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"A constellation of tears on your
Lashes
Burn everything you love then burn the
Ashes"
~Fall Out Boy, "Light 'Em Up(My Songs Know What You Did In The Dark)
Chapter Sixty-two: Ascension
"Only when you fall, XCOM, will your race be saved." The Warlock watched as the Archon King tore into his enemies...and he watched the poor unfortunate soul thrown into the midst of his pets and their paddock. "This world will be mine, and all its people as well. All of it left to me and my tender mercies..."
The battle raged in earnest. The Warlock waited, clutching his railing and contemplating the future and all its glories.
The future and all its horrors.
"Yet for any of us to survive, humanity must submit! Now! Before the true enemy appears!" None of it made sense. Humanity was a small, pathetic breed incapable of higher reasoning...or any reasoning, any at all. What matter the suffering of a few when compared to the survival of the universe? "You delay your own salvation! Surrender to me before it is too late!"
They wouldn't. They were fools, absorbed in their own damnation.
"And there is only one cure for that." The Warlock crossed his arms, enraptured in the battle raging behind his eyes. "Come, then, soldiers of the gods: burn the heretics for the salvation of us all."
"Jesus. What the hell is that?" Edward Gallant clutched his cane, leaning on it a bit harder than he had before the Battle of the Avenger. "It acts like one of Moira's."
"Doctor Vahlen's data implied there were three subjects. We've encountered two." Tygan pursed his lips, absently rubbing at his chest where his mag-round wounds were still healing. "I believe this is Subject Alpha."
"She didn't have to upgrade their equipment!" Bradford's voice cut off after a moment. Gallant ground his cane into the deck.
"Kill it!" Easier ordered than done. He studied the thing's erratic flight path. "You've got to lock it down before it brings reinforcements. And..." His eyes flicked over to the next room. "Jesus."
"Jane needs backup." Lily swallowed. "She's toast if we leave her."
"The team can't take the King if we split up." Tygan's eyes were hollow. "Now what?"
Gallant let out a low breath. "I guess that's my job to figure out, Doctor."
"For the Templars! For Geist!" Janet sprang from overhead, psi-blades out as she came down atop the Archon King. She slashed it wildly, spraying yellow blood as she beat through its heavy armor plate.
"No!" She covered herself with her vibrant purple shield as it swung high. Its spear reverberated off her defense–
Its hand seized her ankle.
Janet screamed as the Archon shot into the air, swinging her around in circles. It reached the apex of its climb, releasing her like a throwing disc. She curled up, bracing for impact–
"Gotcha!"
"Meysam?" She clung to him as he swung by on his grapple, snatching her from the air and bringing her down on ground level. Janet opened up with her autopistol at the same time as the Shadowkeeper roared, and the Archon King wove through the display in a mad air show of evasive action, avoiding nearly every shot and snarling at the ones that stung it anyway.
"Heads down!" Fatima extended her arm. Flame and smoke shot from her wrist, racing up into the center of the firestorm.
The King caught her rocket in one hand. It pulled its arm back, as if to throw the warhead at Janet and Meysam.
It exploded, and the King's hand went with it.
"Yes! Like that! Again!" Meysam's pistol went dry, so he switched to his rifle, working the bolt as fast as he could and spitting gauss projectiles up toward the ceiling hard enough they punched holes several feet deep. Was it deep if the hole was going up? Janet didn't know.
"Suffer!" She extended her hands, and lightning shot from her fingertips. Correcting itself with the power of her thoughts, it arced into the King, smiting its engines and its eyes, burrowing into armor plate and both denting it and melting it to slag. The alien roared and howled, holding its staff over its head. Meysam and Fatima both put shots into it while it cowered.
"Cover! Now!" Janet followed her own warning as missiles burst from its shoulders, splitting and splitting a dozen times into hundreds of micro-warheads, bearing down in a rocket swarm from overhead. "Overhead cover!"
"Shit!" Fatima hit the access switch on a cell and ducked inside. Janet threw herself under a low bench, and Meysam dove back through the door into the previous room, hands over his head–
The world came apart as artillery crashed down on all sides, with the thunder and fury of an earthquake and a wildfire. Janet raised a shield around herself, wincing with every blast that shook the earth beneath her. The bench cracked, and chunks rained over her legs. She yelped when a red-hot slice of shapnel cut a line over her ankle, right through her armored boot.
One slammed directly into the bench, and it shattered. Janet screamed, covering her head and chest with violet power while Hell spat its contents all over her. If hate could be condensed into a rocket barrage, this was it.
And then it wasn't, because the devastation was over.
"Oh, shi–" Janet rolled left, barely escaping the radius as the King came down from overhead with spear in hand, driving it halfway to the hilt in the deck where her neck had been. The exploding blast of heat scorched her face and warmed the metal underneath her to almost red-hot levels. Still on her back, Janet slashed left-handed, scoring the beast's underside right through a repulsor. It howled when the device imploded, sticking its fragments all in the King's flesh.
It left the spear behind, and it seized Janet by the throat. Its jets roared, and it pressed down with everything it had, applying its weight times its acceleration to her windpipe. Her air supply vanished, and Janet pried at the grip with all her strength. She couldn't...she couldn't...
She just couldn't...
"Fuck you!" Fatima slashed across its back with her arc blade, and electricity shot over its body. Janet yelped when it transferred to her–but it only served to jolt her back awake when the King recoiled. On instinct more than anything else, Janet produced her twin blades, driving them up to her wrists in the beast's chest.
It lifted off again. Janet released her blades before she made it off the ground, scrambling with Fatima for cover before the King could reclaim its spear and open up with plasma fire from range.
Its roar nearly shook the ceiling.
"And still, you stand defiant." The Warlock ground his teeth. "After we saved your world from its pathetic internecine squabbles, holding it together for years! Would that the Elders had no need for your race..."
He slammed his fist down hard on the rail. "I would have ended this farce long ago!"
His guards clustered around the portal deck, checking their weapons. His priests examined their amps, his soldiers their guns...his pets still waited, far too imbecilic to recognize what was coming. The Warlock reached back to brush the Disruptor where it hung on his back.
"Only now, however, have you given us hope. The Elders cannot ignore this provocation...this blasphemy. You have forced their hand, and soon this world will be theirs." He beamed. "This world shall be mine."
Jane had one second to suck in breath.
Then the chryssalids charged, and she screamed.
Blam! One-handed, she fired, propping her gun up on a drum of something that smelled like rotten meat. The blast eviscerated one of the creatures, but on came the rest. Unable to work the pump with one arm, Jane grabbed for her sword.
"Back!" She slashed, slicing one's mandible off. It retreated, but three more took its place. "Back, you animals! Back!"
On they came. Their talons clicked on the floor in a mad rush, their jaws snapped inches from her face, and their spittle sprayed wildly like light rain. Jane scrambled to back up, and she slipped in a puddle of saliva. She landed hard on her rear.
Her sword slipped from her grip.
For all the good it wouldn't do, she covered her face when the chryssalids lunged. She didn't think anyone would judge her for shrieking.
Bwoom!
It was the...just the oddest sound, somewhere between a boom and a bass thump. Jane recoiled further.
Her back hit something solid.
"Steady up, Irish!" It was foggy and distorted, as if coming through a pane of glass. Jane's eyes snapped open.
"What the..." She reached out to touch the purple cone encasing her. It rippled when her fingers brushed against it, and it felt...alive. It fizzed with static electricity, and it moved gently under her touch like gel.
Then her wonder abated when the chryssalids set to banging on it with teeth and talons, and Jane shrieked again, covering her head in case the dome failed.
"Not on my watch!" Bradford's rifle roared, and heavy slugs ripped through the chryssalid swarm. Julie's mag-rifle joined in, shredding those Bradford missed. Jane froze.
"Oh, hell." She tested her shoulder. "Dislocated. Not broken." She swallowed, then grabbed her shard gun. "Sooner you start, Jane, the sooner it's done with." She bit down hard on the gun strap.
And punched herself on the shoulder. Hard.
The world went red. Jane collapsed on her back, shrieking through the impromptu bit, thrashing on the ground and kicking at the barrier entirely without meaning to. There was nothing but agony as her joint snapped back into position with a minimum of gentleness, and all she could do was move to try and get it out any way she could. Her throat went raw after seconds, but she didn't care. It didn't hurt, not like...not like...
"Oh...oh, fuck..." She came down from the high slowly, tears clouding her vision. She clutched her aching, maligned shoulder, but when she plucked the strap from her mouth, she used that hand and it responded just fine. "Fucking hell, hurts like a bitch..." She spat, rubbing her throat and wishing for some water. "God, I hate having to do that."
The barrier came apart as Julie let out a wordless yelp. Jane flinched, grabbing for her sword as a chryssalid with dripping bullet wounds spotted her. Its eight evil eyes flashed with malice, and it lunged, trampling broken corpses and what looked like oversized stuffed lobsters as it came for her with hands spread wide.
"Not today!" Heedless of her abused arm, Jane sprang to her feet. She sidestepped and slashed, and one of the chryssalid's arms flew well ahead of it. The beast caught it in its mouth, and it crunched happily...until Jane's backswing took one of its legs off at the hip.
"That's right!" She battered at its head as it collapsed, unable to keep balance. It thrashed, trying to right itself, while she cut through its skull in three places, spraying yellow blood and gray brain matter. "Die, die, die you bitch!"
The chryssalid caught her sword between its jaws next, wrenching hard. Jane couldn't keep her grip, but that was fine. She seized the severed leg in both hands, and before the alien could spit out her blade and lunge, she swung the curved protrusion of bone and carapace like a baseball bat, driving the tip right in the midst of its eye collection.
Crunch!
"Fuck you." Jane leaned down to relcaim her sword, leaving the still-twitching and biting carcass nailed to the wall by the leg rammed through its head. She paused to reload her shard gun, then it was back to the fight without a second look.
The body kept twitching for thirty minutes.
"Nice job, Menace. Kelly, how's the arm?"
"It's banged up, but I'm alive." She hesitated. "Thanks for sending backup, sir."
"Couldn't let you die. Who on this ship would be brave enough to tell me to screw myself?" Gallant shrugged, even though she couldn't see it. "You fulfill a necessary function. Now quit jawing and keep fulfilling it, or I'll leave you next time."
"All words. You're soft under that hard shell of jackass, Commander."
"Lies. Lies and slander." Gallant tuned her out. "Give me a sitrep, Ross."
"I'm busy!" She paused to scream something about dishonor and cows. "This thing just won't die!"
"Definitely Doctor Vahlen's." Lily bit her lip. "Flashbangs should disorient it. Frost bombs?"
"David had the last of our supply." Gallant rapped his cane on the floor, watching Bradford, Jane, and Julie tear into the chryssalid swarm while the others battled the Archon King. "...hang on. I've got an idea."
"Is it a good one, sir?"
"No." Gallant frowned. "I mean, yes. Well..." He rocked his head back and forth. "Fifty-fifty?"
"Go right!" Fatima Tariq tossed her sword, and Janet caught it in midair. Then the Ranger deleted the Templar from her world, rolling away while Alpha swung wide, nearly decapitating her. Only the increased speed of her EXO suit was enough to keep her head on her shoulders.
What would Chilong do?
"Shut up!" Fatima wove under that spear as the King took another swing, and she seized it from behind. It flailed when she sprang backward, bending over until she slammed its head into the floor in the same instant as its jets roared. Its own acceleration sent it ripping up a trough through the alloy paneling, and Fatima sprang back to her feet as soon as she was clear.
Something stung on her face. The exhaust must have burned her. It didn't matter.
"Tisiphone, move!" That was Meysam, pointing at Alpha as it shot back into the air, roaring furious challenge. She hesitated, but not for long.
"I hope you've got a plan!" She grabbed her shard gun, firing blind over her shoulder and wishing for her Archangel Armor. If she could meet the beast in the air...
"Get over here!" Meysam wasn't pointing...but it was only when his grapple went off that Fatima realized that.
"Yes!" She took more careful aim as the line caught Alpha by the chest, sinking into his flesh. Meysam seized the nearest column with his other hand, screaming as the jets roared. Alpha howled too, as if drowning the Saudi's voice out was enough to break the line.
"By the power of the Earth!" Janet raised a hand, and a pillar of purple light smote down from above, hitting like a piledriver. It slammed the King all the way down to ground level, and Janet drove Fatima's sword into it like a nail.
"Yes!" Never one to let a cheap trick go to waste, Fatima blasted it, working the pump as fast as she could. Shard guns weren't as quick on the reload as a scatter laser, but they had a lot more punch.
Missiles. They burst from the King on all sides, spinning through the air and slamming into the walls and ceiling as they tried to complete their arc for the ground. Rock and dust fell, and Fatima couldn't help but scream when a boulder the size of a berserker came down three feet away. She scrambled for cover, still firing at the Archon's prone form.
"Watch it!" Gallant cried, as the alien's engines roared. It pulled and pulled, but Fatima's sword wouldn't move.
In a spray of yellow, the King shot upward, pushing itself straight through the sword from tip to hilt. It clutched its chest, howling in either agony or rage.
Its staff glowed purple.
"It's getting away!" Bradford burst back in from the green room, opening up on full auto. "Don't let it escape!"
"Are you stupid?" But Janet pulled out her autopistol and sent mag-rounds racing at the erratic, twitching scarlet shape in the air. "If it wants to leave–"
"Damn it!" Bradford swore a lot more colorfully when the King wove under the shots and straight into the expanding purple vortex exploding behind it. The light coalesced and condensed...and then winked out very suddenly. "It's gone!"
"Oh, thank heaven. It's gone." Meysam slumped, massaging his arm. "It's gone..."
"Jane?" Fatima glanced back at the hole beside the door.
"I'm alive." She appeared, dripping with chryssalid blood. "Barely."
"Good." Bradford paused to reload, and Fatima did the same.
"There's something in here." Jane twitched her head. "Julie's checking it out."
"Really?" Fatima reclaimed her sword, then hurried that way. Janet, Meysam, and Bradford all followed.
"It's green." Fatima examined the room, from webbed, hexagonal floor and wall tiles to the little shattered pen over to the side, littered with chryssalid bodies. "It feels...underwater."
"Yeah. The lights." Meysam glanced up at them. "They move. Everything shimmers."
"It's creepy."
"What about that?" Janet glanced at the stairs: the stairs leading to a glowing platform under the eyes of a looming elder statue. "Why does it glow?"
"I don't know." Bradford keyed his com. "Doctor?"
"It's radiating a strong energy signature, very similar to the readings we've seen from codices and the Rulers in the field, to say nothing of the Chosen themselves." Tygan paused, as if running some numbers. "I believe this is an alien transport device of some kind."
"Understood. Looks like we found our way out of here." Bradford started up the stairs.
"Um...Central?"
Jane strode through the remnants of the chryssalids as if in a dream, eyes vacant. She didn't bother listening to Bradford's blunt query.
She just pointed.
"What in..." The last two words. Bradford's voice echoed in the chamber, ringing gently from the far corners like his heavy footfalls. He reached Jane's shoulder...and continued, hardly seeming to notice the still-twitching chryssalid body parts scattered ankle-deep on all sides, or the puddles of venom and saliva he stepped in.
Silence. Jane thought Julie muttered something, but whatever it was, it was well under her breath. No one else spoke as Bradford ground to a halt in the remains of the chryssalid pen, gun hanging limply from its strap.
He knelt, moving icily and stiffly, as if suddenly far older than even his advanced years. He reached out, gently brushing a spastic severed bug leg off of the half-devoured corpse whose face it covered.
"...Mariah."
Were the other corpses Zhang and David? Jane nearly came apart even at the thought. They were all rent up by chryssalid claws and teeth, with great pockmarks and craters in their skin from where adolescent chryssalid spawn had burst out.
More silence. Bradford touched his daughter's torn and lifeless face.
"John?" Something was different about Gallant's voice. Jane hadn't heard him like this since...since...
No. She'd never heard him like this. This was different on every level. It was cold: ice cold.
"Right." Bradford rose, just as arthritically as he'd descended. He sounded just the same as the Commander.
No, it wasn't cold. Jane put that together as her own feelings matured. It wasn't cold because she wasn't cold, not thinking about Mariah and David and Zhang and all that had happened to them.
It burned so hot it was far past anger.
"Let's go." Bradford started up the stairs for the transport pad, and his stiffness faded a little more with every step. "That thing dies today. Whatever it takes."
"How much longer must I endure this sacrilege?" The Warlock stood at the base of his Sarcophagus, lip curled. "Your feet are unworthy to tread the holy ground of this sanctum. I have seen the future, and you have no part to play in it."
"Mighty Warlock–"
"Silence, cur." He inhaled. "Is it peace you want, XCOM? I shall gladly oblige. Come to me, and let us put an end to this."
Author's Note 62: Happy Anniversary!
One year ago to the day, I dropped Chapter One of Vigilo Confido. I had about eight chapters on my hard drive at the time, and no real idea of whether I was going to settle into a regular update schedule and, if so, how regular it would be. Thanks to your support, we've taken off and I've had the motivation to smash this thing out on a grand scale. Twice a week means I have to write at least 2 chapters every week, and each one is at least 3K words.
So, consider this a big thank-you present for everyone who enjoys VC. I am not going to change the regular update schedule, but I couldn't let the first anniversary go unmarked.
The Archon King is the single worst Ruler. I hate it with a passion, because it takes everything I hate about archons, combines it with everything I hate about Rulers, and mixes in some OP shenanigans on top of all that. Fuck the Archon King in particular. Repeaters, man: repeaters and the Bolt Caster. Only way to fly.
EDIT: Apparently I'm remembering the day I started uploading materials and decided to get serious. Whatever...are you going to complain about an extra chapter? :-P
Until next time, Vigilo Confido.