You figure you'll give it some time; you're not in a hurry to go anywhere.

A week later and you wake up to a little mutant getting ready to push you to see if you're awake, you immediately wake before he can do anything, slam him to the ground and put your knife to his throat.

"Hey! Stop! I'm on your side!" he gasps.
"Oh? What the hell are you doing here? Did the Captain finally decide to send me some help again?"
"The Captain's dead!"
"He's fuckin' dead?"
"Yeah! He got assassinated by some big ass motherfucker! Anyway that's why I was sent to get you! You're next in line to take charge."
"Wow. I would've thought someone would've just taken power themselves and left me to rot out here."
"Well, I think a couple of people had that idea…but then they realized the job wasn't worth it. The Shadow Horde has been taking the offensive ever since Captain Salazar insisted on pursuing them in their sewers. We need a leader to get us out of this mess and you're the only one we have!"

See you knew no good was going to come of this.

"Alright, let's see how much shit we're in…"

You make your way back to Zeropolis and the Dust District is showing signs of battle, which is difficult to do since the place was a wreck to begin with. Dead bodies are being moved out of the street and the people look hopeful that you can somehow get them out of this mess.

First thing you do is order a complete pull out of the sewers and reinforce your defenses in the Dust District. There's no point in pursuing an enemy that's lived in the damn sewers for years and knows them like the backs of their hands. Right now you need to regroup after the losses Salazar has incurred due to his recklessness.

Second thing you do is order no more attacks on Combine towns, you can't afford the man power and you didn't like allying with the Cybernetic Evolution anyway. However, another shipment of weapons was already on its way when you enact this order. The cyborgs who arrive wonder why they haven't heard any reports of mutants attacking the Combine. Seeing that this alliance is over anyway. You immediately have the cyborgs killed (Which is easier than you thought it would be) and keep the weapons to help your own struggle.

A couple more cyborgs arrive a month later probably to investigate what happened to their fellows, and you have them killed as well. Your hope is that the CE will think they're losing them to Combine ambushes and will eventually just forget about you. And apparently they do because no more cyborgs are sent. You just hope the CE doesn't win against The Combine.

Eventually you manage to restore relative safety to the Dust District, its not safe like it once was though, but at least it isn't on the brink of disaster due to Salazar's mad plan. Being in charge isn't exactly a fun job, and its obvious why to as why nobody wanted to do it. Still the people see you as a savior of sorts and generally like you as a leader.

The warehouse that you live in, has been converted into the new head quarters, though you still live in the secret underground part that only you have access to…well at least you thought you did.

One night you wake up in your room to a very pale woman by your bed. Obviously she's a mutant, but she's somehow managed to avoid the ugliness and scaring that goes along with it, though she does have part of her face covered. She holds a pistol, but seems to be inspecting the place more than paying any attention to you.


"Boy this was so long ago and another life time…please don't go for your gun, I'm here to talk…my, you are a pretty one. Almost human looking…almost." she says finally paying attention to you.
"How the hell did you get past the guards?" you answer calculating how quickly you might be able to reach her before she can get off a shot.
"This war between our respective groups has taken a toll on both of us for quite sometime…I would ask that we finally have peace." She says ignoring your question.

You gather she's from the Shadow Horde, though you've never seen one like her. She's not brimming with muscles or trying to rip your head off for one thing. (And somehow she actually smells nice and unsewer like!) She is exuding a weird aura though, like you have a great desire to follow whatever she says. It's difficult to shake off these effects, but you try to keep a level head.

"Peace? You're ones always coming out at night to eat people! We were just trying to defend ourselves!"
"…yes I have come to understand that now…and I appreciate your desire to exist. You have held out against us for years and accomplished much within that time. However I would say that your most recent attack on us was most definitely equally as brutal. You came into our sewers…our home and murdered innocent women and children, decreasing the ranks of our future warriors and birth givers. You came in using weapons of unparalleled power and destruction, unleashing blinding rays of light, incinerating at a touch."
"Yeah, well like I said, YOU started it…however that recent attack wasn't my idea. I thought we shouldn't spread ourselves out so thin."
"Yes, I'm aware of that, your Captain Salazar is dead and you have taken his place, which is why I feel I can talk to you about coming to you about putting an end to this conflict once and for all. I know of your deeds and you seem to be a lot more rational and reasonable than your predecessor. Anyway, I've come to the conclusion that this conflict is only going to harm us in the long run. We have to think about the future. The future of mutant kind relies on us no longer fighting each other. I thought survival of the fittest was enough when I first embraced my evolution, I believed that only the strong should be allowed to rule…but now I see that isn't enough if we wish to thrive, we have to unite."
"What exactly are you getting at?"
"Oh come on, you know that we're the next stage of evolution. Humanity is the past, we're the future."
"Hmmm, I think I know some cyborgs that feel the same way."
"Ah yes your cybernetic allies who you temporarily allied with, only to ruthlessly back stab later. Obviously they aren't the future if they needed your help to defeat some humans. Listen to me, this City just isn't divided between the Zeropolis Guard and the Shadow Horde you know…there are other factions. You just never come on conflict with them because you're sectioned off in one corner of the City constantly fighting us and never able to spread out effectively. All these factions fight each other and that's not counting the Ferals. I'm proposing that we could take the first steps in truly uniting Zeropolis. We could first approach in friendship, and if that regrettably failed, we could take by force. Who could stop us? The Shadow Horde has a higher birth rate and the numbers, while the Zeropolis Guard has the resources. You'd attack on the surface and we could attack from below. We could rebuild the world in our image."

This rant is followed by her putting down her pistol, climbing on to your bed and seductively crawling closer to you, while taking off her strange protective mask revealing that the rest of her face isn't all scarred or mutated either. You feel really compelled to give in to her, and it's not just the fact that it's been awhile since you've been with a "human looking" chick. It's whatever aura she's exuding. It must be some sort of weird mutant ability she developed, but even though you're aware of it, that doesn't make it any less likely for you to want to resist. She's making a point you haven't considered before…you're in a position of power, why not use it effectively?

Her face is an inch away from yours and the only thing you can sputter is…

"What's your name?"
"I'm known as the Queen by the Horde, but you can call me Lisa." She replies before kissing you passionately.

You resist

As lovely of a creature she is, she's been the one leading your current enemy for years. She's most likely trying to lull you into a false sense of security to kill you; you won't allow yourself to fall for it.

As Lisa kisses and grinds into you, you muster all your strength and grab her to roll her over so that you're on top and firmly in control.

"Ohhh…okay…if that's the way you want to do this, I don't mind." Lisa says and for a brief moment you think she might've been telling the truth about the alliance, however you go through with your plan.

"Sorry baby, but I could never trust you. Maybe next life." You reply and snap her neck with one quick twist.

After the deed is done you sit by the bed for quite some time by her lifeless body. You really wish you hadn't felt the need to do that, but given the fact that you've been the perpetrator of as well as a victim of betrayal in the past you felt you had no choice. Still, you always wonder what if…

Five years pass…

Ten years have passed since you decided that going to the City would be a great place to find supplies…

After the death of Lisa, the Shadow Horde became disorganized and eventually began to fight amongst themselves. They became much less of a direct threat, and as head of the Zeropolis Legion (As you renamed it) you were able to make the Dust District relatively safe once again. The idea of taking over the entire City was never something you want to pursue, so you just concentrated on building up the Dust District, however events conspire against you from living out a relatively conflict free life.

Recently over the last few years, a cult of mutants called the Glow Children, have taken over a great portion of Zeropolis through their weird faith. They follow a leader calling themselves the Savior. In your experience, groups with any type of religious faith behind them are never willing to negotiate and they aren't an exception. They are utterly fanatical and devoted to their cause. They turn out to be worse than the Shadow Horde (In fact they also engage in attacks from the sewers as well, causing you to believe that ex-Shadow Horde members fill their ranks.) They've made their headquarters (or Cathedral as it were) at the old hospital.

They attack the Dust District relentlessly, but the most disturbing thing you notice is how some of them carry high tech weaponry similar to the kind that you used to fight the Shadow Horde. Later you see some of the bigger Glow Children fitted with cybernetic implants. You know that the Combine won the war against the Cybernetic Evolution, but it would appear at least one of their number survived and are obviously remembering your past treachery. The day of reckoning is soon at hand.

Eventually one day while you're arranging yet another plan to take back parts of the Dust District you've lost control over, your head quarters is attacked by several of the biggest mutants you've ever seen. Many of them are of the cybernetic variety armed with weapons of devastating power that make quick work of your elite guards.

As you make your futile last stand with a plasma gun, one of the giant aberrations takes two shots to the chest and still manages to pick you up and rend you limb from limb with minimal effort on its part.