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"But why, some say, the moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask why climb the highest mountain? Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic? We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade, and to do the other things. Not because they are easy, but because they are hard."

~John F. Kennedy

Chapter Ninety-seven: Ignition

"There's not a lot to say." Pratal Mox stood before the Skyranger, the cluster of soldiers before him pale-faced but determined of heart. "We have been sent to recover Julie Richardson. And by God, we will accomplish this goal." A god that was not his, but one whom he now couldn't help wondering if he was looking out for him anyway. "Julie will return today."

"Whatever it takes." Sylvie, kitted out in Warden armor for the first time since Cairo, thinned her lips.

"We are likely walking into enemy fire." Dragunova picked up now, pointing to the crude shapes she and Mox had drawn on the whiteboard wheeled out before their dropship. The whine of her engines warming up nearly obliterated the Reaper's voice, but the squad paused to switch on their comms. "Resistance intel suggests there is a full response battalion moving on the area, with at least a dozen dropships."

"Which is why we can't wait around." Edward Gallant patted the whiteboard himself, drawing lines with his finger from points marked A, B, and C. "We deploy at Alpha and press hard on the transmitter station, codename Bravo. Junior will deploy southward to block reinforcement at the secondary landing zone, Charlie. It's more than likely where Advent is engaging."

"Yes, Commander." Mox nodded approvingly. "Junior will need assistance."

"I am more than capable of defeating Advent soldiers." The SPARK loomed over the rest of the squad, orange eyes glowing as he ran calculations. "But there is a high chance of this unit's disabling if it lacks infantry support."

"That's you, Cipriano." Gallant pointed to the newest psi-op on the Avenger. "I'm not asking you to be a hero, son: just hold the line until the rest of the team can get Julie into the Skyranger."

"Understood." Cipriano nodded firmly. "It will be done."

"No one works alone. Mox, Dragunova, you work well together. Manage the flanks and make sure nothing gets behind the vanguard."

Sylvie's eyes lit up. "Does that mean–"

"Keep your head." Gallant reached out to poke a finger into her chest. "Yes, you're in the van. But you do Julie no favors if you're looking for her instead of killing Advent."

"Yes, sir." Sylvie saluted. "I understand."

"Good. Ross!" Gallant's eyes flicked to the last member of his strike team. "You're with Sylvie. Cover her back, breach rooms where necessary, and put your power to work. I know you're good for it."

"Sir." The Templar nodded. "I will retain my focus."

"See that you do." That was probably as direct of a reprimand for Cairo as the Commander would risk. "You are not there to break this battalion's back: you are there for Julie. Collect her and get back to the Skyranger. Firebrand!"

"Close air support?" Lilah's voice crackled on the comm, crisp and focused.

"You read my mind. More importantly, as soon as you have everyone aboard, break northeast through the Balkans. Weave as far west as you can as soon as you get the chance, but mind the air defense net in Germany." Gallant sighed. "I'm not going to lie to any of you: fuel's going to be tight. Avenger is going to be half a world away for the majority of your operation. We'll get in contact as soon as we can, but in the absence of communication, link up with us at point Zulu on the Danish coast. Secondary positions are programmed into the flight computer already if we're not there. If all else fails, get to Norway and ditch there–Volk's moving some of his people just in case."

Presupposing we get Julie, that is. What a morbid thought. No, they would succeed. They had to. Mox nodded, saluting along with the rest of the squad.

"Ours is a mission of mercy." Mox beckoned to the ship almost before Gallant had stepped back from his position. "We've come a long way, ladies and gentlemen. Let us today make something of ourselves."

Firebrand's engines roared.

"Skyranger deployed."

"Excellent, Firebrand. Keep us informed." Down in the Armory, Jane Kelly–Director Kelly?–released her comm. "Alright, team. The search-and-rescue is away, so it's time to get down to our own business."

"Yes, ma'am." Her handpicked team waited, checking over their weapons with all eyes on her.

Funny. Jane had done a lot of op briefings in her time, but this felt different. Is it the title, the circumstances, or the chair?

Those thoughts led nowhere good. "The Hunter's lair has an entrance hidden in the ruins of a gene therapy clinic. The access point is on the far end of their basement chamber. Last I saw, it was buried in rubble, but that might have changed."

"If I was them, I'd dig it out." Aileen stood over Jane's shoulder, arms crossed. Did she resent not being sent into the field? Well, tough shit for her: Gallant had Bradford, now Jane needed her own right hand.

"We'll find out. Either way, some X4 and elbow grease can get you in. Now, the portal normally would only open for the Hunter and his minions, but thanks to the information supplied by Gray, we have an access chip." Jane held the little thing up for show-and-tell, before tossing it to Fatima. "Major Tariq, you take point. Get the team inside the facility."

"As you order." Glee glimmered in the assault-turned-ranger's eyes. "We're gonna kill the son of a bitch."

"Damn right." More than anything else in the world, Jane wished she was going to be running in alongside her friends, settling her own score–but maybe her role today would hurt the Hunter worse than any bullet she could put in him. "Now, we don't exactly know what to expect in there. Fatima, Meysam, you were in the Warlock's lair with me. This one may be set up the same way, or it may be totally different. If it looks similar, you guide the others in what to expect."

"Of course." Meysam stood at the back of the Armory, watching while he cleaned his Shadowkeeper, methodically turning the weapon over in his hands.

"If it is similar, it will be a barracks complex and operations room, along with potentially some manner of hangar. This will lead you to something Gray says is called the Ascension Chamber." Jane hit her datapad, activating a projector feed of footage from her own venture into a Chosen's home. "That's your ticket to the Hunter's inner sanctum, where you'll find him defending some manner of floating coffin. Take it out to prevent his regeneration. Be warned: you will likely face enemy units warping in to interrupt your progress."

"Easy." The looming form of the SPARK II paused to spin the chamber on its railgun. "I do love breaking the skulls of Advent puppets."

"Let Julian be the spearhead." Jane pointed to the other members of her team in sequence. "Fatima and Charlotte, you provide close-in support for him, make sure he doesn't get flanked out. Meysam, hold toward the back and pick off priority targets. Father Giovanni, you stay near him and provide bombardment support on hard points, shredding armor off heavy units as they come up."

"Deus vult." The priest checked his magnetic cannon.

"And me, Director?" Franz laid his laser shotgun in his lap.

"You are in reserve. Be prepared to move wherever things are at their worst."

"Just the way I like it." Cool and laconic, he leaned back in his chair. "Am I to understand this is a high-stakes round?"

"That's one way to describe it." Jane laid her datapad in her lap. "Avenger will be dropping you from high altitude, using the same methods we practiced when infiltrating the Forge. Tygan and Shen assure me that the issues we suffered then will not repeat." While she was at it, Jane wished for a hovering wheelchair. "Once you are deployed, we will be returning to the European sector to recover Firebrand. Only when Menace One-Five is aboard securely can we cross the Atlantic again to recover you. If something goes wrong in there, we can't send extraction."

"I see." Charlotte pursed her lips. "Understood, Director. We won't fail you."

"This is not about revenge." Well, it kind of was, but that wasn't the point. "Removing the Hunter takes the enemy's most effective piece off the board. It affords us the chance to breathe, and it spits in Angelis' eye, progressing us toward our final objectives. You have to be calm about all of this–if you are blinded by personal rage, the Hunter will sense that and use it. He's canny, cunning, and ruthless: traps and tricks are his forte." Jane didn't have a picture, but she had one more order. "And watch out for a general in his lair. She's almost as dangerous as he is, maybe more. Shoot on sight–that goes for anything you find there. Expect mutons, MECs, and archons."

"Alright." Meysam slipped the Shadowkeeper into his holster. "Anything else, ma'am?"

"Yeah." Jane took a deep breath, trying to calm her own unsteady nerves. "Don't do anything stupid."

"Hold your fire." Julie Richardson didn't say the words aloud, even if her lips moved. Instead, her mind touched those of Piotr and Denver, opening two-way links right into each others' brains.

"They're getting close." A flash appeared in Julie's mind of Denver, sighting through his scope from the second floor as the skirmish line of Advent soldiers emerging from the woods began their approach from the south flank.

"Not yet." Julie squinted down the length of her own rifle, picking out a purifier in the second row. "Mark targets. Denver, there's an officer."

"He's mine." Sure enough, she caught a flicker of him sighting in on the red-armored sash-wearing freak at the fore, rifle held in one hand as he spoke to someone on the radio.

"Piotr?"

"Ready." She didn't need the psi-link to imagine him taking a big puff on his cigar. "One for the money."

"Two for the show." Julie brought her hand up to hover near her rifle's bolt. "Just another…few…"

That officer paused. He cocked his head, leaning down to examine the stake driven into the middle of the field, a boot stuck on it like a snowman's hat.

"Do it." Julie exhaled, making sure to unclench her jaw.

With a roaring cacophony of explosions, mines detonated across the field. X4 buried a few inches below the dirt blew upward, sending flechette-clouds of glass shards and alloy splinters ripped from the facility railings and windows soaring out in swarms of death. Yellow sprayed amidst rising clouds of smoke and dirt, ripping through the Advent line from left to right, and the screaming of manufactured clone soldiers split the early morning darkness.

Julie fired, working the bolt almost before her purifier target exploded with a bright detonation of fuel and gas to contrast the dirty booms of buried charges. Flames washed over that end of the line in the same instant red light caught the officer in the face, blowing his head and helmet clean off and sending his body tumbling three full steps before it collapsed.

"Let them have it!" Julie hit the trigger again, clipping the faintly exposed neck of a stun lancer. She worked the bolt in a frenzy, emptying her five-round clip into the milling remnants of the skirmish line. Laser bolts picked off the harder targets, catching soldiers and priests head-on to boil through their armor and melt their insides. "Piotr?"

"Just a second!" True to his word, before Julie had even finished sliding her next five bullets into place, his laser cannon erupted from the far end of the yard, sweeping over the scattered Advent infantry. They flung themselves flat, covering their heads as the heavy weapon mowed through their ranks like a weed whacker.

"Mor balaten!" The shouts rang out from all sides, a mix of panicked, furious, agonized, and fearful. "Toucan safari!"

"Hold your ground!" Julie fired, flicking the bolt as quickly as she could manage as she went from target to target, putting one shot into the first and then two into the second. Advent soldiers began to pull back, waving their comrades off the advance. Julie licked her lips. "They think there's more of us than there really are!"

Mag-fire seared back from the Advent line, ripping into the tower. Julie ducked low, wincing as the light fixture over her head shattered, spraying the tower with broken glass. She opened her rifle, taking the chance to top off her ammunition.

Eighteen left. With five of them chambered, Julie took a steadying breath.

She popped back up, firing at the first flash of motion she saw through the chaotic smoke clouds. A priest staggered, the round not penetrating his helmet but still sending him to his hands and knees from kinetic force. A laser bolt caught the Adventer before he could rise, but Julie was already putting bullets into his friends. Her rifle spoke again and again, punching into the faceplate of a lancer and putting one of his eyes out, then driving two bullets into the relatively weak leg armor on a trooper.

"Reloading!" Piotr's fire slacked off as he ejected his cannon's energy cell.

"Copy!" Julie fired her last chambered round, working the bolt to eject the cartridge and then dropping the rifle. Grabbing her amp, she hit the trigger, summoning all the Power she could. It gathered on her hand in a violet cloud, cracking and roiling like stormy seas. She thrust her hand out, flinging the surge of energy into the mass of Advent troopers splayed over the open ground, ripping through a line half a dozen long and frying their brains to mush. Yellow blood leaking from under their helmets, they collapsed in still heaps.

A heavy metal shape loomed in the smoke, thundering forward with weight to shake the earth in every step.

"They're pushing up with heavy armor." Julie swallowed on a dry throat, staring up at the sectopod in the enemy's fore. "I think it's time we–"

The wrath cannon ignited, ripping into the tower.

"Chimera is away, Commander."

"Understood, Central." Gallant gave the holodisplay a searching look as six transponders fell away from Avenger's aft hangar, streaking down toward the ground far below. "How's it looking, Director Kelly?"

"Everyone's in formation." Jane had her own, smaller terminal, one she used to keep all of her soldiers in sight just the same as Gallant. Her eyes bore into the mess, intent and focused. "No anti-aircraft fire as of yet."

"You can thank my people for that." Betos stood at the rear of the bridge with her fellow Council members, rapping her fingers on the rail. "And Volk's."

"We can't stay long, but it'll draw enemy units away from the access point." The Reaper took a drink from his hip flask, worriedly glancing at Gallant's display. "What about Menace?"

"Still in motion." Gallant returned his display to its proper function: enabling him to do his own damn job. "Geist?"

"We are detecting a lot of movement in that region." Geist watched Firebrand's tracker like everyone else on the bridge, mixed feelings evident in his crackly old voice. "Advent is throwing everything they have at this transmission."

"Wonderful." Gallant couldn't fight a surge of worry. If Julie was on her own down there… "ETA, Firebrand?"

"Ten minutes." At least at this stage in her grief, she'd found focus. The fire would return, someday. It had to.

"Copy." But today was not that day. Gallant did his level best to conceal his nerves, to keep his own focus and be the icon his crew could aspire to be.

A message appeared on his display. He opened it, keeping it to the bottom bar in case it was sensitive.

You can't fool me, Great Commandy One.

Gallant bit back a chuckle. He glanced over his shoulder.

"Chimera Team is on the ground." Jane didn't so much as glance, but Gallant could hear the smirk in her voice. "Commence breach."

"Well, well." General Din Dourde observed her display, eyes narrowed thoughtfully as the tower outside that rogue transmission facility collapsed in an explosion of dust and smoke. "They certainly like the place and seem intent to stay."

"Mind yourself, General. You sound too much like my brother." Over her comm, the Assassin still hissed thoughtfully. "There must be more than one or two insurgents in that facility."

"Perhaps, Mighty Assassin." Dourde couldn't help popping a lemon drop into her mouth, cursing her boss and his eccentricities. "But perhaps that's what they want us to think."

"Interesting." She was not quite the zealot the Warlock had been, even if she wasn't the free thinker the Hunter was. "Then you think this is a delaying action? We should send in a battleship."

"Perhaps. But I also don't see the point in rushing things." What point to a trap if the bait was yanked from the water before a fish could bite? "XCOM hasn't shown up yet. If the transmission stops, they'll turn around."

"That…is surprisingly logical for one such as you."

"Ah, yes." Dourde did her level best to conceal the…the anger that comment lit in her. What was she? A machine?

"Mind yourself." Evidently she hadn't hid it very well. "Just because my brother has taken an interest in you does not change what you were built to be."

"As you say, Mighty Assassin. I shall humble myself." With no intention to do any such ridiculous thing, Dourde returned her attention to the war she waged. "We have no shortage of reserves. Let them fight, it matters not. As long as the transmission continues, we have what we want: bait. So we can't destroy the station."

"Cogently put." Annoying, how incredulous the Assassin sounded. "Very well, General. I am on my way to the islands as we speak. Deal with the Resistance elements presently so I may handle their friends."

"As you command." Dourde couldn't wait to cut the transmission. "What a…" Well, no point to indulging in inane profanities. The Assassin was a child of the gods, like the Hunter.

That didn't mean Dourde had to like her.

"All units, respond." She tapped into the command link in Greece, using the Network to project her will across a planet and into the skulls of officers, soldiers, and machines alike. "Take that building and kill anyone you find inside. No mercy–"

A sensor beeped loudly. Dourde froze.

"No." But still, the panel wouldn't lie. Dourde licked her lips.

"Mighty Hunter." She opened a new channel, reaching under her desk for her rifle. "We have a problem."

In the midst of wreckage, there was light. A hole in reality, a door that stood where no such thing should.

A door through which Meysam Saleh stepped, Plasma Shadowkeeper at the ready.

"I can't believe that worked." Fatima Tariq tossed the access chip away from her position at the head of the column. "Sound off."

"I'm so glad I get the chance to see these things with my own optical sensors." Julian turned his robotic head, examining the entryway tunnel in which he now loomed. "All I had was a lot of sensor feeds last time."

"In." Charlotte appeared behind Meysam, rifle up and leveled, and then Giovanni behind her. Finally, Franz hopped through the psionic gateway, activating his targeting monocle.

"Understood." Meysam keyed his comm. "Avenger, this is Men…I mean, Chimera Team. We are inside."

"Understood, Chimera. It looks like the Warlock's facility." Jane's assessment pretty solidly aligned with Meysam's own as he glanced around the corners. "I'd be careful of assumptions, but it isn't impossible that this one is laid out the same way."

"Yeah." Fatima checked her shard gun. "Door up ahead. Get in formation."

"Fantastic." Julian's robotic form thundered to the fore, Fatima and Charlotte taking up flanking positions. "Stomp, stomp, stomp!"

"Ready." Meysam made sure to flick the safety off his rifle, Giovanni hefting his mag-cannon just beside him.

"Remember." Fatima put one hand on the access panel for the large hangar-style door ahead. "There are no civilians down here. Shoot on sight."

She hit the access button.

"Hello, Advent!" Julian broke through the opening almost before it had fully retracted, leveling his railgun at a collection of mutons gathered around a landed transport. They grabbed for plasma carbines–

Fatima and Julian fired as one, magnetically accelerated projectiles tearing into the hulking brutes. Alien blood coated the metal floor, bodies crashing down in heaps as the aliens screamed through their last moments.

"What's this?" A voice. His voice, echoing in Meysam's own comms. "So that's how it is, is it? I was hoping you might take a little longer to find this place. Things were just starting to get interesting between us. Now?" A deep, hateful chuckle. "You're already dead."

Smoke and dust rose in a great cloud. Those heavy metal footsteps shook the earth.

Julie drove a syringe into her leg, gasping as agony shot up from her thigh to her armpit.

Oh, yeah. She sucked in breath, relishing the numbness that swept in over her senses. That's good shit.

She grabbed for purchase, wiping at whatever was coating her face. Her hand came away red, which was a bit of a downer. Whatever. Priorities. She got her hands onto a chunk of alloy wreckage, hauling herself up and onto her feet. She shook her head dazedly, the world shaking around her.

The sectopod's metal leg slammed down only a few yards away, bare feet from the foundation of the tower. Julie craned her neck to look up at the chicken walker where it loomed, various guns on prominent display.

"Hey, shithead." She hefted a piece of wreckage, throwing it as best she could. It bounced off the armored walker's external plating, but a sensor light did flick on in her direction. "Fuck off back to the scrap heap, yeah?"

The walker turned. It brought its coaxial antipersonnel cannon to bear, mechanics already whirring. But when Julie threw herself flat, it wasn't because of the sectopod's weapons.

It was because the monstrosity stepped into the ruined doorway as it turned.

A titanic explosion shot up through the yard, X4 charges blowing outward and ripping the sectopod's left leg into pieces. The walker flinched backward, wavering on its battered limb as it desperately fought for balance amidst the rising smoke and flame, blotting out the moon overhead.

"Julie, we've got to fall back!" Piotr appeared to catch her under the arm. "Let's go! You're going to get left behind!"

"Okay. I'm coming." Short of breath, hanging on to her amp for dear life while her rifle hung from its strap, Julie clutched Piotr for balance, staggering on toward the door. "Shit, shit." Her leg might not have hurt as much, but it still struggled to bear her weight. "I don't feel too good right now."

"Don't be drama queen. We're not going to die here." Piotr hauled her up to the facility door, ducking as sparse fire cracked against the building's exterior. "Have wedding I want to attend."

"You and me both, brother." Julie slapped the access button with the back of her shaking fist. "Put me somewhere I can shoot."

"All fight, no give. I like it." Piotr shoved her through the door, red light illuminating them both as the sectopod, still up and angry, pivoted their way. He ducked inside, slamming the gateway before–

"Shit!" Julie stumbled against the wall, covering her head as magnetic projectiles ripped through alloy and concrete alike, sending shrapnel scattering through the confined hallway. "Lock it!"

"Already done, but it won't hold them." Piotr ripped an arming pin from the doorframe, then reached down to pull an alloy shard from his side. "Shit, that stings."

"At least you can walk." Julie leaned heavily on the wall, gritting her teeth as she staggered ahead. "Where's the second line?"

"Base of the stairs. Set up some cover there." Piotr caught her around the waist, helping her hop-skip her way over to a mess of boxes, computer terminals, and even what looked like a dining table, crudely arranged into a cover point. "Won't hold them long: they will take the back door."

"Denver?"

"Here." Sure enough, he was: coming down the stairs with a laser pistol in hand. "You and I hold the line. Piotr, keep us from getting flanked as long as you can."

"Any magic tricks you know, now is a good time." Piotr set Julie down behind the barricade.

"Oh, I can do a lot from here." She sighted in on her rifle, studying the long, narrow hallway she had to work with.

"All side doors are wired, but only stops them once. Longer this fight lasts, worse our odds get."

"In the short term." That didn't make a lot of sense, but there it was. "XCOM will be here. They're probably already on the way."

The door panel whined, light glowing red.

"That's them overriding it." Julie checked her bullets again. Just thirteen: she'd used half her ammunition already. "Hop to it, boys."

Come on, Sylvie. It's gotta be soon. In spite of the situation, that made her scoff quietly. Holding out for a hero until the morning light…

The door blew open, a surge of sectoids and vipers leading the charge.

"In case you're wondering if I've left some surprises for you along the way, the answer is yes." The Hunter's voice echoed in Fatima Tariq's ear, full of stifled glee. "Think of it as a warm-up before the main event."

"They can't shut up, can they?" At least Jane was as annoyed by it as Fatima herself.

"Forward!" Nonetheless, she had no time to waste on bullshit. Her W.A.R. suit hummed, driven on by its double elerium cores to propel her forward through the battlefield surrounded by a shimmering nimbus of shielding energy. Small-caliber plasma weapons beamed and blasted from the far end of the hangar, reflecting off the energy field and ricocheting into the ceiling and walls, spewing the battlefield with falling wreckage.

Through it all, Fatima advanced at a slow walk, her shield generator humming to keep up with the incoming fire.

"Fan out!" Charlotte and Franz burst from her wake, firing from the hip to suppress the vipers set up toward the back of the room. Frills flared as the hideous creatures screeched their shock, ducking low and wrapping their tails around themselves to avoid incoming laser and plasma fire from rifle and shotgun alike. Fatima hit her own trigger, throwing clouds of alloy shards across the hangar to rip holes in the low platform the aliens used as cover.

A plasma grenade clattered down amongst them, triggering a chorus of serpentine screeching.

"Room clear!" Fatima worked the pump on her shard gun mechanically in the same moment Father Giovanni's grenade detonated, vaporizing the enemy light infantry in a cloud of green plasma gases. "Stack up!"

"Nice going, Chimera." But Jane's voice crackled and broke up almost instantly.

"I'd like to say you're walking into some sort of elaborate trap…but then I'd be lying." The Hunter honestly sounded more incredulous than anything. "To be perfectly honest, I never thought anyone would walk into this place voluntarily. But I suppose this is as good a time as any to start testing the defenses. Full disclosure: I'm rooting for you. These things aren't very good conversationalists."

"Come on." Fatima took position flanking the set of single doors ahead, single-minded fury pushing her onward. Annette's face appeared in her mind, then Chilong's, Matt's, Vahlen's, Van Doorn's…

Said's.

The last of the Furies. Fatima clenched her teeth, cold and careless for the devastation around her as her teammates took up cover positions, preparing to breach. Come then, Tisiphone. Today you fight to uphold all their legacies.

"Chimera, Avenger." Jane's voice came in cold and focused, not so dissimilar from Fatima herself. "Tisiphone, you take point. That should be the last room before the Ascension Chamber up ahead. Don't falter now."

"Copy, Avenger." Fatima glanced across the door to Julian. "Soften them up, Sparky."

"I do not approve of the nickname." But he did level his railgun. "Rocket ready."

"Go!" Fatima shot the door instead of opening it, blowing the damn thing off its track to clatter down inside the chamber. An instant later, Julian's BIT released its Dragon II, sending the chemical-fueled projectile arcing into the next chamber. Bursting in midair at the designated point, it sprayed shrapnel in a large cloud, triggering a chorus of screams.

Fatima led the charge, shard gun roaring. She had a half-second to drink in some manner of computer room, maybe a command station of some sort, before targets appeared in a rush. She blew through a muton as it staggered away from the impact point with six-inch shards of metal stuck into its head and one eye socket, then worked the pump and blew the head off a purifier in the process of hefting his flamethrower.

"Kracsad!" A gold-armored general in the rear of the chamber ducked into cover behind a hefty support column. She fired blind around the protrusion, sending Fatima scrambling into cover at the nearest computer station.

"That's for Barta!" Charlotte's plasma rifle unleashed in the softly lit space, burning a hole through an unfortunate trooper's chest. "Franz, Father, move up!"

"In the name of God!" Father Giovanni led that charge, mag-cannon chattering its fury while it spat thousands of spent cartridges left and right. Suppressive fire blew over the back half of the chamber, forcing soldiers down into cover as Chimera Team advanced bent double.

"Protect your meat-sack of a body, holy man." Julian's railgun took over the job, firing precise bursts that punched through computer terminals and blew open desk drawers as easily as they shredded Advent armor and flesh. Giovanni knelt beside Meysam, the auto-loader on his cannon whirring as it shoved a new magazine into place. For his part, the sharpshooter's weapon spoke in fits and starts through the deluge, picking off any stun lancer or muton who poked their head out where it could be seen. Charlotte's GREMLIN flew through the field, emitters shimmering as it streamed targeting data to her allies, and Franz' laser shotgun erupted almost out of nowhere on Advent's flank.

Victory at the Hunter's gates hung in the air.

"This game was a lot more fun when you followed the rules." From smug and sarcastic, now he growled, more like a petulant child than a vicious, competent adversary. But Fatima couldn't take glee in his wrath, not for long. "Well, if you're not going to play nice, neither will I."

Behind his defenders' loose, unraveling line, a single door opened. It revealed the green plating and alien lines of the Ascension Chamber: the path to ultimate triumph.

It also exposed the Emperor Archon, roaring a furious challenge as rockets blasted from its shoulders.

Author's Note 97: Personnel Readjustments

So the original plan had Irina deploying instead of Giovanni on the Hunter assassination mission, and also flipped Franz and Charlotte with Mox and Dragunova so that Charlotte would be on the Julie recovery mission. There are reasons I wound up swapping around, but basically I wanted to give these characters who are fairly minor to the fic as a whole a bit more screentime in action. Most characters on the two teams also have strong narrative reasons to be there, which was something I prioritized in development. Honestly, the soldier makeup of each of these squads is…eh(ALL the psi-ops are on the same mission, for example), but again, narrative over mechanics.

This is probably the closest you will ever come to seeing me do a novelization or narrative of Chimera Squad, since I didn't particularly like it. But playing it is what gave me the idea for making Jane take up the role she has in this finale, and it is part of the canon whether I really approve of the game and the direction it took or not. I don't know what I'm doing after VC(and we're now at the point where a post-VC world is something that can be considered, as I've begun pre-production outlining on Season Four even if it will likely be a while before I write it) but it certainly won't be Chimera Squad and is super unlikely to be a novelization of EW. But more on that next time.

Until then, Vigilo Confido.