Sometime, in the far, far, not that far future. A decade and a half or so later from the present, the world had, for a lack of better words, gone to complete shit. After the man destined to save humankind had so unceremoniously disappeared when the world had needed him most, the aliens invading Earth had issued a full takeover.
Among the newfangled species on the planet were The Combines. Strange, apparently humanoid and violent creatures clad in soft yet sturdy grey armor and pale masks that accentuated their freakish glowing eyes. They were the main ringleaders of the world's destruction, and they were on the winning side of a one-sided battle.
One victim of The Combine's tyranny who dreamt of nothing but revolting whenever he could was teenage Henry Freeman. He had heard the stories of his father being the one the prophecies were about, until he was zapped from history without explanation. Just gone one day, leaving the world he lived on to rot.
Henry hated The Combines, but he resented his father almost as much for leaving him and Earth behind.
At least my father wasn't a fascist. The young brunette boy reasoned as he walked down the Combine littered street, his mother Winslow Freeman in close stride.
"Mom?" He began, not taking his green gaze off of the young woman three of the invaders were currently assaulting.
"Yes, honey?" His mother replied, looking away as to save her eyes the ache of young bloodshed.
"Why are The Combines beating up that girl? What did she do wrong?" Henry added, his voice a mesh between fear, sorrow and unbridled rage. "She hasn't done anything wrong, dear. They're Combines. We're humans. It's merely in their nature to destroy humanity." The woman explained wistfully.
Henry, having inherited his dad's very obvious hero complex, didn't like the sound of that one bit.
Henry, also having inherited his dad's inability to hold his tongue for more than a few seconds said "Hey, Combines! Stop beating her up you- you...evil guys!" Nailed It! His mother hushed him in warning as the aliens let go of the woman and turned their eyes, and guns, to the remaining Freemans.
"Be quiet, kid. Before we shut you up for good." One of them hissed, aiming its laser gun directly at the boy's face. The other two followed suit. Henry began to sweat profusely, though he kept looking at danger head-on. Literally.
"Combines, please don't! He's so young. He doesn't know what he's talking about, please, just don't shoot!" Henry's mother pleaded right as the small army switched targets.
Needless to say, triggers had been fired that day, and Mrs Freeman crumpled to the ground, clutching her midsection where she had been shot. The Combines laughed and grinned as Henry cried out. One even remarked that she had been a 'foolish human girl' between giggles.
The teenager crouched down and grabbed his dying mother's hand as it shook. He didn't dare let go, even as the blood from her wound began to drip onto them both. "Henry John-Winslow Freeman..." She croaked her son's full name as blood bubbled in her throat. "You need to...get out of here...as fast as you can." Her breath was audibly running out.
"A-alright. I will, Mom. I'll avenge you too, I swear. They won't get away with this. They can't get away with this." Henry promised grimly and his mother smiled feebly in response.
"Oh...you sound just like your father."
Her eyes glazed over and she went limp, her corpse still wearing a bittersweet smile. In a fit of grieving rage, the boy grabbed the nearest rock and chucked it, not at all expecting it to hit one of the evil soldiers and knock it dead upon impact. He stood back up in disbelief, gazing back down at the twitching grey body in front of him.
The other two creatures looked at him, also in shock and awe. "This isn't over. Got it?" The brunette growled, refusing to break eye contact as he looted a floral pink flower barrette from his mother's hair and slid it into his own. It's what she would have wanted. He concluded sadly, although his mourning was interrupted by excited yelling that had come from across the street.
Cheering. The people across the street were cheering.
"Hey, did you see that?"
"Didyouseethat, OF COURSE I did."
Were some of the quips Henry could pick up on.
The brand new hero looked around at the crowds praising him and smirked like your typical anime protagonist. "Hear that? We aren't scared anymore." He taunted. What followed was quite possibly the tropiest sequence of events young Henry Freeman could have ever imagined, but it was pretty damn sweet.
The people all simultaneously yelled "YEAH!" before they began to pick up whatever could be used as a weapon, Rocks, guns, dropped Combine technology etc, and they were starting to use them against their tormentors. Skulls were crushed, exploded, shot at, you think of the gore, I name it.
Unsurprisingly, blood and bodies were everywhere even a few minutes in. The humans had gone mad with revolution, which had gotten a hefty few of them killed, but at least the living ones, especially Henry, were hopeful that they might be able to finally turn the tides.
"Let's go storm the tower!" The young brunette said as the camera panned expositionally to a tall grey brick of a building sat within the centre of the city. "They couldn't possibly stop all of us! What do we have to lose?" The boy suggested with a smile that bordered on being nervous.
The remaining rioters paused for a moment.
"YEAH!!!" They screamed again, leaving the areas bloodshed behind so fast Henry could hardly keep up with his own followers. They rushed throughout the dismal streets, blowing robotic brains out whenever they needed to.
"Where do you think you're going?" A Combine suddenly hissed, which made the crowd snap out of their murderous trance to see that they had been halted by what had to have been at least a hundred of them, accompanied by tall, freakish arachnid like creatures with legs longer than your future. "We're going to send you back to where you came from!" Their leader proclaimed, audibly enraged.
"EVERYONE, ATTACK!" Henry wasn't expecting several adult prisoners to adhere to the whim of a literal child, but these people were apparently just that thirsty for freedom as they charged into battle without a second thought, let alone a first one.
Before long, a war broke out, massive explosions starting to paint the grey streets orange, and then red. Between all of the commotion, our protagonist noticed a clunky gun-like object with an orange middle abandoned on the ground. It was, unsurprisingly, a gun. He picked it up, struggling with its unexpected weight for a few moments before balancing himself and holding it like any good war hero should.
He held his head down theatrically as he remembered what his mother's final words had been. How he had sounded just like his father, who was an apparent great as well. There couldn't possibly be a better time to decide to finally live up to his family name now.
That being said, maybe now wasn't the best time. Considering that humankind was actually losing the battle they had started. A harsh reality that sunk in as Henry saw a man be crushed into nothing but a bloody pulp by one of those tall robots, another man torn into pieces by a barrage of gunfire.
The people weren't completely useless, Combines met their grisly fates every so often, but the death ratio was becoming increasingly hard to swallow. The explosions grew bigger, threatening to engulf everything and everyone in flame if somebody didn't calm down.
"We're losing. I need to help." The young hero concluded bluntly. "You think?" A tall man with loosely tied up brown hair walked up to him and spat sarcastically. Somehow, his snark had saved his life as by moving towards Henry to berate him, he had stepped out of the line of rocketfire that had rendered another man completely limbless and a few others dead.
Henry recognized the man as being his distant uncle Felix, though the middle of a war for humanity wasn't the best place for a family reunion, so he kept his mouth shut.
The teen looked at all of the corpses that had fallen to the floor and shuddered. No one his age should have to see this many dead people, unless they worked in a morgue, but young Henry Freeman did no such thing.
Perhaps the war was futile, but he refused to go back to being a Combine slave. If he died here, it would be better than whatever awaited him. He aimed the gun he found in one last-ditch attempt, staggering backwards when instead of firing a shot, it magically grabbed a hold of one of the Combine riders, making it gently levitate.
Henry didn't need to do a double take to know what had to be done next. He tilted the gun towards the nearest apartment complex as fast and as hard as he could, watching with bloodied satisfaction as the creature was thrown into it and smashed into nothing but bits. He kept doing this and doing this until it felt like cheating and the walls were painted with blood and circuits, as well as threatening to collapse.
Dust clouded the streets, blinding every participant of the battle. The gravity gun-wielding boy took his chances and aimed, tilting the gun ridiculously high into the sky before letting go of the trigger. Needless to say, he was quite pleased when an array of robotic parts crashed to the ground half a minute later.
Things seemed to be getting brighter, literally. Bright rifts had torn themselves open in the sky and Combines were beginning to trickle out like running water. "We have to get out of here!" Someone in the crowd announced. "Are you stupid? We're surrounded!" Felix hissed fearfully at them.
"You are...surrounded. Prepare to...die." A Combine cloaked in much darker armor than his peers chuckled. Even if he was struggling over his words, he seemed awfully pleased.
Henry Freeman glanced around hopelessly, much like he had about ten minutes ago. It was true, they were surrounded. The army was too large for them to even attempt to stop them. Still, they had all come so far. If they all died now he could only hope that the future generations would memorialize this as the time humankind tried
"KEEP FIGHTING, DAMNIT!" He commanded, clearly enraged at the bleakness of the situation. The crowd had lost all reason and had decided that being killed under the reign of a fifteen year old wouldn't be the worst way to go as the green-eyed saviour led the charge for the final time.
The Combines aimed their high-technology guns, and for a few moments it seemed that a lot of brains would be splattering onto the sidewalk any second now. Another bright light showed up and Henry immediately bet his last dollar on impending doom. That was, until the wildest shit happened.
Instead of masked soldiers armed with guns pouring out of the rift, a man poked out. A man with short brown hair save for a few visibly crunchy grey streaks and pale yet sort of warm green eyes. A man with some rather impressively grown stubble.
"Dad?!" A voice cried.
A man who was also Henry Freeman's father.