Hey there everybody!
If you've read this far- THANK YOU! It means a great deal to me, it really does.
Alright, so this is chapter 4, right? Yeah, that sounds about right. This one chapter alone is like, a half dozen pages or more. I've originally had about 26 pages written, and I'm writing more, but atm my other writing project has also caught my interest once again. I should have one or two more chapters to add after this, for tomorrow and the day after, but after that, chapters might slow greatly- or they might come along at the same pace as before.
Next chapter, though, I think, I'll post the character sheet I've written up for my character- Captain Leigh Tessa "Lylla" Wynne. She is a great many things, including but not limited to being Italian, and a mimic.
And please, leave a review! Reviews are my life, and I can never get better if I never get any feedback! I remember looking back at my first writing project, and I hated my writing so much! I had come so far! I've only gotten better since then because I've had feedback, and because I could incorporate that into what I write. Even looking back at my writing eight months ago, my writing has improved greatly- despite most of that time being a large well of a total lack of inspiration.
Anyhow, enough of my rambling. Thank you all for reading, and here's our first real action scene. Enjoy!
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A week later found Captain Wynne in command of a small squad, trying their best to sneak through a Siberian snowstorm. It was admittedly a bad idea, but it was their only chance to get close enough to one of the remote Omniums without being detected. Of course, they also weren't trudging through the snow on foot- no, heavens no, that'd be preposterous.
Instead, Volskaya industries had practically hired the fledgling Overwatch, promising funds and equipment in exchange for getting the job, that so many of their people failed, to finish. They were trudging through the snow in the brand-new Volskaya Mekhanizirovannaya pekhotnaya 3, or Volskaya Mechanized Infantry Unit 3. The VMIU, or 'Mech,' had a particle beam cannon, with a moderate range, on the right arm, and a traditional, humanoid hand on the left, though the arm was enlarged with a particle shield generator. The functionality seemed to combine precision thermal-energy weaponry and the defensive prowess of a Crusader's energy shield, in a form large enough to beat a Crusader in hand-to-hand. With a reinforced cockpit and the entire thing being roughly 10 feet tall, it was easily one of the largest 'infantry' units ever deployed.
The drawbacks of working with slash for the Russians was that half her squad were their 'best.' Three of them were Overwatch, and three more were Russian. While they served as useful guides, their training was sorely… well, lacking. Captain Wynne didn't much like them- one of them was most certainly a political officer, someone who essentially lives to tell his commanders who isn't a devout communist- so they can disappear. Political officers weren't particularly skilled in anything but scaring the living hell out of their comrades, which turned the other two Russians in her group to have next to no independent thought, and terrified that even following her orders would consider them a Western-supporter, and therefore liable to disappear.
Nonetheless, she'll take what she can get. They'll make good distractions for the omnics in case they have to run.
The two that came with her are former Corporal Philip Iverson, and Lieutenant Howard Lance. Both of them were trained, and she roughed them up a couple days before the mission to see if she approved of them- which she did. So, satisfied that half her force were satisfactory, and that the other half were afraid of taking her orders, despite her being placed in charge, in mechanized war-suits that they had only spent about three days practicing with- what could go wrong?
There was a similar force attacking from the other side, led by Ana Amari with a small group of 'heroes.' They were traveling in a Snowcrawler, a Russian transport designed to travel over the snow and have maximum stealth capabilities. They were trying to sneak in, but Wynne's group needed to cause as much destruction as suddenly as possible.
Three hours since they had set out; two hours since the snow storm had started. At the moment ,the snow was blowing directly into them- Corporal Iverson led the way by activating his particle shield and letting the storm blow around it , while the rest of them trudged in a compact line behind him. While it was not the most effective combat formation, it conserved the power on all of their reactors, since they took turns- they made better time, as well. Thus, they finally reached the Omnium.
The first sign of it was an endlessly spanning chainlink fence. With visibility down to about ten feet, they figured no one would notice if they just walked through it- so they did. The next sign was a tower about fifteen feet tall, a turret sitting on top that looked reminiscent of a Bastion unit, permanently in sentry mode, with dual miniguns. Not a good sign, but at least it was powered down in the weather- no use turning something on if there's no way for it to see, much less shoot, anything.
She gave an order for two of the Russians to spread out. They were to find a tower, and wait by it. When the fighting started- they were to destroy the towers and charge into the base individually, and cause as much mayhem and destruction as possible. Wynne and her group would travel together and fight their way to the Omnium's core, or retreat if forces began to overwhelm them. If they failed to take the core, the Overwatch strike team would place charges, detonate and clear, and then call in an airstrike from the Russian assets they'd been allotted.
Another minute of pushing through the snowstorm before it came to fruition; they came to an outer wall, maybe twenty-five feet high. They regrouped in the windless area next to the wall, before Wynne counted down. They each raised their cannons, and as one, fired their beams at three different sections. The thickness of the wall took about three seconds for the beams to cut through, and then they began to cut a hole large enough for the mechs to step through. After a half-minute of cutting, they were through- at the cost of the advantage of surprise. The lights began blinking on, and as they stepped through, they found a brand-spanking-new Bastion unit marching towards them, undoubtedly to investigate. The moment it spotted them, the dull yellow light that shone from its visor immediately flashed red, and it dropped into sentry mode- revealing that it had an anti-tank rifle in the place of its minigun. The first round bounced the Wynne's mechsuit legs' armor, as she led the way to it. It was close enough for them to just stomp down on it, crushing it in a shower of sparks, before several bolts finally gave way and it fell apart underneath the weight. Spotting the corner of a building, Wynne led the way to it. Examining the material for a moment, she determined that it was a double-layer of structurally-reinforced sheet metal- which the mechsuit informed her was weak enough for her to walk through.
With a screech of metal and a thunderous rattling, she took a forceful step into the building, crashing through into a manufacturing facility. Sixteen antitank-armed Bastion units against the far wall were visibly powering up, their reactors slowly coming online. As her two soldiers followed behind her as she charged in, she wasted no time in raising the particle cannon, and swiping. The far wall was just far enough away from the particle cannon to lose some of its strength; instead of cutting their torsoes off, it simply scorched them.
One of them was finally online; Wynne flinched as another round bounced against the armor. Thank God these things were layered in modern alloy; one only knew how much damage those rounds would leave. This one had left a scorch mark against the plating, revealing that it wasn't just a normal antiarmor ammunition. Another shot rattled against her arm, as she finally closed the range. With another swipe, she cut clean through all the Bastion units, and through the wall behind them as well. The charging harnesses that they hung from thundered to the ground, having been cut in half with the Bastions. One gun discharged as she cut it down, the round bouncing off the concrete floor and into one of the assembly lines. Turning, she examined the room, before issuing a command to her two soldiers.
As she turned forward and began walking towards the doorway, she activated her shield, turning it towards the doorway that was slowly opening. Behind her, she heard the particle beams activate and begin cutting away at the room, metal screeching and clattering. The shield in front of her hummed with energy; inside the cockpit, all the sounds were filtered through the snowstorm and relayed as if she were on her own two feet, rather than inside a tank.
As she expected, a Bastion unit marched through the doorway. This one wasn't armed like these others; it had the standard automatic rifle attached to its arm, and began firing away merrily at the particle shield. Without any more preamble, the moment it emptied its magazine, it dove into Sentry configuration, bringing about its trademark minigun.
The particle shield held against the 300-round magazine of the minigun without a problem. Seeing an opportunity while it reloaded, she moved her shield away just enough for her to bring her particle cannon to bear, slicing it in half, straight down the middle. Without deactivating it, she swiped it across the entrance, hearing the approach of more Bastion units. Two or three dull thuds rang out, confirming her suspicious. The response was… less than ideal. Four simultaneous anti-material guns fired from out in the blizzard, probably honing in on her through the cameras inside the facility that they were demolishing. Two penetrated- she felt her particle cannon sputter slightly, and the left leg sag slightly, as one of its hydralics began leaking out fluid.
Compensating for the damage by shifting to her right leg, she brought the shield back around, holding it in place as it visibly shuddered under a barrage of six simultaneous rounds, the added two being much lesser- likely the antitank rifles rather than the antimaterial guns. A moment later, the entire shield started sparking up as a rain of probably two or three miniguns started firing on her.
Then the source of all that firepower revealed itself.
It wasn't a Bastion unit, or multiple Bastion units; this was a legitimate warmachine. As it marched towards her, she felt a chill run down her back. Six-legged, with two large mounted antimaterial guns on pylons hanging over the middle legs. Over the front and back legs, chainguns. A minigun hung from underneath the nose of the craft, and a legitimate tank cannon sat on top of the entire construct.
The mech rocked backwards as that tank cannon fired, a 133mm energy-defeating round slamming into her shield, and exploding with force comparabe to 200-pound bomb. The shield almost immediately faltered, and the antimaterial rifles- doublebarreled, not just a single gun per pylon- opened fire again, four rounds smashing through the center of her right leg. All that extra weight on the suddenly faltering leg was enough to start crushing either side.
The mechanized infantry unit crashed to the ground, Wynne flailing madly as she struggled to right herself somewhat, and bring her particle cannon up to bear. As those guns swiveled towards her to finish her off, twin lances of particle energy slammed into the center of the warmachine, sloughing off of thick armor before finally melting through and striking the delicate electronics inside.
Without ceremony, the legs gave out and the weapons' electric rotors, which gave said waepons their range of movement, failed, and it sat rather dejectedly on the ground.
Wynne gave a nervous laugh- a close one. She was staring death in the face.
"Captain Wynne, are you in need of medical assistance?"
"Negative, Lieutenant Lance. Continue with the assault- I'm dismounting. The mech's totaled."
"Affirmative, Captain. Corporal, on me. Let's clear a path."
With that, two mechs simultaneously marched out of the entrance, and soon bright flashes and the screech of metal began again, as they fought their way to a neighboring facility.
Given that her suit's legs were what were primarily damaged, the cockpit worked just fine in disgorging its occupant to the freezing cold. Gone was the sound filtering; the wind and cold battered against Wynne's senses, blinding and freezing her.
But she was wearing her new light assault suit. Unlike the mech, this fit closely to her, providing moderate protection, little weight, and moderate environmental protection. It wouldn't protect her from this sort of cold for long, but it would be long enough for her to get to the Omnium's control center- which had to be air conditioned, otherwise the electronics would either freeze up and stop working, or the supercomputer housing the God AI would overload and melt.
Checking her wrist-screen's schematics, she yanked her rifle out of its carrying handles in the mech. Now armed, she dropped the three feet to the ground, and turned to the smoking, frost-covered mech. Somewhat sorry for what she had to do to it, she tossed a block of C14 into the cockpit. It was designed to protect the pilot from attacks, not contain explosions in it.
She followed the troughs of snow left by the various mechs, knowing that the largest probably originated from the Core. And, as the minimap popped up in her helmet's visor that overlaid the facility's schematics underneath her GPS position, she saw that she should be right. Hefting her stubby, wide rifle- which fired 14.7mm (.50 caliber) cartridges, weighed around 33 pounds, and had a 10-round magazine- she marched on. The white-and-purple color of the custom armor didn't necessarily help her camoflauge, but it didn't really matter. What did matter was that it was thermally contained; as she walked, her own body heat started warming her up, and it didn't let any leak out. She was effectively invisible, and this pleased her very much.
She trudged through the snow until she heard the clomping steps of a hexoped walking towards her. Knowing that the only way she could be detected at the moment was by thermal signature- which was covered- or by simple sight, she dove striaght into the wall of snow next to her, writhing and squirming to cover up all the purple stripes with snow. The steps grew closer; she grew colder. The longer she stayed in the snow drift, unmoving, the harder it'd be to start moving and keep moving.
The steps reached her, and then continued on, following almost exactly the same path as its predecessor. Relieved, she shoved herself out of the snow, dancing in place for a moment to get the blood flowing. The cold was unforgiving, and she feared that she wouldn't reach the Core alive.
But ah-hah! After two more minutes or forcing her way against the wind, she finally reached a set of doors not unlike the wall they burned their way through to get inside. The giant troughs she used as a path led straight to it.
Dutifully, she began running in place, waiting for the telltale tremors that would tell her that another warmachine would leave, which would give her the opportunity to get inside. She could circle around, and find one of the old maintence entrances, but there was too much risk of it being rendered unusable by snow piling up so high that you couldn't find it. It was smarter to just wait.
Finally, the tremors started up again, and she waited until the doors started to creak open, sliding into the walls, before diving into the snow. Squirming around to poke her white helmet out, she watched as the hexoped marched out into the driving blizzard, the doors already beginning to creak close. Hoping that it didn't have cameras watching all angles at all times, she scrabbled out of the snow and into the hangar, waiting until the doors shut entirely.
Darkness, everywhere. Though the snowstorm was thick enough to block out most light, there was still light; here, there was nothing. Activated her thermals, she glanced around, noting how pipes, cables, and sections of the floor and walls were burning, while most of the rest of the room wasn't. Two source sof heat were growing to her left, and switching to nightvision identified them as two more hexoped warmachines, frozen in a silent slumber as their fusion cores began to restart. It was clear that the Omnium was having trouble scrambling its forces; they were all 'asleep,' cold and silent. Nonetheless, she pressed on, marching to the other end of the room. Another hangar door, but this time, there was something more helpful- a maintenance doorway directly next to it, set into the floor. Reaching down, she pulled the handle out of the doorway- it laid flat against the ground so nothing could get caught on it- and then pulled, hard, to bring it up to its counter-clockwise 'open' position. After a moment, she managed it, joints creaking with the stress and cold, and she hopped down after pulling the hatch open. Taking a moment to reach back up and pull the hatch closed, locking it, she turned and surveyed her surroundings.
Oh-ho-ho! The maintenance tunnel extended down past the range of her nightvision; no sensor nodes she could see. This was perfect, and when she switched to thermals, it was obvious where the supercomputer's Core was- it had to be the hottest part of the facility, and the walls slowly get hotter the farther down the tunnel she was in.
Bingo, bingo, Captain Jingo! Leigh Wynne was almost ecstatic. Was this all the challenge this Omnium posed? Sneak up to it, cause mayhem and distract the machines, and then walk into its Core and toss some C14 into it, or shove a crowbar into the environmental command console and let it overheat and melt? This was perfect!
She checked to make sure the chamber of her rifle had a round loaded, and then began marching straight to her objective. Every ten feet, the tunnel split into two more to the left and right, leading to places unknown. At the intersection of each of the shafts, there were heavy, reinforced doors in place to make it possible to lock down a section of the facility, or any section, period. However, based on the heat signature and the warm wind that slowly began to increase, blowing into her face, she determined that they had all probably been opened by the AI to assist in passive Core cooling.
Oh, how perfect. The AI could likely detect temperatures in the tunnels- that was standard in all Omniums before they began going rogue- but there wasn't any need for sophisticated technology down below. Part of the reason being that the maintenance tunnels are to allow engineers access to pretty much anywhere, to allow for repairs on anything that required it- including malfunctioning, locked doors, or gas leaks and the like.
Five hundred feets' worth of walking before she came to the end of the shaft- and every twenty-five feet or so, there had been another tunnel leading off somewhere else. Contrary to the movies or anything else, people wanted things built as simply as possible, to allow as much ease of access and repair as possible. The walls were warm, there wasn't a single drop of moisture, and even through the suit, Wynne could feel the opporessive heat. The escaping wind was powerful enough to force her to lean forward a little, and some of the pipes were barely glowing from the heat they contained. Wynne was very clearly near the core.
Reaching up, Leigh grasped the handle, thankful for the gloves that managed to keep her from gettin second-degree burns. Heaving against it as much as she could, she accidentally shoved herself into the wall- the hatch opened far, far more easily than the one she came in. But then again, the last one was frozen; this one was regularly warmed. On either side, the grating left that hot wind blow through, and as she realized that it'd be a problem. The moment she pushed open the hatch, the real heat would come pouring through the sudden hole in the ground, the very large hole, and the temperature inside the maintenance tunnel would increase substantially. That was practically guaranteed for a God AI to notice.
She paused, wishing she could contact the other team but knowing that breaking radio silence would give away her exact position. No time like the present to do it, anyhow.
Climbing all the rungs of the ladder so that she was pressed up against the hatch, she used her back to heave up, climbing all the while, crawling out of the shaft and rolling onto the ground, letting the hatch shut behind her. By shoving her way through without actually opening the hatch all the way- just enough to let her out- maybe it won't be-
Glancing in, she took in a great, circular room. On the north, south, east, and west walls, a great door stood, just like the one that was more or less behind her- the southern wall, the southern door. Raising her rifle, she heard and felt the clanks of several metallic feet, waiting for something to appear.
She didn't wait long, because from ramps set in the north-eastern and the south-western corners- as in, the ramp closest to her and farthest away from her, on the other side of a giant circular reinforced shell, supported via pylon by both the ground and ceiling, cables coiling around said pylons- came several swiveling robotic heads. Quite unlike all the other Bastion units; these were modified to carry flechette rifles, likely because the flechettes couldn't pierce the outer shell of the supercomputer. Three Bastion-mounted flechette rifles aimed her way, and she dove to the side as they burst-fired at her, spraying roughly 75 of the small darts where she was in the space of a second, from all three combined.
Bringing up her rifle to bear, she pulled the trigger and braced for its wild buck, as it discharged one of its antimaterial rounds. It pierced straight through the chest- the largest target, with relatively flat armor- and the Bastion unit dropped, its reactor falling apart inside.
Took late to move- Wynne was sprayed by a combined 50 flechettes this time, most of them penetrating her armor enough to stick, but only a few piercing through to draw blood. Those were in the joints of the armor, rather than the plates- between torso and leg, for example, were where three on her left side were now digging in, and one on the right. Two more had pierced the joint between her shoulder and left arm, almost rendering it useless from how deep the flechette penetrated. Another burst would likely kill her, if it scored a lucky hit.
She fired again, after aiming just a moment more before the Bastion units could cycle another magazine. The round struck the right leg of the leftmost Bastion unit, collapsing it and dropping it onto its friend, rendering it next to impossible to continue aiming, and giving her enough time to fire at the recovering, staggered Bastion unit it fell on.
All three were out of commission now- to finish them off, she fired another round in the last two's chests, disabling them. Dropping her rifle, arms aching, she carefully reached up and began pulling flechettes out of her arm and leg joints, wincing as the suit began to flood her with nanites. The holes in the suit wouldn't be good; they destroyed the suit's containment, rendering its environmental protection halfway useless in extreme temperatures. Heat was seeping very readily through the holes, and she was beginning to sweat. Quickly, she reached to her belt and pulled another chunk of C14 off. Approaching the supercomputer core, she began placing the explosives next to one of the many seams of the dome, layering on over five blocks- five pounds- of C14 into it. Stabbing the hunk of plastic explosives with a remote detonator, she quickly ran away from the center of the room, her suit sweltering hot.
It was time; she could break radio silence.
"This is Captain Wynne to all Overwatch elements in the area. The Core has been planted with explosives; clear the primary facility!"
Almost immediately, sirens and flashing red lights on the wall triggered as the God AI instantly decoded the open signal and understood its danger. Actual lights immediately started coming to life, blinding Lylla because of the night vision she wore. Deactivating the overlay in her helmet, she ran back to the maintenance hatch, yanking it open and jumping down. Locking it behind her, she flat out sprinted down the hallway, hunched over because of its low ceiling. As soon as she reached fifty feet, she palmed the detonator attached to her hip.
The moment she depressed the button, the ground shook. From behind her, there was a sudden gust of burning air. Her suit tried to fight it off, but it nonetheless burned her skin through the holes in her armor. As the gust subsided, the heat increased- exponentially. Moving as fast as she could, Leigh reached the closest maintenance hatch and frantically began to open it, shoving against it as much as she could against its frozen exterior. With a burst of strength, she threw it open, and she didn't bother to climb a ladder. Leaping upwards, she grabbed the edge of the hatch and hauled herself bodily up and over the edge. Not bothering to close it, she stumbled to her feet on a frozen floor, and sprinted in the dark in the direction opposite of the Core.
She activated night-vision, and barely managed to stop herself before slamming into the opposite wall. Spinning around, the heat increasing all the time, Leigh Wynne stared at the opposite wall. Three doors were set in it, one large enough for the warmachines to walk through. Pressing her back against the wall, she realized something, something very, very important.
She had assumed that the central spherical container was the supercomputer housing the God AI. It was a decent enough guess- the Russians were convinced the AI was in a supercomputer, and the facility was scheduled to receive one when the Omnic Crisis started the first time.
But the cables leading from that thing, and how hot some of them were burning, the lack of servers in that entire room…
That had been a fusion reactor.
And fusion reactors contained magnetic drivers that kept streams of extremely hot plasma from touching anything- because nothing known to man could contain it. The only way to contain it was to hold it suspended away from anything that it could touch.
And she just blew a hole into one.
Her voice was calm when she triggered the radio again, "Captain Wynne reporting in. My escape routes have been overheated, and my suit punctured. The Core was not the AI's supercomputer. I just blew a hole into a fusion reactor."
There weren't any replies for several long seconds, before Ana replied.
"We're sending your GPS coordinates to your squadmates, Captain. You can expect an escape route made for you in several minutes. All of Djdaha's robotic units have gone still; it appears that the AI is withdrawing. If what you attacked isn't it's primary computer, it could be compiling itself into a storage device somewhere- we simply don't know. We were nearly to the Core ourselves when you spoke up. Hold on in there."
Hold on was what she'd do, yeah. Checking the temperature readout- internal suit temperature was at 89 degrees. External temperature was approaching 118 degrees; some sections of the wall opposite to her were beginning to glow. That reactor's capsule must've been… fifty, sixty feet in radius? It was very, very large, and that detonation must've punched a hole straight to the plasma for there to be such a reaction.
From behind her, she could hear clanging, thundering. Through the metal, even. Likely her Russian friends or one of the her own two soldiers.
96 degrees internal suit temperature; 133 degrees Fahrenheit external temperature. Several pipes hanging from the ceiling lost their aging bolts to the heat, and began clattering down, startling the Captain from her anxious vigil. Glancing around, she took in vague shapes from around her; the room was too dark for even night vision to give her a decent look at what was contained in the room. Likely 3D macroprinters or assemblers or somesuch. Like it mattered.
A lance of blindly bright light suddenly pierced the room from the wall she was pressed against, her helmet automatically darkening her visor to prevent her from being blinded. Deactivating nightvision,- the commands were all done mentally, by the way- Wynne took several steps forward. Inside her suit, she was sweating, panting, and she knew it'd take only another minute before her armor began failing. After that, it was only a matter of time before she, herself, began to burn alive in her suit.
As that bright, blazingly bright, particle beam slowly began to cut downwards from the center of the wall, a blast of icy wind began to push into the room. It only took thirty seconds for a sizable enough hole to open up, but at that point, several door systems began failing on the other side of the room. One of the doors creaked open, and a fresh blast of 200-degree-Fahrenheit wind blew into the room, chasing out the cold and raising the temperature even more.
"Watch it, Pilot! I'm coming out the hole you made!"
"Wait, it hasn't even cooled-"
Wynne ignored the pilot's next words, as she turned to the six-inch steel wall and leapt through it, the heat inside her suit notably increasing for a moment before she was through, and in a room that was now swirling with snow. It was almost blissfully cool- actually, it was so cold that her mechanical leg locked up slightly at the sudden change in temperature. The exoskeleton in her suit likewise stiffened, cooling down at a prodigious rate.
"Christ almighty! The hole you just came through… it's not cooling!"
"Move, Corporal Lance! We gotta get out of here, that's a fusion reactor!"
The Corporal wasn't sciencey- he didn't know what a fusion reactor was, not really. However, the panic in his Captain's voice was more than enough for him to turn around and prepare for flight. He only paused because his sensors alerted him that someone was climbing up the back of his mech- and Wynne confirmed his suspicions when she peeked at one of the cameras facing the rear. Taking the first several steps slow to let the Captain adjust, he ran.