Okay, first proper rewritten fight.
Now, a lot of XCOM stories seem to forget the Commander exists and is the one to order people around. In this story, the Commander actually bloody well commands. I do kind of want to hear your opinions on the command style, I think it's a good interpretation for how the Commander does stuff, and body cameras/drones are likely options for the Commander to use to keep up-to-date and give orders, without having to state the obvious, like "Shoot that alien."
Also, please, don't be afraid to criticize, I won't take it the wrong way if you're constructive about it. Just saying a scene is terrible isn't helpful, and that's when I will get snippy at ya, but if you can, just tell me what you specifically didn't like and make a suggestion for a better way to do it. But, what I won't accept is bashing for the sake of bashing. If you don't like the story, or the genre, or just fanfiction in general, keep that to yourself, please.
And, on with the chapter...
Chapter 3
"Alright, listen up everyone."
The gender-neutral and clearly synthesised voice suddenly coming from the earpiece Ruby was given made her jump, almost dropping the rifle in her hands in surprise and sighing in relief that she put the earpiece in her secondary ears rather than her Faunus ones. "The aliens are attacking New York, and this time they're just there to cause chaos and murder people. We need you to get in there, get as many civilians out as you can, and teach those aliens just how bad an idea it was trying to attack us there."
Quiet murmuring filled the cabin of the Skyranger at that, though it was quickly silenced by the voice speaking again from their earpieces. "I'll leave you seven to get acquainted with each other en-route, I'm sure you can all handle it. Now, let's kick ET's ass out of that city and save those civilians, oo-rah." The last sound the Commander made was matched by the other soldiers in the ship.
"Well, as the Commander said, introduction time," Casey said. "You've already met me, so let's go down the line." He waved a hand at the man sat next to him. "This is Colonel Andrei 'Dakka' Anscholitz, Heavy Gunner." The man grunted, nodding his head to Ruby when she smiled at him. "Colonel Lena 'Vixen' Sixten, Support." The woman beside him greeted her with a smile, waving her hand at the ones sat across from her who was staring at the wall of the aircraft. "This is Major Dougie 'Loco' Reddington, Assault." He decided to continue his stare at the wall, entirely ignoring Ruby.
"Ahh, ignore him Ruby, he's just moody." The next woman along said happily, catching her attention and leaning over to shake Ruby's hand. "I'm Colonel Laura 'Spike' Mori, Assault." Smiling at the woman, Ruby shook her hand, slightly amused when the woman shook for a bit longer than was really reasonable. Evidently Strike-1 was all a pretty motley crew of personalities.
Realising something, Ruby then looked around, frowning when she saw only 5 people. "Wait, the Commander said that they would leave the seven of us to get acquainted, but there's only 6 of us? Does that mean the pilot's joining us or something?" Ruby asked, tilting her head when Casey chuckled at her. "Wait, don't tell me, you've got someone hidden with an invisibility suit or something?"
Casey shook his head, smirking at her. "Oh right, you've never met a MEC before. Hey E-DIE, introduce yourself!" He yelled towards the front of the ship, and Ruby watched with surprise as a machine, at least the same size as a Paladin, turned to look at them, and Ruby noted that it was almost like the pilot was melded into the suit, his head being the only human part visible, which Ruby frowned at, considering it a serious design flaw, especially against a sniper like her.
"Hello there." A strangely light voice greeted her. "I'm E-DIE, a tasteless joke I assure you." The man said, watching with a smile as Ruby looked over his chassis with an exceptionally keen eye. She hadn't been allowed to mess with any of the advanced stuff, which meant the MEC units were entirely off-limits to her. She opened her mouth to ask him about some of the specifications of his suit, but Casey stopped her.
"Maybe save your examination until afterwards. I'm sure E-DIE would love for you to go over his suit when it's damaged. As for how it works, you'd have to ask Shen about that. Now, as you've probably forgotten, the only person here left to introduce themselves is yourself." He said, gesturing towards Ruby with a smirk, and prompting her to stand up, drawing the attention of the others in the aircraft.
"Oh, right! Hello everyone, I'm Corporal Ruby Rose, apparently nicknamed Red! I'm also Deputy Head Engineer directly under Shen, but I guess that doesn't matter out here huh?" Watching Casey sigh, Ruby panicked slightly. "Oh sorry, getting off-topic. I'm a sniper obviously, not to brag but a pretty good one. I'll be providing covering fire and whatnot, and as long as you have those tags on, I hopefully won't hit you!" Ruby said cheerily, grimacing and losing her smile when she saw the only one who seemingly cared was Vixen, though the woman just seemed happy in general.
One member in particular seemed to take some kind of grievance with her words, turning from where he was staring to look directly at her, inspecting her for a moment before huffing. "Bah, you shouldn't be here for this mission, Central should tuck you away nice and safe in the base again. 17 years old and put on a mission with guys like us? Don't make me laugh."
His piece said, he returned his focus to the wall, ignoring her entirely. Laying a hand on her shoulder just as Ruby opened her mouth to rebut his words by pointing out that she had been fighting monsters for a plenty long time, Ruby looked over at Casey, who just sighed and shook his head, silently prompting her to drop it before she got into an argument on her very first mission. "I mean, Spike did warn you he was moody."
Ruby was about to respond, but the brief burst of static from the earpieces silenced everyone in the Skyranger, and the neutral tone of the Commander was heard once again. "Alright, cut the chatter, Drop-Zone's coming up. Drop order, E-DIE and Dakka take the first drop, followed by Spike and Loco, then Vixen and Nixer, Red will depart last. Clear the landing zone, set up three-sixty security, launch the drone and activate cameras, then stand-by. Questions? Good." The Commander finished swiftly, leaving them to their thoughts.
Looking around the cockpit, Ruby felt a shiver run down her back at the steel-faced people sat around her. Each one went from their normal personalities to rock-hard in moments. They all now held their weapons in their hands, and were all eyeing the bulb above the ramp with a laser focus. Just a moment before they had been 'normal', but now, they were all ready for the fight ahead. It was something she had seen in any veteran huntsman or huntress she and her team had met. When about to fight, their 'normal' personalities would fade away as they became solid in mind, focused on the fight ahead instead of anything else.
Watching the light tick on, changing to an eerie green which bathed them in light, the soldiers all stood with everybody lined up in pairs in their order of departure, leaving Ruby at the middle-back. Grasping one of the hanging straps, Ruby steadied herself as the VTOL went through several jarring manoeuvres before coming to a hover, the ramp sliding down with a shunt and the light ticking to red, as ropes unfurled from their positions on the roof and fell down towards the ground below.
"Red light, drop!" Ruby heard the pilot call from behind her, and watched the Dakka grabbed the rope and slid down whilst E-DIE simply leapt off the edge, quickly followed by the next two pairs, and before she could even think, Ruby had her hands on the rope, sliding down and landing in the middle of the group. Ruby unslung the rifle from her back instantly, stepping into a gap in their 360-degree perimeter and scanning for anything that saw them come down whilst above them the Skyranger veered off and left.
Observing her surroundings, Ruby had to stop herself from gaping up at the towering structures surrounding her, like a concrete forest. The tallest building Ruby had ever seen was the CCT, and these towers dwarfed it by large margins. And they were everywhere, like giant monoliths. Looking gleefully up at all the different windows, Ruby quickly pictured all the different positions she could set up to snipe from.
Looking over at the area ahead, Ruby noted the green canisters around which were leaking some sort of gas in the area, and the line of shops ahead, evidently where the civilians had tried to hole up in for safety. If the busted down door was any indication, they probably dispersed or died. After a few moments, she heard a thump from behind her, and twisted to see E-DIE launching some kind of contraption into the air, watching it unfurl and start hovering using mini-rotors.
But, leaving no time to observe it, the little drone whizzed off to look around a little, and Ruby felt a hand shaking her shoulder. Looking over, Ruby noted Casey pointing at the camera on her vest, fiddling with his own at the same time. Switching it on, Ruby then rolled her sleeve up slightly to mess with her eye whilst waiting for orders, switching on her thermal vision and giving a glance over the area, frowning when there wasn't a single out of place signature, though she could hear the sounds of distant weapons firing, and the thudding sound of alien plasma rifles matching them.
"Alright, same movement order as drop-order. Nixer, Red, I want you two up in the highrise to your direct west. The rest of you start moving towards the shops in the northeast, those are the target location." The Commander spoke into their ears, and the squad moved to obey, moving swiftly and efficiently towards their objectives. Ruby followed Nixer as he led the way to the specified highrise silently.
Reaching the wall of the high-rise, Ruby looked up to see if any windows were broken, frowning when they weren't. The building was huge, so there were plenty of windows, the only issue was getting up to them in an expedient fashion. "I don't know how high the Commander wants us to go, but there's gonna be a lot of stairs." She muttered, glancing at Casey.
Chuckling, Nixer raised his arm, launching his grapple through a window on the third story and smashing it, reeling himself up quickly. Leaning back out the window, he just smirked, yelling down to a surprised Ruby. "One window isn't worth a life. If being up here means we save someone, then you can damn well bet I'm not losing any sleep over it, now get up here!"
Raising her own arm, Ruby stepped back a few paces, trying to remember exactly how Casey had launched his grapple and made it land in the right place. Firing it off, Ruby growled when it bounced off the brickwork and came hurtling back down. Ignoring the laughter from the other sniper, Ruby 'calmly' placed the grapple back in place with a totally appropriate level of force and speed, raising her arm again and launching the grapple a second time. This time it went flying through the shattered window correctly this time, reeling back in and latching onto the window, letting Ruby reel it in slowly and stand against the wall, craning her head to look upwards at her target.
Breathing in and out a few times to calm herself, Ruby pressed the button to continue reeling, firmly planting her feet on the wall and walking up carefully. Reaching the window in a far longer time than Nixer, Ruby just stuck her tongue out at him when she arrived, clambering in and replacing her grapple head on her arm. "You know, you actually surprised me. I was half-expecting you to just give up and walk up the stairs rather than grapple up three stories." Casey said, crouching down against the window and drawing his rifle.
"Well I'm not exactly scared of heights. I mean, I used my semblance enough to be able to fly occasionally, so being scared of heights wouldn't be a good thing." She said with a mutter, making sure the grapple wasn't damaged before looking at Casey only to catch the confused look on his face. "What?" She asked curiously, looking over herself for a moment in case she'd broken or torn something.
"Semblance?" Casey asked, eyebrow cocked even as he focused on watching the squad advance. Taking her own modified rifle, Ruby took up her own position kneeling to the side of the window, flipping the bipod down and laying the legs against the window itself, smirking when he looked over jealously at her customized scope. It wasn't quite how she wanted it yet, that was the one she was working on when the alert went out, but it was still a good one.
"What, you want one?" She asked, shaking the rifle at him with a smirk. "And yeah, Semblance. Basically think of it as a unique ability, mine was petals. I could turn into rose petals at will and essentially fly around with them, but it took aura to use, kinda like how...hmm, I don't know any good analogies really. I would explain more, but I feel like the Commander doesn't want to hear it." Ruby said with a shrug.
"And you'd be right." The aforementioned Commander piped in, making the pair wince, that was the issue with open comms, casual chatter would be audible to everyone. "Alright, snipers on overwatch, shoot the first alien that moves. E-DIE, prep a grenade to knock down the wall. Spike and Loco, dash up to the half cover behind those cars. Dakka, get to that high cover phone booth and keep an eye out for any other aliens. Vixen, hang back next to that statue and get some smoke grenades handy, just in case."
Watching the squad shift around, Ruby kept her scope trained above them at all times, focused on spotting any movement coming from the shop entrance. Seeing the team in position, E-DIE leaned over, launching a grenade directly against the wall and blasting it open, exposing several human corpses and the first living alien Ruby had seen in all of her time on Earth.
Surprised by the sudden exposure, Ruby got a good lock at the hulking behemoth, mentally categorizing the name as correct. Watching the Berserker as it snarled at the squad outside through its helmet, Ruby tightened her grip on her rifle, sighting in on her opponents head and firing without hesitation, watching the laser streak through the air and lance through her opponents head.
Or, at least it should have. Apparently, despite the perfect shot, her weapon was simply too weak to actually penetrate her opponent's armor, instead splaying out across its faceplate. Growling, Ruby watched the Berserker as it began...flailing around madly. Confused, Ruby zoomed in on her target using her scope and saw that, despite not actually wounding the alien withhin, the armor dispersing the energy from her laser had melted some of the exterior metal, which covered up the lenses it must have used to see and inadvertently blinding the monster, sending it into a berserk rage.
Smirking, Ruby took the moment to let her rifle cool down for the next shot, watching Nixer raise his own rifle when one of the other aliens that were exposed, a Muton, stepped forwards, with his plasma rifle raised and a war cry bellowing loud enough for Ruby to hear it, even across the distance. He needn't have bothered, as very soon the Muton found himself in a very poor position.
Being sent into a frenzy, the Berserker swung its arms out madly, smashing everything close-by into dust, which included the unfortunate Muton. One fist struck the alien in the head, whilst the other swung in from the other side, sending the corpse flying in one direction with its head on a different trajectory. Unfortunately, the last alien of the group, another Muton, took the slightly smarter tactic, backing off to leap behind a counter and start observing, keen to shoot someone the instant they stepped out of cover, with the rounds from Dakka and Nixer passing harmlessly overhead when it became visible.
The Commander spoke up suddenly, giving out orders for the entire team with a tight and ruthless efficiency. "Alright, Dakka, hit that Berserker with a bullet-swarm. E-DIE, if it's still alive afterwards, hit it with a Kinetic Strike and pulverise it. Spike, Loco, Vixen, Nixer, Red, go on Overwatch for that last Muton, keep it contained, don't let it move an inch out of cover."
Watching Dakka light up the frenzied alien with plasma, Ruby frowned, knowing that if she was using a plasma rifle right now, that thing would be dead. Then again, if it were dead, they'd have two Mutons to deal with, rather than one cowardly one. Looking deeper into the shop, Ruby settled her sights on the counter, waiting to see if the Muton would be stupid enough to charge out of cover and towards the squad.
After their gunner ceased fire, Ruby twitched her gun towards the Berserker, frowning when it was somehow still standing, and making slow steps towards the squad, armour smoking but holding, if only barely. Seeing E-DIE step up with an arm cocked, Ruby turned her focus back towards the shop, scanning the area , she spotted what seemed like movement out of the corner of her eye.
Turning her scope more to the left, Ruby looked down the alleyway, smirking when she saw the top of a Sectoid head peering out from behind one of the large metal dumpsters. Nudging Nixer with an arm, Ruby settled her scope, letting the laser fly down the alley and catch the unsuspecting alien between the eyes, sending the corpse falling backwards with a neat fist-sized hole through its cranium, its weapon smashing against the ground. "I coulda taken him."
"Hmm?" Ruby hummed innocently, touching the heat sink of her weapon and wincing at just how warm the metal was, making a mental note to work on the laser weapon when she got back to base, considering how many of them XCOM had compared to plasma. Surely nobody would miss them if a couple found their way to her workbench for testing, though she'd definitely-
"CHRYSSALIDS!" The yell from Dakka got the snipers attention, both of them scoped in on their area to see a pair of the aforementioned insectoid aliens scuttling from the shop in a damn hurry, rushing towards E-DIE who was still stood over the now-deceased Berserker, with a hole in its chest from where he had literally given the brute an absolutely vicious punch.
Aiming at the lead Chryssalid, Ruby lined up a shot to the head and pulled the trigger, frowning when her weapon refused to fire. Quickly leaning over, Ruby laid her hand on the heat sink again, frowning at the heat she could still feel. With her rifle still too hot to use, Ruby was forced to watch Nixer line up his own shot, the plasma searing through the air and shearing off one of the lead quadrupeds legs, though the insect took only a moment to stumble before continuing the charge on three legs.
Before reaching their target, the pair were lit up by fire from the two riflemen and support, their plasma rifles scorching the pavement and walls behind the Chryssalids, rending the injured one apart but leaving the other with only heavy singes on its carapace, letting it finish its charge and reach melee range of their MEC. Swinging its legs, the Chryssalid struck its target, aiming for the torso and head and ignoring the metal arms and legs.
E-DIE brought an arm up to guard against the strike, and Ruby watched through her scope as the Chryssalid's legs sunk straight into the metal, cutting through wiring and servos easily. But, whilst it did that, it also succeeded in getting firmly lodged in place, trapping the bug in place. Bringing his other arm up, E-DIE charged his kinetic strike module again, thrusting the arm forwards and obliterating the insect, turning its torso into a fine mist and killing it. "Moderate damage sustained." He announced, shaking his damaged arm.
Breathing a sigh of relief, Ruby looked into the shop, and her eyes widened at the sight of the Muton standing behind the desk, his arm reared back to throw something. Without thinking, Ruby snapped her aim up to his chest, almost screaming when she watched his arm flinging forwards. Tracking the projectile as it left his hand, Ruby twitched her aim onto the grenade and snapped her shot off before anyone could even react. Her shot struck true, lancing the beam straight through the grenade and detonating it only a few feet from the alien, and obliterating him, the counter he was next to, and the floor above and below his grenade.
"You know, I think you're...'blowing' everyone's disbelief out of the water right now. So glad these cameras record." Casey announced, patting the area next to his body-camera and smirking. Ruby ignored him and his abysmal puns, instead searching for more movement from the shop and finally smiling to him when she saw no other hostiles approaching. "I mean, two confirmed kills and one assist, not bad for a first mission!"
"Well, we're not done yet." Ruby said, waving a hand towards the shop. "We still have civilians to find...I just wish we were faster, seeing dead civilians never gets easier." Ruby said sadly, looking over the corpses and resisting the nausea she felt with sickening ease. Seeing grimm-mutilated corpses never got easier, but she got better at not reacting to their state in a way that would hamper her ability to fight, even if all she wanted to do was beat the everloving hell out of the grimm who did it, and it was the same for the corpses she could see strewn around.
"We've just got to do the best we can for those who are left, we can't be in every place at once, now can we?" Casey asked rhetorically, laying his hand on her shoulder to reassure her, even if she didn't really need it. "Right now we have to get the civilians out, keep the team safe, and kill as many of the aliens as we possibly can. Every time we repel an attack like this, that's one more lesson taught to the invaders, that every step will be drenched in blood, both theirs and ours, until either we win...or we die. There's no other option for us."
The Commander interjected after a moment of silence, handing out more orders and giving no attention to the words that had just been spoken and heard by all. "Alright, snipers, you two keep an eye out, make sure no enemies reinforce their friends and flank the ground team before they can complete their objective. Dakka and Spike on point, E-DIE, you'll be second in, then Loco and Vixen take up the rear. Sweep the building and check for civilians."
Watching the team swiftly funnel into the building, Ruby slumped down to a seated position, legs crossed and resting the rifle against the window, relying on her own vision to spot movement, rather than the scope. "So I'm guessing usually the Commander would usually have you down there with them, and you're stuck with me because, lo and behold, the first mission for me means I need to have 'backup'?" Ruby air-quoted the last word, frowning when Casey chuckled at her.
"To be honest, after this mission I don't expect that we'll be on the same mission anyway, at least none that aren't critical. Considering how good you are at shooting, you could easily handle sniper overwatch on your own. This window here-" He patted the edge of the window for emphasis, "-is about the limits of my range for supporting those guys down there reliably, since I need to also be able to get down from here and more in to support them directly if things go wrong. As such, from here we can test your abilities and keep me in range to help if it turned out you were going to freeze and become dead weight." Casey quirked his mouth into a thoughtful position at Ruby's confusion, trying to think of the best way to explain it.
"Another reason I'm here is that, despite your showing on the range, it's always better to be safe than sorry. Can you imagine the panic if word got out that XCOM was sending a 17-year-old girl out to fight? If you froze up at the first sight of the aliens, you'd be dragged back to the base and shoved into the foundry for the rest of the war. But, you held your ground, you demonstrated your skills, and, if I may be so bold, you saved E-DIE from that plasma grenade. If that had landed, it would have vaporized him. Instead, you saw the threat, and you made a shot I don't think more than a handful of people on the entire planet could have made aside from yourself, taking down the alien and saving a life in the same shot."
Smiling, Ruby opened her mouth to respond, but a little motion in the corner of her eye caught her attention, and she snapped her pistol from its holster on her hip, levelling the heavy revolver at where she perceived the movement, frowning when there was nothing in the room. Yanking the earmuffs from her ears and toggling her eye quickly through its settings, Ruby shook her head when nothing was picked up audibly or visually, slowly replacing her pistol in its holster but leaving it unclasped, grabbing her rifle from its position leant against the window. "What was that, Red?" The Commander's voice rang out through her ear, make Ruby wince at the unexpectedness of it.
Ruby peered out for a moment before responding, her voice tinged with just a hint of discomfort. Her spine was tingling, and she had long since learned to trust when her instincts told her something was terribly, terribly wrong."Thought I saw something move, but I couldn't see anything and my eye and ears can't detect anything out of the ordinary. My 'instincts' are going absolutely haywire, and I genuinely think something is wrong here...Nixer, you didn't see anything, did you?"
Ruby asked, turning her attention to the man who concentrated for a second before shaking his head. "Okay, Snipers stand by. Loco, break off from the strike team and regroup with the snipers to provide some support, just in case. The rest of you, continue sweeping." The Commander announced quickly, making Ruby sigh in relief that the Commander was willing to trust her judgment.
Glancing around the room again, Ruby did still mentally berate herself for making the Commander drag a man away from the mission to cover for her instincts, but she felt it was worth the risk, as her animal side had never once let her down. Keeping up her overwatch of the area, Ruby watched Loco hustle out of the hole in the side of the shop at a jog, and flicked her scope up to look back down the alleyway, sighting in on the arm of the Sectoid she'd shot, his broken plasma pistol still gripped in his hand.
Watching closely, Ruby frowned when she saw some kind of purple energy coalescing around the area of the corpse. Fiddling with her scope, Ruby brought it closer to her eye, closing her other to examine the area in greater detail, and spotting a small bulbous orange-tinted shape, shifting around behind the bin restlessly. Mentally going through all the different aliens Ruby had been told about, Ruby snapped her fingers as she remembered the stronger version of the Sectoid.
"Hey Nixer, looks like a Sectoid Commander in the alleyway. He's smarter than his friend there, he's not peeking up much, not even enough to attempt a shot at him. Though I don't recognise the purple stuff around the area." Ruby said, gesturing with an arm at the vague direction of the alien, noting that Loco had taken up a position below the windows the pair were looking out from.
"Oh, that can't be good. Commander, you see that?" Nixer responded with a dark tone, tilting his body to let his camera see the alley in full detail for a few moments, before he stopped to begin aiming his own rifle in the same direction as the drone flew overhead to get a view of its own. The Commander was silent for a moment before responding, and their words didn't fill Ruby with confidence.
"Looks like he's trying to do something psionic. Everyone, keep your eyes open, looks like E.T has a Commander who wants to play. Red, Nixer, if you get a shot, take it immediately, no need to risk ourselves to let that Sectoid show us its abilities. Loco, you keep your eyes peeled for anything trying to slip into the building, and be ready to act if something does show up."
Levelling her crosshairs at the top of the bin, Ruby watched as slight slivers of the top of the glowing head were exposed for mere fractions of a second before pulling back into solid cover, never leaving an opportunity to shoot at the target. If his head were to peek up just by an inch or two, she would be all too happy to take that shot, but he was smart, keeping low and not letting her hit that giant bulbous target.
Without warning, a black tendril materialized next to Ruby, swinging at her and striking her weapon as Ruby brought it across her body to guard against the attack, her huntress instincts allowing her to evade the attack somewhat. Turning fully to focus on her enemy, Ruby grimaced as the form of a Seeker appeared in front of her, its sleek metallic body offering no easy exposure to damage. In the corner of her eye, Ruby saw Nixer was in a predicament of his own, as a second Seeker entrapped him in its tendrils, keeping him incapacitated with electricity.
"Seekers!" Ruby yelled out, swinging the stock of her weapon forwards. Ruby watched two of the tendrils lashed forwards to knock the weapon off-target, whilst the other 4 struck towards her exposed body. Unfortunately for the machine, Ruby was far too fast to be caught by the motion, smirking as she released her rifle into its grip and dived under the attack, grabbing her revolver and rolling below the Seeker.
As soon as the barrel was lined up with the underside of the machine, Ruby fired twice, the high-calibre rounds punching through the relatively under-armoured underside of the robot and pulverizing the vulnerable mechanics. Completing the roll, Ruby put a third bullet into the machine as she rose for good measure, before turning her attention to the other machine, levelling her iron sights at the Seeker and pulling the trigger.
Just as the trigger began moving, the Sectoid Commander made its presence known, psionic tendrils sprouting out from its bulbous head and being focused by the creature, homing in on Ruby and drilling into her head, immediately dropping the girl to her knees in screams of agony and terror as a sensation best described as ice-cold needles drilled through every inch of her skin, whilst memories of her most agonizing moments replayed in front of her eyes.
There were moments the poor girl could barely remember, such as the memory of learning her mother would never hold her again, or watching as Qrow was reduced from the man she had known into a drunken mess after her death, to moments far more recent, like watching people being literally pulled apart by Beowolves, or her ears being mockingly pulled during her first year. They all seared across her mind, completely removing Ruby's ability to fight back, as her revolver fell from her fingers and she dug her nails into her head, accidentally drawing blood in her attempts to claw the pain and the memories out of her own head.
With a sudden jerk and a pained, animalistic whine, the pain overwhelmed Ruby's mind, prompting her to collapse to the floor and into unconsciousness.
Yep, still keeping the crippling vulnerability to psionics.
I feel like it fits. Aura is the manifestation of a soul, and psionics influence the soul (I know it's more about the mind but sod it) so having Aura means literally wearing your soul on the outside, where it's HYPER-vulnerable to psionics. This does mean chapter 4 is gonna need some reworking though, because 3/4ths of that chapter was from the perspective of characters other than Ruby.
Still kept the basics of the fight though, just worked it around so it was only following Ruby's perspective. I also adjusted some dialogue since in this version, XCOM snipers can actually shoot further than a few dozen meters, meaning Ruby is still a valuable person, but not quite as ludicrously groundbreaking as she was in the original version.
So, one question I want to ask...the next chapter. I like what it sets up, even if it's written in perspectives other than Ruby. I can't see any good way to get that information into Ruby's perspective, so, in a break from my usual style, I might actually leave it mostly as such. So, what would people prefer? Should I stick with my typical writing style and thus the chapter will be all about Ruby's perspective, what she goes through whilst comatose and then waking up what happens to her? Or should I edit the existing chapter to fit better but still mostly retain the information given to the reader through the different perspectives?
Well, I hope you all enjoyed none-the-less!