Chapter Text
The plan to get Benrey back was simple, right? Just go in, get snag Benrey back from Black Mesa, then come home, right? Not exactly. For one, no one knew where the mutts had taken Benrey; all they had to go off of was a slight indent in the ground from where Benrey was dragged before being lifted and dragged off. As well as a weak scent train that was close to vanishing by the time Gordon and the serpent team had reached the kidnapping site. Along with the darkening night sky, this was not going to be a straightforward rescue mission.
Luckily for the crew, Bubby was able to catch onto the weak scent, with Commer helping if he ever lost the trail. After a long journey from Darnold’s tree to the Dead Home, It would not take long for the team to catch onto a new scent or multiple scents in this case. The sound of voices and footsteps cause the unit to hide behind a nearby rock formation. Gordon glanced around the corner to see that same group of soldiers standing guard around a broken down building, the same guards that had left Gordon for dead before. There were a few other scientists that were crouched around a lumpy net, taking samples from the very much still knocked out snake guardian. They were very likely waiting for some sort of transport to take Benrey away, but why was it taking so long? I had to be hours since Gordon had woken up from his blood loss, right? Were they waiting for them? Was this a trap? Gordon did not entirely trust this.
“S-So, how are we going to attack Mister Freeman?” asked Tommy as he peeked over the edge of the rocks as well.
“Well, we can’t just go in guns blazing without any guns. Doubt the potions that Darnold has given us would do any good against bullets.” Gordon remarked, noting the various arsenal of weapons that the bootboys had on their persons. “I also doubt that any of you guys have any experience with firing a gun anyways.”
“We’ve seen the mutts use trees and other animals here as target practice,” Bubby remarked, with Coomer joining in on spying on the team and their captured comrade. “Beyond that, were shit out of luck.”
Gordon cursed under his breath. Of course, they didn’t have the gun experience; they were more than likely on the receiving end of a barrel of a gun anyways. So Gordon had to be sneaky about this. Maybe he could pickpocket a gun off one of the guards patrolling the group when they turned their back to the team. But he would probably be a death wish since he was missing a hand, and if any of the snakes tried, they might be easily spotted because of their size.
“If I get you guys a gun, could you possibly be able to use it?”
All the snakes seemed to agree; verbally agree with Gordon on that notion.
“But how are you going to get a gun, Mister freeman?” Asked Coomer as he and the other snakes sunk behind the rocks to hide again from the patrolling soldier.
“I’m going to get them. If I can just get one of those bootboys to-”
Suddenly, the sound of approaching footsteps approached the group, everyone quickly shutting up as the source of the sound grew louder with the crunching of the ground underneath. Shit, did a guard hear the team talking and come over to investigate? There was not an alarm that had gone off about them being here. Luckily it sounded like it was just one soldier coming, possibly mistaking the murmured voices as jungle sounds and coming to see what it was. The crew stayed silent, snake eyes narrowed into slits as they listened to the steps coming closer, and Gordon readying himself to jump on the attack as well if need be.
Once the unsuspecting guard rounded the corner of the stone pillar, they were met with the sight of numerous snakes staring right back at them. The soldier just about dropped the gun they were holding before a large yellow tail wrapped around the guard’s body, yanking them behind the boulder to keep them from screaming out for help as their air was squeezed out of them like a squirt bottle.
A portion of the tail covered the head of the muffled human, surprisingly quickie silencing them as they slowly started to stop squirming underneath the crushing weight of the snake’s tail. Thankfully Tommy was more of a constrictor; Gordon did NOT want to see what a bucket’s worth of venom could do to a human body. Once the body had gone limp, the tail loosened its grip from its new stress toy, letting it plop unceremoniously in the group’s huddle.
“..Nevermind then,” Gordon replied, reaching down to the fresh corpse to begin to loot the body for any useful weapons.
Surprisingly there were just enough for the team, two handheld guns, one for Bubby and one for Coomer, somehow able to hold the weapons correctly. A revolver for Tommy, and a shotgun for Gordon.
Looking over to the two elders, they seemed to be catching on to how they use the weapons quickly, only needing Gordon to flip the safety off and tell them not to fire or point them at any of the teammates. Tommy was still looking somewhat hesitant at the small gun in his claws, looking it over some before holding it out, not catching onto Gordon’s crash course in gun safety as he pointed it right at the spooked human.
“Hey! Watch where you’re pointing that!” Gordon yelped, Quickly ducking out of the way of the barrel of the gun. Tommy quickly pointed said gun away from the human as they glanced back up the giant beast.
“Tommy, do you know how to even work a gun?”
“I-I think so, Mister F-Freeman,” Tommy replied simply, glancing back at the smaller human.
Despite Gordon’s deep trust in the serpents, seeing how some of them had saved him countless times, he did not entirely feel that Tommy nor the other snakes had a good hold on the sudden introduction to the new and more human weapons. But this had to be learned, and fast, Gordon knew that the crew would not last long against artillery fire, even if they have some otherworldly powers. There’s only so far those powers can protect them from certain death.
“Why do we have to use these cold metal shooters again?” Bubby asked, snapping Gordon out of his anxious thoughts. “I can just burn the fuckers alive and get this shit over with.”
“Do you want to get filled with Bullets?” Gordon responded, glancing back at Bubby. “Bullets move faster than spreading fire, so you would probably get shot before starting a flame. You could also hurt Benrey if you burn the bootboys.”
Usually, Bubby would bark back at Gordon for arguing against his unique fire powers, but the gentle grip from his partner to his arm brought him back down a bit from his anger high. Gordon did have a point; there were points where he’s had close calls with Black Mesa hunters and bullets, even having some old wounds from those said shots. Maybe he should not argue with the human that was about to lead them into battle.
“Just- whatever, we need to get closer to them, we can use the dead trees as a cover to get closer to them.” Gordon had informed, peering out from behind the stone motioning at the trees with his free hand. “All we need to do is wait to take the first sho-”
There came a loud bang from beside the crew, spooking all of them as they jumped right out of their skins. Everyone’s head whipped around to see Tommy pointing the gun at a nearby tree, a bullet sized hole was made in the bark of the tree, and the sound of shouting soldiers were heard as the sound of returned fire sounded.
“Tommy!- Urg! Fuck it, no time for practice now, just aim and fire at the soldiers! Go go go!” Gordon shouted, pumping his shotgun and leaning out of the cover of their stone shield, firing at a soldier that he luckily hit before firing again.
The rest of the crew followed suit, firing back at the soldiers, surprisingly hitting all, if not most, of their targets. Whenever the snakes had run out of ammo, they quickly searched the soldier's body for new ammo to reload the new weapons. Now Gordon had given the promptu crash course on gun safety and firing, but he never had truly gone over how to reload a gun. So with a bit of struggling when it came to reloading each of their guns, with cover fire from Gordon and any of the still firing serpents.
Soon the numbers of enemy soldiers had diminished enough for the team to make their advances, Gordon ordering the snakes to advance forward, popping out from behind the rock to begin their advance. The remaining ammo from their guns had been emptied into the soldiers before them, now missing more targets as the soldiers started to retreat backwards towards the frightened scientists that had almost abandoned the still sleeping snake if it was not for the soldiers protecting them from the fire.
All while the snakes seemingly had almost no trouble taking care of the soldiers, taking them out one by one with their new weapons of mass destruction. Especially with Tommy, the one who Gordon had assumed would give the most trouble with this sudden new gun, be he was landing all of his shots, and if he managed to miss some of the shots, he would have hit another soldier. This was a complete shock to the human, caught off guard by the natural trigger finger.
“Tommy go ham! Tommy’s go fucking ham!” Gordon cheered, blasting another soldier in the chest as he returned fire.
“I-It’s all instinct M-Mister Freeman!” Tommy shouted, a large splatter of blood from a nearby soldier’s collapsing head splashing onto his face, causing him to drop his gun in the process.
Looks like it was time to bring out the big guns, the ammo was already depleted completely by this point, leaving only a couple of bullets in each gun. This left the snakes with their own tails, claws and power to dispose of the last remaining guards.
Coomer dropped his empty gun as soon as his gun started clicking from the lack of bullets. “It’s time to punch their lights out!”
“Way ahead of you!” Bubby chimed in, disposing of his feeble metal bullet launcher and igniting his fists with red flames “Lets burn these bitches!”
Off to the races the snakes went, fighting guns with fire, claws, and punches. Tommy quickly disposed of some of the soldiers with his crushing tail and dagger-like claws that ripped through human flesh like it was a hot knife through bleeding butter. While Coomer was fruitfully punching soldiers with his Black Mesa replaced arms, thrashing the human meat sacks right into the fire that his partner had ignited, burning boot boys that got too close to him, or when he got too close to them.
Gordon in the meantime could only stare at the carnage before him. Looks like the guns did not matter that much in the end, did they? Or maybe they did help in diminishing the soldier’s numbers so that the snake team could go for a more physical means of attack than having to rely on new weaponry. Thankfully this was about to be over with, the piles and pieces of dead soldier corpses was what Gordon had noticed first as he started to come down from his adrenaline filled run, trying to see if they had managed to take out Forzen during the whole fight. As Gordon observed the bodies, making his way closer to Benrey’s still unconscious body, he could not decipher if he saw Forzen’s corpse or not. Did they kill him already? Gordon hoped the hell they did.
His rain of thought ended when he felt something hard slam against his head and back, knocking him down to the ground almost immediately. Gordon did try to use his now empty gun to swing back at the unknown attacker, but ended up with his only good hand being kicked at, letting go of his weapon at the impact before being brought back up to his knees in a choke hold.
"Why didn't you stay dead?" Asked the all too familiar voice of Forzen, who was slowly crushing his windpipe as he braced a leg down on the back of Gordon's knees, keeling him down as he tried to call back out for the snake's attention, to sadly no such luck
"You should have bled out back there when I gave you your final warning. But you didn't. And I'm guessing it's from them." Forzen spoke as he glanced back up to the snakes as they were finishing off the last of the soldiers.
"And now my whole platoon if fucking dead because of you and your shit. Guess this is what I get for getting what I came for before I got my 'friend' back. Guess you found your revenge huh? For you missing hand there?" The grip around Gordon's neck got tighter as Forzen went on, his vision starting to blur out from panic and the lack of air getting to his brain.
"Guess it's not worth it in the end huh? Had your fun, and now your paying the pri-"
"M-Mister Freeman! Are you-?``said Tommy as he turned to face where he smelled Freeman's scent. Despite having blood covering his face, he could still see past the dripping liquid coating his eyes, and he saw his "old friend" about to choke his human friend to death.
"What are you doing to him?!" Tommy yelled, venom present in his voice as he quickly slithered his way towards the two.
The rest of the serpents take clear notice to the sudden distressed yell of their fellow guardian, and him rushing over to save Gordon from a leftover soldier.
"Get off him!" Coomer yelled, joining his burning snake mate to go and slay that one last guard.
That was before Forzen had quickly whipped out a handgun, pressing the said gun to Gordon's temple, causing the protecting snakes to skid to a stop, knowing full well what that gesture had meant.
"Didn't think that you guys would be the ones to finally get the balls to trust another human being again. More so you Tommy." Forzen scoffed, turning his gaze towards a pissed off, and worried Tommy. "Didn't think you would want to trust one after what happened, what your brother had let happen."
"Th-That was YOUR fault F-Forzen! Benrey tried to give you a chance, we all did. But you fucked it up right after we started to trust you."
"And yet you fell for it." Forzen spat back, pressing the gun further onto Gordon's head. "Fell for it again. Look at what this one has done. Got your brother captured because of-"
"IT WASNT HIS FUCKING F-FAULT! STOP USING YOUR FUCKING BACKWARDS L-LOGIC SHIT TO PIN IT ON HIM!" Tommy howled back, wanting to straight up snatch Gordon out of the traitor's grasp and eviscerate the soldier right then and there, but he knew that moving any closer would only threaten Gordon's well being even more. "W-We know what you fucking did. To all of us. T-To Mister Freeman. And you can't run f-from us anymore. You can't outrun the shit you've caused."
There was a pause, a painful, silent pause as the standoff between the snakes and Forzen with his captive all stared at each other. No one daring to move to initiate the other side from pulling something drastic, despite the subtle shifting of a net from behind the two humans.
Only the click of the glock of Forzen's gun broke the quiet tension, leaving everyone to dread what was about to happen.
"I know. But I might as well take out one last member of this team." Forzen spoke, his voice monotone as he was about to pull the trigger, ending another man's life as Gordon's world started to slip into slow motion, the last few seconds of his life flashing before his eyes.
The sight of the snake team lunging for him in a vain attempt to save whatever seconds of life he had left, the cold barrel of the gun being pressed harder into his head, the screaming thoughts that had erupted from his brain in these last crucial moments. This was how it was going to end? By a bullet to the head, not by crushing, burning, or even being poisoned by snake venom, just an old fashioned bullet. Despite everything that had happened to him, he didn't even go out in style.or even had the chance to say goodbye to the team, Joshie, or his old friends. Worst of all, he never got to apologise or tell Benrey how he really felt. All that Benrey knew was how Gordon 'betrayed' him, or at least the fake notion of betrayal Forzen had given to him. So he would die a regretful man, a man who couldn't do anything to stop his fate.
Or that would have been said if there wasn't a sudden scream of pain from the soldier as they dropped the loaded gun from Gordon's head, and had let him go in the process, causing him to fall on his front as he tried to catch his breath from the vice hold on his throat. Once he got his bearings again, he forced himself back onto his feet and turned around to see what the snakes were staring wide eyes at.
It was Benrey, who was holding the soldier by the scruff of his neck, or more so by the back of his throat, black claws digging into the bone of his neck. His golden eyes burning with a raging fire of hatred and anger from the squirming soldier.
"hello old friend." Benrey hissed back, his tail coping around himself, creating a sort of surrounding pool of scaled muscle. His expression that was once the equivalent to an unconscious drunk frat boy at a college party, now changed to a glare that could mutilate the soldier in his grasp from sheer anger alone.
"Oh, your up. Sup friend" Forzen coldly spoke, his body going limp as he glanced back up the the beast.
"looks like ya fucked up, didn't chya? fucked up big time. you fucked up bad. lost your pack and everything huh? you messed with my friends, and lost yours. and now you're going to die." Benrey hissed his voice, even with his monotone speech pattern, still had a low gutteral anger that could only be created by a post drugged up animal that was loose from its cage.
"Wha-?" Forzen peeped before a long black scaled muscle wrapped around his head and shoulders, slowly squeezing the head portion of the scaled wrap. Benrey did not want to spend anymore time on this waste of space of a flesh bag. His anger and hatred for this soldier was so deep and had rooted itself deep within his very being, being formed from betrayal and hurt from what his old friend had done to him. He tried to be good, he tried to be the good guy, he wanted to be nice to him, to Gordon, but they made him be bad, so he might as well be bad.
The tail slowly crushed Forzen's head, leaving him to try and struggle in the confines of the tight muscle, trying to push or maneuver his body out of the coils, but with no such luck. Even if he was trying to say something to Benrey, it would have been muffled, and surprisingly, it was not any pleas for mercy or forgiveness, but probably some last minute words to scold the snake. Not like he cared however, Forzen was dead to him, both figuratively and now physically, since with just enough pressure from Benrey's tail, there came a squelching crunch sound from underneath the tight ropes of snake tail, dark stains of red liquid dripping from in-between and underneath the head holding part of the tail. And when Benrey let go of the corpse, letting it collapse to the bloodied earth below before smacking it away with his tail, it was not a pretty sight either. What was noticeable of the soldiers smashed skull had looked like a deflated piniata leaking gorey treats.
Gordon would have been relieved by this, happy to see the Black Mesa soldier that had cut off his hand being taken care of by his snake crush. If it was not for the fact of the events that happened prior to this meeting, with Benrey's last memories of Gordon being that he had falsely betrayed his trust. As well as seeing how he had quickly taken care of the last human who had betrayed him, and the same anger filled stare that he had for Forzen now being directed onto him, only this one having a much more prevailing feeling of hurt.
Gordon was downright terrified.