Things had rather gotten out of hand, the Overmind would admit. But he was more than willing to bring everything back into his control.

The situation he had to work with wasn't desirable. The Network was currently experiencing a total communications blackout and was causing feedback to a majority of their troops, no mention needed to be made of the Commander proxy being taken offline. Odin was trying to work on that latter situation, curses streaming from his mouth about his "worthless son" all the while. The Overmind assumed XCOM's next stop would be their home planet, as much as the rest of the Collective disbelieved him and their ability to reach them. He didn't know how they were going to pull it off—he just knew that they would.

So he'd gathered the Trio in their now permanently inhabited Avatars—as permanent as their ticking timer got—and assigned them as a frontal force in the wing of the Deployment Platform that led directly to the Inner Sanctum. He stood alone there, carefully pacing past the caskets that held the rest of the Collective, their eyes currently busy with their assigned planets and trying to reestablish their own connections as Odin worked on Earth.

He looked at those frail, decaying bodies in their coffins. He felt no pity for them—he physically couldn't. But there was annoyance at how much time this disease had lost them. They rotted away as the Ascended twisted and turned freely in the planets they had sprung from, like rats. His hands balled into fists, thinking of the Ascended that dared stand against him on Earth. He wanted to take the thing into his hands and wring the life out of it... even if that wouldn't kill it. The Zudjari cannon on his back would have to do. Even as well as they had been treating it, it was hard to truly repair something without the blueprint, and it was getting on in age. As long as it fired, though, it would serve a purpose.

The Overmind would be glad to take the killing of an Ascended into his own hands. It would know fear, and it would die just like—

Something deep inside of him squirmed, and he fully stopped in place, clutching a hand to his chest. "Do you think you have any power to stop this?" He hissed, voice low. "I'm doing you a favor when I lock you up. Would you like to be in my conscious as I tear the disgusting wretch limb from limb?"

The feeling quickly ceased after that. The damn thing was acting up more recently, and he considered its efforts laughable... in a vacuum. If the rest of the Collective were to find out...

Overmind. That was Angelis. Is the Commander proxy truly offline?

He straightened. No reason it should be online unless Odin did his job right for once.

... we have an authorization on one of the Gates in the Deployment Platform. ID Network Admin.

What? The only thing that had that last was... The Commander. But how? She was human. It shouldn't have allowed her through, her genetic signature simply didn't match. How did that go through?

The genetic tag auto-succeeded due to the presence of Ethereal DNA.

Ethereal...? "Ux ezom vilaiyatinen jx..." Esvensthia. Of course. He knew they had been slammed out of the Network... but the Commander never had. They took the Siren files with them when they left. Did the Commander truly undergo that just to strike at them? Shrewd, but effective.

Well, nothing to be done. The invaders were coming in and all they had was short range communication. Tell the Trio to begin commanding troops towards that Gate. We may not have our full force, but this will be enough.

He suddenly felt it writhe again, and he knew he'd have to hang back to whip it into submission. Meanwhile, Angelis was cooperating. Very well. I will oversee matters, as well.

Angelis's communications ceased, and the Overmind held his chest once again. "I will see you crushed, Commander," he muttered. "There have been many before you. And there will be many still..."


One more strategy meeting. With luck, it would be the last one Eliza had to plan of this scale.

There was a healthy gathering around the Hologlobe—the now four Chosen, Bradford, Lily, Tygan, the alien rulers, Maria, and Argus. Asaru was there by virtue of hanging off of Eliza's back, tentacles lazily floating in the air. They were hot off the heels of bringing in Menace from the tower, and they had to deal with this quickly. Mordenna made it clear they had a limited amount of time before Odin managed to undo the damage he'd done.

So Eliza intended to do just that. "Most of our members of Menace are here, so let's get this over with. We are entering the very stronghold of the Elders and there is going to be resistance. Expectations are whatever forces are immediately at that area of the Deployment Platform and four Elders in Avatars at least." She gestured to the globe, bringing up a pre-filled roster. "I'm breaking our typical limit on squad size because we are going to need all the help we can get. The first team, Menace One-Five, will consist of Asaru and I, the Chosen, Maria, SYN, and Julian." Another gesture, and another roster came up. "Vanguard 13 is our second team. As we advance deeper, we are going to need someone to watch our back and prevent pincer maneuvers. This is the purpose of Vanguard. The team consists of Shazara-Ta, Rodin, Vel'kiin, and Celosia, and whatever of their subjects they wish to bring along. Any questions so far?"

Lily nodded. "Do you want to bring more of the soldiers, or?"

"We need to keep a large group back on the Avenger." Eliza glanced at Jax. "Jax recently got a prophecy from the Thing That Sleeps Beneath that we're going to be invaded at the same time as we do this."

"And I can absolutely tell you why." The attention of the room shifted to Mordenna. "Unfortunately, that breach I did... I basically had to throw aside any sense of confidentiality to do some of the bigger sabotages. I figured 'we're going to get invaded anyway, may as well play to the prophecy, right?'" He sighed. "Even if the prophecies it gives can apparently be avoided if you work for it. It was either getting nothing done or bringing a massive amount of attention to us."

Bradford shook his head. "Better we take down the Network for a bit than play it safe." He turned to Eliza. "Positions from Operation Swan Song to be assumed?"

"Very much so."

Asaru, quiet until now, spoke up. "Um. I don't want to interrupt... but I think we should bring Argus."

There was silence at that. Truthfully, Eliza was a bit conflicted about it... but the more she thought about it, the more of a common sense move it was. What better to fight an Avatar than another Avatar? Plus, there was the consideration that if she ever passed Asaru off to them, that would certainly even the scales power-wise. Even if she didn't want to give Asaru over in the heat of battle. "Well. I'm not going to deny it would bring us an edge... but I'm sure people have objections. Personally... I'm for it. We're going to be facing Avatars, and there's no greater weapon than what the enemy is using, right? Still, this is a group decision."

The first to speak was Fal-Mai. "... I think we should bring them. They best know how their peers act, and can match the Trio, at least, in power. I understand the apprehension, but I think we would be hampering ourselves if we didn't."

"Gotta agree with Fals here." Mordenna gestured vaguely. "We need everything we can get on the mission without bloating the squad. While we can leave Argus here to defend things... we already have Zuriel and Cocytus I guess," he said, seeming uneasy about Cocytus, "on standby to assist with the defense. We take Argus, we get an edge against the bastards."

"They've proven themselves," Jax said in turn. "Time and time again they have been shown to be reliable and true to their word, and countless times Samhien has confirmed all of what they say to be true." Jax spread out his arms. "I, for one, welcome them."

Mordenna shot Jax an uneasy glance, which made his brother falter a bit. Yeah, Eliza, too, was a little worried at the way that Jax seemed to be latching onto Argus. But, still, he brought up a fair point—Argus had been nothing but cooperative all the way, to the point that if they were a double agent, they had helped XCOM far more than they could hurt it. Still, everyone needed to weigh in. She exchanged a look with Bradford who mirrored it, so she looked to the four alien royalty. "You four have any strong opinions?"

Celosia seemed the most uncertain of them, but it was Vel'kiin who spoke. Eliza only got bits and pieces—a growl that sounded like "Warlock," a few gestures to Argus. Rodin went "hm," nodding. "As much as I am conflicted, I agree. To sum it up, Vel'kiin mirrors Jax's points—Argus may be an Ethereal... or former, however we're judging that, but at some point she and the rest of us have to extend trust instead of endless doubt. I second her, and would like Argus to join us."

The other rulers nodded their agreement. Eliza felt a little strange just deciding if Argus was coming without any input from them, right in front of them, but she already knew from the recording that they wanted to come if possible. Besides, Argus was simply neutrally regarding the scene... but, Eliza had also learned they didn't emote much outside of their eyes. Figured for an alien that didn't have a mouth for the longest time. She hoped this wasn't too awkward for them.

Nobody else spoke up, and Eliza clapped her hands together. "With no other objections, we're including Argus in Menace's ranks." A quick adjustment to Menace's roster after bringing it back up, and they were set to go. "... I'd discuss tactics, but I can't imagine we have long before we get invaded."

Over at one of the monitors, Lily shook her head. "No, we don't. Just spotted some dropships beelining for us on long range scanners. But, if the Network is down..."

"They must be acting on prior orders," Tygan filled in. "Mordenna's intrusion could've taken long enough for the Elders to issue an invasion order to our coordinates. It's likely been long enough for ADVENT to recover from the immediate feedback pulse, as well."

"That sounds about right." Mordenna was already moving towards the door. "Menace One-Five, Vanguard 13, get your weapons from the Armory or the Basement as needed then get right down to the Shadow Chamber. Bradford, ready everyone on the ship."

Well, Eliza would let him issue the order on that. As she followed him, the door opening, Mordenna broke into a sprint. Eliza followed in his footsteps, leaning on her Chosen endurance. Her soldiers were bustling around her as not even a minute after they left, Bradford was coming over the loudspeakers, instructing everyone to their stations.

The trip to the Armory was quick. Mordenna slung on his jacket and mask, and Eliza made for the new armor stand as Asaru floated gently off of her. Her armor—the "Rose Clover" Suit as it was affectionately named—was indeed made from whatever could be broken down of the lucky pieces of armor that she'd been given. The metals had been melted down into the light blue plates, the kevlar and fabric made into the connecting pieces and made to blend into each other as much as possible, even if much of it wasn't used and had to be made into something else she hadn't seen yet. There was a grappling hook for movement, and her second set of gauntlets were already on the armor. Otherwise, it was in the style of the Plasma Armor they had. Amusingly, the first time the engineering team went to test the plates, the gun they were using jammed—then the plasma "came out at a weird angle" and deflected off the convex plates on the chest. Now Eliza didn't really believe in luck... but she wouldn't take it for granted when her soldiers had passed it onto her.

As she got into her armor, the rest of the squad suited up. Fal-Mai and Jax covered their faces with their mask and helmet respectively, Maria put on the psi amp that looked like a tiara and a halo all at once, and Argus rigged up their shoulder-mounted amps. Guns were loaded and checked, Eliza picked up the Plasma Boltcaster and made sure her trusted pistol was secure on her leg.

She was as ready as she was going to get, and that was all she needed. "Menace One-Five," she said, not seeing Vanguard, "all green?"

The other Chosen, fully armored, nodded. Maria took her place beside Jax, Argus flourished the floating blades they'd been given with their psionics, and Asaru hugged her back tightly. "Julian and SYN are prepped in the Shadow Chamber," Mordenna replied, voice filtered. "Nothing left but to make our way down there."

The final hour was coming. Menace looked to Eliza, and she figured she was leading them. Gun in her upper arms, lower arms free to channel her psionics, she turned towards the door. "Menace, to the Shadow Chamber."

Careful with her gun, she strode out, hearing the footsteps of Menace behind her. As she made her way down the halls, Asaru eventually stopped hugging her and floated behind her. She could feel his nervousness. They'd trained him in how to fight, but... she didn't want her son to have to take someone else's life. Not this early. She'd prevent him from having to do so as much as she could—but god knows how long that would last.

As they got closer, navigating the barricaded paths, she watched as she approached her soldiers. Roland and Rozen, near the front, close to the barricades. Roland stood up when Eliza came near... and saluted. "Give 'em hell, Commander. No other way about it."

Rozen, mechanical eye glimmering, did the same. "Kill an Elder for me."

Further down the hall, it kept happening. March and Sherry stood together, offering her a salute. "Ils ne seront jamais prêts pour vous," Sherry spoke. "Good luck, Commander."

That was the sentiment ringing off the metal of the Avenger, the ship she'd known for so long. The words that kept greeting her as she nodded, said "thank you," saluted in kind. Even as she came to the door of the Shadow Chamber with Benald and Pattie posted on either side of it, it came to her in unison.

"Good luck, Commander."

Eliza didn't really believe in luck. But she'd never refuse it if wished.

The door to the Shadow Chamber opened, and sure enough, Julian and SYN were already in attendance, as well as a few of the rulers and their cohorts. Lily and Tygan had gotten there in the time it took Menace to set up, and they were busy at two workstations. Lily looked up for a second. "Just a second, Commander. Doing one last check, then we'll power on the Gate and make the bridge request."

Eliza stepped further into the room. "Fine by me. Rest of the rulers on the way?"

Rodin and Vel'kiin, the two in attendance, nodded. "Shazara-Ta and Celosia are fetching their armor and weapons," Rodin answered. "My men and I are nearly always armed. I have a few that will be joining us with their primary jets rather than legs."

"Whatever works for them and we'll appreciate the aerial support." She looked at Lily. "Status on the incoming dropships, last you checked?"

As Lily answered, the door opened behind Eliza, and the other two Rulers and the rest of Vanguard followed in. "Ten minutes, three minutes ago. We'll have enough time to get you there before they come. Bradford's watching the situation."

"Are the backups of the SPARKS ready?"

Lily nodded. "Julian and SYN both have a backup of their memories and routines on the Network, just in case something happens. We're all ready to go."

Eliza squared her shoulders, closing her eyes. She took a moment to breathe—and then, on the XCOM Network, sent out a message to all her lovers. I love you. We'll make it through this, I promise.

Mordenna came up beside her, squeezing one of her free hands. Tygan's face softened, and he spared a second to nod at Eliza. Jax and Fal-Mai replied back with their own "I love you"s, same as the Rulers. Lily sniffed, rubbing at her eyes, sending back the sentiment on the Network. She queued up the same message to be issued to the Faction leaders over their communication channels—they would know just as well. Finally, she caught one of Asaru's hands, letting her gun down long enough to hug her son. "I love you, Asaru. Like we practiced—and if things get too scary, don't hesitate to hide."

Asaru hugged her back. "I love you too, Mom. I'll remember it."

"Last diagnostics done." Asaru parted from her as Tygan spoke up. "Opening Gate channel to the Codex coordinates. Lifting Mordenna's lockdown just enough..." The Gate fully powered up, and between its branches, a purple portal came into existence, swirling. "... Commander. It's ready to receive the two-part code. Approach."

Asaru floated behind her again, and Eliza took another breath. She stepped towards the portal, and for a moment she felt the old ADVENT Network crawl back up in her mind. She shuddered, but reminded herself of where she was. The ADVENT Network called for her credentials—and she could experience it hitting her IDs of "Network Admin" and "Ethereal." Instantly, the Gate's portal changed to show what looked like an environment reminiscent of the Chosens' Inner Sanctums—but more blue than purple. The ADVENT Network retreated, and Eliza let go of the breath that she had been holding.

"Both authorizations cleared, no activity from Odin." Lily stopped typing for a moment. "... you guys can do it. We'll be watching from this side."

Finally, Eliza got her reply back from Bradford. I love you, Liz. I'll be on comms in a moment. Good luck out there.

Eliza inclined her head, staring the portal down. "Menace One-Five... on me. Vanguard, on our rear. Squad? Move out."

She walked into the portal as it expanded, the bottom dropping out of her stomach. After the lurching journey through the Void, Eliza found her foot landing on solid metal. She opened her eyes as she further moved forward, revealing the area she'd landed in.

Once again, it was very much reminiscent of the Chosens' Inner Sanctums. The platforms and walls in front of her were made of that alien alloy material, and there was a control station for the Gates that were behind her right in front of her. Beyond the platform they were on, the area stretched out of sight, both in front past the walls and below. The whole area was bathed in gunmetal blue, with the only differing colors for the moment being the purples from the gate behind them and the green Elerium in caskets here and there.

Eliza continued to walk forwards, hearing the Gate shudder as more people warped in behind her. True to his promise, Bradford popped in on comms. "Eyes open and watch out, people. They likely know we're here, but they probably don't know where we... are."

Bradford trailed off as what Eliza had to call a psionic screen projected in front of them. What it was showing was likely the fallout of the little announcement they'd made—there was chaos in the city centers, messy raids on havens, the like. As Eliza watched, mentally shielding Asaru's eyes, what sounded like a woman's voice spoke. "Such loss. Such needless waste. You force Our hand. Yet still, We offer peace. Rejoin Us, Commander, and your world will be spared."

"Don't listen to her," Argus replied, off to Eliza's side. "That's Angelis, right hand to the Overmind. She knows you've got an Ascended in you, Commander. That's a trap."

"Esvensthia." Obviously, Angelis wasn't happy. "You sully the name of the Ethereals with your actions. You seek to protect the Ascended when they have wronged us. They lie to you, Commander. There will yet be mercy if you offer yourself."

"I'd rather die than go back," Eliza hissed. "And I'm not letting you lay a finger on my son."

"Such senseless attachment. Come and meet your fate, then."

With that, the screen closed. The Gate continued to shudder, and the rulers came in. Checking to make sure her squad was still there, Eliza rolled her shoulders. "Menace One-Five, this is it. I want Fal-Mai, Argus, and Julian to be our front squad. Jax, Maria, the two of you are on me in the middle. Mordenna, support us from the back. SYN, watch our flank and make sure Mordenna doesn't get collapsed on." She nodded to the rulers. "Vanguard, proceed behind us and protect this side of the Gate. Call if you need help."

Rodin flourished his staff. "We shall see that no invaders will ever get the chance to cross!"

"That's what I like to hear. Now..." Eliza let the frontline overtake her, and she began proceeding to cover. "Menace, we still have comms over our Network, but range is going to be fairly limited, moreso as we go on. Your earpieces will still work on a local frequency, bolstered by the SPARKs. Heads on straight, give your six a check, and move."

"Understood." Fal-Mai disappeared from sight. "Proceeding in cloak."

She felt Asaru tap her shoulder, and she gave him a glance. "What about me, Mom?"

"Just stay safe," she softly replied. "Look for anyone who might be getting injured. Don't hurt anyone if you don't have to, and hide in me if bullets start flying your way. I know they likely can't kill you, but..."

"I want to be helpful, Mom." He still merged with her partially to keep himself concealed behind cover as he spoke. "Um, if we get to an Ethereal... I think it would be good if I went to Argus. They're really strong when I'm with them."

Eliza didn't want to do a transfer of Asaru when there was going to be fire trading sides, but he raised a fair point. Eliza kept her attention ahead, swearing she heard a Sectopod in the distance. "... ok. But be careful about it. Don't do it when someone is focusing on either me or Argus."

"Ok."

Once they got closer to the wall, Eliza could see that there were two large openings about the size of garage doors leading into a facility beyond. Already she could see the green glow of caskets and Elerium mixing together... and could hear activity beyond. That suspicion was confirmed by Fal-Mai. "Squad within the Blacksite-like facility. Two Andromedons, a Muton, and three Troopers." Damn. Quite a lot of heavy guns.

Eliza made sure her Plasma Boltcaster was locked and ready to go. "Priority one is those two Andromedons—take out the pilots first for both of them, then focus on the shells. Fal-Mai, if you think you can out-brawl a Muton, do it." She looked back, and there were a few Vipers that had followed closely behind. She pointed to them and gestured ahead, hissing a short "support us" in ADVENT. They nodded, slithering low to the ground. Two of them were former ADVENT Vipers—she hoped she wouldn't spook them too much by commanding them.

"In position," Julian confirmed. "Looks like the rest of us are as well. Ready to murder at your word, Commander."

Eliza leveled her gun at the entrance, keeping her breathing steady. She made a point of not skipping shooting exercises just as much as she made it a point not to skip hitting the GTS. She just hoped her skills would still be up to speed in a live fire situation. "... Fal-Mai. Send them out."

It was only a few seconds later when Eliza heard the kick of the Arashi firing off and she held her breath, priming her gun waiting. There was the stamping of feet ahead, a cry of "Assassin" in ADVENT... then she got a glimpse of pink and green. Eliza fired and her plasma bolt found purchase in the Muton, right in its shoulder. She still cursed herself for a non-killing shot before Mordenna followed up, the crack of the Darklance ending that exchange. The Troopers dashed by trying to seek better cover against the Assassin, only to be summarily gunned down by the rest of the squad. The only ones she didn't see pop out were the Andromedons, and she figured they'd be handled soon enough.

Even so, Eliza easily fell back into her role as Commander. "Julian, SYN, pull back and let us handle it! We're not having you guys coated in acid. Mordenna, get to a better vantage point—Jax, come here!"

Julian fell back as instructed, and Eliza heard more of Fal-Mai's shotgun, cracking glass accompanying it. Jax came over to her, and she planted her hand on his arm. "Get out there and mess things up," she muttered, gauntlets lighting up as she imbued her powers in Jax. "Remember your Stasis for the acid, and keep your sister safe."

When she was done, she let go of Jax. A blue light was pulsing right over his chest and he nodded, holstering his gun and running in, shards springing forth from his gauntlets. Eliza freely hopped to new cover and reloaded, Asaru trailing after her. She had to wonder when they were going to encounter the Ethereals, but she didn't keep her mind on that for long. Her gun was ready by the time she spotted an Andromedon again and she fired, watching her shot bore a hole in the back of its suit. Again, she grit her teeth at Asaru having to see any of this. As she watched one of the two aliens hurl past the door at high speed and crash loudly at the other end of the room, she reached back and grabbed Asaru's hand. "Asaru. I'm... I'm sorry."

"What for...?" Asaru seemed to quickly realize, and he squeezed her hand. "... I know. And it's ok. I—I don't wanna see it. But I have to be looking for who's injured. And if we win here, I won't ever have to see it again." As more gunfire played out ahead, he floated closer to her. "Just keep me safe, Mom..."

If they weren't in such a tense situation, Eliza would have wrapped her son up in a hug. Considering that they were, though, she merely squeezed his hand back before shifting her attention back to the fight—what was left of it, anyway. "I will. I promise." She raised her voice. "Fal-Mai, how's the remaining Andromedon?"

Fal-Mai fired again, and there was a pause before she spoke. "Downed. I hear MECs approaching. Shifting back into cloak and reloading."

"Understood. Julian, back to the front. SYN, resume watching our flank." She reloaded again. "Let me know when you have eyes on the MECs, Fal-Mai."

"... that time is now. They are Heavy MECs, but... they have purple accents. Their guns appear slightly modified."

Hm. Purple banding... the last modified troop she'd heard was deployed against them was an anti-psionics Sectopod. She couldn't imagine the Elders fielding one out here where they likely were, unless they were far behind... even then, they would be passing up an opportune chance to jump them while they were disoriented. Maybe these MECs were another form of anti-psionic weapons—or the purple could indicate poison? Whatever the case, there was a catch-all solution. "My initial suspicion is anti-psionics, considering previous trends. Julian, lead us."

"Makes enough sense. I'm starting to hear them lumber around the corner."

The whole squad further moved up, to the point where they were in the facility they had just cleared out. Fal-Mai was right when she described this as Blacksite-like—this must have been one of the homeworld places where they were performing experiments. At least they were here to end all of that. Eliza took cover behind a pillar, and after a moment's consideration she told Asaru to hide. "It's just for the moment," she assured him. "I don't want you to get hit by something that's anti-psionics. If you spot someone getting hurt, please let us get rid of the MECs before we do anything."

Asaru gave a soft "ok," stealing his way into her mind. Eliza watched as the MECs rounded the corner, and true enough, they were distinguished from others of their model by the purple banding on their chassis. They'd lost the advantage of surprise, so now they just had to play defensively as they approached. Julian was the first to open fire, electing to use his Blaster Launcher to burst a hole in their offense. It had the intended effect, staggering a few of the MECs and allowing Eliza to get a shot off uninterrupted, downing one of them. One of Mordenna's shots came through the wall itself, ripping through the chest of a MEC and decommissioning it. Armor piercing, she supposed, and a good calculated shot. Jax was at the front, machine gun spewing fire.

One of the MECs wasn't fired on, and took its chance to risk a shot. Distinctly Disruptor Rifle-like fire flew towards Jax—and instinctively, unfortunately, Lucifer popped out to provide a shield. The first shot hit Lucifer's shield and burrowed in, causing cracks to form across the rest of it and shattering it. The Revenant recoiled, and he and Jax were struck by a few shots. On Jax, the bullets didn't even get past his heavy armor, but that hardly mattered. A scream ripped through Jax's throat and Lucifer violently phased out of sight. He collapsed to the floor, at least having the mind to shakily crawl towards some cover.

Asaru's cry of "Dad!" inside of her was heartbreaking, but she had to hold him back, causing a feeling she could only describe as squirming inside of her. She gave a few soft assurances as she reloaded, watching Fal-Mai pop into vision and cleave the offending MEC in half, a vengeful but pained look on her face. One more MEC went down as Argus psionically ripped it apart. With that fighting cleared, Eliza could hear more off to the side—looked like some ADVENT forces tried to flank and met the backup crew. "Menace, any more fighters for the moment?!"

"No more, Commander," Julian confirmed.

It was then that she let Asaru fly loose of her, who beelined for Jax and attached to him. Asaru hugged his father as the soft glow of his psionics lit up the metal around him. Jax gave a shuddering sigh, slowly but steadily getting to his feet. "... Menace, I am... I am alright. I will be stationing myself closer to the back as I recover. Cruel fate to have my own weapon turned against me..."

As Jax retreated and Asaru returned to Eliza, Mordenna came over comms. "I'm likely to blame for that—one of the wrinkly fu—fiends must've finally had the mind to check my workshop for any blueprints I left behind." He sighed. "Nothing to be done. I'm all reloaded, and I'm moving up."

Nothing to be done, indeed, and Eliza appreciated how little Mordenna dwelled on it. It was a mark of progress in her eyes. "Right. Fal-Mai, return to scouting. Everyone, resume normal positions and advance."

Eliza left her cover and cautiously moved forward after issuing that order, watching and hearing as the rest of Menace followed her lead. A quick glimpse back revealed Maria was tending to Jax, so it looked like he was going to be ok for the moment. The fighting was still going on behind them, and their Viper assistants had split off, but it sounded like they'd be ok for the moment. Menace had to keep moving.

They kept creeping forward, with Eliza selecting her cover carefully and scanning ahead. The area beyond the Blacksite-like facility seemed like a connecting piece with storage boxes and fuel barrels here and there. Another facility lay beyond, and Eliza could feel psionics radiating from it. Was she sensing an Ethereal, or was it just psionic saturation...? "Fal-Mai, do you see anything?"

No response. Dread settled in Eliza's gut. "Fal-Mai—?"

It was only for a second. But in the window of the facility... Eliza saw a glimpse of a sleek suit and dark glasses, pale skin and a high collar that hid scales. Thin Man. Fear raced through her veins and Eliza immediately plastered herself to her cover, branding her pistol with her lower left hand. Of course. Of course. They hadn't used Thin Men in twenty years but she would absolutely expect them to break them out again to prey on her. They knew those bastards scared her. The air was thick with venom, and she gripped her pistol like a lifeline. "Julian, I want you on that Thin Man in the facility yesterday."

There was a pause, and she feared at that moment that Julian had somehow been taken out. His response just made her feel worse. "... there's nothing ahead, Eliza. No Thin Men, anyway. Facility ahead looks empty."

"Check again," Jax feverishly muttered. "I hear him. Cronus is ahead."

... strange. Eliza didn't hear an orchestra. There wasn't anything but the acrid poison practically burning her nose. But a coordinated assault was logical, and maybe Jax was hearing Cronus at a greater distance.

"I'm starting to think I'm going crazy," Julian responded. "There's high psionic readings but I hear nothing and there's no movement for the moment."

There. The sound of formal shoes on metal, advancing towards her. The gun in Eliza's hand began to shake. Why didn't Julian see him? Was she alone, again, doomed to be taken back? Another twenty years in ADVENT's hands? No, more than that. Once XCOM was out of the way, that was it for Eliza. She'd be used again. She would kill millions all in the name of the Collective. No, she couldn't. She couldn't go back. She wouldn't. She wouldn't let them take her. The panic spread, and slowly, the gun—

There was a sound like metal slicing though the air, soaring past her. Metal on metal, and then something finding purchase in skin. A scream rang out, and the panic in her mind abated as the smell of Thin Man poison drifted away. Asaru was shaking in her mind and he materialized, forcefully putting Eliza's gun back on her hip. The hope from his psionics ran through her head and she took a shuddering breath in, peeking out of her cover to scope out the situation.

Argus had stepped forward, beside Julian. Their arm was outstretched, and several of their blades had evidently flown into the facility. Staggering into sight, blood seeping from their upper arm, was an Avatar. Judging by the irrational fear she'd just been going through and how it had let up when the injury had been inflicted, that had to be Odin.

Odin yanked out the blade that had embedded into his arm, tossing it aside. "Look at you and your merry band of failures, Esvensthia. You truly—"

Odin didn't get to monologue long. A shot from the Darklance flew past Eliza, and Odin only just managed to dodge, the side of his helmet getting a groove cut into it. Behind her, she could feel Mordenna's fury even beyond his mask. "I don't have a funny one-liner for you," he growled. "Die."

Mordenna shot again, but a shimmering shield popped up in front of the Avatar, forcing Argus and Julian back. The reason swiftly became clear as Eliza realized that was heat causing the distortion. Another Avatar stepped into view, and the Berserker-like Revenant hanging over them clearly stated who it was. Cronus scoffed. "Already I see I need to—"

None of the Elders were getting the chance to ramble on. Argus flicked their wrists and the blade on the ground sailed towards Cronus. He snapped his head to it and physically caught it... where Eliza watched it begin to melt in his grasp. "I must agree with that." He cast the molten mess on the ground. "Come and meet death at my hands!"

The engagement was swift afterwards. Jax swapped to his rifle and began firing on Cronus, who seemingly had learned the danger of the gun and dropped his shield, evading. Odin swiftly disappeared behind the wall again—and Eliza could feel his psionics blanket the area, causing her heart to pound in her head. There it was again, that acrid smell of venom. She desperately tried to tell herself it wasn't real... and then, it wasn't. Asaru had fully unfolded from her and his psionics were radiating out in what she'd easily call a Solace of Hope. The fear was there, yes, but she wasn't going back. She could still struggle against what they wanted to do to her. She'd make it out of here yet. Jax and Maria were in the range of it, and she watched as his stance eased.

They needed to further extend the range. Eliza didn't dare close her eyes, but she focused inwards for a moment, coaxing out her psionics and imagining them filling the amp on her head and fanning out. She thought of the love that had gotten her there, from the love of her soldiers, to the love of her partners, to the love of her son. Eliza thought of that love mingling with her squad, the protection they extended to her and what she hoped to provide to them. This was for them. Even in its braid, Eliza could feel her hair animate as her psionics bloomed, her Solace of Love combining with Asaru's. Light blue wisps danced on the battlefield, past where they were immediately fighting. Everyone in the squad should be covered.

Unfortunately, even though she hadn't closed her eyes, she'd certainly taken her attention away from the fight. There was a gasp from Asaru behind her, and then a burst of psionics. Whipping around, Cronus had snuck up behind her and his Revenant was currently trying to break the shield Asaru had summoned. He was holding his own alright, but Eliza could feel the strain he was going under in her mind. Plus, things were heating up to an unbearable degree. Eliza devoted some of her own psionics to the shield. "Requesting backup!"

That backup swiftly came. Fal-Mai materialized a ways behind Cronus with her shotgun leveled at his back. She fired and Cronus roared in pain, staggering away from Eliza and Asaru. Eliza quickly retreated while Asaru's shield was still up, moving closer to the center of the group. SYN raced up to meet her, putting himself between her and the Elders. Speaking of SPARKs—as Fal-Mai then had to dodge Cronus's retaliatory blast, Julian shot a message on the Network. Deploying flashbang, cover your pitiful eyes.

As promised, Julian first shot at Cronus to get his attention. Predictably, he wheeled around and moved to strike Julian. Heeding the order, Eliza quickly ducked her head, shielding her eyes. There was that distinctive concussive blast, then an agonized yell from Cronus. Looking back, he'd clearly taken the full force of it as planned. Julian was quick to resume firing on him, and Cronus shielded himself in response. Jax then followed up with fire of his own—and with no forewarning, Cronus took the full brunt of the Disruptor Rifle shots. His psionics fizzled out but still took the brunt of the hits, a ghastly shriek coming from his throat.

Before anyone else could capitalize, familiar gunfire flew towards Jax and staggered him. "—Fal-Mai, watch your fire!"

"Th-that... that wasn't me..."

Oh, god. With the debriefing that Eliza had watched, that could only mean one thing. She hazarded a look past SYN to confirm her suspicions. There was another Avatar at the edge of the field, and above her was a Revenant that looked exactly like an Ethereal, puppetting a psionic copy of Fal-Mai. This Assassin looked like a more well-armored version of herself at ADVENT, and there were things subtly off about her. The lines in her face were smoother, her blue-and-white porcelain-like prosthetic was noticeably absent, and her face was... emotionless, well and truly. The copy quickly blended into the shadows and Helena moved with surprising agility, disappearing behind cover.

The distraction was enough for Cronus to pick himself up and teleport away, likely to gather his strength for the next attack. Odin's psionics were still there, if being held at bay by her and Asaru's twin Solaces. Cronus was weakened for the moment, but they were essentially fighting the Assassin again. Still, she considered Odin the greatest threat—after all, all it would take is Asaru and Eliza letting their guard down for a moment for things to go south and for fear to take over. That in mind, Eliza went to command. "Menace, close ranks! Watch your flanks for the copy Assassin, and priority number one is Odin!"

As Menace formed up, Asaru tugged Eliza's arm. "Mom. Um, now's the time. I need to go to Argus."

"Do you think you can keep your Solace up?"

"Yeah."

She took a deep breath. "Then go."

Asaru nodded, and disconnected from her. It felt harder to maintain her Solace as she had been before, but she tried to keep it up at the same output. She could tell when Asaru joined with Argus—the sound of a lone violin filled the air, and Argus's sheer psionic presence magnified. She looked over at them. "... Argus. Peel Odin's cover away."

"Yes, Commander."

Argus raised their hands towards the facility in front of them. Menace could only watch as, with the sound of groaning metal and snapping wires, the walls were curled from the bottom up. Odin was made visible behind a twisting pillar and he turned, aghast. He tried to make a break for it, but a shot from the Darklance struck his knee and he toppled. The fear dissipated, and Eliza was hoping the fight was going in their favor.

That, naturally, was too hopeful a thought.

A grenade landed at her feet, and Eliza didn't have the reflexes to throw herself on it. It went off, and Eliza immediately recognized what it was when it burst into choking, dark smoke. The Assassin's smoke grenade. Coughing, she covered her mouth and kept one arm on SYN, who must've been having deja vu. She heard the rolling thunder of Jax's psionics swell, like he was making a larger construct—likely something to blow the smoke away.

The clouds were just beginning to be dispersed by some large gust of wind when Eliza felt a crushing grip on her left arms, yanking her away.

Initially she wanted to be optimistic and say that Jax or Lucifer was dragging her to a safer location. That hope was dashed as she was swiftly dragged across the ground, away from the smoke. Immediately, she tried to dig her heels in and thrash against the person pulling her, but their strength was greater than hers and she was taken back into the facility. Eliza was drawn up to their chest, and judging by the heat of the psionic blade that was at her throat, Cronus had just successfully captured her. Her arms were restrained by his Revenant, and as she struggled, they pulled back and put stress on her humeri.

Cronus gave a croaking laugh, voice distorted from all the yelling he'd been doing. "Come now... wouldn't you like to do a daring rescue, you pitiful wretch?"

Looking up, it was clear that he was talking to Jax, who was just outside of the doorway. His helmet was closed, but his rage was reflected on Lucifer's face. "Let her go," he growled.

"Perhaps if you begged. Perhaps if you ground your face into the tile and pleaded with me to spare her." He pressed the blade closer, and Eliza hissed. Her skin was definitely getting burnt, but the pain was more manageable than usual. "—I see you moving there, Esvensthia. One wrong move and your precious Commander will suffer the consequences."

"You wouldn't kill her," Argus called. Asaru was over them and shaking. "The Overmind still needs her for the Network."

"Hmph. You are right in that aspect." Eliza's blood ran cold as the hands on her upper arms shifted, the thumbs of his Revenant pressing against them. "But he did not specify to bring her back in one piece."

It happened so fast Eliza didn't have time to brace herself. Cronus pressed sharply against her upper right arm. There was a split second of resistance, then a snap she felt more than heard. Pain ruptured at the site and Eliza's mind went blank. In the brief moment as she took in air, she felt her psionics pool in her throat but she didn't even have a thought to spare about it.

Eliza screamed, and her psionics poured out from her voice.

The sound hung in the air and echoed as Cronus immediately dropped her, staggering back. The fall jostled her broken arm but she was too out of air to give another, simply gasping like a fish out of water. Even through the haze of pain, she was aware she had to take the moment of opportunity. Desperately, she tried to right herself, and was able to look forward and see what she did. Jax was just then taking his hands away from his head, lumbering towards her like he'd just been injured. In the back, Argus was clutching the very same arm, and they were rushing forward with Asaru in tow. Ossio appeared and picked up Eliza without disturbing her arm. "Jax," Argus said. "Go on."

Eliza was brought closer to Argus, who whispered an apology as they set her arm more properly into place. That brought more pain, but she bit her lip, knowing Asaru was there to put things right. Before Argus turned and Asaru healed her arm back into place, she caught a glimpse of Jax approaching Cronus. Eliza hoped he was about to get the revenge he deserved.

Jax didn't have to hope.

As Argus walked away and Cronus tried to get his bearings, Jax quickly shouldered his rifle and dug a few bullets into his "father's" gut. His ensuing scream had a gurgle behind it and he crumpled, falling to the floor. The pain in his right arm still lingered but he had more important things to worry about.

Approaching Cronus, Jax kicked him to be face up. He then put a few more rounds into Cronus's legs for good measure. He spoke over Cronus's yelling. "You thought you could touch her. You thought you could break her. Break me." He put his gun at rest. "How does it feel to be so impotent, Cronus? How does it feel to writhe in pain?"

Cronus spat out a curse in Etheric. "As if you would know anything about p-pain, boy..."

"More than you could ever know. More than you will ever know." Jax took a deep breath. "... I am not here expecting to see you beg. I'm sure you will deprive me of that in even your final moments."

"You..." Cronus coughed, and Jax was sure blood was coming up. "You a-are not as idiotic as I took you to be. Barely."

"The sad words of a dying man," Jax murmured. "I have already taken my satisfaction from you. I will live and love where you could not, would not even if you had the ability. And you... you will soon just be a memory."

"I—I am the one who raised you," he strained, orange blood spilling on the metal below them. "I made you. I-it is through my own g-goodwill that you have even survived this long."

"I did not ask to be born," Jax retorted, voice hard. "That child... he did not ask for you to raze his home to the ground and torment him for twenty years. Everything good that has happened to me has either been through my own effort or from the kindness of those who truly love me. You may have transformed me into the Warlock. But it was the Warlock who found love where you would sow pain and sorrow." He spared a glance at Lucifer, who had a hand on his shoulder. "... It was I who overcame my boundaries and rescued myself from despair. Eliza, my family, my congregation, Lucifer... they may have helped. But it is through my own will that I am alive today. I will live where you will not. And that is all the revenge I need."

Cronus was clutching his gut, his psionics still flickering around his head as if he was trying to summon them in one final act of abuse. "You... you wouldn't kill..."

"Truly?" Holstering his gun, the Warlock extended his hand, and a blade made from his own psionics formed above Cronus's head. He took hold of it with both hands. "Allow me to show you."

Jax raised the sword up and then sent it plunging down, the blade sailing through Cronus's head. He thumped on the floor, and Jax watched as his hazy Revenant materialized and then burst in a flash of psionics. Jax watched the body a few seconds more. Cronus's signature was gone.

Cronus was gone. Jax had won.

Back on Eliza's side of the field, she was getting set down on her feet again with Ossio handing her gun back to her. Asaru had mended her arm after Argus had set it straight, and it looked like the other two Elders had fled out of sight. Eliza scanned for injuries. Menace looked fine, with maybe Julian having some slight chassis warping thanks to Cronus. Everyone was ok. But... what she'd done kept coming back to her. Her psionics...

Asaru hugged her shoulders. "Are you ok, Mom...?"

Right. Now wasn't the time to go over that. She could unpack that when they weren't storming the Elders' fortress. She patted Asaru on the arm. "... for the moment. I'm going to need a well-deserved rest when I get home." She gave a quick glance around. "I assume the other two vanished?"

"For the moment." Julian reloaded his gun. "The pieces of scum made an escape while the smoke was up and one of them was holding you hostage." He regarded her for a moment. "I do hope your arm is still in working order."

"As good as the day I got it." Eliza looked at Maria, then towards where they came from. "Maria... would it be alright if you went back and assisted the rulers? We have Asaru here and they need someone like you."

In response, Maria turned her head towards Jax, who was returning from the facility. She'd heard the Disruptor Rifle go off a few times, and if he was coming back...? Maria spoke up. "Holy Father... should I return and aid Vanguard?"

Jax nodded. "Go. They need you," he replied, voice quiet. As Maria left, he holstered his gun and checked Eliza's arm. "I assume Asaru has healed you? I apologize deeply for—"

"It's ok," Eliza interrupted. "Thank you, Jax. We need to get moving, though." Eliza's eyes flickered behind him. "Is Cronus...?"

"He is," Jax confirmed.

That was that, then. Still, something occurred to Eliza. "What do you want to do with the body?"

He exchanged a glance with Lucifer, and Lucifer gestured to him. Jax was silent for a few moments before he responded. "Leave it. I do not believe he deserves a proper grave. We already know the mechanisms behind his armor and amplifiers thanks to Argus."

Mordenna walked up, easing a hand on Jax's shoulder. "... good job, Jax. Might have been vindicating, but couldn't have been easy."

Jax turned his head away. "When my most grand act of vengeance will be to live a peaceful life, knowing he no longer lives... I am fine settling with this." He turned his attention back towards Eliza. "Regardless. How should we proceed, Commander?"

Eliza went over the situation. They were clear for the moment, and she didn't hear any fighting in Vanguard's direction. But there were two Elders unaccounted for. They could advance and press the issue, likely drawing them out... but there was an equal chance that if they advanced, Odin and Helena would collapse on the rulers and their fighters. Eliza would quickly count them as skilled combatants. There just wasn't much of a chance for them standing against two Elders in Avatars. At the same time, they couldn't just sit there and wait for them.

Eventually, Eliza came to a compromise. "We can't leave the rulers alone with Odin and Helena active, but we need to lure them out." She gestured to Argus. "Argus, Asaru, Julian, Fal-Mai. You four will be our lure. Argus, turn the place upside down if you need to find them. Asaru, play it safe and just hide and boost their powers. Julian, you're Argus's bodyguard." There was a mutter of "like I need to be" from him. "Fal-Mai?"

At her asking, Fal-Mai exited her cloak, next to Eliza. "I am here."

"Scout, but don't go too far from the group. If you find either Elder, report their location immediately and back off. They need to be lured back near here or we need to advance to them. Argus, throw them to us if need be, with your psionics of course." She turned around. "Jax, make a perch for Mordenna to overwatch them."

"He doesn't need to do that," Mordenna countered. "I can just use my nanos to suction cup me to a wall or the like."

"As I'm aware, but with Jax controlling your perch, he can easily reposition you and give you the ability to snipe from areas where you wouldn't have support."

Mordenna shrugged. "Point taken."

Jax and Mordenna broke off from the group, moving towards the back. After an exchange of nods, the forward squad of Menace broke off, and Argus did as instructed. The sound of bending and groaning metal filled the air as Eliza went to stand near SYN. Her eyes were still on the field and she was trying to get into the mindset of Helena and Odin, trying to figure out what they would do next. It was entirely possible that they had fallen back further and had met up with the Overmind—but something in Eliza's brain nagged about that. The Trio had, from an outside perspective, been constantly making mistakes and digging a grave for the Collective. First she escaped on their watch, then the Chosen, they nicked an Avatar and then Argus, and finally Cronus not only failed to kill Jax, he was instrumental in waking Asaru up. Would the Overmind tolerate them coming back with their tails between their legs, especially with Cronus dead?

She needed a second opinion. Eliza sent a message to Mordenna. My working theory is that Odin and Helena can't fall back to the Overmind for fear of being executed for being terminally useless. Confirm or deny?

Mordenna took a moment to respond. I'm leaning towards confirm. Granted, my only knowledge of the Overmind comes secondhand, but I can infer a few things. The Trio have been massively fucking up and Cronus literally just got murdered, and the Overmind is the type of person to kill children. I'm gonna say Odin and Helena are trying to plot some sort of counter attack. Likely with that clone of Fal-Mai she made. Which, I'm looking for, but I'm unsure if I can see her.

That was a problem, especially considering what Argus had said. A "perfect" Fal-Mai. "As if," Eliza gently muttered to herself, keeping the Boltcaster at the ready. For just a second, she felt a strange sensation, and immediately thought it was Odin. She wheeled around, looking for any signs of disturbance. None. When Jax looked over to her, she sighed and shook her head. She couldn't be losing it at a time like this. Eliza didn't want to discount the feeling entirely, so she kept her gun up and searched.

A strange sound in the distance alerted her, and she looked ahead. Menace's front squad had advanced quite far, to the point where she couldn't see them anymore beyond some structures Argus had left untouched. Over the sound of grinding metal... Eliza could swear she heard the sound of her own voice. What that meant clicked a second later, and she opened her mouth to warn Menace that she hadn't moved.

Suddenly, it felt like someone had just injected adrenaline straight into her heart, and she got the desperate sense that danger was right behind her. Eliza wheeled around—just to see she was face to face with that Thin Man. He smiled at her cruelly, and Eliza quickly threw herself back before she could even question what was going on. What sense she retained under the heart-throbbing fear prevented her from shooting—but she had to. He was right in front of her and the last time she failed to shoot, she was lost for twenty years. Nobody could save her now, save herself. The sickly sound of the Siren's singing filled the air, taunting her. Eliza raised her gun as the Thin Man simply grinned at her, and she fired off a shot. It embedded in his chest and he simply laughed at her, taunting her. She quickly reloaded, this time aiming for his—

There was a bright flash of light and Eliza bit back a curse, arms covering her temporarily blind eyes. The fear subsided, and Eliza realized the only person behind her at that time would have been SYN. There were more problems at hand at the moment, like the fact that she had been... flashbanged? There wasn't a concussive blast with it, which could only mean one thing.

Sure enough, hope blanketed the area. She could feel herself being righted by a mechanical pair of arms. "Commander, it is SYN." Sounded like him, too. Oh, god, she'd just shot SYN. "Odin has just launched a psionic attack on us, and Asaru has assisted."

Asaru must've conjured up a flash damn near strong enough to cover the whole area—that, or he'd jumped back when he realized what was happening. She was still regaining her vision, and leaned on SYN, hoping she hadn't done too much damage. "Squad, the backline has been attacked! Front squad, collapse! Vanguard, there is an Ethereal in your area, be alert!"

"That deadbeat couldn't have gotten too far on a shot leg!" That was Mordenna, and he was quite right. The question was where Odin was.

Mordenna had a hunch.

The flash that Asaru had conjured had an incredible distance, and didn't seem to be affected by the barriers between him and Mordenna. His organic eye was still hazy—but thankfully, he had his mechanical one to fall back on. Quickly forming an eyepatch for that eye to rely on his other, Mordenna hopped down from his perch. Jax was still standing with Lucifer behind him. "Jax, stay put, watch Liz. I've got family to kill."

Jax nodded, though it looked like Lucifer was doing the seeing between the two of them. As his Revenant guided Jax over to Eliza's location, Mordenna's well-trained eye scanned the ground. Orange bloodstains were scattered on the floor here and there... but there was a very fresh-looking one that led just around the corner. Hot on the trail, Mordenna went after it, Darkclaw out.

He didn't have to go far. Odin was sequestered in a corner of the facility, mask down and rubbing at his eyes. He tensed as Mordenna approached, but Mordenna was quicker. First he buried three shots into Odin's remaining good leg, specifically into his hip joint. Then, the other. Odin gave an agonized scream that was practically music to Mordenna's ears, and he advanced.

Odin braced himself against the wall, unable to move with such thoroughly destroyed joints. Mordenna could feel terror creep up in his mind, but the haze of the pain the Ethereal was under was severely muting it. Mordenna thought he'd put up more of a fight—perhaps he was still dealing with that mental injury Jax had inflicted him with.

Mordenna wanted to get this over with... but couldn't help himself. "Oh, if this ain't a delicious moment. How's it feel, old man?" Mordenna fired a shot off into Odin's shoulder. "Hurts, yeah? Feel like you want to die? Feel like you'd do anything to end it?"

Odin opened his mouth to speak but Mordenna wasn't having any of it. He shot him in the other shoulder. Each time he buried another bullet into him, a burst of orange blood came forth, and Odin clearly wasn't having the nicest day judging by those yells. "No. You don't get to say anything to me. You had your chances and you've used all of them. It's just me talking now, and I'll be done soon enough."

That fear was still futilely trying to do something, anything to stop Mordenna. No such luck. Mordenna was done cowering from him. He crouched down to Odin's eye level. "So this is how it ends, hm? Got a nice, shiny new body for what, a week? A month? You never deserved it. All your life you've gone leeching off of everyone else. Leeching off of me every time you wanted to exercise some petty authority. Every time you wanted a punching bag. Well, today's your lucky day. I'm going to offer something to you that I could never, ever do to myself. A chance to put you out of your goddamn misery."

Mordenna stood back up. As Odin looked at him, Mordenna could see the fear in his eyes—the fear that was finally his own. The Hunter aimed at Odin's head. "Rot in hell."

Mordenna fired a clean shot right in the middle of Odin's forehead. Odin slumped over, the fear in Mordenna's mind disappearing, never to be replaced. That feeling was dead.

Odin was dead. Mordenna had won.

The cracks of the Darkclaw in the air told Eliza that Mordenna had likely just killed Odin as well. She felt Asaru connect with her and soon her vision was restored... allowing her to see the scorched hole she'd put into SYN's chassis. Eliza bit back a curse, standing on her own as she heard the rest of Menace approach. "SYN, I'm... I'm sorry."

"Chassis integrity still at 90.85%." SYN spared a hand to gesture at the mark. "The bolt deflected off of the side of my chestplate and damage was minimal. It's to my understanding that Odin was likely causing you to hallucinate."

"Yeah," Eliza muttered, still not feeling like it was a good excuse. She did a quick check around the squad. Mordenna was arriving, Darkclaw almost still smoking. Jax was behind her, Asaru was with her, and the front squad was returning. The only person missing was... Fal-Mai. Eliza looked ahead. "What happened out there?"

Julian sighed. "Helena did something quite underhanded. Evidently she'd copied you at some point and made it sound like she'd made off with you. None of us quite bought it but all she needed us to do was stop." Julian went "hm." "I wasn't aware you had song-based psionics, Commander, but I suppose the former title of 'Siren' should have tipped me off."

"To put it briefly," Argus quickly cut in, "she charmed us. I was caught off guard and couldn't quite resist, but Asaru had the clearer head of the two of us—he's likely had longer to deal with your psionics. There was the flash, he blinded everyone, and Julian practically dragged us out of danger."

There was some mild shame from Asaru at that statement, but there was something that stuck out more to Eliza. "Alright, good to hear you guys are ok. Where's Fal-Mai?"

A clash of blades rang out further ahead. Fal-Mai was locked in a duel.

Everyone else had retreated when the flash went off, but Fal-Mai supposed she had been forgotten about in the chaos. Not that she begrudged them—she was their stealth operative. It was her job to go unnoticed and strike when least expected. She had been off to the side, but charmed all the same by the Siren's singing. The soldiers left, her eyes recovered... and Rosetta had chirped out a warning fast enough for Fal-Mai to meet her copy's blade with her own.

The dead-eyed stare of her clone bored into her as Fal-Mai did her best to fend off the blade currently bearing down. She twisted her blade to disarm the other Assassin—but of course the other knew the maneuver and countered, instead flinging Fal-Mai's own Katana off to the side. Fal-Mai swiftly ducked the followup strike and rolled to the left, grabbing her blade as she did.

Beyond her clone, she could see Helena and her Revenant, the latter puppetting her copy. Helena jabbed a finger at her. "Today you will see just what you could have become under my care, you flippant harlot! The only thing they'll be rescuing this time is your corpse!"

The other Assassin feinted but she didn't buy it, and Fal-Mai went for a foot sweep. The former caught itself perfectly and backflipped away, and dodged around the ensuing Arashi fire. Rosetta had been knocked off Fal-Mai's shoulder at some point, and she hoped the drone was safe. "Listen to you! You act as if you are so above me when it's you who is living on borrowed time, surrounded by people you hate!" Fal-Mai flicked her Ripjack cord at the clone, and in a move that gave her deja vu, the clone batted it away with its sword. "I would gladly die than be your daughter again!"

"That wish can be granted!" The copy surged forward and Fal-Mai grabbed the blade with her right hand. She jerked her arm to the side, detaching it at the wrist and swiftly forming a new one as she socked the clone across the face. It tumbled backwards but regained its balance. In her hubris, Helena hadn't thought to copy Fal-Mai's arm, and she knew she could use that as her advantage. Either she needed to kill Helena or stall long enough for her allies to arrive. Then again, Helena could flee when they arrived, and Fal-Mai had to be honest with herself.

She had to kill her mother.

Her nanos flew back to her as they peeled off the blade, and this time it was the copy who went for its gun. Fal-Mai twisted on her foot and some of the shots glanced off of her armor, but one or two hit cleanly and she hissed. As part of her dodge, tendrils came off of her arm and she swiped with them, tossing daggers. It opted to take them to its gun rather than itself and they embedded deeply, disabling its Arashi. The other Assassin tossed the gun to the side and drew its blade, disappearing from sight.

The path towards Helena was clear, and Fal-Mai knew that was exactly what Helena wanted. But Fal-Mai spotted something and smiled under her mask... and she slowly began to walk towards Helena. "You can still surrender, Helena, and I will grant you a swift and painless death. Not like my brothers, who I am sure took their time with their own parents."

"You act as if you have won." Helena scoffed. "Has XCOM made you into such an air-headed idiot? I thought you would understand that just because you cannot see something does not mean it is gone!"

Fal-Mai gave a dark chuckle. "And I to you, Helena. Rosetta!"

Helena whipped her head to the side, but it was already too late. Rosetta had snuck her way onto Helena's shoulder, and the rabbit-styled design on her front physically opened. An ear-shattering screech sounded out from her and Helena—and the clone, appearing right in front of Fal-Mai—clutched her ears. Fal-Mai supposed she hadn't thought to copy Mordenna's "inferior" engineering in regards to the headphones. Fal-Mai dashed past her clone, towards Helena.

Fal-Mai was not her brothers. There would be no gloating, no dialogue before the deed. Rosetta hopped off the Avatar's shoulder, and with a single cleave, Fal-Mai parted Helena's head from her shoulders. Her Revenant screamed out and disappeared, and Fal-Mai let Helena's body slump to the floor. This fight was finished.

Helena was finished. Fal-Mai had won.

The Chosen had won.

Eliza and the squad arrived on the scene right after to see Fal-Mai standing there, her blade slick with orange blood and a decapitated Avatar in front of her. Eliza came to her side, grabbing her hand. "Fal-Mai?"

Fal-Mai blinked a few times, looking at Eliza after. "I'm—" She grimaced, and Eliza saw she had a few bullet wounds. "—I'm injured. But otherwise, I am fine."

Asaru nodded and as his tentacles wrapped around Fal-Mai's middle, Eliza turned to Argus. "Take Asaru after this. The only Ethereal left is likely the Overmind, and... we'll need the power. Mordenna, any other enemies?"

"Just some token resistance. A Sectopod, like that means anything to us anymore. Argus can just compact it again."

Argus chuckled nervously. "I suppose I could. But, regardless..." They straightened. "The Overmind will be a ruthless opponent. It's likely that he will stoop to any level to stop us toppling his Empire. His power is largely unknown, but assuredly there must be a way to counteract it. If not by our own measure... then by copious use of bright light."

Eliza's mouth pressed into a line. That was about as much as they had said at the debriefing she watched, too, but the void of information is worrying. "Is there nothing else that can be said about the Overmind? I know you've likely told us everything that's relevant, but we're going in knowing precious little about him."

Asaru floated over to Argus and connected with them as the Avatar tapped on their arms. "... there's only one other thing I can think of. In all of the records I've seen and things I've heard from those higher up than I, nobody has reported him having a Revenant. Which is highly odd if you know anything about them. Which..." They gestured to Lucifer. "90% of the cases you've dealt with have been exceptions, so that's a little much to ask. When we're done with this—and after having salvaged what knowledge we can from the Network—I can explain them in more detail. But to be brief? Revenants are creatures of the Void who seek out exceptionally psionically gifted individuals as part of a symbiotic relationship. They are born of the Void but the Void is too hostile to keep them alive for long. So they find people like us. Essentially every Ethereal has one, save for him, and it's not like you can keep a Revenant hidden forever. His elevated power would suggest one, but..." Argus sighed. "That's all I have. I apologize."

Well, it was something. Him being naturally that powerful would at least mean they didn't have another body to contend with in there—even if the implication was staggering. Still, they had their ace in the hole of Asaru and Argus. They'd just have to play it smart. "Something is better than nothing." Eliza lifted her eyes. No sounds of conflict... but her trained ears could hear a Sectopod lumbering around. "... Menace, we need to keep moving. Resume standard positions, assume we are to encounter the Overmind at any given point. Move out."

She got her chorus of "understood"s, and the squad began to move again. Eliza kept her eyes out, but she couldn't help but wonder...

Who was the Overmind?


Before Angelis even came in over the Network, the Overmind already knew the Trio had failed.

My Overmind. The Trio have been killed.

Typical. He hadn't expected much of them when he sent them out there—at the very least, he hoped they would be a speed bump as he prepared himself. Judging by how quickly he'd gotten this knews after XCOM invaded, they couldn't even be that much. He sighed. He really should have removed his ability to feel disappointment. XCOM has saved me the trouble, I suppose. I shall repel our misbegotten invaders.

Understood. I will continue our backup process.

Angelis was backing up their data just in case any of the Ethereals currently hosting the Network got killed in the crossfire. Which, honestly, was likely. The Overmind would avoid it where he could, and the protective casings the caskets were made of would negate most crossfire. The only thing getting through it easily were those armor piercing rounds he knew the Hunter possessed.

Never before had the Empire been so close to its twilight.

The Sectoids put up an admirable fight, but had no physical might, and their armies' spirits were easily broken. The Gatekeepers were content to traverse the Void, and never fought back. The Archons had no defenses against psionics, and their king swiftly surrendered. The Vipers lacked any propensity for the Gift, and never could strike against the Collective. The Mutons were only used to fighting the terrible creatures of their home planet, and could not last against a siege. The Gourgeami came the closest, capable of subverting one of the Collective's Gates—and was the reason they still stood. Countless others had failed before them.

But now he stood at the cusp of danger. Humans had been the final puzzle piece, the exact genetic mold they needed to usher in a new age. Now, they were the source of the Empire's potential downfall. The Overmind would not allow that to happen on his terms. He had come so far, his grip on the universe ironclad... his power limitless.

Only because of me, Zenithan.

His head jerked to the side, orange flashing behind his eyes. Mentally, he tried to shove the squirming down. "And yet, it is you who has contributed to the deaths of your kind," he hissed. "Claim responsibility if you want."

We both know this is your fault. You refused to take the humans seriously—you assigned known troublemakers to a "nothing" planet and abstained from adjusting your plans for fear others would think you made a mistake. They know you are desperate.

"Silence."

XCOM comes. Soon your pitiful Empire will topple. And I will see that the mistakes of the Zudjari are never repeated.

"I. Said." The Overmind undid his mask, slamming a hand against his head and rocketing his psionics through it into his mind. "SILENCE!"

The torrent of psionics was sufficient enough to shove the damned thing down, and it retreated back deep into his mind. The Overmind was left breathing heavily—slightly out of exertion, mostly out of frustration. That thing—that wretched thing thought it was clever. That it would get the last laugh. Not as long as he lived. He would force XCOM out, he would kill that damned child, and then he would sentence his own to the darkest depths of his mind.

My Overmind? Is... everything alright?

The Overmind immediately composed himself, mask sliding back into place. Dealing with some quirks of the Avatar. Esvensthia didn't do a perfect job, as expected.

The silence before Angelis's response was heavy. I understand. Be safe, and... He knew what she wanted to say. There was no feeling behind the phrase anymore—just obligation. But even so... after all these years, Angelis was the one Ethereal the Overmind never felt hate towards. He knew when he removed the ability to feel love from the both of them that they would remain together, inexorably bound.

So he took the chance. I love you, my Angelis.

Her response came readily. I love You too, my Overmind. I will be handling everything behind the curtain.

Her presence retreated from his mind, and turned his attention towards the huge divider between him and the catwalk out. He knew they were coming.

The Overmind would show them no mercy.


As Menace walked the path leading into the Inner Sanctum, Eliza couldn't help but feel like they were walking into the belly of the beast.

The catwalk-like path stretched further into an area a little ways in front of them. Psionics were getting heavier and heavier in the air, to the point where Eliza could practically taste it on her tongue. The two SPARKs were leading the charge in front, while the rest of the squad was spaced out. Eliza hung near Asaru and Argus as they walked further up. The fighting behind them had stopped and resistance was minimal after they'd killed the Trio—Argus postulated that they were the ones giving orders since the Network went down. That left only the sounds of their own footsteps to make haunting-sounding echoes as they advanced.

Eventually, they reached what Eliza considered was the Inner Sanctum of the Collective. There were raised planters featuring plants obviously not of Earth, along with tables and lounging chairs that looked like they hadn't been used in years. In front of them, a great wall loomed, with a huge statue of a stylized Elder like the ones in the city centers. The path diverged into two beyond it, and a faint orange glow beckoned beyond.

They walked into what Eliza could only call the lounge, guns still raised. There was silence. The hum of alien machinery was the only thing to raise it above nothingness, and the presence of psionics was enough to make Eliza's hair stand on end. She thought she heard something at the edge of her hearing... but maybe it was a part of the background noise. It was hard to say. They stopped in front of the wall, and after a few more moments, Argus turned around to address the group.

They never even got the chance to open their mouth.

With a hideous noise like the grinding and splitting of metal, the wall and the statue in front of them were ripped apart in a burst of psionics that made Eliza's ears ring. Beyond the wall was the main room, and stylized caskets filled with what seemed to be Meld abounded. Four platforms stood at the sides of the room, with Gates on each of them. But her focus was on the Avatar standing just beyond the ruins of the wall.

The other Avatars had mostly had a uniform height—this one was different. He stood taller than she'd even remembered Cronus standing. His helmet was differently designed, flatter at the top while still following the same style as the rest. Psionics were dissipating in his hands, and they were deep purple in color. A dark colored, red-lined, truly alien gun sat on his back. A cosmic hum thrummed from the Overmind, a deep, bassy tone in the back of Eliza's skull.

There wasn't much time to gawk. Before they could react, the Overmind threw his hand out towards SYN. There was a flash of psionics around the SPARK, and a glowing ball of purple light materialized in his hand. He dug his fingers into it and ripped it apart.

Right in front of her eyes, SYN was reduced to circuits and slag.

The shock was enough to inspire movement back into Eliza's limbs. Julian was one of the others to react first. "Flash out!" From the underbarrel launcher on his gun popped out what had to be the last flashbang Julian was equipped with. The squad shielded their eyes with the warning—and unfortunately, the Overmind did as well, but it seemed just barely. As Eliza lowered her arm and quickly began to seek cover, she could see he was staggering back, but still casting up a shield to defend himself with. SYN's orphaned BIT flew to Julian. The Overmind quickly flooded his power into the area, causing the squad to duck—and in that time he launched a Null Lance at Jax... or rather, his rifle. The Disruption Rifle split into several pieces, and Lucifer threw a Stasis over Jax to stall the assault that the Avatar put him under.

Alright. One source of flashbangs down, and they no longer had their anti-psionics gun. Eliza had worked with worse.

Already, the pressure was on. Eliza loaded a Boltcaster shot and rose long enough to fire it off—and good thing, as the Overmind had advanced towards Julian and had that same ball of light in his hand. Getting shot seemed to disrupt his concentration, as he grunted and it disappeared. That was a direct hit just now—was the Overmind reaction shielding himself? A fair strategy, and one that made Eliza further wish they had the Disruption Rifle. Still, best to communicate with the squad—but Bradford had her covered. "Menace, eyes on the target! If he makes that ball of light, priority number one is to shoot him!"

Absolutely, but she knew the Overmind would make that hard to do. That destruction didn't seem to be his only trick; he was freely firing off psionic projectiles at anyone who ducked out long enough to shoot him. Julian was backing up but still firing, and Mordenna had taken a perch further into the Sanctum, on a raised platform with more Meld within it. Fal-Mai was shirking her cloak in favor of keeping low and disrupting the Overmind whenever he went to attack. Jax, naturally, was trying to provide cover for anyone caught out—the Overmind could still rip it apart, but Jax could easily reform it.

This didn't mean they were having an easy time. Argus was the only one who could freely stand under the onslaught—everyone else was pinned to their cover under the hail of energy, including Eliza. She reloaded and bit back a swear as a psionic bolt chipped her cover away. She heard that cosmic thrum—and under it, the violin of Argus, and the sound of metal being cast to the floor. Those blades of Argus's had been doing work earlier, but now she got the sense that the Overmind was deflecting them... or demolishing them.

More psionics blew away her cover, and as Eliza shifted position, she heard a frenzied "guys—!" from Julian. Eliza spotted her cover and turned on her heel to assist Julian with the Overmind—just to see the SPARK being psionically tossed to the side. He still landed on his feet with a heavy thud, revealing it to be Argus's work. Argus was at a fair distance, and the Overmind launched a beam of power at them. Their head glowed with a blue halo, Ossio manifested, and Argus met it with one of their own. Eliza properly ducked into her cover to watch and load her shot. The Overmind was strong, terrifyingly so—but if Argus was to be believed, he didn't even have a Revenant. They should've had the edge.

Right?

The rest of Menace watched as neither Avatar gained ground in the power clash, psionics flooding the area. After a second, the Overmind let out a growing, mocking laugh. "This is all the power you can muster with that freak of nature, Esvensthia? This is what you thought you could topple the Empire with?!" The Overmind pressed in, and Argus lost ground. "Die, then, and I will—"

Well, no sense standing around. Eliza leveled her gun at the Overmind's back and fired. Sure she didn't break his skin but the sheer force of the impact staggered the Overmind, breaking his concentration and allowing Argus to reposition. The Overmind himself recovered quickly, lunging for Eliza. Her lower left hand shot for her pistol and she fired at him, slowing him down—but at a certain distance, she felt her being shudder, and watched as he grabbed her "core."

Thankfully the rest of the squad was on it. One of Mordenna's bullets streaked towards the Overmind's head and he had to stop to project a more powerful shield to stop it. Eliza fled, psionics empowering her legs as she beat feet away from the Overmind. A retaliatory Null Lance was shot at Mordenna, whose form shimmered around it. Right—those misdirection psionics must've been pulling work. Still, something stuck out at Eliza as she slid to cover behind one of the caskets. It was as if...

No time to think. Another Null Lance streaked by and caught her shoulder. The breath left Eliza's lungs at the pain—a combination of physical and mental, burning and tingling. She grabbed that shoulder, trying to flush psionics at the location. She wasn't good at healing psionics without Asaru, but she'd damn well try.

Oh, god. Speaking of Asaru. Eliza looked up, and she wasn't the only person getting caught out. Jax's armor had glowing scorch marks in a few places where she guessed his psionics had lost against the Overmind's. He was still standing, thankfully, but it was clear his strength was wearing down. Argus moved towards him and Asaru shakily materialized, but the second he did the Overmind's attention turned towards her son and he barraged him, forcing him to fearfully retreat back into Argus. Eliza gritted her teeth, popping one of the Plasma Grenades on her belt and chucking it with force towards the Overmind. He didn't notice the throw, and was caught in the blast, giving her son long enough to pop over, heal Jax, and immediately disappear.

They couldn't keep that up forever. Eliza and the others only had so many grenades, and the Overmind looked like he was hardly slowing down underneath all of the firepower they were throwing at him. Jax's psionics, when used offensively, were brushed off. Fal-Mai's shotgun blasts to his sides merely made him flinch. Eliza's Boltcaster shots had the most stopping power, but she was getting clipped more and more, making it harder to aim. Every time Asaru poked his head out, the Overmind tried to shoot it off, further boiling Eliza's blood and not even giving Asaru the chance to deploy a flash. She at least noticed that the Overmind spent a lot of time moving within range of them, then trying to grab their cores while they were distracted. His range was smaller than she'd give it credit for.

"Guys!" That was Lily and she did not sound happy. Behind her, Eliza heard one of the Gates flicker to life. "The Elders are not happy we're here—I'm trying to hold them back but they're activating the Gates!"

Goddamnit. Eliza quickly checked her six, and a Specter and two Mutons managed to make it through the Gate before the power was cut to it again. She was in the middle of loading another bolt! The Mutons advanced and the Specter cloaked, leaving Eliza flanked. Mordenna turned to shoot one Muton down, but before he or Eliza could reload, the second aimed at Eliza. He pulled the trigger.

His gun clicked.

Startled by the jam, Eliza had enough time to fire back, downing her would-be attacker. She thanked the memory of Angel, reloading the chamber. "Menace, cloaked Specter in play!"

Another Gate flickered to life, this time on the other side of the field. Two Stun Lancers, three Chryssalids. They needed someone to focus on them. Mordenna was too important to disrupting the Overmind's concentration at key moments, Argus was the only one capable of meeting the Overmind's psionic power... Julian, Jax, or Fal-Mai would work. "Fal-Mai, on the newcomers! Julian—" A crack of the Darklance, and a dead Specter. "—assist her!"

"Don't know if I'll make it over there!" Julian didn't have any more flashbangs by this point but the Overmind was focusing on him like he had at least one left. Over to the side, Fal-Mai was able to heed the order, and was quickly cutting down the opposition. The Overmind was distracted with Argus at least, so Eliza would cover—

Suddenly, grasping, psionic hands burst out from the coffin she was next to, pinning her to it. It caught her off guard so much that it took her a second to react... but by then the damage was done. The Overmind floored Argus, Jax was behind cover and recovering, Mordenna was helping Fal-Mai. The Overmind turned, sprinted at Julian, and grabbed his core.

Nobody could stop him. With a horrific screeching, Julian was split into his base components.

The two now-orphaned BITs hurriedly flew over to Mordenna's location, likely falling back on him per Lily's instruction. Eliza cursed loudly, in no state of mind to bite it back. She wrenched herself free of the grasping hands, resisting the urge to give an empowered kick to the coffin. Squad was two down—three with how much the Overmind was suppressing Asaru. Desperately trying to move on from her call getting Julian scrapped, she scrambled for a new tactic. The Overmind needed top priority, but they couldn't completely turn their back on the Gates. A plan swiftly came to her and Eliza turned, pulling the pin on another Plasma Grenade and expertly chucking it at the closest Gate. It landed and subsequently exploded, taking off a chunk of it. "—Menace sans Mordenna, eyes on the Overmind! Mordenna, swap to the most hollow point rounds you have and take out the rest of the Gates!"

Mordenna must've had a round ready, as with a crack, the control console for the other Gate was shattered. Argus had gotten up with Jax's help, and though the Overmind came over to strike him next, Fal-Mai came out of cloak and shot him in the back. She was back out of sight by the time he turned around. There was at least some dent being made—scratches and scorch marks littered the Overmind's armor, and his psionics... weren't as purple anymore? Another color was starting to mix in, but it was hard to tell which one. The mystery mildly boggled Eliza, but she had more important things to focus on. Like formulating a plan to kill the Overmind faster, as this was a war of attrition they weren't weren't going to win. She knew Menace was getting worn out, exemplified in those who had been meeting him head on the most.

Then, the Overmind promptly forced the issue.

Fal-Mai peeled out of the shadows to strike again, but this time he predicted that she was coming for his back. Wheeling around as she moved to attack, the Overmind fired a strangely-colored beam of psionics at her. Caught off guard, all Fal-Mai could do was twist to direct the blow, but it still took a chunk out of her armor and knocked her flat on her back, practically gouging a hole in her side. Fal-Mai wasn't going to make it if she wasn't either healed or extracted, fast. Eliza, body aching from all the shots she had taken, hopped over her cover. "Argus, on Fal-Mai! Menace, I need covering fire for them yesterday!"

Though the Overmind had advanced to finish Fal-Mai off, he had to back up under the onslaught he was swiftly put under. Jax was firing a full salvo from his cannon, Mordenna had swapped to the Darkclaw and was pelting him with shots, and Eliza was firing the Boltcaster as fast as she could operate it, lower left hand peppering the Overmind with pistol shots. Argus quickly darted over to Fal-Mai, pulling up rubble and pieces of the floor to cover them as they went. The Overmind growled, first retaliating against Jax by darting at him, forcing Jax to stop and reposition. As Argus reached Fal-Mai, Asaru quickly emerged, and the Overmind spun. A few of Mordenna's shots found purchase and he spat a curse. There was no way the Overmind could get over to Asaru in time, and Fal-Mai could be healed in the time it took him to get over there.

Of course, Eliza should've expected that gun on his back to see some use.

The Overmind tossed Null Lances at Eliza and Jax, forcing them to dodge. The energy for the Darkclaw must've run out, as Eliza spotted Mordenna furiously swapping to his Darklance. Instead of closing the distance, the Overmind took the gun off of his back, aiming at the wall of rubble between him and Asaru. Eliza furiously loaded her gun and fired again as the Overmind shot, knocking his aim to the side. She could only watch as the red and orange beam flew towards the wall, blasted through it, and caught Asaru in the shoulder as he was healing Fal-Mai.

The effect was instant. Asaru's very form shuddered and he screamed out, a sound that was more mental than physical. Argus clutched their head from the feedback, and Asaru curled around his injured shoulder. The whole scene made the blood in Eliza's veins run red hot, and she focused her full fury at the Overmind. She stepped out of her cover as his head turned towards her, and unbidden, she felt her psionics gather in her throat again. She would not let him hurt Asaru. She wouldn't let him lay a finger on her child. She wouldn't let him fire that gun again. "Drop it, NOW!"

Her psionics burst forth from her vision like a wave, washing over everyone in the vicinity. The Overmind was staggered by it—and after a second, his gun fell from his hands. Off to the sides, she saw Jax struggle to keep his gun just at rest, and Mordenna fumbled his own. Everyone was either too affected by her psionics or too caught off guard to react... save Eliza herself. Another reload, and Eliza aimed, firing. The Overmind had the presence of mind to throw a shield up around himself—a shield he swiftly dropped when he realized he wasn't the target. At his feet, the cannon lay in pieces, plasma still smoldering. Eliza dashed forwards, a fist raised and cloaked in psionics fuelled by protective love. "You stay the hell away from my kid!"

The Overmind may have been able to match someone psionically. But physically to Eliza's immensely enhanced strength and combat training? No. Her fist impacted his helmet and she sent him to the floor, fragments of his helmet going with him. Before he was even done picking himself off the floor, Eliza was sprinting behind the disintegrating cover Argus had put up. Asaru was shaking, Fal-Mai was sitting up, wound healed but clearly still hurting, and Argus was recovering from the shot. She took Asaru's hand, guiding him into her embrace and her safety, and he swiftly hid in her mind as she fanned out her Solace of Love. His pain was evident and she spared a moment to focus that love inwards. You did well. It's going to be ok. Rest for now, we have this.

Asaru was still hurt, still crying, but he curled up in Eliza's consciousness and focused on recovering. Eliza helped Fal-Mai to her feet as the Overmind rose. Half of his mask had been sheared off, revealing a face similar to Argus's underneath. He had a slightly more prominent jawline, and tattoos that snaked around his cheeks... and his eye was distinctly glowing orange. His mouth didn't budge but his animosity was clear from his expression. "—is this justice to you, Commander? Is 'justice' preventing me from avenging my kind, who were left behind by these selfish wastes of talent?!"

"Thinking about it?" Eliza maintained her distance, swapping to support as she pumped more power into her Solace. "I can only wonder why they chose that! Out of the two of you, which one is going on a conquest for genocide?!"

Mordenna shot, and another Gate went down, leaving one left. The Overmind practically roared, making to approach her, but was swiftly waylaid by a Plasma Grenade from Jax. "You know nothing of our loss! They chose to discard us when they ascended, not thinking of how it would ruin us!" His next blast of psionics let Eliza identify the color that was mixed in with them—it was orange. "And now you are taking away our only hope of rectifying this! Not only this, but you bring one of them here to mock me!"

Eliza kept thinking of the implication of that color shining through as she retorted. "He's just a kid, you monster! Do you think he has any investment in you? The only thing he knows about you is that you're killing everyone that could have been his friends, his family!"

"And if I have my way, he shall not be the last!" The Overmind kept retaliating, but they were catching him stumbling more and more. His psionics, orange and purple, were starting to coalesce around his head, flaring like a corona. "I shall not suffer a single Ascended to live, not with what they have done to us!"

"Is that so?!" Argus yanked one of the shards of the broken Gates, hurling it at the Overmind. He opted to dodge, forced out of position. "I believe one may be closer to you than Asaru is!"

What was Argus...? Oh. Oh no. Conflicting emotions coursed through Eliza's mind as the Overmind fixed his gaze on Argus. "Liar."

"You may call me that when I'm not speaking the truth!" Argus pointed at him. "How else would you match an Avatar with an Ascended? And would you care to explain this color we are seeing? Why would you hide an alternative shade of your psionics if you were not ashamed of it?!"

Eliza came to two realizations—one, the last Gate hadn't been operated since the start of this confrontation. Two... Argus was accusing the Overmind of harboring his own Ascended Ethereal. To Eliza, it made sense—he'd been covering the alternative psionics color under his own purple to avoid questions from those who knew he'd had a purple signature for so long. Plus, while there could be the distinct possibility that the Overmind was simply powerful enough to match Argus and Asaru as a team... it made quite a bit of sense for Argus's accusation to be true. Tellingly, the Overmind's subsequent response wasn't much of a rebuttal. "Liar! How dare you think I would debase myself by—"

The Overmind suddenly stopped up, clutching his head. Purple psionics fought to enclose the orange that was seeping out, and he seemed to battle it off for the moment—long enough to get shot by Eliza, scoring a direct hit to his shoulder. The Overmind gave a horrific screech, swiping his hand in Eliza's direction. She couldn't dodge the wave of purple psionics he sent at her—so it was a good thing Asaru emerged long enough to put up a barrier between it and her. The entirely-purple psionic wave splashed off his own powers, and he quickly retreated after.

Thinking of Asaru, thinking of how easily he could come and go, but the Ascended inside the Overmind could not... Eliza mustered her voice, willing her psionics away from her throat. "Look—I don't know who you are in there, but what I do know is that you can fight this! This is your moment, he can't keep you in there forever! And when you're out, we'll protect you from him!" Eliza yanked back the bolt on her gun, reloading. "And I'm not going to stop until he's let you go!"

"Silence!" The Overmind blindly swiped again, and this time Eliza ducked to avoid it. "There i-is no Ascended! This is not—" The Overmind threw his head, and there was a pulse of orange. "Back! I have come too far for you to interfere now!"

There was a crack of the Darklance, and this time his shot sailed straight through the Overmind's knee. Forced to take one, he yelled out again, his own purple psionics dissipating around the orange. The Overmind practically clawed at his own head, energy flooding from his hands as it seemed he was desperate to keep the Ascended from escaping. Eliza stepped closer, and she could feel Asaru adding his hope to her Solace, reaching out to the Overmind, to whoever was inside of him. "I know you're in there! Fight!"

The Overmind began to say something, but it was lost under his own scream as his hands fell away from his head, shaking. From his head, a shining orange light bloomed, and suddenly Eliza was swamped with thoughts of what life would be like after the war—quiet afternoons with the smell of lunch wafting through the house, the grassy plains just in the distance with the alien kids running through them. Even to the moments of downtime she got on the Avenger itself, when the reality of the war seemed so far away.

From that light, an Ascended emerged.

They were large, for one, bigger than Asaru, taller than even Jax. Their body was bathed in orange as their tentacles fanned out and they parted from the Overmind like they were kicking off the side of a pool in the water. They looked exactly like Asaru otherwise, simply with longer tentacles and a more fully formed, stylized Ethereal skull in their head. The Overmind weakly swiped after them and they fired a Soulfire-like blast at him, knocking him to the floor. "Get—" The Overmind seemed to be struggling to even talk. "Get back here, you miserable creature...!"

The Ascended looked down at him dismissively. "My name is Shamash," she corrected, her voice resonating in the Inner Sanctum. "And I shall never return to you ever again."

The Overmind tried to pick himself up, but Eliza shot him through his other leg, aiming for the hip joint. Even still, he scratched at the floor around him, trying to find purchase to crawl away. Bands of red psionics formed over his wrists and pinned him to the ground. The Overmind struggled for a while longer before the fight gradually left him. The silence in the Inner Sanctum was deafening.

Eliza walked up to his downed form, and she could feel Shamash following her. Zenithan defiantly stared back up at her through the break in his mask. "... well? Have you found the point where your infinite mercy ends, Commander?"

"Elizabeth." Eliza's ears pricked at her full name, and she turned her head towards Shamash. "There is nothing to be gained from the dying words of a dictator. Let him die."

"It's just Eliza," she softly corrected. "And I'm not going to hear him out. But I am going to explain a few things." She turned back towards Zenithan, crouching. "Well, I'm not about to claim I don't have my limits. But there's a hypothetical I want to float by you." She tilted her head. "My mercy extends to people who are willing to change themselves for the better, who want to do good by those they've wronged. Tell me—Zenithan, I think Argus called you once—do you think that I believe that you could change?"

Zenithan's eye dragged over her for a moment. "—you are gullible, Commander. You have taken in an Ethereal before. But I can only imagine that your willingness to reform me does not exist. I do not feel what you feel, after all."

She knew he was bluffing on the implication that Argus was a double agent. Eliza merely chose to let that drop. "It's not a matter of a lack of emotions. Maybe it makes it harder to truly grasp when you've done something wrong, but that just would mean you would need all the more help to be set on the right track. No... redemption is a two way street, Zenithan. When I trusted the Skirmishers, took in the Chosen, allowed Argus to live, it wasn't just me who wanted them to reform. They had to want it too, and they did. After everything I've seen out of you, after how far you've clearly been willing to go to kill the Ascended... I don't think you have enough drive to work on yourself like that."

"You would accuse me of a lack of drive?"

"Sure am. Harder to work on yourself than it is to ruin everything around you after all." Eliza sighed. "Never been one for capital punishment, but... there's really only two ways I see this going. Either we imprison you for life... or you die here."

"The cost to imprison him would be great," Shamash interjected. "You would have to expend resources on an infinite scale to keep him imprisoned for the rest of eternity, considering the timeless nature of the Avatars. And ultimately, you are correct—I have known Zenithan on a timescale I cannot quantify. He would never seek to right his wrongs against me and others."

That was a fairly salient point. Imprisoning an Avatar would incur a huge resource cost—and as exemplified when Argus broke the psionic limiters, it may be a cost they couldn't even foot yet. Eliza looked over Zenithan, considering that fact. "Well?"

Zenithan stared back up at her. "'Well' what?"

"What do you think I'm going to do?"

"Is it not obvious? You will kill me. And then you will kill the rest of my kind, completing the genocide of the Ethereals. Are you so different, Commander? You and I are simply fighting for what is best for both of our species. To survive. Was it so wrong for us to try and seek a future when our bodies failed us? Have you, Eliza, not done the same?"

"I mean, yeah. It was wrong." Eliza gestured at him, her eyebrow quirked. "You went about it by systematically conquering planet after planet, liquidating people when you just could have made peaceful first contact and asked for assistance. I told Jax this a long time ago, but if you'd come as peacefully as you said you did at First Contact, Earth would've been eating out of the palm of your hand. And I can't fathom that, surrounded by so many brilliant minds, it never occurred to you to just ask. I'm sure it did. I'm also sure you would've never relied on 'lesser species' to be the arbiter of your salvation. My ascension into a new body was using materials that had already been harvested and was not something on a grand scale, nor something I intend to have replicated on that scale. Plus I only had to do it because you, by proxy, killed one of my own. So, uh." Eliza shook her head. "You're wrong on one account. We are not the same."

He continued to glare at her, and suddenly Eliza was keenly aware she was looking at the last moments of this brutal being's life. "... and the other account?"

Eliza met his gaze... and mentally shielded Asaru's eyes. "You're right there."

The Commander straightened, leveled her gun at Zenithan's head, and fired. The shot echoed off the ruined scenery of the Inner Sanctum, the plasma bolt piercing his head instantly. His eyes clouded over as orange blood ran down his face, and she could feel the quiet cosmic hum in the back of her mind diminish to nothing.

The Overmind, Zenithan, was dead. XCOM had won.

"Menace..." Bradford sounded full of disbelief. "... we did it. That's one despot down for the count. We're wrapping up the battle here and once you folks are home, we can pack up and set down elsewhere."

"Gotcha." Eliza holstered her gun as the tension went out of her shoulders. There was still one or two last matters of business left. First, she turned to Shamash. "... Shamash, was it? How are you feeling?"

"Better. I feel more at ease now that Zenithan lies dead at my feet—there were times during my captivity where I feared I would never see this day. But there is still one issue on my mind." Shamash's implied gaze was heavy and full of judgement. "While Zenithan is incorrect in comparing you to him, there is merit in a wider association. Humans have become the first to triumph over the Collective... and that means they have just as much capacity to harm us and the rest of sapient life. Sometimes it takes one great evil to overturn another."

Eliza's heart sank. No. Not when they were so close. "Shamash you're not implying what I think you're implying."

"You are keen-minded, Eliza. I am." Shamash cast her gaze over the rest of Menace, who seemed to have cottoned onto what she was saying and were various levels of displeased. "I trust those here, who have seen the horrors of the Overmind firsthand, to not repeat the mistakes of the Empire. But what of the rest of humanity? Unless you intend to step up to a ruling position, can you safely assume they will not gain the same hunger for expansion and power that the Collective harbored?"

"I'm not looking to rule," Eliza began, "but you can know for a fact that as long as I'm around, I'm not going to allow Earth to repeat that."

"But for how long can you make that a guarantee? As a Chosen, you may be eternally young, but there may come a day where your life is snuffed out—whether by accident or on purpose. What after then?"

Eliza would have responded, but Asaru tugged on her consciousness to be let out. Eliza mentally uncovered his eyes and allowed him to rise to the surface, materializing behind her. Shamash's gaze seemed to instantly soften, and Asaru took the chance to speak. "... um, I-I'm sorry to interrupt. B-but I want to say something, and I... I wanna talk to someone who's like me."

Shamash seemed to entirely forget Eliza as she floated down more to Asaru's eye level. "... I know your bonded said you were just a child, but... as young as you are..." She shook her head. "What is your name, little one?"

"A-Asaru."

"Asaru. Let me see your shoulder." Eliza gently stepped out of the way as Asaru turned, showing Shamash his still-injured shoulder. She wrapped a few of her tentacles around it, and guided him in doing the same. "... think of a day better than this one, even if it isn't by much." Asaru nodded, and Eliza caught a fragment of his thought—a day where he was in Eliza's arms, napping outside of her head for once. Light blue and orange mixed together at his shoulder, and soon, the wound closed and healed. Shamash took her tentacles away. "There we are. What did you wish to say, child?"

Asaru left his tentacles curled around his shoulder, and the others curled around one of his arms. "U-um... it's about—it's about what you were talking about with Mom." Shamash raised an eyebrow at Eliza at that, but gestured for Asaru to continue. "I don't think I know as much as you. But... but I don't think we should be that mean to humans. Because, um, Mom thought you meant 'genocide,' which is what the Ethereals were doing to us. I don't think it's good to wipe out all of someone just because some of them are bad. I'll... I'll lose so many friends I made. A-and I don't wanna..."

Shamash gently took Asaru's hand. "Asaru. The humans could hurt us just in the same way the Ethereals did, now that the knowledge of how to do so will spread. All they have to think is that we are bad once more, or think we would be better if we were just... batteries for their machines."

"B-but anyone can do that!" Asaru took his hand away, floating towards Eliza. "I don't wanna live trusting no one! Because I trust Mom and she trusts a bunch of people who trust others! If we kill humans because we don't trust them then we'll be just as bad! We'll lose everything they knew, all their memories, all the things they could give to everyone else! I—" Asaru hiccupped. "I already won't see another one of me for so long because of what the Ethereals did! I-I-I don't want to do the same to humans because I just thought they could be bad! That's what they did to us! Th-that's... that's..."

Asaru sobbed and Eliza couldn't handle it anymore. She took Asaru's arm and brought him down for a hug, extending her Solace back out just for him. Her eyes drifted to meet Shamash's, who seemed to finally acknowledge Eliza. She looked... defeated. Maybe something more, but Eliza couldn't quite determine it. After an exchange of gazes, Shamash sighed. "I... I will need to think more on what I would like to do. What peace would entail. I..."

She trailed off, never finishing her sentence. She floated off to the side, stopping and seeming to be lost in thought. Now that the immediate danger had passed, Eliza walked over to the rest of Menace. Mordenna had come down from his perch and the rest of the Chosen gathered around. The second order of business on Eliza's mind came back to her, and she looked up at Jax. "Jax... can you take Asaru? I... I need to talk about something with Argus."

Jax nodded, and Eliza gently disconnected Asaru, attaching him to Jax. As Fal-Mai and Mordenna huddled around their brother to comfort their son, Eliza walked over to Argus, who was still considering Zenithan's body. "Argus."

Argus looked up. "Yes?"

"... what are we doing with the other Ethereals?"

Argus was silent for a moment, looking back at the caskets. Without her life on the line, Eliza could now see the hazy outlines of Ethereals above them, silently watching Menace. "... it's your call, really. But I do have a few suggestions."

"Shoot."

"Well, you've already said you're against capital punishment." Argus gestured towards the rest of the room. "True, containing an Avatar is unreasonable... but the others can be transferred into bodies that are less... volatile, I'll call it. I'm sure many of them will take even just the chance of imprisonment over dying slowly—or quickly if you offer that way out."

Eliza crossed her arms. "And the blocked emotions?"

"That can be undone, of course, in a similar procedure to what I did for Mordenna. Though I'm unsure of how many will agree to that."

"It's going to be a requirement. If they want to live, they have to be able to realize the full scope of what they've done and at least be capable of feeling remorse. Because, well, the Overmind was wrong. I'm not about to genocide the rest of the Ethereals if I can help it." Eliza sighed. "Asaru just made a good case about that."

"That he did." Argus thought for a moment. "I'll warn you right now—you're fighting an uphill battle. Probably the biggest one you've fought yet. I genuinely don't think a lot of them will ever get better."

Eliza shrugged. "Won't know until I try."

There was a second of silence, then a bit of tired laughter from Argus. "And that has always been your truth. There should be enough material left to transfer all of them into safer, perhaps long-lived-but-still-mortal bodies. If not, I guarantee I can find a method of just skimming genetic material without killing anyone. Avatars are a bit more resource efficient when you're not making them as psionically adept as possible. The only hard part is going to be the sell."

"Ain't that the rub." Eliza sized up the Ethereals staring at her. Vaguely, she got the outline of one that seemed... slightly different. Like there were ribbons trailing down from their helmet. Eliza approached on her guard, aware of what Ethereals could do even in their caskets. "Might I ask who I'm speaking to?"

The projection got stronger. "My name no longer matters."

"It's Angelis," Argus answered, tailing along behind her, "though I'll do her the dignity of not revealing her actual name."

"I would prefer you never refer to me ever again."

"That's fair," Argus muttered.

Eliza shook her head. "I assume you—and everyone else here—heard me discussing what to do with you guys. This is me extending that offer. Your options are: we disconnect you from the Network and leave you here to die, we mercy kill you, or... we transfer you into new bodies that aren't as powerful as the Avatars. You'll be imprisoned, I should warn, and we'd re-enable all those emotions you guys turned off for yourselves, but you'd have the opportunity to work, make up for what you did, and be free one day."

She heard some soft murmurings around her, but Angelis responded fairly quickly. "My path without my beloved is death. You would offer me to live in a world without Him, saddled with emotions I could never deal with when He is gone. You would give me love just to know I could never love another. I thought you merciful, Commander. I suppose I was wrong."

"It was just an option," Eliza replied, torn between exasperation at the melodrama... and the reality that there was someone who, in the past, genuinely loved Zenithan. "If you'd rather have death, we can do that." Unplugging the caskets would probably be a slow, excruciating death. Mordenna's Darkclaw should be able to pierce them just fine. She looked around. "I'll give the rest of you time to think. In the meantime, please be courteous and let Lily take over the Network."

Silence greeted her request, but Lily filled in just fine. "I haven't been fighting them for a while, Commander. Ever since you got the Overmind to drop his weapon, I think they just stopped to watch. Still, I'll disconnect all of them."

"Understood," she responded. She turned her back, walking back towards her Chosen, noting that Argus failed to follow. She'd leave them to talk with their former colleagues if they wanted. Asaru had mostly stopped crying and was now just being held against Jax's chest, with Fal-Mai stroking his head and Mordenna murmuring something to him. In the back, Shamash had turned to watch. Deciding her attention was better served there, Eliza walked up to her. She went to say something... but nothing came to mind even as Shamash stared at her expectantly. Eliza just turned to look at the rest of the Chosen again, sharing in the silent moment with the other Ascended.

"... sometimes, wisdom is the sharper blade than knowledge." Eliza looked up at Shamash, who was still staring at Asaru. "I have seen more than most mortals experience in several lifetimes, through my own eyes and the eyes of Zenithan. So many civilizations I have seen, all their knowledge and lore. I thought myself keen enough to make such an important decision." Shamash looked to the side. "I suppose it's only fitting that a child is able to talk me out of my thinking."

"Helps to have a different perspective," Eliza replied. "And... I've been thinking about what you said, too. Argus told me that there's only a bit of tech left that can kill Ascended. Once we destroy that, and any knowledge of how to reproduce it... you guys are effectively immortal again. Maybe I won't live forever. Maybe one day I'll get unlucky and die." Eliza closed her eyes. "But then... Asaru will still be there. He's Earth's Ascended. He'll remember what happened, and he'll make sure that humans never make the same mistake ever again. I have hope for him, Shamash. I understand how you and your kind were hurt. But... as Asaru said. Don't perpetuate the cycle."

Shamash nodded. "I had already come to a majority of those conclusions, but you are right. My idea, my core of peace... it had become corrupted after so long with the Overmind. I thought the only way to maintain peace would be to prevent anyone from harming us ever again. But that is only peace for Ascended, and even then, at what cost? We are beings of vast knowledge, and our culture is sharing that knowledge. Even if he is unaware of that culture... Asaru already knows that destroying an entire civilization's worth of material and history would be counter to what we are. I..." Shamash inclined her head. "... I just don't know where I will fit, when this is all done."

"Welcome to the club." When Shamash looked at her to say more, Eliza did. "You'll come to learn this as you stay with us, but... I have a lot of soldiers who won't know what to do with themselves once the fighting is done. It's all they've known for so long. But I want to give them their chance at a peaceful life, where they don't have to leave the community they've known." Eliza gave a tired chuckle. "So we're gonna build a village. Our own little XCOM home. And you can come, if you'll have us."

Shamash was silent for a while. They watched as Mordenna coaxed a giggle out of Asaru, and how Fal-Mai and Jax's faces lit up when it happened. Argus was off, seemingly discussing with the other Ethereals. Far in the distance... the word of victory must've gotten to Vanguard, as she heard triumphant cries in the tongue of the aliens. It was... it was still hard for Eliza to grasp that they had just won. The war was well and truly over. Perhaps there was some work that was still left to handle, but the Overmind was dead. He could no longer hurt any of them. Maybe it would truly hit Eliza later when she was alone, but for now...

Beside her, Shamash lowered herself to Eliza's level. "... I think I would like to see your version of peace, Eliza, as I am still unsure of mine. Would you have me?"

Looking at Shamash, Eliza offered her a smile, gently taking her hand. "Of course. Welcome to XCOM, Shamash. Are you sure you're alright, or would you like a hug?"

Shamash raised an eyebrow. "I do hope that's not a demeaning joke."

"Never is. You've gone a 'timescale you cannot quantify' without any positive physical affection, I'd wager. I'd ask you to give it a try."

She was still for another moment before coming down, arms slowly and cautiously wrapping around Eliza. Eliza readily returned the hug, firmly pulling Shamash in. This close... Shamash sounded like the gentle murmuring of the Studio, the whispers of grass outside of the home Eliza lived in growing up, the gentle laughter of her loved ones. Shamash tensed in her grip... then shuddered, leaning into Eliza.

They held the position like that for a moment, but eventually Shamash backed off. "... thank you, Eliza. But your fight is not yet over." She looked off in the distance, where Argus was walking back from the other Ethereals, shaking their head. "I assume you are going to offer the rest of the Ethereals a choice."

"Already have done so." Just what was Argus talking about with them? "I was giving them some time to think over the decision. Just as Asaru said all humans shouldn't be wiped out... I'd at least like to give the Ethereals the chance to get better. Not without some restrictions, of course, but at least we would be moving them into new bodies that would be easier to manage."

Shamash nodded, sighing. "As much as I would like to disagree, you are right. There is much to Ethereal history that would die with them, anyhow. Although... if you wish to know the truth about the Ascended, I may enlighten you."

This was as good a chance as any, considering the only info she had of it always came from an Ethereal, good-intentioned or not. "I'm listening."

"Our Ascension happened a very, very long time ago. What triggered it, we are uncertain. Our most popular theory was a sort of enlightenment that, when the first Ethereal experienced it, any others who qualified did as well. That is what is most congruent with our experience. Being psionically adept enough was the first obvious signifier for selection... but that was obviously not the only qualifier. What else caused us to ascend is more... difficult, to sum up. Empathy, an open mind, the willingness to help others, these are all things that I had noticed in my fellows whenever I met them. We became more where our brothers, sisters, family, and friends did not. At first we stayed to try to induce this same ascension in them. This... did not happen.

"In hindsight, it's now obvious why those who were left behind did not ascend. They were people like Odin, Helena, Cronus... Zenithan. Those who did not have those qualities, who were not 'good.'" The way she said it, Eliza could tell Shamash had a few thoughts about it. "They hated us, after it became clear that they could not come with us. They tried to capture us and use us, and so, we fled. We spread ourselves over the cosmos, raising and uplifting life wherever we settled, noticing that the occasional planet already had a young Ascended by the time we reached it. We were helping others. We were... happy.

"Such things don't last forever. I... I will not go into exacting details. There are some wounds still too fresh to talk about. But my people, the Zudjari, betrayed me. I was just a battery of their war machine. But they could not stand against the might of the Collective. When they came, and it was clear the Zudjari would not win... they set about destroying all their knowledge, and essentially succeeded before the Overmind discovered me. To the rest of the world, I had been killed, another victory in the war the Collective was waging. But to the Overmind... I was now his battery, a source for his limitless power." Shamash loosely clasped her hands. "I still believe there were some Ethereals that could have Ascended, if they knew it was coming. Those who could have worked on themselves. But jealousy is a powerful force, capable of toppling whole empires. Someone like Argus... they could have. But now they never will."

That... was heavy. Eliza was going over the details again and again in her mind, trying to commit them to memory. Maybe she could just have Shamash recount all of that to Wiki later, but... Eliza wanted to remember. She wanted to hear the words of a sparse species whose history had nearly been entirely snuffed out. Eliza threaded her fingers behind her back, feeling the weight of twenty years on her. She wanted to equivocate, to think that what she had gone through was nothing in the face of what Shamash had suffered. But... that wasn't the way. It wasn't the way when it happened to the Chosen. She could no longer be an exception to what she preached. "I understand what it's like to be just the battery of a war machine, Shamash. Believe me. When we get a moment of quiet... would you want to talk further?"

Thinking about it for a moment, Shamash nodded. "Yes. For now, you have business to attend to, I would imagine. Please, feel free to tell the others that I have thoroughly changed my mind."

"Will do. Take it easy, Shamash." With that, Eliza stepped away from her, past the rest of Menace, and to the caskets once more. The Elders were more defined now. Perhaps Eliza was getting used to looking for them? "Have you all come to your decisions?"

"If you can call them that." A masculine-sounding one to her right spoke up. "Personally, I'd rather not die? I don't care much for debasing myself by attempting to 'apologize,' but I'd take imprisonment over dying."

Off to her left, another Elder spoke up. "Likewise. I will not die diseased and beaten. Temporary disgrace is an acceptable tradeoff."

As they went down the line, she was hearing far more Ethereals that wanted to live rather than die. One or two here and there were with Angelis, preferring death to dishonor... but a majority wanted to keep living. Some, she got the sense of just wanting the new bodies they promised. Some just didn't want to die. One or two... she heard something more to the tone of their voice, something shy, something unsure. That was the most promising.

Finally, it looked like Angelis wanted to speak. "My stance remains firm. Kill me, Commander. I would take death rather than a life without Him."

Eliza made careful note of who was on what side—and she did so on the Network, which had been restored into XCOM's custody. After her tally was straight—with nobody opting to simply die off from the disease—Eliza nodded. "Alright. Your voices are heard. I promise you on my honor as a Commander that we will get you into pain-free bodies, capable of most of what you had been seeking. While, reasonably, we can't grant you the psionic powers you wanted, you will be able to continue as a species." The fertility of Avatars had been something Eliza assumed, yeah, but it was still surreal to hear about. "To your knowledge, do your beds come with built-in life support? We can get you moved to safety before we start transferring everyone."

"They do, but they need to be powered." One of the Ethereal images rolled their hand at the wrist. "There's ports on the side for Elerium cores. We've needed to move them in the past."

That made sense. Eliza nodded, looking towards the last Gate. There may be a space or two on the ship where they could stash the Ethereals. Maybe along the extra space they reserved for possibly getting another Skyranger. She sent a message to Bradford. How's the invasion?

Think we've run out of the people who got the command to jump us. Coast is clear for the moment. We can have people coming in and carting the caskets off at your word.

Think I'll just have Argus move them, she replied. And I can't imagine we have enough cores lying around for everyone, but I'm sure they have supplies they can spare. Still, clear out any available space in the Hangar. We're adopting the last of this species.

She could feel Bradford's sigh in his response. Roger that. You never fail to amaze, Liz.

With that, Eliza turned her attention back towards the conversation she was having with the Ethereals. "We've got space for you guys. Just need the cores. I'd imagine you all have enough lying around to get power for everyone who wants to leave?"

"Our stockpiles are immense. If you didn't do too much damage on your way in, you can likely take apart a few of the barrels and machines to get at some."

That they could do. Eliza sent a message to Mordenna saying as much. "Alright. The plan is this—we get the caskets powered for all of you who are fine going into custody, and then we'll take care of everyone else who are fine choosing death. Just to make this clear—there is a zero-tolerance policy for shenanigans. This includes trying to attack us when our backs are turned, sabotaging any part of the Avenger, you get the deal. Use your heads, I know you guys are smart."

There was assorted grumbling, but it looked like they got the message. As she turned to watch Mordenna sprint off in search of the cores, she knew it was going to be a long day still to handle.

She was fine with that. The day was nearly over.


Eventually, god willing, they made it back on the Avenger.

Once the Gate was reactivated and they made sure the connection was stable, Eliza was the first to make her way into it. Once again her stomach was tied into knots as she was ferried across vast distances, vertigo overtaking her for a moment before her feet hit solid ground once again. Compared to what she had been through before, the scenery of the Shadow Chamber was almost quaint. Lily and Tygan were still there... and Bradford was right across from the entrance, beaming with pride through his exhaustion. "Commander. It's... it's good to have you back."

Eliza smiled all the same, continuing to walk to give the others space to come through. "It's good to be back. How's everything on the ship?"

"Same deal as last time." As Bradford went on, she could hear more coming in behind her. "Nobody's come to knock the door down since then. Cocytus and Zuriel have left already—they were pretty convinced we weren't going to be chased further. They wanted to make sure you remembered about the deal we agreed to, however."

They were going to need to handle that sometime anyway. "No rest for the wicked," Eliza muttered.

Bradford shook his head. "No, not for the rest of us. But for you? I'm mandating bed rest, right now. Pass your plans over to Mordenna and we'll take things from here."

"John."

"Don't you 'John' me," he retorted amidst chuckles from those around her. "Why don't you and Shamash have that conversation you were wanting to have up in your room?"

Speaking of. Shamash herself floated from the Gate. "Perhaps we could. I imagine your journey has been long and difficult, Commander... and I could afford to rest peacefully for once."

She was just getting nagged on all sides to take a nap, wasn't she? Eliza sighed. "Ok, ok, I get it. But I guarantee you all my troops are out there waiting to dogpile me."

Bradford's smile was wry. "Oh, that's already the truth. Go meet them, Liz. You've earned it."

"I have. Speaking of earning things." Eliza approached Bradford and kneeled down to his level, grabbing the front of his uniform and pulling him in for a deep kiss. She kept it brief, parting from him before he could recover from the surprise. Eliza stood up. "I imagine I have a few other people who want to celebrate!"

There was a chorus of cheers, and as she was mobbed by the Chosen, the rulers, her staff, and Asaru, the weight of twenty years finally left her shoulders.

Humanity had won.