Me: Here's chapter 4.
Trin: This one has the actual fight at the Cerberus base.
Me: Project LOKI will now be revealed.
Helix: Just before we send them all to hell.
Me: Also, aDarkOne, yes this story is centered around an OPed human Spec Ops group, but I am not killing every other non-human and blowing the Reapers up with a button. One: that's what the Crucible does, and I hate that shit, and two: even the most OPed person can be killed by being outnumbered. On with the story!
"Talking."
"Thinking."
"[Electronic communication.]"
{AI intercommunication}
Project LOKI (part 2 Copy Cat)
[Nova Galaxy, Orbit above 'uninhabited' planet, ONI Prowler 'Reaper':]
"[GHOST team Hell Spawn, prepare for drop,]" another ONI officer said as the lights in their pods turned from green to red before they moved.
Helix activated her pod's view screens and saw her team doing the same. She looked down and noticed a small box in the corner of her pod. It was labeled XL-G.
"Diana, think you could get those open?" Helix asked.
{Give me a second,} the AI replied as the armor completely peeled off of her left arm and formed a tendril.
"Liquid metal BDUs…I don't think I'll ever get used to what they can do," Helix said to Diana.
{Well…I guess you won't. Ok got it open…its grenades,} Diana said as the armor reformed on Helix's arm.
Helix looked back down and saw multiple grenades that looked like a more squared version of the standard UNSC frag grenade. Before she could question what they were, her pod launched. Kim looked through the pods 'window' to see several THORs launching with them. She would have questioned why if an anti-air round hadn't passed in front of her view. She looked down as Diana activated one of the armor's enhanced view modes. Helix could now see several HOUNDs waiting for them on the ground.
Helix looked back up to see a US Marine themed THOR mech drop past her. Helix instantly recognized it as the mech belonging to the THOR program's CO General Tex Lederausschnitt.
"[This is General Groundpounder to all THOR units, get ready for a fight people,]" the General said to everyone under her command.
Helix watched as the General's THOR hit the ground before activating its weapon. Her mech pulled out a giant rifle that resembled an old M4A1 with an ACOG scope, laser sight, and under barrel grenade launcher. From what Helix had been told, the General herself used the actual M4A1 rifle with those attachments, only upgraded to be able to compare to modern weapons. Once the weapon was out, the other THORs hit the ground.
{So she has a thing for…'retro' weapons?} Diana asked Helix as the pod landed.
"Yeah she does, now mind on the mission," Helix replied to the AI.
The other GHOSTs landed and readied their weapons as Helix had them regroup. She looked up and saw the outline of the target factory a short distance away from where they were. Helix pointed to it and they began moving through the forest.
"Hey Colonel," Helix turned to face Sean, "I think I found a way inside."
Sean pointed to a pipe, one that seemed to head underground. Diana scanned it and discovered that it would get them into the facility. It would also lead them into the facility's sewer system. Helix sighed before nodding. Sean stood guard as Kim, Adriana, and Victor went into the pipe. Helix walked a couple more steps before slipping and falling into a deeper part. Adriana and Victor looked at each other before following their CO. Sean went in after them and also slipped.
"Fuck," he shouted as he fell into the sewage the others had already fallen into.
"What a wonderful smell you've discovered Sean," Adriana said as she wiped off the bit of sewage that splashed onto her helmet's face.
"Would you rather dodge THORs? NO, then shut the fuck up," Sean said.
"Both of you shut up and get moving," Helix said as she switched her view to thermal.
"Ladies first Ms. Houser," Sean said with a slight bow.
"Pawns before rooks," Adriana said.
"Quiet, I heard something," Victor said as he activated his thermal.
Helix looked into the sewage and saw a flash of red go across the side. She instantly pulled out both pistols and kept looking for it. The other three GHOSTs followed her example and readied their own weapons. Helix pulled out one of her new grenades and threw it forward. It sank into the muck before detonating. After it detonated, three energy tendrils appeared and instantly went towards one spot. The GHOSTs heard what sounded like machinery being fried before an explosion occurred. The team continued moving as they watched the walls and sewage for any sign of whatever that thing was.
Hell Spawn had been moving for a few minutes when they heard voices from above them. Helix tapped her helmet and pointed up before switching views again to x-ray sight. She looked up to see multiple Cerberus troopers running around, one officer just standing there, and multiple mechs that Helix didn't recognize. Before anything else could happen, the man that was just standing there looked down. Helix got a slight headache and looked back at him before realizing that he was staring right where they were. He smiled before walking away and saying something to one of the troopers. The trooper looked down at them and pointed before the officer began walking away.
As he got further away, Helix's headache lessened. Before it disappeared, she heard someone's voice in her head, and it wasn't Diana.
"Have fun with these pawns, GHOSTs," the unknown voice said just as rounds started punching through the floor above them.
"MOVE!" Helix shouted as the GHOSTs started looking for a way up.
{That man…he was-…} Diana said.
"In my head, I know. How is that possible?" Helix asked as she kicked open a door to the team's left.
{Precursors had that ability…its possible that Cerberus found a small data cache near here that told them about it.}
"So any human can do that?" Helix asked as she killed a Cerberus soldier that was trying to stop them.
{Theoretically yes, but it was unknown to the Precursors whether or not your species would ever unlock it.}
"Well Cerberus managed to…question is how?"
{I did detect some sort of secondary brainwave activity coming from the officer. Give me a moment and I'll have what it was.}
Helix sighed as she vaulted over a bit of cover and took out to troopers before a Phantom appeared and attacked her. Helix blocked the blade with both her pistols and sent a kick to the Elite Cerberus soldier's gut. The Phantom stumbled backwards for a bit before back flipping away. The Phantom tried to cloak, but was stopped by a bolt from Adriana's Arcshot. The Phantom looked at the bolt and then at Adriana before it detonated and caused her to burn up. Helix nodded her head at Adriana and turned back around to fire at the Cerberus soldiers.
"AHH!" Helix spun back around to see Adriana on her knees and clutching her head in pain.
"Houser, get the hell up puta," Sean shouted as he fired his Warp Rifle at multiple soldiers.
"Victor, cover her now!" Kim shouted as she continued to fire at the Cerberus troopers.
Garret ran up and quickly made a box of shields around Adriana before running back out to join the fight. Helix continued to fire her weapons at the Cerberus soldiers that kept coming at them. After a minute the waves of troopers stopped and Adriana slowly got up.
{Got it, that officer, the Reapers are using a signal being sent to all Cerberus soldiers to bend him to their will. I decided to check as many others as I could, and it seems that all of them have this happening to them,} Diana said.
"So what does that have to do with his telepathic abilities?" Helix asked as she checked on Adriana, who quickly waved her off.
{It seems that what the Reapers use has unlocked those abilities within him. Personally I think the price is way to high to have the abilities of a telepath.}
"Yeah, rather not be controlled by giant robo squids in exchange for those abilities."
"So are those the LOKI mechs?" Sean asked.
Helix looked up to see a mech that looked like an upgraded version of the THOR mechs. It seemed like Cerberus tried to improve its look to her. Helix couldn't understand why they decided putting wings on it. Then she realized that the chest was open, revealing multiple missile launchers. She looked at the arms and recognized the marks of deployable blades and plasma cannons.
"Damn, they did pretty well for a bunch of knockoffs," Victor said.
"Yeah, damn putas did good," Sean said in agreement.
Helix looked at the head unit again and noticed something attached to the visor's sides. It looked like scanners to Helix. She walked over to one of the consoles in front of them and activated it. She looked at it and read that they were unable to make them autonomous, but they did manage something else. It didn't describe it any further than that. Helix looked back at the mech and caught someone duck inside the head unit. Helix turned to see if her team was still there and saw all three standing behind her.
"MOVE NOW!" Helix shouted as the LOKI mech's visor lit up.
The mech then began to rise as a door behind it opened to reveal the battle raging outside. The LOKI mech turned around and began to run towards the fight. Helix was about to go after it when Victor fell to his knees screaming. Adriana ran up and forcible peeled away his helmet's face as he began to bleed from his nose. Ten seconds later, he was getting back up with Adriana's help.
"What the hell is going on?" Helix asked.
"Something's getting into our minds Colonel. I don't know what it is, but it started talking to me when this happened to me," the Lieutenant said as Victor started standing on his own.
"It's that damn Cerberus officer, they found a Precursor artifact," Helix said.
"I thought only we could unlock them ma'am?" Victor asked as his helmet recovered his face.
"We're able to because we're human, Cerberus is humans also."
Before anything else could be said a THOR was slammed to the ground by them. Helix looked over to see a LOKI mech holding it down as the two scanner-like objects on its head lit up and sent a wave of blue light over the THOR mech. Once the light disappeared, the LOKI mech got off the THOR. Helix recognized the THOR as Loneflame. The THOR got up and Marissa made it pick its hardlight blade back up. Kim looked through the hole the two mechs created to see a metal cylinder pop out of the LOKI's hand. It held it up before activating it, revealing a hardlight blade that matched Loneflame's. Loneflame took a step back from shock as Helix's eyes went wide beneath her helmet.
"THEY CAN COPY OUR SPECIAL EQUIPMENT!?" Victor shouted from behind Helix.
Helix stood there and watched as Loneflame charged at the LOKI mech. Marissa swung her blade as the Cerberus pilot deflected it with his. It swung its blade as Marissa blocked it. She then grabbed the LOKI's wrist and attempted to stab its head, only for its chest to open and multiple missiles to fire out of it. The missiles impacted Loneflame and Marissa stumbled backwards. The LOKI attempted to finish her off, but was stopped by a quick swipe from Marissa's blade. The LOKI fell forward as it lost its entire left leg. The mech looked at what used to be its leg before looking back at Marissa and pushing itself up.
Helix watched the mech and noticed that it still acted like it had its left leg. She realized that they found a way around the Neural Bridge pain. That would make them harder to take down, but not invincible. It tried to switch one of its hands to the plasma cannon, but was stopped as Marissa shoved her blade through its head. The LOKI slide back to the ground at the loss of its pilot Marissa looked at her mech and finally noticed the amount of damage the LOKI managed to do with its missiles.
"[This is Loneflame, my mech is heavily damaged, I'm sending everyone I can still reach a data packet about Cerberus' new LOKI mechs,]" Helix heard Marissa say before running off to rejoin the battle.
"Start setting up bombs now," Helix said as she turned back around.
Only then did she realize that Sean had also fallen victim to the Cerberus telepath. She was about to go check on him when it happened to her. Just like the others, she fell to her knees and clutched her head in pain. She felt blood start to come out of her nose.
"Even as a Colonel, you still fail those around you," the Cerberus officer said as Helix managed to lift her head.
She saw the Cerberus officer standing there, with a cocky smirk on his face. She slowly looked right to see Cerberus troopers pouring out of a door. The other GHOSTs turned and attacked this oncoming threat as Helix just kneeled there in pain. She tried to call out to them, but wasn't able to use her voice.
"You'll watch as the men and women under your command die," the officer said just as a sword was shoved through Adriana's chest.
The Phantom decloaked and pulled Adriana's corpse off of her blade. Victor slightly turned his Magshield and fired a blast at her. He turned back to see a grenade land behind the shield. Sean grabbed it and turned away from the other GHOST just as the frag went off. Garret turned towards Helix and peeled away his helmet's face to look at her with hate clear in his eyes.
"You failed us," he said as a sniper shot him through the head.
"No, don't leave us," the officer said as he laughed at Helix. "Don't leave us here to die Colonel. Not like your ODST brothers and sisters on Requiem. HAHAHAHA!"
The officer continued to laugh as one of the Cerberus troopers ran up to her and grabbed her shoulders before looking her in the face.
"Colonel!" it shouted at her. "Colonel, wake up! Helix! ...KIM!" it shouted in Adriana's voice.
"What?" Helix said as Adriana helped her up. "What…but-…?"
"What ever you saw wasn't real, none of it was ma'am," Adriana said as Helix looked around to see Victor and Sean placing the last of the charges.
"Bombs are set, now can we get going?" Sean asked.
"I think not," someone said from above them.
Helix looked up to see the Cerberus officer standing there. He smiled at them before cringing in pain. He closed his blue eyes in pain and fell to his knees. He got back up and opened his brown eyes. His eyes darted back and forth before he closed them again in pain. They opened to reveal blue eyes.
"You…will now die, GHOSTs," the officer said as the place around them changed.
"Where the hell are we?" Kim asked as she looked around to see the part of Requiem where her team died.
"None of it's real, it's all just an illusion, don't let it get to you," Adriana said.
"You are not making anyone feel any better," Sean said as a giant version of the Cerberus officer appeared.
"What the fucking hell!? The fuck do we do Colonel!?" Victor shouted at her.
"Solve this problem the same way we solve all our others, shoot it until it stops getting back up," Helix said as she fired her Guardians at the giant's head.
With no better ideas, the GHOSTs began firing at its head. Adriana was dual wielding her Shattergun and Arcshot, Sean was using his Warp rifle, and Victor was using his Savager. They shot the giant at any exposed area, but it did nothing. The Cerberus officer just laughed at them.
"Aim for the head," Helix heard someone say.
Helix decided to listen and fired at the officer's head. A few rounds hit its eye and the giant stumbled before righting itself. Helix ordered Hell Spawn to fire at the officer's head. The GHOSTs nodded in understanding as they watched the giant stumble over and over again.
"ENOUGH!" it shouted at them as multiple Cerberus soldiers appeared out of nowhere. "KILL THEM!"
Helix switched to firing at the troopers as the giant raised a fist. Helix rolled out of the way just as it hit the ground. Had she not moved, she would have been squashed. She turned back to see a sniper fire a shot at her. If Victor hadn't shown up, the bullet that the Nemesis had shot might have hit her. Instead, it stuck into his shield. Victor smiled as he fired the shot back at the Nemesis. Her head disappeared as Helix fired at the officer. Adriana and Sean jumped behind Victor's shield and helped Helix with firing at the officer. They kept firing at the officer and after another minute he stumbled again.
"THIS IS POINTLESS," he said to the GHOSTs. "YOU CAN NOT DEFEAT ME!"
Helix flipped him off before going back to shooting him as every avoided getting shot by staying behind the shield line Victor made. Adriana smiled under her helmet as the multiple bolts she fired into the officer's formed a smiley face. Adriana then detonated the bolts as Helix shot the officer in his eye. He screamed before collapsing onto the ground as the illusions dissolved.
"You…can't beat…me…," the officer croaked out before opening his brown eyes. "…Kill…me…please." Helix walked up to him and put one of her Guardians to his head. "It's now or never Colonel!" the officer shouted before closing his eyes in pain.
"I'm sorry," Helix said as she pulled the trigger.
The officer's corpse slumped to the ground as his blood pooled around him. Helix looked back outside to see a THOR and LOKI fighting each other with glowing fists. Every time a hit would connect, an explosion happened. She watched as the THOR managed to stumble the LOKI into another LOKI mech. Both of them fell and were destroyed by a quick shot from Leather Neck's special equipment, the grenade launcher connected to the rifle. The mech controlled by General Tex looked at the ground and saw a damaged LOKI attempting to escape. Tex aimed her rifle one-handed at the LOKI and fired a quick burst into its head. Its head unit exploded as the three giant rounds impacted it. Helix then turned back to look at her GHOSTs.
"Alright people, time to head home," she said as they morphed their armor to look like S-IV armor and walked outside.
A pelican landed and picked them up as heavy transports brought the THORs back to the ships. Helix looked back outside as Victor put up three fingers. He put them down one by one until there were none left and he pumped his fist once. As he did that, the bombs inside the former Cerberus facility exploded, destroying it.
"Hell of a first solo mission huh boss?" Adriana asked as she elbowed Helix.
Helix smiled beneath her helmet and nodded before addressing Diana.
"That was you when we were fighting the telepath, wasn't it?"
{Actually no, I couldn't get through to you,} the AI replied to her.
"You mean-…"
{Yes, he managed to great through the Reaper's hold and tell you where to shoot to kill him.}
"If that shit happens to me…I hope I have that much will power," Helix thought as the Pelican's bay door closed.
Me: Well that's it for chapter 4.
Trin: What is with you and giving cool tech to the bad guys?
Me: It's to someone even it out.
Helix: Come again?
Me: I don't like it when the good guys when extremely easily, so I give the bad guys some better tech to compensate.
Helix: …I hate you.
Me: 'I hate you…?'
Helix: …I hate you…sir.
Me: Better.
Trin: Here's General-X's OC.
Me: And the last submit able one. No more after this.
Name: Tex Lederausschnitt
Gender: Female
Rank: General
Codename: Groundpounder
THOR Name: Leather Neck
THOR appearance: U.S. Marine dress uniform painted on with semper fidelis going up and down on one side of the torso and always faithful up and down on the other side of the torso has cut here and I dotted line on the neck has the U.S. Marine corps emblem on the back and the U.S. Flag on one shoulder and the UNSC emblem on the other
Weapons: has a giant 556mm version of the M4A1 with a laser sight an ACOG scope and a 40m underslung grenade launcher and a 400ft long combat knife
Side notes: plays the marine corps theme song, the American national anthem, and 'Riot' by Three Days Grace during combat
Pilot Weapons: same only scaled down for pilot use
Pilot Appearance: same only in ODST armor
Me: That's now there, also, backstories for Lemanruss669's characters from Mass Effect: Johnson are being put into a story on his profile. Go check it out to learn more about his characters. Well that's all, VR Commando ATA out.