Ash sat behind the wheel of the jeep. They'd landed in the UK, and had to take a jeep from the cargo bay to the facility, the avenger was a bit too big to make a stealth approach. Stacy was in the passenger seat, Pyro and Sean were in the back seat, and Harold was sitting in the back, where you'd usually put bags when you were going somewhere. They couldn't take the road, as ADVENT would stop them, so they had to go through the forest. Ash was the best driver, so he had to be the one to weave between trees to get them there. Stacy directed him with a GPS device. And told him to stop just under a mile away, still in the trees. Ash parked it, and left the keys in the ignition. If things went south and they had to evac quick, he didn't want to end up spending those few vital seconds getting the key in.
They advanced through the forest a bit, before coming upon a small wooden hut. "Legs check it out" Stacy said.
Sean dashed ahead, and checked through the windows, then went to the door, opened it, and immediately closed it again. He gagged for a second, then turned to them "I don't think ADVENT likes people living too close to their facilities"
"Ash, take the roof. Everyone else, head forward" Stacy said, motioning towards a wooden ladder leaning against the building.
Ash went over, and climbed up the ladder. Moving up to the edge of the roof, and laying down, resting his sniper rifle against the roof to steady to further. He looked at the road ahead, and whispered into his com "Officer, Stunny, and a Trooper in big white armour, looks like their patrolling the road. Heading right"
"Pyro, take the Stun Lancer. Ash, get the Trooper. I'll take the Officer" Stacy said. Ash lined up his shot "Open fire" Ash pulled the trigger, taking the unsuspecting White Trooper straight in the back of the neck, through the weak spot in the armour. Just as Pryo and Stacy opened fire as well. The Stun Lancer got mowed down, and the Officer took a burst to the chest, and stumbled towards cover, but took a pistol shot to the face, as Stacy whipped out her pistol to take him out and conserve ammunition in her primary. She personified efficiency, no wonder her nickname had become Soldier.
"Sean, continue scouting" Stacy said as she put her pistol away, and took her rifle back in a 2 handed-grip. Sean continued advancing across the road, he got halfway across before he ducked down behind the barrier "2 Sectoids, and a, snake-lady, I guess". Ash looked over at where he'd been looking when he ducked, and sure enough walking across was 2 Sectoids, accompanied by something that was a cross between a woman and a snake.
"Rage, Legs, get the Sectoids, everyone else, focus fire the snake, it seems agile" Stacy said as she lined up a shot with the Viper, and pumped a burst shot towards it, sure enough, it proved to be very agile, and managed to move at the split second it needed to avoid a large portion of the burst, though it still took a graze across it's arm. But as it dodged that shot, it lined it's head up perfectly in Ash's sights, and he took a shot, driving a bullet straight between it's eyes. It dropped to the ground in a spray of blood.
While Ash killed the Viper, Harold and Sean were crossing the distance between them and the Sectoids. Harold brought out his sword, and in one quick swing, before the Sectoid even knew what was coming, took it's head clean from it's neck, yellow-ish blood coating the front of his armour as it sprayed from the severed arteries. Sean wasn't quite as efficient, though just as effective. As he approached his Sectoid, he whistled, bringing it's attention to him, it started to hiss at him, and was about to bring up its wrist-mounted plasma weapon, but Sean jumped, and connected his mechanical foot with it's jaw, drop-kicking it in the face. There was an audible crack, and its jaw was driven back into its skull, and its neck snapped backwards and broke, and the Sedtoid dropped to the floor. Sean landed on his other foot, and hoped behind a nearby car, while Harold put his back behind a lamp-post.
Pyro moved up through the chaos, levelling his Machine Gun, and firing as he advanced. He'd noticed a couple turrets on the roof, and notified the others in the only way he could. He fired almost half of his clip into it as he advanced, shredding the entire top of the machine. Harold noticed him firing, and moved over, brining up his shotgun, and damaging the other, while Stacy brought up her rifle, and finished it off. Both of the turrets were deactivated before they'd had a chance to line up any shots.
Stacy looked up, and saw 3 entrances, 2 were on the ground, but were small, single doors, the third was up a floor, accessible by a ladder build into the wall, but was a double-door, and would afford them better firing positions inside. Where one of the would have to find a suitable place to put the X4 charge to destroy the facility. "Everyone, upstairs, double doors" she ordered, while heading over to the ladder.
Ash dropped down from the hut he was on, he wouldn't have sight inside, and moved forward, bringing up the grappling launcher built into his armour's wrist, Shen had called it the 'Spider Suit' when she'd given it to him. He just hoped it worked properly. He lined it up, and fired it towards the railing, it caught, and he reeled it in, pulling himself across the gap, and he grabbed onto the railing and pulled himself up when he hit the wall.
They were forming up around the door when Harold looked to the side and said "MEC, Lancer" and sprinted over, jumping over the railing, and landing right in front of the lancer. The Lancer had its sword drawn, and had been running towards them, but it hadn't been expecting that move, and Harold brought down his sword as he landed. Even with the momentum of the fall, most people wouldn't have been able to bring that sword past the sternum. But combined with Harold Stim-Augmented strength, he drove the sword down as he fell, and cut the Lancer clean in 2. The 2 halves fell apart in a wash of orange blood. The front of Harolds armour was bright orange, and the back remained it's normal dark red. The others had heard his shout, and Sean and Alice both turned their rifles to the MEC, while Ash brought up his pistol as he climbed over the railing. The combination of 2 Rifles on burst fire, and the punch of the revolver, broke apart its armour, destroyed its electronics. The MEC fell backwards in a spray of sparks.
"Found a door down here" Harold said as he noticed a door, and went over to it. It was a metal door, and had a panel next to it. They knew the codes to open the doors, but he never bothered with that. He lashed out with his fist, and broke the control panel, and, sure enough, the door slid open. They really should update their security. The doors on the Avenger would lock down if you broke a control panel.
While Harold moved inside through the ground door, the others moved in through the balcony door. Pyro, Sean and Stacy going behind the railing, Ash staying by the door, and reloading his sniper. Harold approached a pillar with the X4 charges. Ash noticed movement, and his training kicked in, he fired a shot, and heard a hiss of pain. Stacy heard the shot, and turned, seeing one of the snake-women drop down from the roof, and pumped a burst into it. She then did a quick calculation. ADVENT always travelled in groups of 2 or 3. She took out a grenade, and tossed it lightly. It rolled right up against the wall. "Cover" she called as it detonated. Taking out the ground in ground in front of them, the wall, and the roof. A green, thin shape fell past, and there was a sickening thud as it connected with the ground.
Ash reacted extremely quickly, and took a second shot as the final snake dropped from the roof, it hadn't been standing on the part Stacy had destroyed. He pumped another shot, no scope, towards it, but those snakes were fast, and it twisted in an unusual way, and the shot grazed its side. It slithered over to a cover, and brought up its rifle. But didn't get a chance to fire, as Sean ran over, and drop-kicked it in the chest. The snake flew backwards over the railing from the force of the kick, and there was a loud thud, and a crash. Ash looked over and saw it lying on its back on top of a, now, crush car. It didn't move, but he put a pistol shot into its head to be safe, then turned to Sean and nodded his thanks. Harold was taking out the X4 charge from his waits, and attached it to a pillar in front of him, when he saw something long and green fall from the platform above him, he lashed out with a fist, and there was a loud crunch as he snapped its neck with the powerful punch. When he brought the hand back to finish inputting the numbers, he noticed that his gauntlet was deformed slightly. He needed to have Shen reinforce the armour on his fist further, there was a leak of blood from the joints, but he input the numbers with the hand anyways. He set it to 10 minutes. There was another crash, and another object fell, he almost lashed out at it again, when he noticed a gas mask. He held back his fist, and turned to see Pyro land on his ass, hard. He groaned something through his mask, but got back up. He nodded towards the pillar. "10 minutes" Harold replied to the implied question. Pyro nodded, and began heading for one of the doors.
"We're done here" Stacy said "Back to the Jeep".
They began heading back. Ash noticed a flare drop down on the roof, and alerted the others "Reinforcements"
"Just go" Stacy said "That place is going to blow, and we want to be far away"
They redoubled their pace, and ran for the woods.
XJ-298 dropped out of the transport. He saw the XCOM operatives fleeing into the forest, and opened up a com-link. "Commander. XCOM operatives are fleeing into the forest. Should we pursue?"
"Negative" came the response "They'll have a vehicle. Can you disarm the device?"
XJ-298 turned to ST-823 "Find the explosives" ST-823 saluted, and headed down.
A few seconds later he replied over the coms "8 minutes remaining. X4 charge"
"Forget it" KA-001, their Commander, said over the comm link "It will take too long to disarm it. Gather what you can, then run for the forest, you'll need 5 minutes at least to get out of the blast radius"
"Affirmative" XJ-298 replied. "SL-026, gather the information. ST-823, collect some of the subjects, you have 3 minutes, then rendezvous at 0-2732-36782" giving the coordinates of a nearby clearing in the forest.
He looked towards where the XCOM operatives were fleeing, and performed a quick scan of the last one into the forest. He uploaded the data into the psionic network, and reply came within 2 seconds, the operatives DNA was similar to that of a 'Masambe Digkale, which the network identified as the one that had disrupted the plans of the first wave of the Elders. He sent the data directly to KA-001 'I believe I have discovered something"
After a few seconds KA-001 replied "Affirmative. We have taken a hit today. Their Commander was more cunning than I thought. We have kept up the Anvil long enough. XJ-298, return to base at once. We shall unleash the Hammer"
A glimmer of emotion returned to XJ-298 in that moment. He was pleased that they'd finally be brining the fight to XCOM themselves, rather than performing defensive or clean-up operations. But he quickly pushed the feeling down. If he allowed it to surface too much he would have to report for re-conditioning He turned towards the forest, and began heading for it. He had spent too long on the roof. They had to rendezvous. They were going to unleash the Berserkers, and he had to be there to see them in action. He allowed himself a moment of satisfaction at the thought, but clamped it back down before it could alert the network. Although they were allowed some freedom of emotion, even they had a limit to it.
The Commander limped back onto the Avenger. They'd had to wait a few hours for the Avenger to return, and in that time, some of the cybernetics had burnt out, and he began to feel the pain of his injuries. He kept his arm still. He'd been right, the shot had just shattered his elbow. He had to hold it up with his other hand or it just flopped there useless. As he got on, Zacharie, the medic on the ship, came over, and helped him towards the med-bay. Zacharie was short, with buzz-cut blonde hair. He had surprisingly little to do on the ship. It wasn't often that operatives returned with more than flesh wounds. A lot of the time, he'd just have to make sure they stayed in bed as a precaution, or was assigned to clearing out debris, or assisting in construction on the Avenger with the rest of the Engineering team.
A few hours later, and the Commander was on one of the beds in the Infirmary. Pyro was across from him. Apparently he'd broken his tail bone after falling through the floor, which had been weakened by Stacy throwing a grenade. He'd burst out laughing when he'd heard it, since although Zacharie explained it properly, all he could hear was that he broke his butt after falling through the ground. The images of that distracted him from Zacharie hooking him up to machinery to look after his arm and other scrapes. Zacharie had gone out for a few minutes to collect some supplies, when Alice came in. She still looked absolutely adorable with the glasses-hat-ponytail combination. She saw him, ran over, and hugged him. It would have been a really sweet moment, but when she ran over to hug him, she bumped his arm, and moved it as she hugged him.
"Ow ow ow ow ow ow" the Commander said as she bumped the arm up with her shoulder.
She quickly back up "Sorry, sorry"
The Commander chuckled "It's alright. Just hug from this side for a couple days" he said, motioning towards his right side where he didn't have any broken bones
Alice laughed a little, and tucked a stray hair behind her ear. Had he mentioned she looked adorable? "I'm so glad your back, Commander"
"So am I" he sighed a little as he remembered the big stack of paper son his desk that he'd have to fill out with his right arm now. He needed to get a type-writer or something, his hand-writing was bad enough with his dominant hand.
"You alright Commander?" Alice asked as she noticed his sigh
"Just remembering all the paper work I've got to do. How did team Alpha and Beta do?" The Commander said, trying to change topics.
"Great. I sent the vial from the Blacksite to Tygan and Shen, though they say they're going to need a long time to figure it out, and potentially a specifically designed facility for it"
'New Facility. Great, even more paperwork and resources' the Commander thought
"And Stacy said their Facility went sky-high. We did encounter 2 new types of ADVENT though. One's a heavily armed trooper wearing white, and another's a Snake-Woman. Tygan said their DNA is similar to that of the 'Thin Men' from before, just without the human element. Though I argue they must have some. Snakes don't have breasts"
The Commander chuckled at that comment "He was trained by ADVENT. Maybe their snakes have boobs"
"Snakes are reptiles they don't-" Alice stopped herself, pinching her nose to prevent herself going on on a topic the Commander knew full well she was right on. He seemed to enjoy baiting her to techno-babble about random topics she knew about.
Alice pinched her nose to stop herself from techno-babbling. How did this girl look adorable in everything she did. Even when she was doing her action to get herself to not babble she looked cute.
"Fine" she said. Then she reached behind her "Commander, I believe this belongs to you" she brought out the Art of War by Sun Tsu again
He chuckled again. "It looks like we're both trying to get rid of it onto the other" but he reached out his good hand, took the book, and placed to down on the table beside him. He liked that book. He'd already read it 3 times, but he still enjoyed reading through it whenever he wasn't swimming in paper-work. However, while Alice leaned down with the book, she went with his taking of the book, and leaned down, and kissed him on the cheek.
"I'm really glad you came back Commander" she said, then hugged him again, on his non-injured side, and began heading out of the room.
"Ryan" the Commander called after her. Alice turned around
"Ryan?"
"My name. Call me Ryan"
Alice smiled a little to herself, then turned and continued walking out of the room "I'll see you later then, Ryan
Alice walked back to her room. She couldn't wipe the smile off of her face the entire way. When she reached her room, she got in, closed the door, then jumped and punched the air. The Commander had finally told her his name.
The Commander turned to Pyro "You can't talk right?"
Pyro grunted something back in response
"Well, either way, tell anyone what just happened, and I'm taking that gas mask away"
Pyro shrugged in a, that's fair, motion.
So much shit is about to go down. I'm both looking forward to, and dreading when I start reaching the end of this story. Because there will be much Drama, Action, and of course, a little Bloodshed (I wonder if any of you will get that reference). But then I'll have to end the story. Well, that's still quote a bit off. The first one reach, 26, 27 parts, around that. I don't remember exactly, I could check but, meh, and this one is meant to be longer. So it won't end for a while. Anyway, thank you for reading, I hope you stick with me for the rest of this story.