The shuttle left the hangars of Babylonia and began it's trip down to the earth below. The occupants, two constructs and a commandant, sat in silence as one of the constructs piloted the ship. The commandant wore a black uniform with orange flairs, with a patch bearing a drake placed on his right shoulder. The construct in the pilots seat was a tall brown haired man, one of the oldest humans to ever become a construct. The other construct lay across several of the shuttle seats, her long blonde hair mere moments away from getting tangled in the clasps. Her sword and pistol were unceremoniously dropped onto the floor.
"I have a bad feeling about this." the commandant murmured, breaking the silence some time into the flight.
"Oh for the love of god, Xander." The construct across from him groaned, " You better not be starting with this intuition crap this early on in the mission!"
Despite her derisive tone she had a wry smile on her face.
"Cut the commandant some slack, Alisa." The pilot called out. "This is a bit different from our usual shtick."
"No, Clint, I wont!" Alisa replied, "Because his intuition is just survivorship bias! When we were sent to take out corrupted on the east coast he said he had a bad feeling, but that turned out fine. Then you said the battle at Kowloong was going to be a piece of cake, and we all saw that turned out! But noooooo that didn't illicit a bad feeling even though we almost-"
"I would like to point out that I don't think that's what survivorship bias is." Xander interjected.
"Regardless," Alisa said, "You should be careful when you say that. Who knows, maybe this whole time you've been jinx-"
As if to confirm her conspiracy, a loud boom shook the entire shuttle. Swearing, Alisa quickly grabbed her weapons and strapped in, Xander doing the same. The shuttle began shaking violently.
"What the hell just happened?" Xander asked.
"Something hit us!" Clint replied. "I'm gonna try to get us close to the planned landing site but this is going to be rough!"
"How rough?" Alisa asked.
"Very." Clint replied solemly.
"Oh for fu-"

Were Clint an inexperienced pilot they would all undoubtedly be dead. However he did have plenty of experience so while he hadn't been able to save the ship itself they still their supplies, and most importantly, their serum.
"Alright so a ride will be on standby to pick us up when we complete the mission or things go very wrong." Xander explained after reporting what had happened to Babylonia.
"Does our ship getting mysteriously shot out of the sky not count as things going very wrong?" Alisa asked.
"Considering it was just a corrupted AA gun, not really." Xander sighed. "However they added taking that thing out to our mission objectives. Which is just wonderful since we are already several miles north of our intended landing sight, and even more miles north of the anomaly."
"Nothing wrong with a light jog to get our blood pumping." Clint said as he stood up, hefting his colossal LMG over one shoulder.
"Last I checked only one of us still had blood." Alisa pointed out.

Fortunately the squad arrived at the corrupted AA gun without running into any corrupted. Unfortunately that was because they all had gathered around it.
"Well shi-"
Alisa was cut off when the AA gun let loose a volley of rounds in a deafening cacophony. As best they could tell, the gun had fired at a flock of birds.
"Must be firing at anything it sees." Clint mused.
"So what's the plan?" Alisa asked.
Xander looked at the small army of corrupted. They were in what looked to be an old army base, several collapsed AA guns nearby along with other outdated military hardware. The AA gun was the only thing remotely functional and Xander was eternally grateful for that. He couldn't even imagine the chaos a corrupted tank would create. Though given the tread marks that had no doubt already happened. Nevertheless, destroying that AA gun would prove difficult with so many corrupted nearby.
"What would the Chief do?" Xander mumbled to himself, prompting Alisa to flick his ear.
"Can you go one mission without mentioning your crush?" She groaned.
"They are not my crush." Xander replied. "Besides, there's no way the Chief has time for something like romance."
"I dunno, have you seen the way that one construct in their squad looks at them?" Alisa clasped her hands together melodramatically, "'Oh commandant! I know our love can never be but I cannot keep these feelings bottled up any longer!'"
"Regardless," Clint said, cutting into their banter, "We aren't Gray Raven."
"Thank you, captain obvious." Alisa replied, rolling her eyes.
Xander spotted a storage warehouse at the far end of the base, the beginnings of an idea forming in his head.

Luckily for them the corrupted seemed to be content congregating around the AA gun, leaving the trio free to sneak into the bases storage warehouse from behind. To Xanders relief there was a plethora of ammunition and explosives still sitting on the storehouse shelves. The shutter on the far end was also shut tightly, ensuring none of the corrupted would be able to see them until they were ready.
"How much of this is even usable?" Alisa asked.
She had a point, as everything had to be decades old.
"No clue," Xander said as he inspected several boxes, "Clint?"
"Should be fine for our purposes." Clint replied. "One of our grenades would be able to set some of them off. Won't be the biggest explosion but enough to thin their numbers if we play our cards right. We'll-"
Xander bumped into one of the storage racks, prompting the rusted metal to creak and break apart, falling over and causing a domino effect. The racks on one side of the warehouse all fell over with a racket. Worst of all, they had fallen over the back exit, leaving the only exit the metal shutter in the front.
"Uh oh." Xander said.
Immediately they heard the horde of corrupted rapidly approaching, their ear splitting cries ringing out in unison.
"Alisa, help me clear out any combustible materials from the racks that fell. Enough to let you cut through the metal, we don't want to set this place off by accident." Xander ordered. "Clint, get as many explosives ready as you can, we'll probably need set them off on our way out."
With no hesitation, each member of the squad leapt into action. Alisa and Xander ran to the back, beginning to grab and throw any and all boxes off the collapsed shelves in the way of the exit. Before long the first of the corrupted collided with the steel shutter, leaving a large dent. Clint began digging through boxes, unceremoniously tossing any explosives he could find into the center of the warehouse. The shutter began to bend as the corrupted continued to throw themselves against it. The metal was slowly bending more and more, it's break becoming more and more imminent.
"We're out of time!" Alisa yelled as she pushed Xander out of the way.
She drew the sword off her back and with lightning speed sliced her way through the remaining racks before they had fully been emptied. The metal screeched as her blade cut cut straight through the metal. She quickly tossed aside the remaining pieces, clearing the way to the door.
"Clint!" Xander called out, prompting Clint to drop the last explosive and follow them out.
Just as he did the shutter finally broke apart, and corrupted began pouring into the warehouse. Clint turned and began firing his LMG into the horde, slowing them down as he got to the door. Just before he exited he grabbed a grenade and lobbed it as best he could into the center of the warehouse. He slammed and locked the door behind him, hoping to keep them contained a bit longer, and followed Xander and Alisa who were running as fast and as far away as they could.
"I hope that worked!" Xander yelled.
A split second after he finished that sentence the warehouse erupted in flame behind them. The trio turned around to see no corrupted had managed to get out and follow them. They let out a collective sigh of relief.
"Now the easy part." Alisa said with a grin.

When they circled back around they found almost every single corrupted had been taken out in the explosion. The ones that remained were easy pickings and the AA gun was swiftly demolished soon after.
"And now..." Xander said reluctantly after they had finished, "We go south...very south."
"Here's hoping this mission doesn't go south as well." Alisa said with a chuckle.
"You're hilarious." Xander replied flatly. "Also now if something does go south I'm blaming you."
Alisa shrugged.