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"Everyone's chasing, that holy feeling,

And if we don't stay lit, we'll blow out..."

~P!nk, Beautiful Trauma

Chapter Sixty-nine: Cold Truths

"What have you done to her?" Mox didn't dare reach for his bullpup, not with the Hunter's pistol pointed right between his eyes. He raised his hands to shoulder-level. "Liang!"

"She'll be fine. It's just a tranquilizer." The Hunter shrugged. "Believe it or not, casual murder isn't my thing. There's no sport in it."

"You killed Mariah." Mox narrowed his eyes. "Mercy seems out of character for you."

Something flickered over the Hunter's face. "There's no sport in throwing meat to the beasts either." He huffed, shifting his weight. "I didn't do it for her."

Mox frowned. Something about his attitude... "You do not have to answer to Angelis. You need only look at me for proof."

"Ha!" The Hunter rolled his eyes. "I'm not some sycophantic Skirmisher in the wings, deserter. What binds me to Angelis is deeper and more intense than some neural chip as with you. She's my mother." His lip curled. "As if you would understand what that means."

"You..." Mox tried very hard not to think about what was behind him. He didn't succeed: that white pod sat right beside the Hunter and directly in his field of vision, and the thought of what could be in it...

He did his best to rally himself. "Angelis is a false goddess and a liar. She will use you to your fullest potential and discard you when she no longer requires you. You are a pet, not a son."

"Of course." His pointed teeth glinted in the light. "But she's not as smart as she thinks she is. If you didn't agree, you wouldn't be here."

"You have the chance to–"

"I have the chance to make this world mine, and who knows what comes then?" He chuckled. "Maybe I'll turn it into a game reserve. Import species from across the universe and test myself against them at my leisure..."

Liang was still on the ground, clutching at her neck and moaning. Whatever the Hunter had put in her system, it was strong. Mox fought the urge to rush to her side.

"But for now?" The Hunter's attention returned, and his smile broadened. "For now, I have a job to do. It was a good effort, but I'm the best there is."

"Our Commander would beg to differ."

"Your Commander is a cripple and a fool. I am neither." Anger roiled in the Hunter's voice, building with every syllable. "He lost a war with the resources of an entire planet behind him! I am winning this one with nothing but my rifle and–"

Mox fired his grapple, and it latched onto the Hunter's shoulder. He yanked, hauling his enemy off-balance. The revolver in the Hunter's hand went off, and its shot plowed into the alloy wall and right through, arcing away toward the far horizon. Mox lunged, ripjack out, and he slashed high–

The pistol's muzzle appeared between his eyes.

Boom!

"Nothing to say?" Jane kept her shard gun trained on Matthew Kipler, where he seemed intent on trying to melt into the corner of his darkened office. He winced, turning his eyes away from her attached torch's glow. "And here I thought we were both in the officer's club."

"It would be you, wouldn't it?" Finally, he pushed off from the wall, raising his hands very reasonably. "Hello, Captain Kelly."

Jane's finger tightened on the trigger. "Major."

"Oh, you've been promoted." Kipler smiled, surprisingly genially. "Congratulations, then. May I pour you a drink?"

"What's on your computer?"

"Files."

"This facility?"

"I'm sure the rest of your team will find out."

"You're not giving me an incentive to leave you alive."

Kipler chuckled. "Is there really any chance of that?"

"Maybe..." Jane ground her teeth. "You're a traitor."

"To what? A band of renegade outlaws? Terrorists ripping apart the peaceful fabric of the world that is in the name of an ideological dream that will never exist again?"

"Advent is a lie!" Jane scowled. "Your precious peaceful world order abducts innocents and liquidates them in the name of Angelis' twisted visions."

"Major...Jane..." Kipler sighed. "Things are not perfect. They never will be perfect. This world you cling to like a child with her teddy bear was a raucous, twisted place full of violence and anarchy, riven by sexism, racial disdain, and greed. Advent has its downsides, but the world enjoys peace and prosperity unlike anything before in human history."

"But it lacks freedom."

"What would you do with it if you had it?" Kipler looked nonplussed. "The Elders put an end to an era you were too young to remember the sins of. There was order, stability, peace...until Gallant betrayed the Elders, turning on them with his army of floating renegades like you. He sacrificed Mariah easily enough. It'll be your turn soon."

"Don't you dare speak her name!" Later, Jane would wish she'd given in to her red vision and pulled the trigger then and there.

"Jane, Advent is not your enemy. They are this world's true guardians."

"Switzerland." She hissed through her teeth.

"Sometimes, sacrifices must be made for the security of the many."

"That's not what I believe. That's not what any of us believe. You've sold out, Doctor."

"Advent won the war. What, pray tell, would you have expected me to do? I am not a military man. I have a realistic understanding of what is what."

"You're a coward, bending the knee to the occupiers in as dramatic a fashion as Petain ever did in Vichy." Even in the charged moment, Jane relished a little spark of pride: that was humanity's true history, and she knew enough to invoke it. That, in and of itself, was a shot across the Elders' bow. "You should have taken up arms for your people, like Tygan, or Shen, or Bradford. Like James and Irina and the rest of my friends."

"The ones who died in Ireland?" Something glittered in Kipler's eyes: something Jane didn't like at all.

"Murdered. By your precious Advent." Jane's lip curled. "I don't care that you weren't involved. This is vengeance for–"

"Do you want to know who killed your friends?"

Jane's breath caught. "You...you don't..."

"I know exactly what happened." That was victory in his smug, self-satisfied voice, but Jane couldn't muster enough to be angry. Not compared to... "I know on whose shoulders their blood is stained."

Jane nearly shoved her shard gun into his face. "Who? Give me a name!"

"A very high-ranking Advent officer. One of their greatest soldiers: responsible for more human carnage and suffering than a dozen lesser commanders put together."

"I didn't ask for a fucking editorial." Whatever she said, her mind pinballed between Hunter and Assassin for a long minute. She couldn't decide. What if he said it was Mox? That didn't make sense. That would be a lie. It would have to be. "I asked for a name."

"Angelis' right hand. Her secret weapon, without whom her conquest of Earth and the formation of Advent would have been impossible. Without whom, the Old World would have stood a chance of defeating the Elders' minions in the scattered rebellions of the 2020s."

"A name!" Jane's voice echoed from the far corners, bounding and rebounding off harsh walls. "Give me a bloody name, you son of a bitch!"

Kipler's eyes glittered again: so sinisterly that Jane hesitated. His lips twitched.

"Edward Gallant."

"Open channels." Edward Gallant watched the icons on the holodisplay, each one flickering in and out as data popped up in small batches from stealth transmissions. "Things have already gone loud. We need to coordinate our forces."

"Sir." Shen bent over her comm station, and she quickly typed both human and alien characters on the display. After a moment, she gave him a thumb's up.

"Menace, this is Avenger." Gallant shifted his weight, muttering unkindness about the powers that be and codenames. "You have been compromised. I repeat–"

"No shit, sir!" Cameron's icon dove out of the way as the sectopod emerging from the river unloaded from its top-mounted anti-personnel cannon, spraying the dirt and trees with hot mag-rounds. "We've got armor pushing in from the water line and infantry holed up landward. We're caught in a fucking crossfire–"

"Pull yourself together, Moose!" Bradford slammed a fist on the railing. "We're working on it!"

"The aliens used those to defeat most of Earth's conventional forces." Shen glared at the sectopod's icon. "It chews through armor and infantry alike, and its plating is too thick for us to take head-on."

"Julian?" Gallant leaned hard on his cane.

"This unit appears more advanced than the one I maintained in the tower." The AI spent a moment presumably running calculations. "It is possible Menace might be able to damage the armored unit's sensors and stall it, but there is little chance anything short of heavy weapons will shred its plate."

"Understood. We need Liang, then." Gallant nodded to Bradford, and the XO took up the task of managing the courtyard battle for a minute. While Cameron, Sylvie, and Dragunova sprinted and dove for cover under Advent mag-fire, Gallant's attention went elsewhere. "Mox? Liang?"

"Fuck!" That was Sylvie, and her icon nearly cannonballed into the river as the sectopod burst, unleashing a titanic red wave that ripped a huge trough through the earth. Grass ignited on all sides, metal slagged and flew in shrapnel-shards and lava trails, and vehicles caught by the shot exploded, adding to the carnage. The Advent infantry let out a ragged cheer...and Dragunova shot one while he was distracted.

"Mox?" Gallant glared at the distorted icons in the facility, just a short distance from the fight. "Dammit, Mox! Are you dead?" He bit his lip. "Somebody talk to me!"

Mox cried out as the Hunter's shot went into his bicep, punching right through his armor and out the other side of his arm. It hurt, and it bled...but it was only a flesh wound, and his arm still responded when he flung his ripjack forward, driving the blades into the Hunter's forearm and shoving his gun out of the way.

"You are irritatingly competent!" The Hunter blocked when Mox swung with his bullpup, and caught the gun by the muzzle when Mox leveled it one-handed. He hit the trigger, but the Hunter shoved the gun off to the side. Hot orange mag-rounds raced out, hitting the walls and ricocheting around the room before punching into pods and storage containers, shattering computers and data storage systems.

Magnetic gun-flashes brightened the room, reflecting in the Hunter's eyes.

"I can't help but feel like we've done this before." His foot flashed out, driving hard into Mox's chest, and the blow was harsh enough his bullpup strap snapped rather than bring the gun with him. He hit the white pod hard enough it dented and beeped angrily, and the world tilted crazily as he slid to the ground.

His ribs were on fire. There was no foot-shaped indentation in his armor, for which Mox thanked whatever gods were real, but he still struggled to rise.

"Oh, right! We have!" Something cracked dangerously, and Mox shoved up to his feet–

Something sharp drove into the base of his neck, right at the joint between armor and helmet. He ground to a halt, ripjack half-up.

Everything...was suddenly very hazy...

"Korea, was it?" The Hunter lazily holstered his pistol as Mox collapsed hard on his side. Mox clawed at the floor, but everything was spinning, and his limbs were lead, and...and, and... "Or China? I can never keep them straight." The Hunter knelt over him, clucking his tongue. "You were lucky, traitor. Lucky that little Mariah was too stupid to know better than to blow up her own teammates."

"Go...to..." Mox pointed between the Hunter's eyes, even if it cost him all his strength. The Chosen laughed.

"I admire your bravery, but defiance will win you no favors." His hand glowed purple, and he reached for Mox's forehead. "Let's see what you know about–"

Mox fired his grapnel line.

"What in–" That was all the Hunter got out before the line wrapped around his neck like a noose, and Mox hauled for all he was worth. The Hunter flailed, clutching at the cable.

"You..." He choked, but his grip was strong and Mox was weak. He yanked hard enough Mox shifted six inches, and that gave him the clearance he needed to suck in a breath. "I'm actually impressed. No one has ever done that before." His lip curled. "No one shall ever do that again–"

Something bounced off the back of his head. The Hunter paused. Mox hit the release on his grapnel, rolling as far away as he could.

The incindiary grenade blew up in a titanic blast of blue-tinged flame, scouring the floor and the walls and setting into the Hunter's clothes. He shrieked, beating at himself as his purple skin blackened and charred. He staggered out of the fire, howling as his hood burned like a beacon.

Da-Xia Liang's mag-cannon went off at point-blank range, even as Mox tried to find the dart embedded in his neck. Yellow gore sprayed his armor, and the Hunter's screaming abruptly stopped. Did he look surprised?

He exploded into purple mist, and his equipment too. It vanished with something like a pop, nearly obscured by the fire, and Mox let his head thump back down onto the floor.

"Get up!" Liang knelt over him, and she ripped the dart out in an instant. Mox gasped for air. "I said up, you idiot! There will be more of them." She shoved his bullpup back into his grip.

"Right. You are right." Clarity came back in drenching waves. Mox accepted Liang's hand when she offered it. "I owe you a debt."

"You saved my tail a good bit in Novosibirsk."

"You came to rescue me in India. We were already even." Mox checked his arm. "It bleeds, but it is not an impairment."

"Good." Liang carefully circled the pool of fire still crackling on the pristine floor. She frowned, then keyed her comm. "Commander?"

"What?" Mox checked his comm. "Oh." He flicked it to the on position. "Commander. We are alive."

"Thanks for the information." Mox could almost hear his scowl. "Cameron, Sylvie, and Dragunova are caught up in a firefight with a sectopod in the main courtyard. They need backup."

"We are on our way." Mox nodded firmly. He started for the door.

"One minute." Liang hurried to the white canister. "Data files mentioned something about a Specimen Thirteen stored in this room. I'm guessing it's in here."

"Make it quick." Gallant didn't sound happy. "Things are going to shit, and Kelly's not responding."

"Understood." Liang grabbed the release switch, and she tugged. Mox waited, ready in case soldiers poured in.

The pod opened.

"What the..." Bradford sucked in breath as it finished sliding out, and a large, bulky shape slumped in containment. It had no hands, no feet, no identifying features of any kind...everything was wrapped in some kind of armored suit, concealing it from head to toe in drab gray. "That's just...just like the one we found the Commander in–"

"Be careful!" Tygan's voice overrode everything else, and Mox lunged as the shape slipped and tumbled. He caught one arm and Liang the other, and they fought to keep it from hitting the floor head-first. "Preserve the specimen at all costs! It could be critical to our understanding of this place's function."

"Am I to understand you want Menace to bring it back?" Gallant sounded a bit bemused. "We collect the best souvenirs..."

"As you wish." Mox tugged, and he pulled the clunky suit over onto his shoulder. Liang helped him ease it into position and settle the weight. Either the suit was very heavy or what was inside was a lot denser than it looked, because he struggled to stay on his feet with it slung over his shoulder.

"Excellent." Gallant was back to business now, and Mox hoped that meant things weren't going too badly for Dragunova and the others. "Move toward the courtyard. Mox, stay back and keep the package out of the line of fire. Central will notify local elements of your impending extraction." He hesitated. "Major Kelly, where the hell are you?"

"You're lying." Jane glared at Kipler, again tempted to blow him apart and go hunting for a beer. "Gallant fought the aliens to the end."

"You were there when Bradford found him in Paris. Did he look like he was fighting them?" Kipler raised an eyebrow.

"He was a prisoner."

"A prisoner they kept alive for twenty years, in stasis?" Kipler shook his head. "The greatest enemy they've ever fought? The one who nearly unseated their entire invasion and who was humanity's last, best hope of fighting back? They liquidated his family and everyone else who would dare challenge them, Jane: you know this better than most. Why keep a man so dangerous to their ends alive...unless they were making use of him?"

"They...they could..." That made sense. That made all too much sense. "...no. No!" She swallowed on a dry throat. "You're lying. You're fucking lying like the fucker you are! Trying to drive wedges between us, and I won't...I can't..."

"Advent forces utilize a psionic network. I was privy to this when I was in Gallant's counsel. Richard can confirm that for you, if you don't believe me. This network was structured around Paris, and its function as a military communications hub. The nerve center, if you will, of their entire command structure. And at the highest level of their authority..."

"Stop...stop lying to me..." James...Obsidian...Irina wasn't dead, but her prosthetic arm and leg and her scars and...

"Don't take my word for it. Have you bothered to read Commander Gallant's file? Do you even have access to it?" Kipler waited politely, but when Jane couldn't muster a response, he laughed softly. "It's all there, on your precious ship. I'm not telling you anything you can't verify on your own. Why do you think you've been so successful against Advent since Gallant joined the Resistance?"

"He's a good commander."

"Many of your successes have come without his intervention. In more ways than one: Advent's forces have lost their tactical edge, haven't they? They were far more dangerous and capable in Ireland than these last few months."

"They..." This made too much sense.

He was lying. It was all lies, it had to be. The Commander wouldn't...he couldn't...

"Major Kelly, where the hell are you?" That was him, faintly in her ear. Jane didn't reach for her comm. In fact, she lowered her shard gun just a bit, contemplating the end of it very seriously.

"You're a pawn to him, Jane. No different than how Angelis views one of her grunts." Kipler clucked his tongue. "He destroyed your world, and he's never had the courage to own up to it. What does that say about him?"

"It...it doesn't..."

Faintly, explosions rang through the halls. They echoed off the dark places in the room and Jane's soul, rebounding inside her consciousness.

"Jane?" His rasping voice, right in her ear. Had he really...could he have... "Tell me nothing's gone to shit, Kelly."

"He is the reason your world ended in fire." Kipler inhaled. "Bear that in mind."

"I...I will." Jane couldn't...she could barely think... "Good-bye, Doctor."

"I knew you'd see reason." He beamed. "We'll meet again–"

Blam!

Even with everything above his waist and below his neck disintegrated into red mist, Kipler's severed head was still smiling long after it hit the floor.

"Get down!" Cameron tackled Sylvie, and they crashed behind a patch of rubble flung up from something exploding with a lot more violence than it should have. An instant later, mag-rounds stitched the ground around them, flinging dirt and dust and chaotic sprays of angry metal rent from the barricade by stuttering impacts. Something hot trickled down Cameron's cheek, and he wiped it away, cursing the stupid river.

His hand came away red. Oh. It hadn't even hurt.

"Get off me!" Sylvie scrambled out from under him, and she fired on full auto, unloading her entire clip in one titanic burst of magnetic acceleration. Cameron swore, popping up with rifle at the ready.

"You're not going to get through its armor!" He sighted in, and his scope brought him eye-to-eye with the sectopod's glowing red frontal exhaust port. "That thing could probably take a hit from a plasma cannon–"

"Do something, then!" Sylvie discarded her empty mag, skittering away for the next patch of cover. Without reaching for her amp, she flicked her hand sharply, and an Adventer sneaking through the bushes choked, rising into the air and clutching his throat until Sylvie twisted his head a hundred and eighty degrees and chucked his corpse under the sectopod's foot.

"...you're welcome. Buy me a drink?" Cameron muttered under his breath for a minute. "God have mercy on poor Julie, that's all I have to say."

The sectopod fired again, but not at Cameron. Its upper cannon blazed, shattering laser-reinforced windows and punching holes in alloy walls. What was over there on the compound for it to try and suppress? Cameron lined up a shot on the exhaust port, biting his tongue.

"Right. One for the money..." He breathed out, concentrating like never before. "Use the Force, Moose."

His shot went out with a flat bang, and it arced over the field and straight into the sectopod's red orifice, plunging in and–

Bang! The robotic monster staggered, sparks and smoke flying as something inside protested the hit most strenuously. Cameron worked the bolt, cheering himself hoarse.

The sectopod's chest cavity opened, and red light filled his vision.

"Son of a–"

He barely dove for freedom in time as the wrath cannon let loose with a bass thrum that could have been heard in Manitoba, unleashing a titanic blast of superheated plasma energy that slagged metal and rent a furrow the size of a car in the dirt. Heat wafted out in a tremendous blast of overpressure, turning Cameron's hair to sweat and scorching his already-lacerated face. He covered it, rifle forgotten as he scrambled away from the impact point.

"-bitch!" He rolled to the side as the trail of death followed him, igniting the grass and rocking the earth with its power. The sectopod's upper body turned, camera still tracking on him as he scrambled to his feet, racing to stay away from Judgment delivered via machine. The beam tracked over a car and the vehicle detonated, flinging a tire that came within an inch of crushing Cameron's head.

A hubcap–from the same tire? He couldn't tell–slammed into his chest, pitching him onto his back again. Cameron hit the ground hard, and his head cracked on something harder, and the world went red for a flash. He patted at his hair, and his hand again came away bloodstained.

More red. This wasn't behind his eyes: the wrath cannon kept coming, and he sucked in breath. There was no time to roll away, to scramble up...there was only time to throw his hands up uselessly and turn his head–

Crack!

"Outrider!" Cameron would have kissed her if he hadn't been so scared of her. He threw himself aside, covering his head as the cannon roared through the dirt where he'd been a second prior...and kept going.

It didn't matter how powerful the weapon was if the sectopod's optical sensor was a shattered wreck, after all.

"Hit it now!" Dragunova hurled her claymore, and it latched onto the bottom armor plate. Cameron scrambled for his sidearm, aware of how pitifully useless it was but–

The orange charge hit the claymore dead on, and fire blossomed out in a tremendous cloud of light and hate. Cameron yelped when hands caught him, hauling him behind cover in the nick of time: fire lashed the earth where he'd lain, and shrapnel with it.

"Liang!" He wasn't scared to kiss her, and he did. "God, you missed the party."

"Later." She extricated herself, though not abruptly, and leaned out to unload most of her cannon in one burst. Bluescreen munitions lit up the ash and smoke cloud hanging over the far end of the courtyard, sparking off shredded and melted armor plate and plunging into metal to detonate with miniature EMP blasts once inside. The sectopod made a hideously pathetic noise.

Another blast resounded from the chaos, and the earth shook.

"Damn glad to see you." Cameron pushed himself upright, brushing dirt and dust off his armor. "Where the hell have you been?"

"We had a run-in with the Hunter." Liang glanced over her shoulder. "You alright, Mox?"

"So far." There he was, something big and bulky slung over his shoulder. "Hello, Cameron."

"Oh. Hi, Mox." He coughed. "Good to see you."

"Not to interrupt the party, but where's Major Kelly?" Sylvie still had her amp out when she hurried up, biting her lip. "She's not responding on comms."

"Her tracker is active." Gallant didn't sound happy either, but at least he was useful. "She's–"

Smash!

"Fucking fuck!" Cameron nearly fell over as the sectopod slammed through a small guard building, bursting from the smoke cloud like it didn't give a shit. Giant chicken legs slamming into the dirt hard enough to create tectonic shifts, it loomed over them, wrath cannon bright red.

"Move!" Liang grabbed Cameron, yanking him off to the side. He raced with her, hands over his head as the wrath cannon went off again, shaking the earth with its fury. Overpressure was enough to fling him and the Grenadier both off their feet, hard enough they slammed into the compound wall and fell in a heap.

The sectopod loomed, cannon still unleashing Hell.

Bang!

The sectopod paused. Its optical sensor was shit, but it still had auditory detection, and that wasn't a normal sound. It must have assumed it came from some kind of weapon. Pity for it: that was the sound of a grapnel launcher.

Jane's hook drove hard into the top of the sectopod, and she leapt from the compound roof before it could obliterate it with that monstrous cannon. She swung into the robot's armored flank, bracing on it with both feet while her motor whined and hauled her up and up until she could spring onto the thing's head.

"Right." Jane unslung her shard gun, putting a point-blank range shot into the swiveling mag-turret before it could come to bear. "Shut up." She kicked at a loose, still red-glowing plate, and it pried up from the impact. Unwilling to expose her foot to more heat, she used the butt of her gun to flip the plate like a pancake. "I said shut up!"

It twisted, going through some kind of dance move as it tried to fling her. Jane fired her grapnel again, and it latched in firmly by her foot. She clutched the line tight with every wild buck underneath her, keeping her position by force of will.

One-handed, she brought her gun to bear on the exposed circuitry and processors below the amputated plate.

Blam!

The sectopod jerked harshly. It staggered. The cannon abruptly shut off, and Jane fired two more times, the recoil so nasty that her elbow nearly popped. Each successive blast rent the internal workings of the killer mech a little more, and after the third shot...

After the third shot, lights went out all over its skin and inside it.

"Whoa!" Jane clutched her line as the sectopod leaned forward, metal groaning as its own weight proved too much. Gravity yanked hard, and she had to disconnect her line in a hurry as something blew up behind her. She jumped, firing her grapnel in mid-air at the first tree branch she could find.

She swung down with two aching arms, staggering a bit when she hit the permacrete. She whistled through her teeth, shaking her head vigorously.

The sectopod crashed behind her, burying itself in the torn-up dirt. It also exploded, and the red glow was visible even looking exactly the other way. Heat blasted Jane's back, flicking her ponytail around and toying with her hat.

Silence fell slowly, save the crackling of flames.

"Fucking showoff." Liang was the first to emerge from cover, scowling. "You didn't have to be dramatic about it, Irish."

"It's dead. That's the part that matters." Jane winced when something else blew up. "We need to leave. Now, before things get worse."

"I'll contact your backup to the north. Get yourselves on the move and in position for pickup."

"Sir." Gallant's voice was the last thing Jane wanted to hear. Life and death didn't hang in the balance any more.

Kipler's voice echoed in the dark reaches of her thoughts...

No. No, life and death did hang in the balance. Extraction, that was the key: until they were safely away from the Forge, there was no time to think about these things.

But then...

"He is the reason your world ended in fire. Bear that in mind."

Author's Note 69: Can You Guess The Season 3 Theme Song Yet?

Realistically speaking, sectopods' design is so stupid it actually hurts. Giant thin chicken legs? The weapons all suspended so high in the air? All you have to do his kneecap it and it's deader than dead. Legged vehicles are so impractical it's cringeworthy to see them being used unironically sometimes. I'm talking to you, Star Wars.

On the flip side, from a gameplay perspective, sectopods are...also stupid. Am I the only one who feels like they got a serious nerf from Enemy Within to 2? In the former, they were almost impossible to hit, and almost impossible to damage even if you did manage to hit them. Sectopods were nuclear bowls of searing rage and murder. Now they're kind of...there. The fact that they only ever spawn with a few infantrymen doesn't help either. Even their extreme armor can be bypassed with a grenade or two or a grenadier with Shredder or a reaper or...it's a long list. Sectopods are worth being wary of, but not being afraid of: save that for gatekeepers, stun lancers, and chryssalids. Maybe Avatars.

Definitely the Chosen.

Until next time, Vigilo Confido.