The Micronoid Colossus, as I'd decided to call it, opened up the fight by forming a giant tentacle out of its slimy mass and trying to crush our forces with it. Since it made its attack pretty obvious, no one died, as the attack wasn't too hard to dodge. Realizing its mistake, the next attack was aimed sideways instead of downward. Everyone had already taken cover by this point, though, leaving it once again without any kills. From the relative safety the wall like growths in this structure provided, we opened fire, inflicting noticeable, if negligible, wounds on the slime. It actually screeched as the laser, plasma and disruptor fire hit it, though it seemed to be able to shrug them off. Probably had to do with it being, essentially, an intelligent slime mold/sponge: all of the cells that made it up could fulfill any bodily function as needed, so the only way to beat it would be to destroy or incapacitate all of it. Something that was well within our capabilities, of course.
'YOU WILL FAIL! WE SHALL PREVAIL!'
"We kicked the asses of two different alien invasions, you overgrown petri dish," responded a goice that I recognized as Gamma One's. "For all of your physical differences, you're just like them, and will fall as they did."
'No we won't.' I was actually rather intimidated by how subdued that response was.
At this point, one of the Zudjari titans opened fire on the colossus, burn a hole clean through the monster. To my surprise, it didn't screen, but instead seemed to become annoyed, of all things. It directed a tentacle at the titan, but instead of shooting the limb out to attack, said limb started to glow purple. A moment later, a purple beam, which I recognized as a null lance, surged out and slammed into the titan, blowing it to pieces. Several more attacks destroyed the rest of the titans, leaving us without air support.
Then, to make a bad situation worse, a scout ship suddenly emerged from the pit behind the micronoid mass and opened fire, shredding through our cover and knocking out one of the XCOM troops.
Immediately, I pulled up the schematics of the Ragnarok, examined its drill, set about building one near the Dimension Gate Generator, then sighed. This was getting ridiculous.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Cautiously, Tobias followed the police convoy. When the aliens had attacked, he'd been with his younger sister, Pamela, who had been visiting one of the Sanctuary Clinics. While most of the surgeries were done by machines, human doctors, which Pamela would one day like to count herself among the ranks of, were still a necessity, in case the machines went offline. Additionally, their parents had been receiving x-rays when the attack had come, and owing to both adults' inability to move over long distances, the staff had loaded them onto an ambulance and sent them, along with several other patients, to one of the anti-alien shelters the were in and around the city. Hopefully, they would be able to reach it unscathed.
Unfortunately, a collapsing building had split the convoy in two, though luckily, no one had been killed by the collapse. It had forced them to seek out a new route, though, and so far, they hadn't found a clear one. Their detour had taken them by Tobias' neighborhood, where he had noticed that a large fragment of a UFO had embedded itself in his family's apartment. Tobias felt no sorrow at this, only a mixture of resignation and annoyance: his family was struggling enough as is, and now, they were homeless. Why did life hate them so much?
A strange noise snapped him out of his thoughts. Looking around, he noticed some kind of giant arch had popped up in a nearby neighborhood. It hadn't been there this morning, so who had built it, and how had they managed to build it so fast?
...Now that he thought about it, the strange arch did bear a resemblance to the robot that had saved him from the aliens a few days ago. Perhaps they were part of the same force?
Regardless of whether or not the two were related, Tobias knew that they would have to pass by it to reach the nearest shelter in the city. Perhaps he could examine it as they passed by?
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It took a few minutes, but the convoy finally reached the neighborhood containing the arch. When they got their, though, they found themselves in for a big surprise: the arch took up the whole street! More importantly, robots were coming out of it. LOTS of robots were emerging from it. In fact, one could say that it was releasing an entire army. Though, considering that it glowed like a Dimension Gate, that really wasn't surprising.
Now, though, the convoy faced a problem: they couldn't go around the gate, but they didn't want to go through it either. With neither option sounding good to anyone, the police were trying to see if they could find an alley that would take them around the portal.
They never got the chance to decide. A disruptor bomb impacted a nearby house, covering everyone in debris, with one piece of rubble denting one of the ambulances. Instantly, the police opened fire, their shots tearing into the destoyer's hull. This only annoyed the ship, though, which began to circle around for another attack.
It was at that moment that the robots began to open fire, supported by what appeared to be a dedicated anti-aircraft vehicle. The homing missiles it fired quickly hit the destroyer, inflicting noticeable damage, which caused it to turn its attention to the attacking force. Before it could react, though, some kind of fighter jet appeared and opened fire on it, inflicting even more damage on the craft. Wounded, it gave chase to the plane, abandoning its attack on the convoy.
Seizing their chance, the cars making up the convoy surged forward, sights set on the portal. Whatever lay on the other side of the portal now seemed a better option than staying in the city, especially since no one knew if the ship would come back, or if another would take its place.
Not a moment too soon, for as they approached the portal, another ship flew over them - a bomber, noted Tobias, based on its color and design. The ship began to fire at the humans, trying its hardest to kill them. This one seemed to have a bad gunner or faulty targeting system, though, because its first volley of disruptor bombs flew right over the convoy into another neighborhood. The second volley was slightly more accurate, hitting the neighborhood, but missing any of the convoy vehicles. By this point, the vehicles at the head of the convoy had made it through the portal and the anti-air vehicles had opened fire on the bomber. Watching the ambulance carrying his sister and parents disappear through the portal made Tobias smile - it looked like things were finally turning up for them.
Then the bomber fired a third volley.
While still inaccurate, this volley did impact on the backstreet the convoy was on, littering it with craters. One of them was right in front of the Megapol car that Tobias was inside. Upon reach the edge of the crater, the car jumped it, in part due to the slant the ground had taken from the impact explosion. The problem was, this wasn't a hover car, so when it returned to Earth on the other side of the crater, its tires gave out, causing it to slowly grind to a halt within sight of the portal.
Desperate to escape, the officers and Tobias tried to open up the doors, only to notice that they had become jammed shut by the hard landing. Overhead, the bomber seemed to be zeroing in on their position, and they doubted it would miss a fourth time. Growing scared, the trapped humans tried to shoot out the windows, hoping they would be able to escape before the attack came.
A volley from one of the anti-air vehicles distracted the bomber, which turned its attention back to the vehicles. Unnoticed to the ship, a trio of robots with drills at the ends of their arms ran up to the downed car, lifted it up, and carried it back through the portal. Just as they reached the exit ramp of the portal, the bomber opened fire. The bots charged through the arch just as the bombs hit.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXX
When the bright flash of light faded, the first thing that Tobias noted was that his ears were ringing, and that he had a headache. 'Good,' he thought, 'that means I'm still alive.'
The second thing he noticed was that he appeared to be in a new place, one that he didn't recognize. It was a large building of sorts, looking more like a parking garage, but grander than any he had ever been in.
Ahead of him, he saw robots helping the medical staff offload all of the patients in the ambulances, among them his parents. He could see his sister staring out at them, before turning to one of the machines and saying something he couldn't understand.
He was soon torn away from his thoughts when a robot holding what looked like a giant pair of bulk cutters appeared and forced open the doors of the police car, allowing its occupants to go free. When the fear of the machine faded, they quickly filtered out, heading toward the crowd of people they had been protecting, who were now being directed to...well, somewhere.
Before he could join them, though, Tobias turned toward one of the drill armed robots. He thought he recognized it...
"Hello?!"
"Yes?" asked the machine.
"...Do I know you?"
"...Yes, we met a few days ago during the last big alien attack."
"I see...thank you for saving my life...twice."
"You are welcome. Please join the refugee crowd, we are preparing meals for all of you right now."
"Al-alright. Goodbye."
"Farewell."
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Levine-01 watched as the teen left to find food, as well as (presumably), his family. Then it turned its attention back to the teleporter gate.
The gate had sustained moderate damage from the last disruptor bomb strike, but it was still functional. A wing of interceptor fighters had shot down the bomber before it could fire another volley, leaving the gate intact and able to send it more troops as needed. But while more machines would pass through it shortly, 01 would not be among them - it had new directives. Namely, taking care of the newly arrived refugees.
Not too difficult, all things considered.
XXXXXXXXXX
Emerging from cover, Blackfire opened fire.
The Micronoid Colossus roared in pain as the shots burned its mass, before trying to blast him with a null lance. Fortuantely, he had already moved to a different source of cover by the time it retaliated.
All around him, the battle raged on: skeletoids and anthropods fought human and Outsider forces, while the Commander's robots battled several Megaspawn attempting to assault them, as well as the occasional starship that emerged from the pit. On occasion, an alien gas grenade would impact the giant slime, causing it to wreath in pain before trying to slay its assailant. Still, in spite of all the damage that had been done to the monster, it refused to die.
Like all the others who had been fighting the giant slime, he had heard it's motivations, and part of him could sympathize with the alien. It's world didn't really seem to be in the best shape, at least from what he had seen, and it did indeed appear to be dying. Part of him acknowledged that they did not have anywhere to go, because the nearest habitable worlds had already been colonized by humans at this point - Mars was well developed, while the closest inhabitable worlds had been targets of the seeding missions. All the good worlds had already been claimed by mankind.
That didn't excuse the actions its kind had taken, though. They had murdered hundreds of people, attempted to enslave mankind, and in all likelihood, enslaved the rest of the aliens to achieve their goals. Perhaps, if the aliens had sought to acquire land on Earth diplomatically, this crisis could have been averted, but they had chosen of their own free will to go the path of war, and now they would pay for it.
Another shot from Henrique's mag rifle caused one of the beast's tentacles to collapse, causing the null lance it had been charging to misfire and hit the ceiling, causing some debris to fall near the attacking forces. No fatalities so far, but that was liable to change any time.
Hopefully, the alien would go down before that was a problem.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Far away, at the viewing area the Commander had set up to watch the battle, Melissa observed the fighting on Earth and in the alien dimension. In space, some of the alien vessels did battle with the Zudjari Command Ship, with the Outsiders assisted by several newly produced Omega's and Artemi. Her pawn, meanwhile, had focused his attention on destroying the gestalt entity that had been formed by the micronoids to defend the dimension gate generator. She watched on as the soldiers and machines battled the hordes of aliens that the micronoids sent, the micronoids themselves, and the occasional ship that they summoned.
At first, she regarded this impassively. Then, though, she smiled. Not a calm smile, but one that was almost predatory, and only seemed to grow as the carnage dragged on.
"Yes, this is indeed an interesting fight."
She continued to watch as the Commander and his allies fought the Micronoids Colossus, slowly wearing it down from all of their attacks. The unlucky aliens assisting the colossus were killed just as quickly as they arrived, some in rather messy ways. This only served to cause Melissa's smile to widen even further.
"Kill them. Kill all of them. Main them, burn them, poison them, crush them, cut them, KILL THEM! LEAVE NONE AIVE! MWAHAHAHAHA!"
"Um, mom."
Instantly, Melissa calmed herself down.
"Yes, dear?"
"You're drooling."
Melissa took a moment to process the remark, before moving her arm across her mouth. When shoe looked at it, she could indeed make out a trail of saliva that had been on her face. Instantly, she went bright red.
"Oh, sorry about that, dear. Mommy just lost herself."
"Okay. I'm going to go watch the rest of the fight with Rory."
"Ok."
With that, Cassidy left, leaving Melissa alone once more. When she was sure her daughter was out of sight, the ROB let out an exasperated sigh, before returning her attention to the battle.
XXXXXXXXXXX
Gamma one fired another burst from his LMG, knocking a few skeletoids out of the sky. All around him, carnage raged onas the Micronoids and their forces fought desperately to defend the last stabilizer. Once it was gone, the Dimension gates would close forever, and these aliens would be defeated for good
The aliens knew this, though, and were fighting like cornered animals to stop them. However many they killed, more would take their place, while the colossus simply refused to die. Even a volley of alien gas grenades was barely doing anything to hurt it.
The occasional ship didn't help matters, as those ships were far more resilient to their attacks than the aliens were, and their firepower meant that any ship took immediate priority to destroy over all other X-rays. While they had suffered casualties yet, at this rate, all of their non-disruptor weapons would soon be out of ammunition, and when that happened, they would be in deep trouble.
Just then, a distant explosion of shorts caught all sides off guard. For a moment, everything was tense, before the aliens resumed firing. This time, though, the UFO was downed, but now by an attack from the team, but from someone below it.
What ever had happened, as long as the aliens went down, Gamma one was happy.
XXXXXXXX
Hydra-01 watched as her locust fighter wing laid waste to the smaller alien ships beneath the Dimension Gate Generator. The Commander's still had finally reached the tunnels the aliens were using, allowing her to take the fight to them. Now, many of the smaller ships were unable to reach the dimension gate before they were shot down, costing the aliens more troops with each sip lost. Hopefully, attrition would start to hit them before too long.
Turning back to the city, Hydra-01 sent the rest of her aircraft to intercept a bomber wing head for one of the city's schools, while one of her wyrm's began leveling Cult of Sirius associated offices. The Cult has been assisting the Alien in wrecking the city, so it was time that they were dealt with permanently.
As her forces swept over the city, though, she noticed a worrying sight: a teenage girl and a younger boy (who she assumed to be the girl's brother) were trying desperately to navigate through a ruined neighborhood, unaware of an approaching group of Megaspawn. The two likely would not survive if they met the organic tanks.
Hydra-01 stared at this for a moment, then sent ina gunship group pared with transports toward the team. All lives were precious, according to her directives, and she would protect them all if possible.
XXXXXXXXXX
'Are we going in circles?' wondered Alexis. She had been traveling through this part of the city with her brother for half an hour, and right now, it looked like they were in the same place where they had started.
Exhaustion was taking its toll - it was only a matter of time before they fired and could not carry on. Right now, they were taking a short break to stave off ftagiue, but that was a temporary measure at best. Soon, they would need another break.
Then, to her surprise, the ground began to shake. She only had a moment to process this before a Megaspawn barreled through a nearby building, followed by its pack. For a moment, she was too surprised to do anything, only stating back at the organic tanks, waiting for it to act.
This ultimately saved her: as the alien finally armed to decide what to do, a volley of machine gun fire pierced its cranium, killing it. More volleys opened fire on the rest of the pack, which began returning fire, diverting the aliens' attention form the teen and sibling. As the Dimension middle sbegsn t fly, Alexis noticed the nearby sounds of another aircraft, only a few feet away. Turning toward it, she notice both that it was some kind go transport and that's bay doors were open.
Seizing her chance, she grabbed her brother and ran into the ship bay, with the ship taking off shortly after they set down. Where they were going, neither knew, but hopefully it would be better than the bombed out ruin that the City was.
XXXXXXXXX
Hydra 01 watched as the ship headed toward one of the nearby portal to the Commander's hub uncjefse, befor returning to the battle at hand - Now was not them time to act as a lone wolf.
Idly, though, she did wonder how the duo would be treated, as well as how the fighting would end. That, though, she could watch.
XXXXXXXXXXX
Anothe volley of Alien gas grenades landed on the Micronoid Colossus, disorienting ti, though it did recover. Inwardly, I groaned. How much more could it take? It had already eaten over a dozen of these barrages and still it refused to roll over and die.
I'd managed to access the tunnels that aliens had stored the last of their ships in, and was using my aircraft to whittle down theirs, but until the Dimension Gate Generator went down, that was a temporary fix at best.
Now, the colossus was tiring, but i didn't know went it would go down, and since it was using its own body to defend the last dimension gate generator, it had to die before we could finish off the building...
Didn't it?
...Actually, maybe not.
Carefully, I loaded a Tesla onto one of my transports and sent it, a second transport, and an escort into the tunnels. While the escort laid waste to the alien fleet, the Tesla Transport moved itself so that it was within the pit that the alien ships emerged from to attack us. With bow of those forthcoming, it slowly rised up from the pit until it was right behind the Colossus, which actually attempted to use ta psychic powers to order my ship to attack. When it realized who the ship belonged to, though, everyone in the room with it felt its surprise and shock as it was electrocuted by the drone...which also overloaded the last pylon, causing it to explode, sending the colossus over the pit edge...
Right into my other transport.
With nothing left to do, and a fast approaching deadline now burdening is, we fell back to our ships as the Dimension Gate Generator began to self destruct. Desperate alien ships collide with each other as they tried to escape, with those that didn't finding themselves introduced to a supernova like explosion as building finally exploded. Some attempted to chase after our forces, only for them to be obliterated by the blast wave.
As for us?
Our forces sped toward either my teleported gates or the dimension gates as the alien world began to explode, quite literally. As the blast approached my gates, I scuttled them to stop any damage happening to Earth, Chiron, or my hub world. This forced the remains ships to climb higher and higher to reach the last dimension gates, which was several thousand meters above where the building had been.
Just as the blast was about to reach our forces, we winked through the gate back to Earth.
Mission Accomplished.
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AN: Apologies in advance for any grammar issues - I'm really tired.
Read and Review! This is Flameal15k, signing off!