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"We were on fire; I slashed your tires,
It's like we burned so bright we burned out..."
~P!nk, Beautiful Trauma
Chapter Sixty-one: Ice
It began with a tremendous crash and roar of thunder, echoing in the shadows and raining from above.
"Mor balaten!" The shieldbearer was the most alert of the initial patrol group, and he managed to point. That was all he accomplished: a magnetic rifle burst cut him down in a quick surge of golden projectiles, leaving a yellow slough of ooze to stain the harsh metal decking under his feet.
The two troopers under his command got their guns up, which was to their credit. One's head got clipped and obliterated by the roar of a shard gun, though, and the other screamed as high-powered rifle rounds perforated his body armor as if it were tissue paper, ventilating him in a flash.
Boots landed hard on the decking.
"Clear!" Julie Richardson led the way, rifle still warm. Behind her came Fatima Tariq, EXO suit hissing as she took her first experimental steps, shard gun up. In her wake landed Meysam Saleh, Shadowkeeper in hand and rifle slung over his shoulder. Without bothering to use the rappel lines, Janet Ross landed in a crouch, shielded by a bubble of violet psionic energy that coursed from her eyes and through her veins.
Two more pairs of boots landed at the end of the drop.
"Clear." Jane Kelly checked her sword.
"Avenger, this is Central." John Bradford lowered his rifle to key comms. "We're in."
"Copy, Central. Thermal isn't working too well through the shields, so we don't have eyes on what's ahead." Edward Gallant's voice broke up with a harsh laugh. "Guess their engineers aren't all crap."
"Give me a second." Julie breathed out, and Jane cased the room while the redhead did her thing. She produced her amp, hitting the trigger and using it to summon a whirling orb of psionic energy on her palm. It roared and whistled like high wind, and Julie's purple eyes seared in the instant it blew outward, sending tendrils scattering through the cracks in the walls. "Several Advent. Can't tell how they're equipped. A muton. Chryssalids. And..."
"And?" Janet gave her a sidelong look. "I don't like and."
"Something...else. Something large, something mighty." Julie bit her lip. "I'm not sure what to make of it."
"Perfect. I love mysterious enemies we can't classify."
"Scanners are at full power." Doctor Tygan hesitated for perhaps half a second. "Energy signature directly ahead. There is no doubt in my mind that it is from the Warlock."
"Then that's where we need to be." Bradford turned for the door: the one door out of what appeared to be a supply chamber festooned with shelves and boxes and drums. "Move out, people."
"One of those soldiers could have gotten a warning off. Not to mention potential perimeter alarms." Jane hurried up to his right hand, shard gun at the ready. "I doubt we still have the element of surprise."
"Good." Bradford's lips thinned. "Less time screwing around before we get to the bastard."
"Damn right." Jane fought not to grind her teeth. David...thoughts of David, and his choking death in the rain...
"Central." Fatima pushed past him and Jane alike. "Central, I think you and the Major shouldn't take point as we advance into the hub of enemy operations. You're not expendable."
"Then why am I here?" Bradford's lip curled.
"Because you just about threatened to resign if I didn't send you."
"No one asked you, Commander."
"Why does everyone but me have a code name?" Jane's imagination was up to the task of picturing Gallant irritably thrusting his cane into the floor. "Kelly's 'Fighting Irish', you're 'Central', Rogers is 'Moose'...to say nothing of Outrider, Shadow Man, and Volk. But not me: everyone's on a first-name basis with me."
"Maybe you could try 'Swanson'."
"What?" Jane stared at Bradford. "I don't get it."
"I'm more partial to Pewterschmidt." Evidently Gallant did. Jane stewed. No one ever told her anything.
"Door." Fatima took up position on one side, and Julie on the other. "Breaching in five."
"Copy." Jane braced. Bradford's eyes narrowed.
"Three, two." Fatima paused, then hit the switch. Alien pneumatics whirred almost silently. "Go!"
On they went into the darkness.
He awoke.
"I sense something." The Warlock's eyes pried open, and he frowned as he attempted to read the layers of psionic energy presenting themselves to him. "A presence I haven't felt since..."
They were here.
"Mighty Warlock?" his chief servant asked. The Warlock ignored him, slowly rising to his full height. His pets chittered and chattered, shoving at each other to be closest to him and the potential for food.
"Such..." The Warlock spent a long moment in thought. "Such bravery! Such steadfastness! To set foot in this temple? To dare contemplate striking down a child of the gods themselves?" He couldn't help it: his laughter echoed harshly around the chamber. "Such arrogance, children! Your hubris will be your doom.
"And I will deliver it."
"Flashbang!" Jane was no liar, and she proved it a moment later. It soared through the next set of doors before they'd even finished opening. Startled, the muton on the other side caught it in both hands.
"Go!" Bradford led the way in almost the same instant that the explosive detonated. The muton howled, clutching its eyes, and the scattered soldiers around the room too. Bradford's rifle chattered, and a shieldbearer went down, perforated from the waist up.
"He's mine!" Janet sprinted in, vaulting over a pod with an Adventer in the midst of the modification process held in stasis. With a psionic command, she activated her gauntlets, and twin blades of violet energy burst out, almost as long as she was tall. She spun, slashing with both at once.
"The Elders' power cannot protect you!" She carved the purifier in two, and its fuel tank exploded. Janet covered her face, drawing on her power to stand unaffected like a fortress. Blinding light and smoke washed out, scattering the remaining Adventers like bowling pins.
"Incoming!" Meysam sighted and fired, and a sectoid's head disintegrated as the gauss slug punched in one eye and out the back of its skull. Janet covered her face when the sectoid's partner, a red-coated officer, opened up on her at full auto.
"Power, protect me!" A shield burst up before her, absorbing every shot without a care. The officer paused...and then the shield appeared behind him, spitting his own fire out to rip him apart from behind. He wailed, crumpling in a heap.
"Show-off!" Julie's amp whined, and she hurled a lance of psionic energy that shredded three Adventers at once and flung the muton off its feet. "Show me real psi-attacks!"
"If you insist, then I will!" Janet ducked as a soldier fired a burst from a firing slit in the wall high above. "Keep your gun ready!"
"Why?" Julie covered her head. "I'll fry his mind–"
Janet drew on her power again. It was impulse she sought, not plan: the idea of inversion, rather than some carefully-arranged strategy. Her power heard the impulse, and in a flash it converted it to reality.
Literally: a flash of purple light and smoke filled the room...and Janet leaned against the wall by the firing slit, shaking her head dazedly to regain her bearings.
"Hot damn!" Julie's rifle roared, and the soldier with whose position Janet had inverted wailed piteously. "I could have taken him just fine."
"You are an amateur in the ways of the Gift. I am a professional." Janet dropped back to the main floor, giving her XCOM opposite number her best unreadable stare. "You have much to learn."
"Sure, whatever."
"Room clear." Jane paused to kick the skull of a twitching shieldbearer hard enough it cracked. "Fatima?"
"Cell block." She pursed her lips, reading the alien letters coating the sign on the next door. "Cell block, then something called the Ascension Chamber."
"Sounds serious. That's the way to go." Jane ejected her spent cartridges and slid a new clip into place. "Everyone check mags and prepare to breach."
"Yes, ma'am." Meysam drew the Shadowkeeper. "Avenger, how are we looking?"
"Some kind of hornet's nest, I'll tell you that." Edward Gallant examined the holodisplay thoughtfully. "Definitely a lot of activity in the next room. I can't give you details, but we're picking up radio signals strong enough to penetrate the shielding."
"They're calling for help. Contacting external bases."
"Most likely. They'll be preparing a wave of reinforcement troops. Your best bet is to move quickly enough you can complete your primary objectives before they hit." Gallant glanced down from his dais. "Tygan, readings?"
"Nothing concrete. However, the energy signature is directly ahead. This cell block would be the last major obstacle in the way."
"You copy, John?" Gallant watched his XO's tracker. "Whatever's going on at your twelve o' clock, punch through that and you're in his knicker drawer."
"What American says knicker?"
"Shut up, Irish. You're a bad influence on me." Gallant paused to again bemoan the unfairness of his life. "Unbelievable. Hell, the robots have codenames."
"I'm sure Junior is very proud of it." Lily Shen chuckled in the back of her throat. "You're taking this a bit personally."
"Damn right I am. Everyone else has one."
"I don't."
"Well, you're a noncombatant, so shut up." Gallant deliberately turned his back when she stuck her tongue out. Someone snickered, and Gallant pointed his cane without looking. "Back to work, you. Laughing at your CO is a Very Bad Thing."
"Like your face." Lily worked on her tablet for a minute. "I'm working to jam their transmissions, but no promises. Things will work better if you move faster."
"We're in position to breach." Jane paused. "Anything more concrete you can give us?"
"I'm not really clairvoyant." Gallant tasted the word for a minute. "Nah. Too supervillain."
"You have come far, little humans. You are to be commended." The Warlock paced in his sanctum, while his soldiers huddled in the corner, checking their weapons. "Boldly pushing forward into the unknown! Brave as you venture into the dark."
His pets shrieked, clawing at the floor. Saliva fell in torrents, dripping over fangs and claws. The Warlock idly flicked a switch, and the remains of a captive he had no further need for fell into the throng.
"If only you knew the truth of this place..." He chuckled deep in his throat as his pets tore into the body, shoving and biting each other in their mad rush to claim what they could. "Oh, humans! You would flee back to the shadows from whence you were spawned."
"Mighty Warlock, they're preparing to breach the Cell Block."
"Are they?" He curled his lip. "Those poor fools. It will do them no good. The Elders' reach is eternal, their will permeating all around us. I wonder if our guests feel the gods' own hand closing in around them, even now?"
Bradford was first.
"You idiot!" Jane hurried in his wake as the XO slammed through the automatic door with rifle upraised. It roared in almost the same beat as his footfalls, and she ducked when some quick-thinking Adventer managed to fire from the hip, nearly putting a shot through the brim of her ball cap. "Sir!"
"Grenade!" And he threw one, and it snapped onto the chest of one of the two MECs poised at the end of the room. Before the white one or the red one could unleash rockets, the explosive detonated, sending an EMP pulse scourging out to freeze both of their electronics.
"For the Templars!" Janet bounded in, purple power trailing her every step. Jane lost track of her in a hurry, but there was an awful lot of Advent screaming so that was fine.
"Up! Go up!" Julie nearly shoved Meysam toward a ladder, one that took him over the closed cells lining the central walkway. There was an automated turret up top, but Maysam unloaded a vicious string of pistol shots that punched through its armor and brewed the whole thing up in a cloud of ruined electronics. Parts flew, raining over the red and black walls and smashing down on the Advent soldiers and priests scrambling for cover.
And over...
"What in God's name?" It wasn't a complete sentence, but it was.
It was also Jane's last sentence, complete or otherwise, before Hell unleashed.
A blue blur shot across the cell block, borne on trails of fire. Something green glowed in its hands, and Jane flung herself flat. Whatever it was, it whooshed over her head as fast as a hunter UFO, and Jane scrambled back to her feet a heartbeat before it came back around and drove into the metal where she'd lain. Not only did the head punch through alloys like they were tissue paper, that green glow melted things to slag for eight inches in all directions.
"Fuck!" Jane brought her gun up and hit the trigger, sighting in on its ornate and gilded head. It just...it just moved so fast, though! Her shot clipped it, denting that helmet, but it was still in action, heedless of flying yellow blood as it shrieked hate and loathing. "Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!" Jane dropped her shard gun and drew her sword in the nick of time, parrying a wave of high and low strikes from some kind of...plasma spear. "What the fuck is it?"
"Archon!" That made no sense, but then Janet vaulted from above, driving her psi-blades into its shoulders. She hung from its back while it thrashed, the jets fixed...fixed into its back roaring and shooting waves of golden exhaust.
"Ross!" Jane scrambled for her gun as the...archon rocketed up to the ceiling, slamming Janet into it spine-first. Purple power shielded her, but cracks shot over both her orb and the ceiling. Dust and rock fell.
"Whoa!" Janet let go and tumbled in a ball as missiles ripped out from the archon's back, bursting into smaller warheads in midair...which burst into smaller ones...
"Fucking take cover!" Jane dove behind a wall, grabbing Julie in passing. She covered the redhead with her body as the streaks of fire and death came down–
Boom! Boom! That didn't do it justice. It was fifteen explosions at once, rippling and melting together like the alloy plate of the floor, send flying in flechette swarms that cut down Advent units as easily as they rent Jane's exposed back and arms. She cried out as shards drove into the weak points in her Spider Suit. Bradford covered his head, shards pinging off the plate of the predator armor while heat wafted around the room.
"Bitch!" Meysam fired a second later, and the archon howled, clutching its midsection. It let out a rippling, almost mechanical roar, shaking its fist in fury.
Meysam's face went white when the beast shot his way, screaming and holding its spear up high.
"Get out of there!" Fatima fired, and her shot blew one of its repulsors off. The archon hit the top of the cell blocks hard, skidding in a spray of sparks as it fought to regain its balance. It jammed its spear into the ground, prying itself up and lunging with its free hand.
"Blow it!" The Serpent Suit's grapple went off, and Meysam leapt into open air, swinging down to ground level. Bradford caught him around the waist, hustling him behind cover as the remaining Advent soldiers fired in volley like redcoats of old.
"Catch!" Fatima hurled a plasma grenade, and the archon roared its defiance.
Ka-boom!
"What the hell!" Jane opened fire when the archon emerged from the expanding green blast with smoke trailing from its engines, coughing and staggering in the air...but still alive, and coming at Fatima this time. It leveled its spear, unleashing blasts of green plasma energy that scorched the ground all around her. Fortunately, whether it was the damage or what, it couldn't shoot for shit: she ducked behind a low wall and that was that.
"Fuck you!" Jane's next shot went right into its chest, and the thing staggered. She worked the pump, sighting in again before she realized she was dry–
Blam!
It wailed, almost piteously. It clutched at its head as purple seared up all around it, rising from the floor like the hands of death. It grabbed so hard its talons punched through its helmet, and its eyes burst with purple light and yellow goo.
It crumpled, engines still feebly pushing the body around.
"For the record, I should have covered you from the missiles." Julie flicked a scarlet strand out of her eye. "I have Predator armor, Irish."
"Yeah, well, Sylvie would have killed me." Jane scrambled to reload. "Back at it, then."
"Is it not the Elders who are the true saviors of your race? They who fight to protect an entire universe?" The Warlock watched in his mind's eye as his minions did battle with XCOM. His lip curled.
He'd expected better from the so-called elite.
"Here you stand regardless." He couldn't bring himself to chuckle, not now. Something much darker took hold of him, something that left him to seize the rail by his Sarcophagus in both hands. It bent under his grip. "Willing to die to retain your ignorance...how human of you. To think I once considered myself a part of your race..." He toyed with the concept. "You seem so petty. So tiny. I have evolved into something greater, something you can only envy."
"Mighty Warlock?" His lieutenant quailed when his gaze turned. Having approached, though, he had no choice but to continue. "Might we contact your inferior siblings? Weaker they are, certainly, but just to be safe..."
"There is no potential for threat from this enemy." Unamused, the Warlock ignored his lieutenant from then on, to his immense relief. "Even now, the Elders' love of humanity shines through. They counsel mercy. They plead with me to spare you pain. I am a merciful soul, and more than that, a pious servant of the Elders." Now he could muster that laugh: cold enough even his priests shivered. "I will let you die swiftly today." He turned to his lieutenant.
"Unleash the Alpha."
"Clear." Bradford bashed the last Advent skull in with his rifle butt. "That was fun."
"Was it?" Jane warily emerged from cover. "Jesus." She kicked the archon's corpse, half-expecting it to seize her ankle and soar up to ten thousand feet straight through the piled earth and rock above. "Jesus Christ."
"They look like floaters." Gallant made a retching noise in the back of his throat.
"Yeah." Bradford kicked the carcass too. "The aliens cleaned up the design a little."
"They're still no better than the monsters my father dealt with." Lily made the same noise.
Crash!
"Oh, come on!" That was as far as Jane got before a taloned hand seized her by the throat. Rockets blazed, lifting her up to the ceiling like Janet. She grabbed at the fingers, fighting to keep those claws from punching into her throat.
This archon was red, not blue. Its eyes blazed with fury and scorn.
"Shit!" Jane shrieked when it threw, preceding its assault with a wave of missiles launched in a devastatingly wide spread. Below, her teammates scattered, frantically covering each other as best they could while death rained.
"Jane!" Gallant cried.
She had no coherent response. Everything vanished when she hit the far wall on her shoulder. The wall shattered...as did some other things.
"Ah!" Jane tumbled to the ground, clutching her savaged arm. Before she'd even finished sliding over the green, webbed floor, she tried to move it...and it disobeyed, lying limply by her side.
"Shit. Shit. It's not broken, is it?" Jane spotted her cap lying a few feet away. Thankful for the strap that kept her gun in place, she reached for it left-handed.
Chittering screams. The clacking of talons on the floor.
Chryssalids all around her.
"...shit."
Author's Note 61: Third Time's The Charm
Archons can go to hell. 'nuff said.
I don't know if any of you noticed, but I'm back! I come bearing Season Three, full of asskickery and bullshit. Are you ready for it? Hell no, you're not. I'm not either, but I'm here anyway. You are too, or you wouldn't be reading this.
This might take longer than I want to go up. I've wound up getting a new job that's extremely time-intensive at the moment, not to mention I've started a "George Lucas Special Edition" rewrite of my web serials with the help of that editor contact I've mentioned in the past. Wish me luck on that front, and if you're curious, there's a link to check 'em out through my profile. Not to mention, Florence is coming to fuck my shit up, though at the moment it looks like the track will veer south of VA and I'll basically just get rain and wind for a bit. If you're in the danger zone, stay safe!
Anywho, hope life's been treating you fairly lately. Keep your eyes on this spot!
Until next time, Vigilo Confido.