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"How it feels to be the broken;
You took a piece, now I'm biting back!"
~Skillet, Back From The Dead
Chapter Sixty-three: Retribution
Purple light whirled on all sides, and Julie's stomach turned. Shapes appeared in the aurora laid out around her: shapes that passed too quickly to make any sense. They spun in and out...orbs and barriers, places and ideas. Thoughts spun into her head, searing her sixth sense like wildfire, then vanishing before she could grab them.
Something hung tantalizingly close. If she could just stretch her mind a little more, there it would be, and she could–
Thud!
"Shit!" Julie hit the ground hard, and her knees buckled. Her stomach less turned and more flipped, and she very nearly vomited on the alien-patterned purple floor beneath her. She clenched her fists, leaning on them for support and fighting her whirling insides.
"You alright, Red?" Jane touched her shoulder. Julie raised a hand, swallowing on a dry throat.
"Yeah. Yeah, that was just...the pictures. The thoughts..."
"What thoughts?" Jane frowned. "It wasn't fun, but it was a transporter."
"Uh..."
"You are not insane." Janet was on her hands and knees too, and she wiped at the corner of her mouth, almost heedless of how she pushed off from the puddle of her own vomit to rise. "I saw it too."
"On your feet. Now." Bradford caught Julie under the arm, and she yelped when he nearly deposited her at his side. "Look."
"Holy..." Julie's eyes widened. "It's huge. I think it's half the size of the Avenger'."
"It's so purple." Fatima made a retching noise. "Where is the light even coming from?"
"And that...thing." Jane pointed, and Julie swallowed. "It's like...it's a three-story coffin hanging in suspension. Some kind of obelisk."
"Commander?" Bradford paused, then keyed his comm again. "Commander Gallant, sir?"
"Hey, cripple, where'd you hobble off to?" Jane kicked at the floor a moment later. "Shit. He's not screaming at me. We've lost our link."
"Call your CO anything like that again, and you answer to me, Kelly." Bradford raised his rifle, examining the surroundings. "Where the hell is that bastard?"
"Oh, if only you knew the true power in my hands."
"Shit!" Julie scrambled to bring her gun up as violet energy blew outward from the far end of the chamber. From the shadows they emerged: a motley collection of Advent forms, and the hulking shapes of chittering chryssalids at the flanks.
And a looming silhouette behind them.
"You would fall to your knees before me!" The Warlock bared his enormous teeth, white hair flying off as wind radiated wildly from him.
"I doubt that, bitch." Julie reached for her amp. "I'm not that easy."
"Pity." That must have gone right over his balding evil head. The Warlock extended a hand, psionic power glowing on his fingertips. "Let us begin, then!"
"John?" Gallant waited a moment, glaring while Lily banged on her terminal with a wrench. She gave him a thumbs up when something flashed orange, and he keyed his comm again. "John?"
"There you are, sir!"
"Yeah, comms went to shit when you jumped in the purple nurple roller coaster. Are you even still on Earth?"
"Kelly owes you an apology." The holodisplay fizzed, but then it started to come back in pieces.
"For what?" Gallant drove his cane into the floor. "Major?"
"Nothing, sir. Bad timing. Tell you later."
"I'm reading a concentration of hostiles shielding the Warlock from Menace." Julian's face appeared in the corner of the holodisplay, and red icons popped up over the projected room. "I'm also detecting significant power surge readings."
"Perfect." Gallant reached up to touch the photograph still thrust in his breast pocket. "Weapons free, Menace."
"Whoa!" Lily jumped when all six XCOM operative's representations lunged into action at once. Grenades flew, bursting in explosions of plasma and distilled viper poison, and the Advent guards scattered. There was no mistaking the Kickass Assault Rifle of Death, even in holo-form, and Gallant beamed when Bradford opened up on the scattering soldiers, ripping them up with slugs heavy enough to bring down a bull rhino on crack.
"Watch out!" Gallant slammed his hand on the railing, eyes fixed on the surging bugs. "Kelly, Ross, take the right side!"
"Sir!" It wasn't a protest though, and Jane sprang past Bradford and Meysam's firebase, shard gun blazing as she cut a chryssalid in half. Janet sprang up too, psi-blades out, shrieking Templar war cries and hymns and advertising jingles while she broke everything.
"Fuck!"
"That son of a bitch." Gallant could respect someone who was doing the same job he was, as long as that person wasn't the Warlock. As things stood, he glared at the abnormally-tall icon on the display with the kind of loathing he normally reserved for Angelis, the President of the United States, or unskippable horror movie ads on YouTube. "Richardson, talk to me."
"Her vitals are erratic. The Warlock hit her with some kind of psionic strike." Tygan ran numbers quickly, and Gallant didn't like the look in his eyes. "She's in a daze. It looks like she's falling asleep."
"Tisiphone, you copy? Cover Julie and wake her up."
"Commander!" Lily stiffened. "We're picking up another reading."
"Oh, good. More fun." Gallant almost couldn't bear to look. "What now?"
"Sir, it's–"
A psi-portal burst open in the middle of the room. Gallant's eyes widened as the first thing to emerge was a tremendous red head, saliva spraying as it parted its jaws and roared a challenge to any unwise enough to approach it. The sinewy arms and legs were next, and the lumbering torso...
"Oh, fuck. Beta again." He swallowed as the Berserker Queen punched the ground, sending cracks shooting out for a dozen yards in all direction. She beat her chest, howling even louder in a spray of yellow breath mist. "This...could be diffic–"
Gallant froze. His eyes locked on the golden Advent soldier, ripping a pineapple-shape from his belt and curveballing it hard to the right side. It banged off a support column, then clattered down in the midst of dead chryssalid.
Right between a pair of boots.
"Jane!"
Boom!
Janet caught the stun lancer's overhead on her gauntlets. Sparks flew, and electricity tried to fry her synapses.
"That's not going to work!" She activated both gauntlets, and her psi-blades went out. They cut the lancer's arm at the wrist, and it recoiled with a cry.
Right into Subject Beta's path, and the Berserker Queen punched it aside with a shrieking howl of challenge.
"Oh, by the Power..." Janet flung herself sideways as the Queen brought both fists down hard from above. A grenade went off somewhere on the right, but Jane's problems didn't matter nearly as much as the monster trying to use Janet's femur as a toothpick.
Bang!
"Left arm!" Meysam worked his gauss rifle's bolt, and Janet lunged. Before the Queen could even finish staggering, clutching the severed line on its shoulder that would have carried stimulants and hormones to its raging muscles, the Templar sprang onto its back, digging her blades in and using every bit of focus she had left to summon spectral lightning.
"On the right!" Fatima slashed in mid-air, and she cut the next line. Green and yellow mix splattered the side of her face as it gushed onto the floor, and the Queen stumbled, wailing in agony.
"Someone get eyes on Jane!" Gallant's voice cracked harsh as usual. "Tisiphone, tell me Julie's–"
"I'm not dead yet, sir." That was Julie, but it was as she pulled Jane from where she'd taken cover under a chryssalid's body. "We're not your average damsels in distress over here."
"No!" Janet screamed when the Queen thrashed harder than it had. She lost her grip, and she flew straight into the Advent collection, hitting a purifier with her shoulder and smashing him and herself into the golden officer with the momentum. She cracked the purifier's skull with her elbow, leaving him in a mess on the floor. The officer scrambled to rise, but Janet flung herself up and straddled him in a heartbeat, her left blade driving into his chest.
Her right blade caught him in the eye.
"Any more Advent?" Her breath came in ragged gasps. Sweat ran through her hair, made all the worse by her amplifying helmet. "The chryssalids?"
"Seems to just be the Queen!" Meysam fired again, and the beast roared in fury. "Get up, Ross!"
"On it." Janet made it to her feet, and she turned for the alien. She started at a jog, picking up speed as she charted her path–
Pain!
"No!" She clutched her head as it drove in, pressing in hard at her edges. She staggered, clutching for purchase on the nearest column as a Presence punched through her thoughts and rewrote her subconscious, annexing her a little more every second.
"I see you forgot to bring your mind-shield, Templar." The Warlock's grin turned savage as Janet's world went purple. "That was a mistake."
"Ross!" Jane ignored the brawl with the Berserker Queen, bringing her shard gun up as she vaulted down beside the Warlock. She hit the trigger almost before her feet had hit the floor, too, and the Chosen took the blast right in the gut.
"Insolent woman!" He pointed at Jane as she worked the pump. "Kill her!"
"Wait!" Jane let go of the gun as Janet came in swinging, psi-blades out. The Ranger flipped her sword out, and she parried wildly with every purple strike that nearly rent her apart. "Janet, we're supposed to be allies!"
"Please do not resist. It will only inconvenience me." Her eyes pulsed an entirely different kind of violet now: no pupils nor irises, just a purple glow from within that colored the veins running over her cheeks and forehead. "Hold still, Major Kelly–"
Crash!
"Oh, fuck!" Jane dove out of the way. Janet was a hair slower...and it cost her, because the Berserker Queen backhanded her before she'd even finished smashing through some kind of trophy case, rubble flying on all sides. Janet flew too: head over heels across the room, driving her psi-blades into the floor and carving up red-glowing cauterized trails to stop herself from flying off the dark ledge that served no purpose Jane could see.
"Die!" Jane threw her sword, which punched into the Queen's jaw. The animal snarled, spitting it out like a bullet, but Jane had her gun back in hand then. "Die! Die, damn you!"
She didn't. She grabbed Jane in both hands, and pressure lit up her midsection. Jane made a high-pitched, wordless noise as that pressure became fire. Her ribs...
"Drop her!" Bradford's rifle opened up, and the Queen twitched. Slugs perforated its wrist, and Jane hoped Central was better with a scope than with Avenger's flight controls.
"Jane, go!" Julie's amp burst with power, and the Queen stumbled, clutching her head as light whirled around her. Jane ripped one arm free.
Her left arm, and the Spider Suit's grapnel launcher went off a moment later.
"What are you doing!" It was less of a query than a protest, and Jane would have said it too in Fatima's place.
"Being a fucking idiot, that's what." And she hit the motor, and the grapnel line wrapped around the Queen's throat went tight.
"Shit, shit!" Jane caught its shoulder as the beast thrashed. She frantically climbed, barely escaping being squashed like a mosquito when those enormous hands came in for her. She scrambled to her feet on the back of its neck, heaving for all she was worth while her motor whined and overloaded, venting steam as friction nearly set her line on fire.
The Queen twisted, and Jane lost her balance. She tumbled to earth...but braced her feet on a column when the Queen tried to have a go at Bradford. The beast's own momentum pulled the line even tighter, and Jane clung to it for all she was worth. Her knees burned, her shoulders seared...
The line was going to break. Either it would break, or Jane's arms would get ripped out of their sockets. She couldn't...she couldn't hold on, and she couldn't reach the emergency detach switch without losing her hold and going flying...
With a great choking cry, the Berserker Queen tumbled sideways, feebly twitching. The floor shook as it came down, and Jane's teeth snapped together hard. They caught a bit of her cheek, too, and pain was only the precursor to the iron tang of blood in her mouth.
"My God." Bradford's eyes were wide. "It's..." He paused to put a burst into its brain, and Julie did too. "It's dead."
"Great. Good job, team." Jane hit the release, and her line snapped out of her wrist. She lay on her back, gasping for breath. "I think...I think I need a cold one–"
"Remain still, Major."
"Fuckity fucking fuck-fuck!" No points for eloquence, but Jane scrambled to roll away when Janet came down from Above blades-first. They drove into the ground up to her wrists, and Jane made it to one knee, hands up. Why hadn't she recovered her sword?
"I don't want to hurt you!" Jane backed up while the Templar advanced, eyes still violet. "Don't make me!"
"Your loyalty to your allies is noble." The Warlock's gun went off, and Julie screamed. Jane's breath caught, even if she couldn't risk taking her eyes off of Janet. "It will not aid you, child. Death stalks you in this room, as surely as–"
"Why do they have to talk?"
"Hell yes, Commander!" Jane nearly jumped for joy as Fatima flew from the shadows, driving her sword into the Warlock's back. An instant later, there was Bradford, slashing high with Glamdring while Fatima recovered and went low. Jane froze when Janet let out a wail and lunged. "Oh, hell, no!"
Janet swung high. Jane limbo'd under the strike, caught the redhead's wrist on the backswing, and sidestepped an offhand stab. Janet yanked, but Jane kept her grip, twisting the Templar around almost in a full circle to slam her head into a nearby railing.
"Go to sleep!" Jane pulled her back by the helmet to slam her again. "Just take a goddamn nap, Janet!"
"You will not defeat me!" The Warlock skittered backward, and he slammed his hands together. A purple barrier exploded up around him, and Fatima and Bradford both cried out when it physically slammed into them.
And shapes rose from the ground, hissing and fizzing in and out like static.
"They're psionic shades!" At least Julie wasn't dead. She pushed herself to her feet, leaning hard on a low wall with a curved alien design. "Projecting them comes from the same pool of energy he's drawing on to create that shield. Take them out, and–"
"Got it!" Bradford's rifle blazed, and Meysam opened up with the Shadowkeeper.
"Get off me!" Janet's elbow flashed, and Jane retreated. The Templar collapsed to one knee, pausing to hit the release switch on her helmet and throw it down. She massaged her temple.
The veins around her eyes weren't purple any more.
"Are you back?" Jane kept her fists up. "If you're still going 'glory to the Elders' on me, it's still on–"
"He overpowered my defenses. I will be stronger in the future." Janet paused, then grabbed for her autopistol. Jane dove for cover.
Brrap!
"...oh." Jane glanced at the imploding psi-shade behind her, coming apart at the seams while it clutched its head. "Thanks, Ross."
"Did you think I was shooting you?" She pushed herself up, still rubbing her head. "Where is he?"
"Three left!" Meysam worked the bolt on his rifle, lined up, and fired. "Two!"
"Watch it!" Fatima yelped a moment later, when one gave her a flying kick that sent her crashing onto her back. Bradford dove in with Glamdring in both hands, and he battered madly at the spectral lancer's defense.
Until Meysam fired again. Jane scrambled for her gun.
"Last one!" Julie's amp warmed up, and she unleashed a spiraling torrent of energy, one that rippled over the room in sync with her shrill cry. The final lancer howled, staggering as gravity seemed to redouble, ripping at it from all sides at once.
"What are you doing?" The Warlock's shield cracked, and he sprang to his feet, eyes wide. "You cannot–"
"For the Elders!" Janet flung herself on him, blades flashing. The Chosen retreated, covering his face with both arms. Sparks flew when her psi-blades deflected off his armored chest and forearms.
"Your power is hardly enough to–"
"Shut up." Jane pumped her shard gun and hit the trigger in almost the same breath.
"No!" The Warlock didn't manage anything else, though: Jane's first shot punched out the other side of his chest, and before he'd even finished stumbling, she put the second one into him. This one was a bit better aimed, and her entire load of alien alloy projectiles caught him in the smarmy face.
His head exploded into yellow mist.
"That was for David." Jane kicked the body as it fell flat. Her eyes misted up. "You fucking whoreson–"
The body exploded in a flash of purple light. Jane covered her head, yelping as it whirled around her, tugging at her sleeves and hair with little hands of hate.
When it cleared, there was nothing left of the Warlock.
"Did we kill him?" Fatima appeared through the haze, EXO suit whirring. She paused to detach a damaged section of her arm. "Is he dead?"
The obelisk at the end of the room glowed, and violet energy shot over the ceiling like the Northern Lights. Something thrummed deep below their feet: something mechanical and psionic at once, something that just radiated power.
"No." If Jane had made mistakes other times in her life, this time she had no doubts. "We just pissed him off."
"Doctor?" Gallant glared at the wild, insane readings blowing up his display. "Give me good news."
"That device appears to be some sort of psionic capacitor. One that transfers immense amounts of energy directly to the Chosen." Tygan swallowed. "It is restoring the Warlock to health."
"No wonder those things don't die." Gallant ground his teeth.
"With the amount of energy that device is generating, I believe the Warlock could resurrect himself indefinitely." Tygan gave Gallant a very worried look. "I don't think we can outlast him."
"John, do you read?" Gallant glared at the obelisk. "Blow that...thing to pieces."
"Copy, sir."
"Commander, we're picking up readings–"
"The day in a nutshell, Shen: the day in a nutshell." Gallant gave her a hard look. "How bad?"
"Remember those signals to external bases?"
"Wouldn't want your men to get bored while I clean up." The Warlock's voice in Gallant's ear came with that usual hiss of accursed whining feedback, and he swore, clutching at his comm.
"John! You've got..." Gallant swallowed as icons popped up across the holodisplay in little bursts of teleportation energy. "...incoming. Lots of incoming."
"Kelly, Tariq, I want you to blow the crap out of the obelisk!" Bradford's auto-loader whirred, and he unloaded on the first of the sectoids to stream out on the left flank. "Ross, you and Julie take the right side. Meysam!"
"On your six, sir!" Meysam paused to reload his rifle. Mariah's father hadn't been the only man who'd loved her. Seeing her body rent up there before the teleportation pad...
Hiss!
"Oh, shut it!" Meysam bashed the viper in the face with the butt of his rifle. It stumbled, shouting something in snake-alien to its friend.
Its friend, whose pupils dilated at the sight of Meysam's armor.
"Yeah, we killed your god!" He fired from the hip, clipping the braver one on the chin. She tumbled, her entire lower jaw flying, while her friend wailed, diving behind a corner and curling up almost in a ball. Meysam cracked the head of the first, still twitching and trying to rise, and abruptly it was no longer a threat. "You come at me and it'll be your skin I end up wearing too!"
"MECs on the right!" Julie's amp roared, and metal rang hard. "We can hold them!"
"You'd better!" Bradford's tracers ripped over the far side of the metallic floors, punching through half the time rather than ricocheting, and the muton who appeared next took half the burst in his face. Meysam put a shot into his gut when Bradford paused to reload.
His last gauss round.
"Aim for the cracks!" Jane's shard gun roared over by the obelisk, and Fatima's a moment later. "Sir, it's starting to crumble, but it's going to take another minute–"
Blackness burst from a psi-portal, hissing and whizzing through the air in a miniature cloud of nanobots. They washed over toward Meysam, hugging close to the ground as he grabbed for the Shadowkeeper–
"No!" He grabbed at his leg as they sunk into place on it, molding to his flesh. They rose, covering his chest and his arms, spreading out down his arms...
"Spectre!" he cried, in the instant before they drove down his throat.
"Meysam!" Julie swore, ducking as a red MEC leveled its rifle. Hot mag-rounds ripped into the alloy wall she used for cover, punching through and skittering off to ricochet too close to Janet for comfort. "Damn it. This isn't good."
"I am nearly upon you." The Warlock's voice rang through the room, hateful and triumphant. "You have signed your own death warrants coming here."
"Shut your whore mouth!" Julie popped out, firing a solid burst that punched holes in her enemy's shoulder. One went right into its missile launcher, and the MEC beeped and whined unhappily when it tried to fire and nothing came out.
"Richardson, I've got a plan."
"Oh, that's nice, Commander. Took you long enough." Julie yelped, covering her head as the MEC's next barrage came in. "What can I do for you?"
"Shadow Meysam is coming up on your six. He's going to take you from behind."
"He's what–"
"Blow the MEC. I'll take it from there."
"Blow the..." Julie spat. "What do you think I've been trying to do?"
No response. Gallant must have switched channels to talk to someone else. Julie gnashed her teeth.
"Right. Blow the MEC: blow the fucking MEC..." She leaned out, rifle up.
"Fuck!" She came right back as a barrage that would have ripped Mount Rushmore apart nearly decapitated her. "That's not going to happen. I can't..." She glared at her rifle. "I don't have enough punch. I'd need a goddamn missile launcher to..."
Oh.
Julie seized her amp, heedless as the MEC approached the corner, gun upraised. She hit the trigger, feeling outward with her sixth sense...feeling, and feeling, and...and..
She found it. Them.
The MEC loomed over her, leveling its gun. Julie froze.
Then the firing pins of all its missiles clattered out on purple trails, and the MEC paused.
"Woo-hoo!" Julie dove away, rolling on her shoulder as the scarlet robot blew itself into a thousand pieces, hurling shrapnel left and right across the chamber. "That's right! You just got Julie'd, you son of a...a..."
Her eyes fixed on Shadow Meysam, looming over her with his Shadow...Shadowkeeper held in both hands.
"Commander?"
Glamdring cut Shadow Meysam in half from behind, slicing into him at the crown of his head and coming out through his thigh. The nanobots blew apart, and the Spectre across the field made a chittering, clattering sound of dismay.
Right as Janet jumped on it, slicing it into four mini-Spectres.
"On your feet, Julie." Bradford offered his hand, and Julie hesitantly took it. She leaned on him as she fought to keep her balance with her leg burning.
"Thank you, sir."
"There's no need to call me sir–"
Bang! Boom!
"Whoa!" Julie covered her head as the obelisk cracked, the split flying from top to bottom in a heartbeat. Stone chunks fell, and purple light burst out in a wild spray, like a drugged-up disco ball. She had to avert her eyes after a moment.
"I'm hoping that's a good thing." Bradford checked his ammo.
"Yes." Tygan didn't sound as if he could believe it. "The regeneration process has been interrupted. The device is malfunctioning."
Purple glowed, and overpressure blew outward, nearly flinging Julie off her feet again. Bradford held her steady.
"What have you done?" The Warlock staggered, clutching at his head as he returned to the world, eyes wild. "The Elders! The Elders! Angelis! They are all silent! They are...they are..." He let out a tremendous wail, one that echoed to the ceiling and back. "You will pay for this insolence, humans!"
"...I think now would be the right time to fuck him up." Gallant's tone turned hungry. "Target the Warlock with everything you've got."
Jane came in first, with one shot left in her shard gun and no reloads. She didn't waste it yet, instead swinging her gun like a bat to crack the Warlock's cheek. The nine-foot tall bastard staggered, but his hand still shot out like lightning, seizing Jane by the throat. He lifted her up until her toes hung well off the floor.
"You insolent quim, striking at the visage of Angelis' firstborn–"
Bradford's heavy slugs stitched the Warlock's shoulder, and he dropped Jane. Wild light shone in his eyes as he darted...away, flinging himself behind a low wall.
Wild terror.
"Flank him!" Jane drew her sword, keeping it low as she bounded in. Fatima and Janet raced around the other side, sword and autopistol at the ready, and Julie scrambled for high ground. She fairly flew up some kind of maintenance ladder on the far side–
Bang!
"Julie!" Jane swore when red rounds hit the psi-op in the back. She tumbled with a cry...but she was still moving when she landed hard.
"I'll live," she gasped over comms. "Get that son of a bitch, then worry about me!"
"Back away from me, mortals!" The Warlock's hand shot out, and Meysam shrieked. He collapsed, clutching his head and twitching.
Jane sighted and fired. The Warlock cried out when her shots perforated his chest, and the noise he made was far more frightened than angry.
"Now!" Bradford raced in, flinging his rifle aside and reaching for his belt. Jane came in first, boosting herself up over a half-wall with one foot.
"Shit!" Fatima slammed down onto her hands and knees, clutching her temples. "I can't...get out of my head!" She punched the ground hard, eyes going purple as she drew on her own power to fight back. "Get out! Get out!"
Janet dropped, both psi-blades coming out as she slid on her side, rocketing under the Chosen's vicious swipe with pointed talons. She cut his hamstrings in one smooth motion, and the bastard roared, staggering.
Jane leapt in, slicing his chest open as she came down. Her second strike he caught, and he wrenched her sword away almost effortlessly. His foot shot out, and Jane didn't have time to move.
"Fuck!" She flew, nearly going over the edge. She clutched the foot-shaped dent in her chestplate, but it didn't matter. Nothing mattered.
Nothing but the memory of David White, and the face of the bastard who'd killed him.
"You are nothing to me–"
"Shut up!" Jane sprang back in, heedless of her searing injuries, giving the Warlock a wild slug to the face. He stumbled, and Bradford hit him from behind, practically rolling over his shoulder while Janet gave him another slash on the thigh and Jane kicked him in the back of the knee. Bradford whacked the Warlock right in the center of his chest, snarling with concentration.
"Insolent knaves!" The Warlock flung Bradford, and he tumbled away, coming down hard by Fatima. Janet sprang back, covering her head as the Chosen lashed out with fists and the butt of his rifle. Jane pulled back–
"Ah!" She landed on her hands and knees after flying a good four feet. She clutched her cheek. Red dripped from her nose, and it coated the Warlock's gun.
"You are beneath me! You are, all of you, beneath–"
"Do you know how it felt, you son of a bitch?"
That made him turn. All eyes went to John Bradford, standing in the center of the chamber with one hand held high.
The Warlock's eyes widened almost comically as they fixed on the detonator in it. He grabbed at his chest...and the shield-shaped X4 charge fixed to his armor.
Bradford hit the button.
With a titanic report, the X4 detonated. The shaped charge funneled all its force out one side, ripping through alloy armor and genetically enhanced flesh with equal contempt. Gore, hot and steaming and alight with sparking flames, sprayed in a cone for a hundred yards behind the Warlock.
Sprayed from the hole stretching from the base of his neck down to his stomach, punched right through him in an instant's worth of red-hot searing agony.
"That didn't even come close." Bradford lowered his hand as the Warlock's remains collapsed, blowing apart into purple smoke.
The obelisk blared. Energy shot out on all sides, ripping pockmarks and holes in the ceiling and walls.
"What's it doing?" Jane pushed herself up, reclaiming her fallen sword. "Is it coming back to–"
Light slammed down before the obelisk. It seared and flashed, but something was different...something was wrong.
"At last...at long last..." There he came, staggering forward with his chest half-repaired, oozing yellow and red blood alike, skin rent and torn like his mangled and savaged armor. His steps were faltering, his knees buckling, and his voice a twisted wreck of what it had once been. "I hear their voice...I hear it...unobstructed. They are so...so near..." Sucking in breaths and spraying yellow when he exhaled, the Warlock tumbled to his knees, eyes hazed. He choked. "They are everywhere. They are...they are..." That light reappeared in his eyes: searing, pounding terror unlike anything Jane had ever seen before. "They are...they come. They come for me..."
Blue light washed over him from the ankles up, scourging over his legs and boiling up toward his head. He held his arms out wide, and it ran out down his arms and fingers. In its wake he turned stiff, and his skin cracked and grayed, and...and...
The obelisk exploded, spraying the corpse of the Warlock with its remains.
Author's Note 63: One For The Money
There are advantages to taking each Chosen out first, but the Assassin is usually my go-to, because that sword is amazing. It renders its bearer immune to chryssalids if they have Bladestorm, and isn't that just the best thing ever? The Warlock is usually my other first-pick if I didn't get the Assassin, because I just don't like him as much as the others. Lately, "Warlock-Assassin-Hunter" has become my pattern, though that's affected by whom I start paired up with. I'm not averse to killing the Hunter first, but he's absolutely my favorite Chosen and I usually leave him for last on general principles.
Even though that pistol is heavenly. Yeah, he's got a rifle too, but that pistol...
Until next time, Vigilo Confido.