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As soon as the Borealis repairs are finished, the Resistance is heading off to Europe to take another stab at the Combine's combat terraforming Synths. Gordon's good with that. They're going to be coming at it from the ocean, though- safer that way. That means at least some degree of amphibious assault, and unless the Baltic coastline is very, very different from the American one, that means antlions are going to be a hazard.

Which is a long way of saying that there's a tall, pale fellow in an orange and grey HEV suit out back, knocking over some seriously unnerving-looking giant insect-shaped targets (Bar provides many things if asked correctly) with a glowing orange gravity gun. It's the kind of getting ready he can deal with, and also the kind he could be distracted from if anyone were interested.

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After her bartending shift, or maybe during (There is someone outside who needs beer!) the founder of the slayer orders on her own world comes out with a case of glass bottles.

The man in armor at the shooting at the unusual targets by using... what is that, an orange trashcan full of lightning? attracts her attention immediately.

"What are those targets supposed to represent?" she asks once she gets within speaking range.

It takes Gordon a bit to notice. He tends to concentrate when he's at the firing range. Once the last one falls over, he glances over at the speaker and lowers the gravity gun. "Antlions," he says. "Bugs we have, back home. They're about the right size.

See icon for reference.

"Wow. They almost look like shifters... Giant shifters." She remarks, "Well, except for the the way the legs are arranged. They don't teleport around, do they?"

Could this man's world be the source of the pest invasions?

Gordon shakes his head. "Not that I've seen," he says. "Run, burrow, fly short distances, but not teleport. Maybe in their home dimension, but I doubt it."

He's pretty sure the Vortigaunts would've said something about the antlions not being able to get away like they did back home, were that the case.

"Not an adult version of a shifter, then. Hopefully." It is a bit disappointing at the same time. But then, how would one of those fit through one of the portals the pests have a habit of crawling out of?

"Fly? How tough is the carapace?" A carapace of that size has to be heavy.

"Tough enough that you need a shotgun to have any hope of doing damage," Gordon says, "and even then you have to be at close range. They can't fly far. More like extended hopping."

If they could fly properly, he's not entirely sure he could have made it out of the warren alive.

"Shotgun? Is that what you are firing?" she asks. Guns are a new thing to her, as hand cannons are a recent development on her world.

"I thought guns used metal," she thinks for a bit, "bullets."

Gordon glances down at the gravity gun and shakes his head. "Shotguns fire metal," he says. "This is something else."

He demonstrates the lifting part by pointing it at one of the downed targets and pulling the other trigger, the better to latch onto it, hoist it into the air, and move it around briefly before setting it upright again.

"That is awfully handy." She remarks, half in awe. "You sound like someone who has had to kill many of these antlions. Are they common in your world?"

"In sandy areas," Gordon says. "And cave systems- they breed underground."

He still has nightmares about his suit running out of power in the warren.

"Had to go into a nest once. I don't want to do that again."

"That's impressive, walking into a nest of such creatures. What was the reason you went in there for?"

It's not a fun memory. Gordon is quiet for a while before he answers.

"My... the woman I'm going to marry..." (Neither he nor Alyx has ever been comfortable with terms like 'girlfriend', and 'fiancee' doesn't always sound like a real word.) "Had been wounded. Badly. The beings who were trying to heal her needed nectar from the central antlion nest to do it."

It's pretty clear from his tone that there's not likely to be anything else in the world that could get him to do so again.

"Love, a good reason to take risks." A good way to get people to take risks, too. "I am Sarah Black by the way. I advise people who need to kill creatures such as yours once in a while. Sometimes I teach, sometimes I just provide direction." She lifts the case of beer. "Inspiration at times, if it is needed."

"Gordon Freeman." Gordon inclines his head in reply. "We've got a lot more than just antlions back home. I'm just going to be crossing some of their territory soon."

The case of beer ... looks pretty promising, actually.

"Not sure I need inspiration, but I could use a drink..."

"Slayer's Respite," she says as she hands him a bottle, "If you need to figure out how to kill something and maybe getting away without getting too hurt, this can help."

"Of course all the inspiration in the world won't help if you are drunk on it, of course." She grins.

"I have trouble getting drunk," Gordon admits as he starts working the top off. "Too many things in my blood after a long, long fight. They left a mark."

One day he's going to find out just what, exactly, was in those dispensers at Black Mesa. It wasn't bug juice, that's for sure. Alyx can get drunk, he knows that; this is all vaguely unfair.

"What's it made with?"

"Barley, wildblood hops, nothing too unusual." Unlike that 'rum' she was serving in the bar.

Gordon nods. He can live with this. He spent long enough in Austria to know there's better things out there than American beer, after all. "Thanks," he says, and gives the stuff a try.

He might just come up with a brilliant plan for the European operation. Or at least part of one.

Probably one that involves the death of a lot of Xen and Combine oggieboogies. Or just a more efficient way of killing one specific bug. But still, a plan.

"So, what else are you about to go up against?" she asks as she opens a bottle for herself.

... huh. That's interesting. He's going to have to talk to Alyx about that one...

(He might have come up with a brilliant plan, but the player needs some time to think about one.)

"After the bugs? My world was conquered by alien invaders about sixteen years ago. They've got a massive gas exchanger in central Europe that's part of a system trying to convert our atmosphere to something they find more breathable. We're going to take it down."

By now, she has learned that when people here speak of aliens, they mean aliens from another planet.

"How did these aliens arrive?"

"Dimensional portals," Gordon says. "Human teleportation research went wrong. It caused a resonance cascade that let things from other dimensions in, and kept happening. The invaders noticed it from their own dimension and came after us some years later."

"That is unfortunate. It almost sounds like the stories of what will happen if very powerful magics are used without flattening spells. It makes it very hard to tell the difference between a world with actual laws of nature and an abyssal plane."

She's thought of going done that avenue, but it accomplishes a net sum of nothing in the long run. And not the good nothing, either. It just forces natural selection into overdrive.

"The shifters I spoke of and others arrived on my world though portals, but they have so far been confined to a few islands in the southern sea. Save for a few specimens that researchers and a few other enterprising individuals have sneaked onto the mainland." Luckily, there is an unending supply of hapless adventurers willing to hunt down escapees and their accomplices.

Gordon grunts. "Xen might as well be abyssal, from what I saw when I was there," he says. "There were some physical laws in effect. Nothing like the ones of Earth, though. It was a borderworld- a dimension where it's much easier to punch into other dimensions. Not a good place to try to make sense of things."

"Abyssal realm, border world, we probably speak of the same set of things. You can do odd things with the internal organs of creatures of the abyss that shouldn't be possible in normal worlds." For a loose definition of normal, even.

"What method was being researched when things went awry on your world? There are some on my world that are unsatisfied with teleportation magic and are finding other ways to accomplish it. I do not trust it. It's not that magical teleportation doesn't carry the risk of opening up unwanted portals when abused enough, but it's a risk that is accounted for." Mostly.

Gordon thinks for a bit. "Do you know what quantum entanglement is?" he says. "Or the term quantum physics in general?"

Hell, for all he knows they could have it where she comes from, it's spooky enough to sound like magic to most people.

"I have never heard of such things." Well possibly, but she no longer has omniscience. Possibly, she had to abandon that particular knowledge about the universe in favor of a freakish expertise of anatomy. But, it is also arguable whether or not the gods of Gielinor ever possessed omniscience. "Physics... some who are studying electricity group what they do, mechanics, alchemney, and stargazing into something called physical science. As opposed to naturalism and medicine, I suppose."

"All right," Gordon says. "This goes beyond their initial science. It would take a long time to explain, but we were using machines to do it, for whatever that's worth. Other than the abilities of the Vortigaunts, there's not much in my world that resembles magic."

"Machines." She sighs. Well that's the most vague answer ever.

She has better reason to watch over Oddenstein's and Oldak's research, but no idea what to look for.

Switching to something more familiar, "So, are these Vortigaunts also alien?"

Gordon was not known for being a good teacher when he was at MIT. He only got rated well when he taught students who already had a solid grounding in quantum theory. The freshmen hated him. We're sorry.

"They are," he says. "They come from somewhere that isn't Xen. They were enslaved a long time ago, but they're free now. They're our allies on Earth, since the Combine have been trying to destroy them as much as us."

"And the Combine? What are they like?"

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