Chapter 6 - Counter Offensive

Rivaille sat comfortably with one leg dangling out the side of the chopper as it soared over the desert sands, with Zero standing just behind him, one crimson gauntlet firmly gripping one of the handles dangling from the ceiling of the chopper's fuselage. Rivaille hoisted up his LCRS a bit to get the stock to fit snugly under his right armpit as he angled the rifle so that he rested the barrel on his left lap.

Rivaille glanced back at Zero as he rocked a bit in the chopper, observing that Zero'd placed a hand on the newly-repaired comms on his helmet. The squad wasn't hearing any chatter, so it had to be high-class intel or objectives suited to Zero's calibre and Zero's calibre alone. As much as it stung Rivaille, he turned back around to stare at the desert's seemingly rolling dunes and occasional dust clouds.

Zero listened intently, setting his analogs to tune out the the chopper's roaring as he listened in on Ciel's instructions. "Zero, this is a guerilla operation. Do it quietly, do it quickly, and disappear. We'll transfer you out if things get too hot down th...!"

"Negative!" Zero's abrupt counter caught the attention of the entire squad, although Rivaille barely exposed an eye from behind his thickly flowing blue locks. "Neo Arcadia is in shambles right now, they want to publicize Copy X's death with the report that his murderer went down shortly after. We can't risk my presence within the Resistance again."

"B-But! Zero...!" Ciel sounded desperate, almost as if she was ready to beg him to come back.

"Alouette, is she all right?" He softly shifted the focus of the conversation. "She must be pretty lonely."

Ciel was quiet for a moment, but with a breath, she composed herself into a battle-hardened woman of war. "Yeah, she is. And while she'd love to meet you again, it would probably be a more strategic approach to keep you on the front-lines."

Zero's eyes narrowed by way of shock. "Front-lines?" He quickly glanced around at each of the reploids who were with him in the chopper. "I thought that the SRSS and myself were the only ones engaged in this operation?"

"You are!" She confirmed. "But that was only the first phase of the operation, phase two was to transfer you back for repairs while we transferred a small company of Rangers to support the SRSS in their reconaisance operations, phase three was to send you back to eliminate High-Priority Targets."

Zero wasn't sure if he liked the idea of sending more reploids to the battlefield, especially since they didn't meet the standard set for the SRSS, but they were competent enough to at least hold their own against a Golem in twos or threes. Zero sighed, a human habit he developed from observing a working Ciel, and agreed.

"How many then?"

"We'll be transferring in Red Company and Sabre Company. About forty-eight in all. Additional objectives for you exclusively will include confronting the specialized reploids you've mentioned and assassinating Neo Arcadian politicians when possible."

"Extra wet-work?" Zero slyly commented.

"Yeah, you have full authority on the field regarding troop movements and support, but we won't pull out anyone who is willing to fight."

"Understood."

"Homeland out then." Ciel paused uncomfortably, hesitation clearly conveyed over the comms. "Zero, please, be careful."

"I try. Spearhead out." Zero dropped his hand from his comms and let it dangle by his side as he puffed out a breath through his nostrils.

Gunther's tan brown skin almost seemed gold in the lighting of the helicopter as he sat in one of the seats to Zero's left, which reminded him. The lights should've been off.

Zero put a hand to his comms as he spoke to Anastasia, the newly-elected pilot. "Hey, I want these lights off on the double!"

"Sure thing, sir!" She complied, allowing them to be engulfed in nothing but darkness and chopper propellers.

"Zoey!" Zero called out to the big-eyed brunette. "Are the explosives ready?"

"Umm, yeah! Question? How should I set them? Remotely detonated or time-delay?"

"Both." He abruptly snapped two fingers in a pointing motion at her. "Prime them for a sixty second delay as well as remote detonation. We might run into jammer-loids during the op."

"Yeah! On it!" She eagerly grinned as she started tinkering with the charges. "I can't wait to find a Golem and blow its outer hull into the upper atmosphere!"

Zero pretended her deranged squeals and giggles were something to desire in one's troops. An insane person can't go insane again on the battlefield, but they will act accordingly so that's still something to worry about.

"Mike, Hannibal, Faucon." The respectively lean, thick, and burly reploids looked up as their superior officer spoke. "What rounds are you packing?"

"Alloyed plasma ions, sir." Hannibal, the thick-bodied blue-eyed and dark-haired weapons specialist said as he lowered his long and heavy Crowd-Control and Armor Control - or CCAC - machine buster between his legs. "Same as Rivaille. We're also carrying negatively charged ion rounds as well, for quick but non-lethal subduing of armoured hostiles."

Mike brushed a hand over his ashy brown-blonde hair as he spoke. "We also have high-intensity E.M.P. grenades with a nine-foot kill radius. It should lethally fry all electronics regardless of electric armour within a four-foot radius."

"Good." Zero nodded, partially to himself. "Faucon, do you have a layout of the compound?"

"Yeah," he boomed as he nodded to a dark-haired female reploid. "Annabeth here's been piecing together the pictures you took, mashing it together with satellite photos and scans, and letting it simmer. Any progress Annabeth?"

"Hmm, almost!" She whispered as she typed away on her thin P.D.A. "I just need seven more minutes and I'll run everything by everyone!"

"Seven?" Hannibal's jaw hit the ground as he mumbled the word. "What?"

"Look! The scans aren't that fresh, all right?" Annabeth defensively whined as she typed away. "I'm trying to make them as precise as possible, electronics, plumbing, hardware, scenery, everything! It's either that or I give you a bunch of boxes to work with!"

"Hurry it up if you can, we need to get this data pronto Annabeth." Faucon ordered the obvious.

"Sir, we're coming up on the L.Z.! Do you wanna wait for the schematics or are you going in now?" Anastasia chimed in.

The air seemingly stilled as Zero stood in the chopper, glancing at each of them. He'd been given full authority over the operation, so their lives were in his hands. He could move on without the schematics and survey the compound beforehand to evaluate threats, but that put him at risk of being cornered due to no understanding of his environment. Should he choose to wait on the schematics that would be safer, but that also meant remaining at the L.Z. for a full seven minutes. It would take but one rocket pantheon to utterly destroy the chopper and kill everyone on board, and there were always three rocket pantheons whenever they were present in a patrol.

Now it wasn't so much the threat of being cornered that bothered Zero. Everyone here knew that Zero could easily blow through just about any standard reploid or mechaniloid Neo Arcadia could hurl at him. But those specialized reploids, they were an unknown enemy, and highly skilled. If forced to confront them all at once in an environment he doesn't know, Zero's survival rate would drop exponentially.

Zero's steely blue eyes hardened as he nodded to Anastasia. "Put her down, I'm going in."

"What?" Gunther slipped and nearly slapped himself.

"Sir, a-are you sure?" Annabeth hurriedly glanced up at him as she typed even faster, a frightened expression on her face. "I can have it ready in a fairly short amount of time and...!"

"You haven't failed."

She blinked. She hadn't, failed? Looking up at Zero, she couldn't believe what he just said. The whole squad had been counting on her, the Resistance, had been counting on her and she couldn't even piece together a single map of the compound! That could very well be Zero's demise and she hadn't failed?

"You haven't failed." Zero almost ordered. "It's a map, while it would be a tactical advantage to know the compound's interior as well as its exterior, what good would it do if the whole squad is eliminated waiting on it? I can move in with Rivaille covering me and you can send us the data once you've patched it together. So get to it." Zero briefly turned back to Anastasia. "Put her down, Rivaille and I are going in."

"Uh, roger!" She agreed and prepped the chopper for temporary landing. "Putting her down, distance, one and a half clicks west of the compound. No hostiles in sight."

The chopper awkwardly jerked as it descended, Rivaille slapping his hand up against the side to brace himself as everyone rocked around. Core pulsing, Rivaille mentally readied himself, watching as sand flew up underneath them in small clouds. Here it was, his first combat run. His first alongside Zero to boot. Somewhere around ten feet mid-air the chopper jerked to a halt, and Rivaille's eyes went wide with fear as his rear end slid right off of the chopper.

Slapping his LCRS across his chest and cradling it in his arms, Rivaille bent his knees and hunched his back. 'Wh-what the hell?! Shiiit!' Rivaille's eyes screamed as gravity yanked him down. The moment his feet touched the sand he curled his weight forward and tucked his head in, smoothly rolling into a crouched position as the chopper hovered above him. Rivaille's body trembled with whiplash fear as his owlish eyes stared frightened across the desert.

"Hmph!" Zero heroicly grunted as he slammed into the ground beside Rivaille in a crouched position, showering Rivaille with a little sand. "Nice save, Rivaille."

Zero tapped him on the shoulder as he took the lead, catching the still terrified reploid's attention. "Y-yeah!" He agreed as he shakily stood. "You knew that I fell out?"

Zero drew his buster and primed it for combat. "I didn't see you use any forward momentum of your own, so I just assumed that you'd been caught off-guard." Zero looked up at Anastasia through the cockpit, held up two fingers and made a circling motion, which she responded to by ascending and then taking off southeast. "But that's good, even when you were off-guard you were able to react appropriately, I commend you."

Rivaille wanted to smile, but he couldn't, he fell out the chopper. "Yeah, I better not let that happen again."

"It would be appreciated." Zero agreed.

Ciel patiently stood in the center of the data room, observing the holographic monitors of all thirteen battle reploids as they carried out their objectives. She was anxiously grinding her teeth at Zero's recklessness. Not just his, but Rivaille's too! What the hell was he thinking, jumping out of the freaking chopper! He could've injured himself! Still, Rocinolle's scans showed that he barely suffered any more than a few scratches to his 'skin' as a result.

Ciel sighed. "Has Annabeth finished piecing together the map?"

"Not quite," Rouge replied and stretched over a bit to bring up a hologram on the data stream - which seemed to be spiraling out of control. "Our servers are a bit old, so maintaining a steady and accurate stream of data to her is proving difficult. In short, we're not sending the data to her fast enough."

Ciel huffed out a frustrated breath as she folded her arms. "All right, Cerveau, can you do anything to stabilize the data stream? With the distance that Zero and Rivaille are covering on foot they'll have been in the compound for a day and a half before that map is completed."

"I've been noticing a few quirks here and there in the system programming," he replied as he typed away at a holographic data pad. "If I can sort out the bug, no, when I do, the stream should stabilize."

"That's a relief," Ciel blew a golden lock out of her eye. "Is there anything that can be done to assist you?"

"Not much, nothing other than keeping the server room clean that is."

"I see." Ciel relaxed a bit as she stole a glance at Zero's hologram, which made her un-relax. "By the light of X."

Zero reached his left hand around the pantheon's right temple and slapped his hand over its glaring red eye, before it could begin thrashing about he yanked it backward by the head as he kicked its right leg out from underneath it with his left. The frightened pantheon couldn't even begin to process what was happening when a booted heel came crashing down on its eye, painfully and terrifyingly quickly bringing all of its functions to a halt. Zero rushed forward, pushing the terrified pantheon's weapon arm out of the way and jabbed at its eye with his right fist.

Somehow the frightened reploid managed to slip out of the way of the attack, but he never saw when Zero's knee violently ripped upward and his hips shot out. The faint tsrung! Of metal being disfigured vaguely rang out as Zero's knee critically damaged the pantheon's sternum frame, more than likely damaging its core and maybe even its respirators to a lesser extent. Of course, since he couldn't feel the processor crippling pain the pantheon felt as it half-stood there, barely able to stand any higher than a hunch, he decided to end this.

Zero tucked his right forearm under its throat, firmly placed his left hand on the exposed back of its head, and yanked it forward to his chest. A metallic sounding snap! Echoed out as Zero ripped his right arm upward and shoved its head downward with his left hand so that it flattened against his chest, the sound of a broken spinal frame and destroyed spinal circuity grinding and fritzing as the now dead pantheon twitched helplessly in Zero's arms confirming a kill.

Zero swiftly lowered himself to snatch up his buster that he'd used as bait, aimed at the pantheons just a few shadows away for a fraction of a second and then smoothly moved behind a particularly large and heavy crate, gently resting the left side of his body against it. Static rang in his comms as Rivaille spoke, prompting Zero to raise a hand to his comms.

"They've expanded their territory, huh? Want me to order a bigger map? One that includes this here outpost?"

"No, good shot on that sniper though." Zero glanced up at the tower where the sniper pantheon lay with a softball sized hole where its eye should have been. "They covered this much ground that quickly, alert the others and be vigilant Rivaille."

Zero chanced a dangerous glance around the crate, pressing his right hand to the ground as he leaned forward to see a patrolling fist pantheon staring at him. Zero tucked his head back in and firmly gripped his buster.

"Rivaille I think I've just been spotted." He hurriedly whispered as he listened into the fist pantheon as it approached.

"I've got him, but you have two hostiles coming around the truck behind you. How are we doing this? Loud or quiet?"

Cla-clink! Cla-clunk! Cla-clink! Heralded the approach of the fist pantheon.

"Quietly." Zero ordered.

Zero cautiously and quietly edged his way around to the opposite side of the crate as the clumsy pantheon approached the position where he was. But while those pantheons up ahead who hadn't seen him yet were still locked in their conversation, that fist pantheon only needed to say one word of surprise and the alarm would go up.

"What the hell?" The fist pantheon grumbled.

Now or never! Zero jumped up, slid over the crate and before the fist pantheon could turn around swept it off of its feet just as he had with the other pantheon. Placing his left knee on its diaphragm and right knee on its left shoulder, Zero pinned its right arm by the bicep with his left hand, raised his buster above his head, and violently drove it down on the terrified fist pantheon's head.

"Agh!" It faintly moaned as it passed out, a decent dent in its forehead as its glaring red eye stopped glowing.

Zero stopped mid-strike when he realized it'd passed out. Zero awkwardly blinked as he sat on top of it, but then got off of it as the two reploids Rivaille mentioned rounded the corner around that truck that had been conveniently parked - conveniently for Zero that is.

"Rivaille, take the one on my right on my signal." Zero silently ordered as he moved low and slow, touching his hand to the ground here and there as he circled around the chatting pantheons.

"What'll that be?"

"A surprise."

Rivaille hmph-ed in laughter as he watched them, granted that it was still night, they hadn't spotted the almost invisible Zero because he was crouching so damn low it looked like he was a panther. He moved just like one too, Rivaille placed a nervous finger on his trigger as Zero finally approached from an angle that would allow him to take down the pantheon on the left without being spotted.

"Wind speed, half a knot, heading east, total distance of approximately nine hundred meters, the Coriolis effect will play a heavy part in this." Rivaille whispered to himself as he adjusted his aim, the red bead in the center of his telescopic sight approximately three inches higher than the pantheon's head.

His core pulsed as Zero closed in on the other pantheon. "Phweoooh," he softly inhaled through his mouth. "Phwuoooh," he gently exhaled.

Zero tucked away his buster, only four feet from the pantheons. "Phweoooh," Rivaille isolated himself from the world, focused on landing that shot as he tracked his target. "Phwuoooh."

Zero briefly rose as he snatched his target out of sight. The other pantheon spun around, stunned by the surprise attack.

"Hup!" Rivaille held his breath as he squeezed the trigger.

The LCRS recoiled like a stubborn child against his shoulder with a firecracker of an explosion as it propelled white-hot plasma and steel alloy at the speed of sound. The brightly glowing half-metal half-energy projectile tore through the air, a mere second between the buster's recoil and the pantheon being slammed into the ground as a gaping, red-hot hole was violently opened in its upper chest.

"Heh," Rivaille smiled as a wave of relief washed over him like coolant. "Not bad for my second kill, huh?"

Rivaille pulled his right hand from the trigger to the buster's bolt, pushed it upward and exposed the now useless and steaming shell to the frigid air of the desert night as he pulled the bolt backward, ejecting said shell from the buster and pushed the bolt forward, inserting another shell into the chamber as the empty hissing shell flew through the air.

Zero spoke as Rivaille pushed the bolt back down, securely locking the fresh shell in the chamber. "That shot wasn't as clean as your last one."

"Yeah, about that," Rivaille chimed as he twisted one of the scope's dials, decreasing the focus of the magnification. "I, uh, I actually twitched the first time."

Zero froze mid panther-like prowl as he approached the clump of reploid bodies next to the crate. "You what?"

"I actually twitched, I was aiming for the chest and well, you know the rest. But more importantly, I see three pantheons holding a conversation just ahead of you, a few meters north of the tower I see a couple jet pantheons and a rocket pantheon, and uh," Rivaille dragged his buster south - his right - to scope out the southern portion of the compound he hadn't covered. "Wait, uh Zero, I'm noticing an increase of activity in the far southern sector of this outpost."

"What kind?" Zero whispered back as he approached a tent.

"Troop mobilization, looks like they're preparing a convoy. Looks pretty heavy too, no way in hell that it's a search party."

"Define heavy Rivaille." Zero ordered as he yanked a pantheon around the corner and out of sight, quietly snapping its neck while the other two held their conversation.

"Heavy weapons, cannons, tanks, anti-bunker missile trucks, uh," Rivaille turned a dial, increasing his scope's magnification focus on some of the many assorted weapons in the convoy. "E.M.P. weapons of all sorts, mechaniloids, it's the stuff you'd use in a siege."

"A siege?" Zero punched a pantheon, cracking its eye.

Quickly switching targets Zero chambered his right knee up and fired his right heel outward at the inside of the second pantheon's knee, knocking its left leg out from underneath it as he snapped his right foot back behind his left just so that he could deliver a swift and brutal kick that completely shattered its eye.

"The hell do you mean a siege? Is it mobile?"

Staggering, the first pantheon clumsily raised its buster arm, Zero slapped its buster away, gripped the groove around its cracked eye and the back of its head and violently twisted, metallic snaps followed by the metallic thudding of the reploid's lifeless and limp body hitting the ground. Zero brutally drove his right heel down on the other pantheon's already broken eye as it thrashed about on the ground, partially flattening its skull frame.

"No, but this looks pretty damn big, no clue what they're going for but it can't be good." Rivaille responded. "And on a side note, sir, where in the hell did you learn those moves?"

"No idea, they just come to me, like they're programmed into my body." Zero whispered. "Rivaille, raise the rest of the squad, find out if they've reached their objectives."

"Solid copy sir."

Zero avoided the lights scattered across the outpost as best as he could as he weaved between the tents, silently taking down pantheons as he crossed them as he closed in on the convoy.

"Spearhead, this is Raider One," Faucon squawked in. "We've located three outposts, and we've encountered similar convoys, over."

"Three more?" Rivaille gawked. "Even if it's for Zero isn't overkill?"

"Apparently not." Zero answered as he ran up to, jumped onto and pushed upward off the side of a troop truck with one powerful kick.

Gripping the top of the truck, Zero dangled for a bit before hoisting himself up and crouching on the truck, buster raised. Zero's shoulders slumped as he stared at the sight.

"Father of X," Zero touched a hand to his comms as he drew his buster. "Faucon how many vehicles do you count on your side?"

"Approximately sixty, Mike and Hannibal see similar numbers on their side." Faucon bitterly replied. "What do we do now, sir?"

"Sir! I'd suggest doing something about these convoys," Zoey pitched her destructive idea. "The explosions wouldn't be as spectacular as the original objectives, but, if we don't handle them things will go waaay out of hand later on!"

"I have to agree with her," Gunther chimed in. "I don't wanna know what they're saving up all of these troops for."

"Sir, you better move, I'm spotting two, no, three Golems heading your way." Rivaille urgently warned Zero. "You have about one minute to get out of sight or go loud, and from this distance I'll be useless so I'm moving to the sniper tower over!"

"Understood." Zero replied as he leaped from the truck, landing on a pantheon and crushing its neck. "I'm going loud, so stay sharp! Over!"

"Solid copy." Faucon replied.

"I hear you," "Loud and clear," "Roger," were the responses from the rest of the squad.

Passing his buster to his left hand, Zero drew his still inactive saber with his right as the dozens of pantheons before him all continued with their preparations for their offensive. Zero's green eyes grew with a murderous fury as he activated his blade, the brilliantly green triangular plasma blade humming as violently as a roaring panther as Zero leaped forward, buster raised and locked on the first of many unfortunate pantheons.

A/N: So again I hit a marvelous lazy-streak, but in the meantime I started playing Splinter Cell: Blacklist which heavily influenced the stealthy style of this chapter. Now on to the translations of whatever military grade terms you may or may not have figured it.

#1. Alloyed plasma ions: A concept taken from Star Wars Republic Commando, plasma is the forth state of matter (this is real though, the sun and all stars are made of plasma) in which a bunch of molecules are either positively or negatively charged and super-heated. Plasma makes a great projectile in close quarters, but since it'd cool over longer distances, it's not a great sniping weapon. This was remedied by giving the plasma solid metal cores, which would supposedly help it to retain its initial heat and power. Supposedly. As for negatively charged ions, electricity is the flow of electrons, the stuff that give atoms negative charges so yeah.

#2. E.M.P. and Electric Armour: An E.M.P. is an Electromagnetic Pulse Device, a device that releases a powerful pulse of electricity that fries electronic circuitry. Electric armour would be layers of metal that are designed to conduct such electric pulses away from the circuity and back into the earth.

#3. Exponentially: It's really a math term, but it refers to powers, like two squared (2 times 2) or seven cubed (7 by 7 by 7), etc. Since it doesn't narrow down a particular power to work with, it suggests an increase without end (to me at least). Or in this case, a decrease without end.

#4. Coriolis Effect: The further a bullet travels the more it drops, the bullet will at some point lose a little power, giving gravity the edge it needs to drag the bullet back to the dirt. You'd be surprised how important this effect is in sharpshooting.

#5. Bolt, shell, chamber: Think of a bolt-locked door. Now put the bolt on a gun, above the trigger near the top of the gun, and connect it to the chamber, which is where the bullet goes. The bolt is used to eject the used shell (where explosives are contained, in this case, the plasma alloy) from the chamber (which is where the next bullet goes to be fired) and secure the next bullet in place.

#6. Magnification focus: The intensity of the zoom, or that's what I think it is, I'm no expert, just going off of extensive gaming and online gun research. High-powered scopes can have the focus increased to 'zoom in', so to say, over greater distances or decreased to 'zoom out' over shorter distances. Again, I'm no expert. You wanna know all the little details, look up "high-powered scopes, how do they work" on your friendly neighbourhood search engine.