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"The last thing I heard was you whispering 'good-bye'...

And then I heard you flatline..."

~Skillet, Not Gonna Die

Chapter Sixty-six: Instinct

"Alien forces just hit a Haven codenamed 'Humanity Falls', not far from Harbin...hard. There may be survivors, but that's a best-case scenario."

"Central really knows how to set the mood." Meysam couldn't inject much fire into his voice. "How are you holding up, Richardson?"

"I'll live. Ask yourself." She boosted herself over a fallen tree, one hand on her amp. "I miss the Skyranger."

"This would be a lot more convenient." Charlotte hovered at Meysam's left. Her drone buzzed around her head, as if ill at ease. "I hope the Commander knows what he is doing sending us in there directly."

"Someone's got to respond. And Avenger has to be protected as long as she's on the ground."

"I did not say I do not understand, Templar." Charlotte glared at Anne for a long moment. "I said I–"

"Enough." Meysam checked his rifle. "Junior?"

"Thermal is reading multiple signatures ahead. They are a mix of alien and human." The SPARK hummed, as if processing. "I cannot tell how many of the human signatures are Advent."

"Perfect." Meysam jerked his head. "I'll find a sniping position in the trees. Charlotte, Anne, flank Junior as he takes point. Kang and Julie, you are in reserve. We're looking for any civvies we can find–move them back this way and clear the area. Remember we don't have Firebrand on call to pick 'em up this time."

"Of course I'm in the back." Julie's eyes blazed. "Look, just because I was shot–"

"That's not it!"

Meysam would have continued. He would have continued until Julie cut off, because he wasn't in the mood for second-guessing.

What stopped him was the shape vaulting from the darkness.

"Bugs!" He snapped off a shot in a flash, and the chryssalid shrieked, staggering as his mag-round punched into its leg. It skittered, pushing off a tree trunk...and right into Anne's path as her psi-blades came out.

Its second scream echoed through the trees, and birds scattered.

"Go!" Meysam smacked Julie on the shoulder while she was still flinching. "They'll have heard that!"

"Think you just lost the element of surprise." Gallant's voice hardened quickly. "No more screwing around, Menace. There are lives on the line."

"For every failure, there is a second chance."

"Mercy...please..." The human pushed back on all fours, cradling her infant in her arms. Blood painted her cheek: sprayed there when her mate had tried to protect her, and the inevitable had happened in a flash.

"Where my brother failed was in underestimating the nature of his enemies. Thinking himself superior for his ideology."

The infant wailed. It was perhaps four, and there was no understanding in its desperate screams. How had this frail species evolved past the primitive stage, when their young created so much racket to attract predators?

"Now I am his second chance. Ideological conflict is not in my nature, so I am hardly torn by the riven split between one camp and another."

"Don't hurt me...don't hurt him..." The mother's eyes hazed with tears. "Please. Mercy."

"Mercy?" What a strange concept. Dutiful consideration was mandatory. "I fail to see the reason. Are you attempting to engender sympathy through a display of frailty? I see no benefit to me from this arrangement. You have what I need."

"Please...please..."

"Ideological conflict is not in my nature. It matters little to me what belief system takes precedence over the others. I am one thing above all else, and I can honestly say I do it best."

The mother covered her infant with her body, and that was enough to turn away her first grab. She scowled.

The mother choked when four feet of ethereal steel drove into the base of her spine, severing vertebrae in a single stab.

"I am a living weapon." The Assassin ripped the blade free out the mother's flank, and she stepped over the growing pool of blood. The infant wailed louder: if it lacked comprehension, it still certainly understood something traumatic was happening. "I am the greatest weapon ever forged by hands Earthly or Elder." She loomed over the child, red-dripping sword in hand. "And a weapon has only one purpose."

The infant screamed.

"I don't like this."

"Really, John? I thought it looked like Disneyworld on Spring Break." Gallant scowled. "Talk to me, Menace. Tell me you've got life signs and things are moving along."

"We're almost to the edge of the camp." At least Meysam had his head on his shoulders. "No contact yet."

"Keep me posted." Gallant scowled even harder. "Fuck."

"No contact is...bad?" Shen blinked.

"Damn right it is, Chief: no contact means those bastards are still shooting at civvies. If they're gonna shoot at someone, they should shoot at those of us who shoot back. Fucking cowards." If he'd had the ability, Gallant would have seized a rifle and marched out that very moment. "I don't like bullies who are too scared to pick on people their own size."

"Should we have sent Kelly?" Bradford glanced over his shoulder. "She's the best we've got."

"Which is why we need her and the rest of the detail protecting the Avenger. Until Firebrand's got wings again, we can't take any risks with dropping people in." He paused. "Menace?"

"Still nothing, Mother Hen." Julie chuckled a little nervously. "How's that for a codename?"

"Not funny. Don't give me shit now, of all times."

"Sorry, sir. I was just–"

"Julie!" Bradford clenched the railing when her scream echoed through the comms. His knuckles turned white. "What the hell just happened?"

One moment, Julie was hurrying over cracked and broken ground thrown up in sprays by a harsh swarm of footfalls. Her boots came down in dark patches of hard dirt and mud rent by bullet impacts and fallen casings that she kicked aside by the dozen. Sweat trickled through her hair and down her cheeks, and she'd had to pause to wipe at her forehead with the back of her hand.

Then the world upended.

"Julie!" That was Bradford, a world away or something like it, barely audible over her own scream. Julie covered her face with her rifle, and in the nick of time too: the chryssalid that burst up from the ground under her feet snapped its jaws on the weapon instead of her neck.

"Shit!" Julie screamed again when its talons sunk into her shoulder plating. Thank God, but they didn't penetrate.

The animal hauled, chittering triumph. It yanked the gun away–

Julie's shoulder strap went taut.

"No!" She staggered, then lost her footing as the beast whirled her around by the strap and her shoulders both. It slung her practically over its shoulder, and she came to a harsh stop in midair. The strap bit into her throat, and she grabbed at her neck in the instant before the chryssalid threw her on the ground.

She lunged left when it dove for her, scrabbling in the dirt. Bradford was roaring in her ear, Gallant was shouting orders...who the fuck cared? Julie had to roll again to avoid the chryssalid's foot as it stabbed...and then it yanked on her gun again, dragging her back into range.

"Got it!" Julie hit the strap release, and she threw herself away from those jaws as they snapped for her leg. She scrambled to all fours, grabbing for her amp.

"Julie!" Anne raced her way, psi-blades out...and the ground beneath her exploded upward as another one vaulted onto her, tackling her hard into a tree.

"It's a trap!" Charlotte screamed, right before another one lunged at her. It flipped her in pancake-fashion, slamming the Parisian blonde down on her back. Charlotte howled when it drove one pointed leg into her thigh, effectively nailing her in place.

"No!" Julie got her amp out, and she hit the trigger, drawing on the psionic fields around her. A ball of purple energy popped into her hand with a whine and hum. "Melt, you bitch!"

The chryssalid over Charlotte recoiled when violet light drove knives into all of its eight eyes. It staggered, clutching its head and wailing, snapping blindly at anything that came by.

"Oh, fuck!" Julie couldn't stop her own chryssalid from grabbing her amp, but she was able to duck out of the way before the animal completed the assault. She grabbed a rock on instinct, flinging it into the monster's mouth.

It bit the stone in half without pausing.

Bang! Meysam's sniper rifle went off, and with a clattering roar Kang's mag-cannon joined the assault. More chryssalids burst from the earth, and Julie had to throw herself flat when another popped up behind her. It slammed into the first, and they went down in a tangle, biting and clawing at each other in a mad frenzy. Yellow blood sprayed.

"Jesus Christ!" Julie recovered amp and rifle, and she put a burst into the feuding pair. Both went down, still thrashing even with their heads blown to pieces. "Charlotte? Anne?"

"Alive!" Anne decapitated one, then covered herself as its body continued to attack for a full minute, spraying gore from the stump.

Zap! Charlotte's drone hit the one pinning her with a jolt of electricity, and she scrambled over to her rifle before it could recover. She finished it in two shots.

"My leg..." She lapsed into French for a long moment, and even with what little instruction Sylvie had passed on, Julie had to wince. "I don't think I can stand!"

"Stay there!" Meysam fired again, though Julie couldn't see at what. "Junior, Kang, push forward into the center. Anne, cover Charlotte and get her to a good firing position!"

"Mama?"

"Huh?" Julie spun. "Finally! Someone's alive!" She adjusted her strap, then hurried across the chryssalid corpses for the sheet metal door of the nearest shack, hanging limply on one hinge. "Over here. Come to me."

The little boy didn't move. He sat on the floor, wailing, tears streaming down his cheeks. He tugged at his leg, half-hidden behind an overturned table.

"Oh. You're hurt." Julie pushed her way inside, gun up on general principles. "Stay calm. It's okay." She winced: this boy had good lungs. "Just...just quiet down..."

"Julie?"

"Oh, Central." She keyed her com. "Sir, I found a survivor. Can't be more than three or four years old."

"Get him and get out. We're not reading many life signs down there." Now it was Gallant. "Most of this camp looks like it's been wiped out."

"Sir, I'm not leaving as long as there's even one potential survivor left..." Julie swallowed. "Jeez. I hope that wasn't his father I just stepped over. Nearly cut in half." Her stomach did a flip.

"That's not a request, Julie! Get the boy and move to exfiltrate: sensors are picking up a whole lot more heat signatures in the ground. This camp is a lost cause."

"Say again, Avenger?"

"Don't pull this fucking bullshit–"

"Sorry. Having trouble reading you. Must be interference in the building." Julie rounded the table, dropping her hand from her comm to reach for the boy. "Come on. Let me see what's got you pinned..."

There were three things that caught her attention, and they presented themselves in quite orderly fashion.

One: there was indeed an object pinning the child, driven into his foot like a nail.

Two: there was a woman's body lying past him, but she was wrong: nearly rent apart like the man, yes, but her skin bubbled and bulged, tinted sickly yellow and green and twitching in the most horrendous ways.

Three: the object driven into the boy's foot was a knife. A very familiar knife.

"What in God's–"

The corpse burst, and Julie snapped her gun up as a half-dozen miniature forms burst out of it in sprays of yellow goop and red blood. Two of them fell on each other in a flash, but the others, still dripping with whatever slime they'd incubated in, started forward at a dead run, as if instinctively drawn toward prey. Julie got a shot off, and it punched right into the chest of the beagle-sized chryssalid she bore on.

Then...it hit her from behind.

"Ah!" Julie staggered when a hand seized her hair. Something hard drove into her ribs, and she choked. Her assailant used it for leverage, flipping Julie over onto her face hard enough her nose broke from impact. The world went red, then white, before slowly starting to seep back together.

"I believe we have met, child." The Assassin ripped her knife free from the toddler's foot, and she grabbed Julie by the throat with her free hand. She slammed her against the nearest wall, and the world tinted up again. The building rattled dangerously. "Jane Kelly isn't here to save you this time, is she?"

"Julie!" Bradford grabbed for the canister with his rifle. Wild terror glinted in his eyes: primal and deep and altogether torn up. "Someone get over there before the Assassin takes her!"

"John!" Gallant whacked him with his cane, and then his attention was back on the holodisplay. "Life signs?"

"Sir, we're picking up multiple thermal signatures holed up further in." The tech bit his lip. "Right through the main body of that...nest."

"Then that's our target."

"Sir, Julie–"

"Is a goddamn professional, Central!" Gallant hissed through his teeth. "Let me make the goddamn decisions or get the fuck off my bridge and stay that way."

Bradford gripped the rail even harder: so hard it should have bent. But he bit his tongue, too, and Gallant went right back to action planning.

"Junior, armored fist down the main avenue. Punch through to the civilians and escort them out! Meysam, Kang, cover him and provide assistance. Charlotte, update?"

"I can..." She broke off to hiss and yelp. "I can stand. I can walk...I think. I cannot fight."

"Move to the woods. Stand by to cover the civvies as they return with Menace. Lawrence!"

"Commander?"

"Flank around the east side while the enemy's attention is on Junior. If they stall out, you're the civvies' only hope."

"I will see it done."

"Someone get Dragunova and Mox moving that way. God knows if they'll make it in time, but they're the closest guard unit."

"Sir!" Shen keyed her comm. "Outrider, do you read?"

"And Julie?" Bradford's eye twitched.

Gallant let out a long breath. "Charlotte, you still there?"

"Lock down this intersection!" Meysam fired the Shadowkeeper two-handed, and mag-tracers ripped into the first chryssalid to lunge his way. It staggered...and Junior's fist drove into its head, sheathed by a glowing shield.

"I will keep it secure." Junior threw the corpse aside, heedless as the bugs lunged his way, slashing with hardened talons. His helix cannon whirled as it warmed up, and quick bursts punched through their exoskeletons as easily as if they were merely terrestrial beetles. "Multiple hostiles engaged."

"This is a slaughter!" Kang raced into it anyway, unloading at full auto. His tracers were their guiding star, and Meysam hurried to follow them, picking off anything his barrage left on its four hateful pincered feet.

"Makes you wish for the attack back in Syria, huh?" He paused to stick fresh munitions into the gun. "Stupid ancient piece of..." He kicked the still-thrashing upper half of a chryssalid Kang's fire had cut in two, then put the pistol to its head and pulled the trigger.

"Well, I guess it's not all bad..." He passed the shredded corpse, throat very dry.

"Menace, this is Central." The old man did not sound happy. Was Meysam going to be the new Mariah? There was a thought. "We're reading movement underneath you. Watch your step!"

"Kang!" Meysam jerked his head at the road leading up to what looked like an oversized barn. "Check for traps."

"With pleasure!" He drew his detection device, primed it, and hit the trigger.

Ka-boom!

"Again!" Meysam waited while plasma energy ripped up the field, blowing outward from the crater in a tremendous emerald surge of overpressure. Chryssalid parts flew with the spreading shockwave, and Meysam sighted in on one, missing an arm, as it tried to pull itself out of the dirt and charge.

Bang! Before the body had even tumbled, Kang pitched another grenade further down the path. It clattered down, and...

Boom!

"Hold your fire, boys!"

"Anne!" Meysam put his eye to the scope again as she appeared from ahead, tearing across the field with psi-blades out. He picked off a chryssalid that lunged for her feet, and Kang hosed a pair that tried to cut her off. Her own blades rent a pair of adolescents that went for her knees, and then she reached the barn door.

"Move!" she cried, kicking them open. "Back to the west! All of you, before more come up!"

"Avenger, we have visual on the civvies." Meysam paused to kill another bug. "I make at least thirty of them."

"Roger that, Menace. Cover them on the return route."

"Right. Cover thirty people...there's four of us, counting Junior..." Meysam checked his ammo. "And I'm on my last clip for the rifle. Fucking lovely." He hissed between his teeth. "Where the hell is Julie?"

"...bitch..." The world swam in and out, and Julie shook her head to try and clear it. "What happened?"

"Remain still, child." The Assassin! The hand on her throat!

"Shit!" Julie sucked in breath as the bitch–the awful bitch–reached out and put a hand on her cheek. Julie grabbed at her wrist, but...but...

Purple seared into her head, blotting out her vision. She yelped, lashing out with her feet while she pried. Had the Assassin's hand fused with her cheek? It felt like it...it burned and boiled, and tendrils dug underneath into her psionically-enhanced neurons.

Memories. She sifted through them methodically, discarding childhood memories of Arlington, from birth to watching the Pentagon reduced to rubble. She threw Julie's time in the wild with Bradford and Aunt Penny to the wolves, poking specifically for coordinates: flight paths, landing zones, distinctive features traceable by satellite...

"You won't..." Julie tried to bite her hand, but she couldn't. Everything was hazy and indistinct...even the baby chryssalids circling her legs, held in check by some instinctive or psionic fear of the Assassin. "You won't get anything out of me!" Her nails dug into her palms, and she fought to close her mind. "You can go...go and suck your brother's..."

"My. You are a feisty one, aren't you?" She sounded amused: amused, as she tore through Julie and Sylvie's accidental courtship, lip curling a little further with every memory. "What a pointless life you lead. You do what remains of your race a disservice, Julia Richardson, by your knowing decision to sacrifice the potential for procreation in the name of sexual pleasure–"

Zap!

"Charley!" Julie could move: she could move when the Parisian's GREMLIN unloaded volts into the Assassin's tentacle-hair. Getting out of the witch's grip required that she use her head, and so she did. And the Chosen's blue nose cracked so nicely that Julie couldn't resist doing it again. "Merci beaucoup!"

She broke the Assassin's grip, and Julie crashed on her side, rolling away in the heartbeat before a sword could nail her down by the throat. The blade flashed up on the rebound, and Charlotte's drone let out a sparking wail as lost two stabilizers at the same time. She herself was nowhere to be seen, and the GREMLIN tumbled to the floor, hissing and beeping.

The baby chryssalids swarmed past it, shrieking and calling.

"No!" Julie grabbed the upended table, and with the strength of adrenaline and hate she flipped it over again. It came down hard on one of the four little monsters, landing hard enough to break its fragile head. It continued to twitch, even as its siblings came on.

"Ow!" One bit through her thigh plate, and Julie seized her fallen rifle, using its butt to break the adolescent from above. She fired on the third, and the one round that hit it was the size of its entire head. The results were nothing short of gruesome.

Her leg twinged. Something hot tingled in her bloodstream: something personal and agonizing.

"Shit!" Julie staggered, catching herself on the wall. She pushed up, trying to convince the limb to bear her weight–

"No!" She covered her face when the fourth baby vaulted on her from the table, hitting on her shoulders. Its mass was enough to tip her over, and she hit the ground hard, unable to even break her fall as the devilish creature snapped at her cheeks. Saliva and venom sprayed her face, and drops went into her eye. It burned: burned in a deeply personal way that implied very bad things.

Then she forgot about her eye, because the chryssalid ripped at her chest plate, carving great slices in her armor. Its talons got through, ripping her stomach and higher, and they came out red even as Julie shrieked. Her world was pain: pain and wild action as she grabbed for the chryssalid's limbs and jaws.

"Kill!" The Assassin watched, a hand on the hilt of her blade. She bared her teeth. "Kill! Kill!"

"No!" Was that Julie's imagination, the flash image of Sylvie popping up behind her eyes?

The chryssalid lunged. Julie grabbed for its mandibles one-handed, blood trickling over her from a dozen wounds, driven on by a boiling will to live that–

She missed. Those mandibles came down on her throat.

"Fuck you!" Julie's fingers wrapped around her fallen amp, and she used it to break the chryssalid with one strike. It crashed, skittering just like the older ones had even with its head dented to half its usual size.

"Feisty is an understatement." And then she came on, sword flashing. Julie screamed as fire lit up her back from shoulder to hip. Something hot sprayed, and she tumbled.

Amp still in hand. Julie hit the trigger.

"That won't save you!" The Assassin lunged, sword high overhead. Julie spun, still holding the trigger.

The Assassin's blade came down right on the wild orb of purple psi-light she held up.

Overpressure blew outward both ways: hot and stinging and smelling of lilacs. Julie tumbled head over heels, barely covering her head before she came down on the still-twitching chryssalid corpses. Her elbow crunched a head into paste, coming up dripping yellow.

And when the light faded from her burned, traumatized eyes...

"...fuck." Julie dropped her head to the floor, sucking in great gasping breaths. "She's gone. She's gone. She's fucking gone."

Breathing was hard. Everything hurt. It took all Julie's strength just to get to her hands and knees, coughing and spitting up on the corpses littered through the shack.

"Central?" Fingers shaking, she found her comm, knuckle-deep in yellow gore. She thrust it into her ear anyway. "Avenger? Anyone?"

"Julie!" Was Bradford...afraid? "You're alive!"

"So...so far." She pushed, and she arduously made it to her feet. "I think. If I was dead, I wouldn't hurt this much, would I?"

"Get your ass falling back, now!" Gallant, as usual, had no time for shit. "We're abandoning the area. We've recovered everyone still alive except you."

"Oh. Right." Julie claimed her rifle, leaving the parts of her amp to hiss purple steam for God alone knew how long. "I'll just..."

She paused.

"...oh." She swallowed. "Hey."

He was still crying, clutching his foot and wailing. If there were words in there, they weren't in any language Julie even recognized...but there was certainly distress, and he was certainly alive.

"Come on." Julie extended a hand, barely even noticing how stained and shaky it was. "It's time to go." He stared at her, and she swallowed. "They're coming: more of them. You need to come with me." She eased forward, hand outstretched. "We need to go."

He blinked slowly.

"Julie, where the hell are you?"

"Just a minute more." She inched a little closer. "Take my hand. It's all going to come right. I promise."

There wasn't silence. Too much was burning, too many bugs were still twitching, and too many people were shouting westward for that to ever happen. Julie bit her lip, though, because the child didn't respond.

Until he reached out and took her hand.

"That's it." Julie struggled to stand, but sweeping his little weight up in her arms wasn't nearly as herculean of a task. "Just stay right there, okay? Let me get you through this. You're safe now.

"You're safe."

Author's Note 66: Number Of The Beasts

Chryssalids get creepier the more you think about them. They have to be the object of nightmares for the entire resistance movement, and XCOM in particular. I won't even cite evidence...just...yeesh.

I often, in the first game, encountered terror missions that were chock full of chryssalids and nothing else. Usually at least once per playthrough. In XCOM 2, that hasn't happened as often, but I couldn't let the opportunity to show how devastating a swarm could be pass by.

Until next time, Vigilo Confido.