of rubble. The destruction of the reactor caused all Combine technology in City 17 to run into a cybernetic attack. Because of this, most of City 17's Combine technology ran into a blackout, shutting down all of the sector's defense fields. The infected who were still locked outside of the city had discovered that the forcefields have been deactivated, allowing them to finally breach City 17 and begin another rampage. At the same time, thousands of alien wildlife were also able to breach and swarm the city together with the infected.

Prior to the destruction of the reactor, the Combine Overworld completely lost communication from Earth, isolating the Combine forces on the planet. The Citadel's main reactor core began a fatal meltdown due to the dark energy reactor being blown off. This led the Combine to withdraw from City 17, leaving behind a few Overwatch units and their reserves of Civil Protection in order to prevent the Resistance from escaping the city that's about to explode. However, Gordon Freeman and Alyx Vance went back into the Citadel shortly and succeeded in partially restabilizing the main reactor core, extending their time for evacuation and for escaping.

Now that alien wildlife and the infected breached City 17, they have become an unexpected third party side against the Combine and Resistance inside of the city. The Combine, however, begin focusing on stopping the Resistance and allowed the infected and alien wildlife to roam freely and hunt the rebels down. Having the Combine prioritizing the Resistance and the third party of infected and alien wildlife hunting everything down, this made evacuation far more difficult for them.

The Combine reserves and the waves of infected were eventually defeated and held back by Freeman and Alyx, then evacuated the last surviving rebels together with Barney to the trains. While the trains were being evacuated, the infected started noticing the final trains escaping and the retreating Combine. This then led most of them to follow the refugee trains to White Forest after the rebels finally evacuated.

When the final trains left, the Combine Advisors were evacuated in escape pods when the Citadel started to explode. The extremely large explosion of dark energy was able to reach the entire sector 17, completely annihilating the city and everything else remaining in it.

Eventually, the rebels and the infected following them reached their destination point, White Forest.