XJ-298 opened fire out of the opening doors of the transport. Firing on Fully-Automatic, firing shots into the group of 'Resistance', his shots went clean through anyone he hit, ripping out organs and shredding flesh. The Mechanised unit next to him following suit with its rifle, each of the shots being fired were the size of cans, and would destroy anything they hit. The group quickly scattered, and the transport set them down once there were no more in sight. XJ-289 sent a confirmation bead to all units, each replied with an affirmative, Coms were fully operational. Each of the units had their own task. XJ-298 and his Mechanised unit went over to a building. It was large, 2 stories, with many hiding places, many of the so-called 'resistance' would flee to there, only to find an Officer of ADVENT and a Mec waiting for them. This would be a slaughter.
Aya sat in the skyranger. She'd seen the recording they'd gotten from a Resistance member, before they were killed. ADVENT were there, and they'd revealed another new unit type, the Berserkers, they'd returned. This time though, they didn't have any kind of armour, and didn't even have the claws they'd had before, but there was no-doubt they'd be just as dangerous as before though. Some of the choices made sense for this mission. Aya could move quickly, and deal a lot of damage at close range, so she could dish out a great deal of damage to the Berserkers when they closed the distance. Ash could do a decent amount of damage from a long range, so they could engage the Berserkers out of their range. Alice, of course, she was very tactically minded, and was likely to know something about the Berserkers that they could take advantage of. Pyro could also dish out a lot of damage from close to medium range with his Machine Gun, and its quite likely that his hail of shots could hurt even a Berserker. But then 2 choices didn't make as much sense. Sean, his damage output left much to be desired, he was good at stealth, and could do decent damage when they don't know he's there, but he just lacked the full damage output that others like Harold, or Maxim could put out. And then, there was William. The Commander had decided to bring the Hacker along. What? There might be some mechanised unit, but Aya could take them down herself in a single shot, as she'd shown many times, and there wasn't going to be anything else to hack, the only reason he was on this mission was because of the Skulljack Shen had finished, although Aya thought it would be better to leave it until a mission that wouldn't be as important, but it wasn't her place to question the Commander, she was there to shoot things, not to think.
They slid down the ropes, and dropped down next to an RV, in quite a forested area. "Legs, get a look around. Ash, head up top. Everyone else, around the RV"
Sean moved around the RV, and quickly dropped down behind a rock "2 Mutons, and 1 of those Berserkers up top" but his response was too late to stop Ash grappling onto the RV. When he popped up, the Mutons saw him, and ran over to cover, and the Berserker began running towards them. Pyro showed up next to him, and just sprayed into the Berserker as it ran at them, shredding it's torso, and making it stumble slightly as some shots hit its legs, but it didn't seem to be bothered at all as its entire torso was ripped open and its organ exposed to the elements. As Pyro's spray slowed it down slightly, Ash lined up a shot between its eyes, pumping a shot straight into its skull, the head flopped backwards like it was dead, but the body kept running as if nothing had happened.
"Flash!" William called, as he threw a Flahbang directly in the path of the Berserker, it ran over it as it detonated, blinding the Mutons, but the Berserker didn't have a working head to be blinded anymore. Alice lined up a shot, and fired a short spray into the shoulder of one of the Mutons as it reached the cover of a tree, and it was finished off as Aya move over next to Sean, and pumped a shell into its head, sending it flying backwards with a spray of orange blood. Meanwhile, the Berserker continued its suicide run, it got right up to Sean, and was about to bring up its arms to pummel him, when a shotgun blast shredded what remained of its chest, and it fell backwards from the force of the blast, a shredded remains of meat and blood.
The last remaining Muton, dazed by the Flashbang, attempted to fire at the only target it could make out, but the beam flew miles too high, and didn't even hit the RV Ash was on top of. While it lined up its shot, Pyro unleashed a hail into it, shredding its arms and armour as it dropped back down with a screech of pain. Sean and William both tried to shoot it, to finish it off, but it was ducked down behind the rock, probably nursing its arms, and the shots sparked harmlessly aside of the rock it was behind. Alice moved around and got an angle where she could see it, and took out her pistol, driving a single shot between its eyes, and it dropped to the ground.
Aya saw the Muton go down, and decided to start heading up, moving along the edge of the cliff next to them, and seeing a clump of vines clinging onto it, she grabbed a bit, and pulled, it didn't budge, so she began climbing up, she reached the top, and found a resistance member cowering behind a tree, she nudged their shoulder, and pointed to the RV. They got the message and ran over to it, hiding inside. Meanwhile, Sean continued the scouting along the ground, and found an Officer, and 2 Stun Lancers on the cliff up ahead. Ash lined up a shot, and fired into the chest of one of the Stun Lancers as it dropped down, it stumbled backwards, but recovered quickly, and continued its mad dash for Sean. It got about halfway there when Alice brought up her rifle, and took it down with a burst to the head, the helmet cracked under the barrage of magnetic-accelerate metal, and it fell to the ground, sliding forward a few feet before friction overcame its momentum, and it slid to a stop, right next to Sean. Pyro saw the other Stun Lancer running for Sean as well, and quickly turned his Machine Gun, but Lancers are quick, and it reached Sean before he began the spray, but the Sean was also quick, and as the stun-sword swung for him, he kicked out, and threw himself backwards, the sword scraped across his legs, sending a shock of electricity up through him, but it hurt a lot less than it would have, had it hit flesh. The Lancer never got a chance for a second strike, as Pyros Machine Gun opened fire, and reduced it to a pile of meat and armour.
Aya saw the Stun lancers get destroyed, but hadn't seen the Officer, so she assumed he was still up with her. She got up from her cover, and began running up closer to where it had been, but as she got up, a red glow surrounded her. She immediately realized her mistake, and tried to jump back behind the rock, but even her legendary speed wasn't enough, and the Officer sprayed her, because she was moving, she didn't take a shot to the head, but she got a spray all the way down her left side. 1 Shot going through her cheek as she jumped, and the rest punching through her armour, and into her flesh as she went back. She landed heavily on her uninjured side, and dragged herself to the edge, and dropped down. She landed on her feet, but pain flared up her left leg as it took the impact as well, and it crumpled, she fell onto her side, and ended up getting into a sitting position. She sat there, gritting her teeth against the pain, she looked down her side, and saw her armour was completely shredded along that side, she tried moving her leg, and her left leg was fine, but when she tried to move her arm, it didn't respond, she looked, but couldn't see anything on the outside, though it must have destroyed the bones in the arm, it hung limply on her side. She reached down with her good arm to the emergency patch kit they all had, and she sprayed pain killers onto the side, but the kits aren't meant to handle anything like this, the pain lessened but didn't go away, it would also help the blood to clot, but she was still bleeding heavily. Her vision was swimming, and sounds were muted, she heard several soft bangs, and then Sean appeared in front of her, he said something, but she couldn't make it out, a second later, her vision returned to normal, and she could hear again. "Valkyrie, you ok?" Sean asked, he had his emergency kit out, and was spraying her side, removing more of the pain, and helping the blood to clot further.
"I'll live" Aya replied. She wasn't actually sure about that, but she was almost certain her arm would be messed up afterwards regardless.
"You should get back to Firebrand" Sean said.
Aya shook her head to clear out the cobwebs "No. I'm fine" she pulled herself to her feet. The combination of pain killers, and adrenaline completely blocking out any of the pain, though her arm still refused to respond. The others showed up around her.
"Valkyrie? You sure about this?" Sean asked
"Yeah. I'll be fine" Aya replied, she took the shotgun off her back, and held it in her good arm. Thankfully, the magnetic weapons had very little recoil, so she could hold the recoil of the shotgun in just the 1 hand without breaking it, unlike her old shotgun.
"All right" Alice replied "Legs, Valkyrie, head around there" she pointed around the side "Find another way up. Everyone else, lets head up here" she began to climb up, and the others got ready to follow.
Sean lead the way, Aya following behind, she could move quickly, but she slowed down, as she didn't want to damage her leg further if she could help it. As she moved up, she looked up, and saw 2 Mutons and a Berserker along the top "Zerker, 2 Mutes" the said into the coms. The Berserker took a shot to the head from Ash, and it shead flopped down like the other ones, but after it took the shot, it ran off in the opposite direction to Aya and Sean. The Mutons reacted more actively. One dropped down from the cliff, the other one ran across towards cover from the other group, but it didn't get far, as Ash adjusted aim, and pumped a shot into its head. Aya, seeing the Muton drop down, reacted with Instinct, she quickly dashed over to it, pressed her shotgun to its back as it ran over to a rock for cover, and pulled the trigger, blowing its back out its front, and it dropped to the ground, it didn't even get a chance to scream. Aya then quickly sprinted back over, when she got back into the cover, he leg screamed at the punishment. She'd completely forgotten about her leg for a moment, and she stumbled as she dropped down, falling from a crouch into a sitting position. Sean looked over at her, but he knew there was no way to talk Aya out of something once she'd put her mind to it.
"Zerks back" Alice shouted form above, there was a loud sound, the combination of rifles and Machine guns firing at the same time. Aya looked up, and saw a mangled mess of meat step over the edge, and fall to the ground just in front of her. Sean fired a burst into its head just to be sure, but it was dead. Berserkers might be tough, but even they couldn't take the combined fire of 2 rifles, and a Machine gun after taking a sniper round to the head. It would be difficult to get an autopsy of those things, as they had to reduce them to a clump of meat before they finally stopped moving. As the Berserker dropped there was a scream from above, but it wasn't an Alien or ADVNET scream, this was clearly a human scream.
"Faceless!" William shouted. Aya looked up again, and sure enough one of the shape-shifters was running towards the edge. It took a burst to the arm from William, then a second burst to the head as Sean fired into it, it followed after the Berserker, and landed next to it. Aya followed Sean up the 'ladder' of vines. She had to put her shotgun away so she had an arm to climb with, but she brought it back out when she got up. Her leg hurt with every step, but it was little more than a dull throb, painkillers and adrenaline were very good at numbing pain. Sean and Aya moved up to the building ahead of them, it was large, and 2 storeyed.
Pyro grunted something, and unleashed a hail into the building. Sean jumped through the window, and Aya followed behind, they saw an Officer jump out the window on the other side of the building, taking cover behind the wall, and a MEC levelling its rifle at them, but it didn't get a chance to fire, as a combination of shotgun and rifle destroyed it.
"I got that one" William called as he ran part, his rifle was in his left hand, and his right hand had some kind of blade coming out of either side of the fist. They seemed to be made of blue light, but they were solid.
XJ-298 jumped out of the window, and put his back to the wall, XCOM had arrived, and they'd managed to get through the rest of his forces. He heard a bang, as the operatives destroyed his Mechanised unit. He gripped his rifle, and was about to take a shot, when there was a crash from behind him, and he turned to come face-to-face with one of them, he tried to turn around with his rifle, but only got hallway before he felt searing pain in his jaw, as 2 blades of solid light speared through his jaw, through his skull, and out the top of his head. Blood flooded his mouth, and he began choking on it, but he wouldn't experience that for long, as a pulse shot through the blades, and into his brain, the pulse made the blades temporary grow and the blades destroyed a large portion of his brain, he began fading out, but he kept trying to fight against it, as he felt the pulse try to hack into the chip in his head, but he didn't have the cognitive powers left to fight it, and he faded out, but he knew one thing they didn't, they'd just released the Codex from the server.
William drove the blades through the Officers head, and sent the electronic pulse into its head. The flow of data flashed behind his eyes, and he mentally hacked into the chip in the back of the Officers head. He could have done it cleverly, fooled the Chip into thinking he was allowed access, but that would take longer, and the chip could deactivate before he got in. So, he brute forced it. Simply put, he just shunted a shit ton of data at the thing until he smashed through its defences. "I'm in" he allowed Shen to take over, she knew what she and Tygan wanted from the chip, so he let her recover what she wanted, while he kept the Officer on the blades.
"Got it" Shen said over the coms, and he deactivated the blades, the Officer dropped to the floor, he was about to turn back into the building when there was a flash of light, and a figure appeared behind him. It was slightly shorter than him, and had a vaguely female shape, but its body was made of yellow, flickering light, and its head was black, with 2 read lights deep in it, that must have been its eyes. It held a device in its hands, that looked like a plasma weapon, so William quickly dived back through the window he'd come through.
The creature thrust its hands forwards, and a purple swirling field appeared at the back of the building.
Aya looked at Sean as her shotgun stopped the constant hum that showed it was active. She dropped it, and pulled out the sword from her back, and ran across the room, Sean following behind her. Aya brought her sword through it. It recoiled like it had been hit, and its body flickered more, as it dropped back, there was a flash of light, then Sean jumped through the window, and drop-kicked it in the head, it feel forwards, and disappeared in a flash.
Pyro jumped out of the house, and saw a Faceless running for them, and he unleashed the last of his magazine into it. It stumbled, and fell, taking out a portion of the wall as it fell onto it.
Alice jumped out of the rift, and saw another one of those yellow-women in the other room, and bought up her pistol, which hadn't been damaged by the field, and fired towards it. But the thing pulled off a crazy feat of agility, and the shot barely grazed its body, and there was a flash of light. But ti didn't get long to be alive, because NOCLIP flew over, and unleashed a burst of electricity, and the thing disappeared.
Aya grit her teeth as she hit her arm on the wall after killing the thing. Then heard a slight whooshing sound, and turned to see another one appear a few feet away, and she threw her sword towards it. But the thing vanished before the sword hit it, and the blade clattered to the ground behind where it had been.
William sent NOCLIP over to Aya, using the new field that had been installed to create a field around her, in case anything else showed up, but no sooner had NOCLIP gone over then a green beam shot just over his head, making him duck down. He saw another one of those Yellow creatures, with its plasma device aimed at him, and he quickly threw a grenade, the grenade landed at its feet and detonated. For a moment the creature seemed fine, then it doubled over, and began freaking out, holding onto its head like it was in pain, before it straightened up, and disappeared in a flash of light. But this time, the head stayed, and dropped to the ground.
"That should be everything" Alice said "Find any survivors, and get back to the Skyranger"
Aya head the order, and retrieved her sword, then began limping towards the Skyranger. Now that the battle was over, the adrenaline was fading, she wanted to be back a the Skyranger before the pain grew too bad to walk on. Still her arm refused to move.
They had failed. They might have killed the ADVENT forces, but they'd lost all but 2 Resistance members. The resistance cell in this area was dead. KA-001 looked at the data on the screen, and he knew that, although this was a victory for them, it was not as clear as it should have been. They'd hacked into their network. Thankfully they'd managed to limit what they'd get at, but they now had access to the Codex's processor. If they could decrypt that.. A Pyric victory then. But he'd also seen what Aya had been doing, she'd been hurt. Maybe a bit better than a Pyric victory then, if that damage resulted in anything more than her having to sit out of a couple missions of course. Still, they'd won. They'd destroyed the Resistance group in the area, that would set XCOM back quite a bit, and already he had other groups fighting back the Resistance in other areas. They'd taken a hit from the destruction of those 2 facilities, but they were recovering, the AVATAR project was backup and running, though progress was slower than before because of the damage they'd taken, but it would pick back up. XCOM got in the first hit. ADVENT got in the second. Now it was all about who would get the third.