XCOM: The Advent Directive

by Xabiar

Australia has been annexed, the United Nations is in chaos, the world is under siege and the Ethereals have taken the field. Facing the full might of the Ethereal Collective, the Commander must rally XCOM, the newly formed ADVENT, and several other allies and rivals to unite the divided nations by any means necessary, for failure now will mean the fall of humanity once and for all.

28. Operation: Sherman

Operation: Sherman

---

North Pacific Ocean – Near Hawaii

Operation: Kamehameha – Day 1

11/21/2016 – 1:43 A.M.

There was something exciting about being on the edge of a massive US carrier, surrounded by a half-dozen destroyers, a cruiser, and an even larger amount of submarines beneath the ocean, all moving towards an enemy target in the dead of night. Sierra smiled.

The aliens had no clue what was about to hit them.

"Twenty minutes at most," Carmelita said, walking up with her helmet tucked under her arm. "Your team is ready?"

"Of course we're ready," Anna grumbled beside Sierra. "Fun as these suits are, they're not exactly light."

Carmelita's lip twitched, perhaps in amusement. "Noted, Archangel. You'll have free reign to attack initial defenses. They likely have AA defenses, so be aware."

Sierra looked towards the direction of where they were headed. The island of Hawai'i was now in sight, and the ADVENT soldiers were getting ready to deploy; set in specific formations as they prepared to deploy in the helicopters and on the boats with the amphibious assault ships from the supporting expeditionary strike group. Lines of MDUs were visible on the destroyers, also preparing for deployment, while the carrier held the majority of soldiers themselves.

ADVENT was not using their standard soldiers for the initial push, but their elite, including the newly deployed Priests. The standard units that were on the ships were ADVENT Snipers and their respective Officers, who would coordinate sniper fire from the ships while the initial sea invasion began. The landing ships were filled with Shieldbearers, Engineers, and Molosser Handlers.

However, the first wave of ships would be the ADVENT Special Forces, the XCOM squad, and Priests. The Lancers were there, but they were not the most visible ones anymore. It turned out that ADVENT was also using this battle to launch their additional special forces groups, which while not as elite as Lancers, were probably close to their level of lethality.

Dragoons appeared to be Lancers, only with a lot more explosive equipment. Their armor was somehow bulkier, with rocket launchers strapped to their backs and micro-missile launchers built into their gauntlets and additional attachments on their shoulders. Grenades were also strapped to their waists, and some had grenade launchers instead of rocket launchers. Unlike the Lancers who had black armor, theirs was a mixture of black and red, the red color accenting their helmets, gauntlets, and torso.

The other special forces group were the Cuirassiers, who were much more numerous, and what Sierra considered a more 'generic' variant, although she wasn't sure of that. None of the Cuirassiers were as heavily armed, and some actually appeared to be medics instead of purely soldiers. Their armor was much different as well, it wasn't as blocky and more form-fitting, and was a dull white with blue accents.

The Priests though, those were definitely the ones that grabbed the attention of not just her, but most of the other soldiers as well. Their armor was similar to most in ADVENT, but it was more…elaborate. There were golden engravings on the pure white armor, reminiscent of the religious influence that seemed to permeate their ranks. All wore shoulder capes, similar to the Officers, and their helmets were noticeably unique. It was more elongated, and resembled more of a blast shield over the face, with no obvious eye sockets or breathing apparatuses.

There were two types she could see, the basic Priests, and the leaders, Protopriests. The Protopriests were distinguished by their golden capes and accented armor of the same color. The golden engraving turned to white if the area around it was colored as well. The Priest armor was without a doubt something she loved artistically. Probably didn't need to be like that, but Sierra was not complaining.

"Well, this is where the fun begins," Ted commented as the island grew larger in the distance. He flexed his hand, creating a small ball of psionic energy in it, then made it dissipate just as quickly. "Always wondered if I'd be a part of something like this."

Sierra chuckled. "Copy that."

"I'd ready your jets," Carmelita said, as a klaxon began blaring. "The attack is getting ready to start."

It definitely was. Jets on the carrier were getting warmed up and moving into position. The landing ships were now accelerating towards the island, and the destroyers were angling their guns towards the island. Their cue to attack would be when the jets launched, and that was going to come in a matter of minutes.

"This is Admiral Walter to all ADVENT Forces," the Admiral, and commander in charge of this mission began broadcasting. "This operation is authorized to begin immediately. Today we purge the aliens from our homes and land. It is not the first time we have suffered loss at this place, but today we ensure that it will be avenged. Remember the lives lost to these aliens, and return the favor in kind. Begin the attack, Admiral Walter out."

"Cleared for takeoff!" One of the personnel directing the planes yelled over the sound of the roaring jets.

"Our turn as well," Sierra said, transitioning to her piloting mode. At her mental command, the Archangel armor began roaring to life and with a running leap she shot into the air.

"Seraph Morrow to Overseer Alba," she said as they began speeding towards the island. "We are airborne and heading to the target island."

"Copy, Seraph," Carmelita's brisk voice answered. "We'll be right behind you. Save some for us."

"I don't think that will be a problem," Sierra commented as she had her HUD zoom into the initial defenses. The night vision of the armor was good, although not as clear as she was accustomed to. Still, she immediately spotted the defenses around the town of Hilo. The aliens hadn't just fortified the town, they'd turned it, and the coast as far as she could see, into a fortress.

"Lower altitude," Sierra ordered. "Increase speed and ready weapons. We don't want them sniping us out of the air yet."

"Yet?"

"Figure of speech," Sierra snorted. "You know what I mean."

"Copy,"

They swooped lower until there were roughly five feet above the swirling water itself. Even at night Sierra could still make out the blue, although that was probably distortion from the visual feed. Sierra readied her flamethrower, making sure everything was checked ready to use. "Up on the wall, unload at will," she commanded, and once they got close enough, Sierra angled herself upward and forced a hard stop to her suit.

Just over the height of the wall she raised her wrist and unleashed a sustained gout of flame at the unfortunate aliens patrolling it. They were Vitakarians and Cobrarian who barely had time to scream before the white-orange flame cooked them alive in their armor. Behind them was a barracks of sorts where Mutons and Vitakara began running to get armed and into position.

As Sierra swept her flame gauntlet along the wall, Anna fired her White Phosphorus missile into the mix of aliens, and immediately followed up by tossing several WP grenades to places where the missile hadn't reached. Ted, psionic energy swirling around his body and especially arms, shot lances of psionic energy at the laser and plasma turret emplacements which were turning their positions to the encroaching ADVENT fleet.

Sierra ceased her dispersal of flame, and pulled out her Gauss rifle and began firing at anything still left alive from the white phosphorus. She scored several kills and headshots as more Mutons began arriving from the connected parts of the base, and now plasma filled the air around her. "Scatter!" She ordered, and immediately took evasive action. And that was when the fleet began their bombardment.

Cracks and bursts of orange light in the distance signaled the guns of the destroyers firing, and the wall was hit with high-powered shells and gauss rounds. One of the alien outposts along the wall splintered and killed the lookouts inside who were communicating frantically, likely to somewhere off-planet.

"We should move along the wall," Ted suggested as he glided beside her. "Let's give all the soldiers a fair chance."

"Good idea," Sierra confirmed, and angled herself towards gliding along the wall, braking, ascending, and falling as she and the rest of her Host picked off the aliens on it little by little, making it near-impossible for them to even see what was coming, much less prepare for it. Plasma shot into the sky around them, but only a few glancing hits were suffered, and behind them the invasion force advanced, and when it hit land, it would spell the end for the aliens.

Ted gestured and a Muton was engulfed in a small psionic storm, roaring as it fell off the edge, while Anna blasted two Cobrarians apart and Sierra took a more direct approach by swooping around in a tight circle and getting close enough to grab one or two Vitakarians by the arm and fling them into the ocean to either drown or be killed by the coming soldiers.

Another burst of flame from her wrist incinerated another tower, and with that the landing ships were close enough and the Lancers, Cuirassiers, Dragoons, and Priests stormed the beaches. Purple already flared from the Priests as they directed their power at the wall, and the Dragoons raised their explosive devices in the same direction.

Sections of the wall were slammed, cracked, and destroyed in quick succession, and the Lancers led the charge through the breaches. The battle of Hawaii had now truly begun.

---

Sydney Outskirts – Australia

11/21/2016 – 4:30 A.M.

The bright moon illuminated the small army marching on Sydney, the Chronicler and his five new followers leading the army, composed of dominated aliens under the thrall of the Chronicler's psionic power, or perhaps his technology. Abby wasn't sure anymore. She hung towards the back, having a clear view of the entire battlefield, but suspected that it was going to become exceptionally dangerous for her, and she hadn't been…improved…like the others.

Best to stay out of the way, and kill what aliens she could.

There would be several stages to his attack, as the city itself was surrounded by now-abandoned residential areas; empty buildings and houses that the aliens had either destroyed themselves or converted into defenses. From what was built before them, it seemed to have largely been the latter. The houses had their roofs completely redone, with turrets and sniping nests on top, and before them were alloy barricades and ground turrets.

For whatever network the Chronicler was using, she was on it, and when the command "Open fire!" was given, she was ready.

The army raised their weapons in unison and began firing. Blue beams of energy slammed into the aliens who had refrained from firing since they'd clearly not known what they were. They paid for that with their lives as the beams cut through the encroaching and exposed Muton force, and shredded the static defenses with ease.

Instantly a city-wide klaxon rang out, and the other defense-houses went on alert, and plasma joined the blue beams in lighting up the battlefield. The Chronicler raised a fist, and the army stopped on cue as a massive purple shield appeared in front of them, easily absorbing all the oncoming fire, and while it completely protected the army, no small feat, it did allow the aliens to begin to organize.

"Submit to me," the Chronicler growled, extending his other hand towards the mass largely mae up by Mutons and some Vitakara. "Forfeit your mind!"

Immediately the plasma turned towards the emplacements and within several more minutes they were destroyed. The Chronicler released the shield and kept marching forward, Abby continuing to follow. The dominated aliens now formed the front line of his army, and they were coming up on stronger defenses, who were as prepared as they could be.

And unlike the previous force, these were not just organic units, but Sectopods and Cyberdisks as well, with their Drone escorts. Green plasma bolts slammed into the compromised Muton line, downing several immediately, as the rest of the alien forces opened fire. The Chronicler's army responded in kind, firing their particle beams at the defenders.

The defensive lines were a series of interconnected houses that had undergone similar conversion, with a multitude of turrets, lined by Muton and Vitakara soldiers, with Andromedon engineers. Snipers were deeper in the city, and Cyberdisks hovered above. To the sides were the two Sectopods, plasma guns extending from the ports in their main 'pods'.

The aliens were already spread out, and the Chronicler's army responded in kind as plasma rained down upon them, quickly slaughtering the front line, but Abby was pretty sure that was the purpose the Chronicler had intended for them. The stony-armored aliens proved more durable, with plasma shots seeming to be absorbed into the armor, only leaving black residue behind.

As before, the beams shredded the insufficient barricades, with confused alien shouts and cries coming from the alien lines. One of the Chronicler's new agents, she couldn't tell if it was Harper or another one of his men, lifted a hand and blue energy seemed to materialize around the palm before it shot out towards the alien line.

The sustained beam of…energy…Abby didn't think it was psionics, but another application of the Chronicler's particle weaponry, it easily cut through the Cyberdisk line, causing the machines to explode or simply fall to the ground in pieces, killing or grievously wounding the aliens underneath them. The rest of Harper's people performed similarly, one aiming at the right-most Sectopod, directly into the place where the main beam was.

The machine tried to get away, but the slow and cumbersome alien machine could not do so fast enough. It took nearly fifteen seconds, but the beam penetrated the armor and burned into the heart of the Sectopod, causing it to explode in a rain of fire and metal, shaking the ground beneath it. The Chronicler raised a hand towards the other one and it was lifted into the air.

Abby could hear the metal groaning as the Chronicler slowly crushed it, dents first appeared on the outside, and the shell slowly began crumpling. Fluids leaked, and small internal explosions were heard. The sound of metal snapping and bending like cheap plastic were the final sounds of death for the towering alien machine, which was tossed aside with a flick of the Chronicler's wrist as he continued his march forward. "Continue. They will not survive today."

The surviving aliens were retreating, and flat-out running away, even the Mutons. The Chronicler, voice altered by his psionic usage, chuckled and sharply swept out an arm in front of him, with an arc of energy following his movement. The crackling purple arc swept towards the retreating aliens. It did minimal damage to the buildings themselves, albeit leaving cracks in the structures, but it was instantaneous death to the aliens it hit.

Vitakara and Mutons were bisected from the psionic arc traveling right through them with little resistance, with most not dying instantly. The upper torsos were writhing on the ground, screams from the Vitakara reaching their ears as they bled out slowly, and even the Mutons were unable to suppress the pain of being cut in half.

The Andromedons, what few of them there were, had also died from suit ruptures caused by the arc of energy. But the suits themselves were not gone, and turned to face the Chronicler's army before being shredded by the hundreds of particle beams. Unabated, the near-silent army continued forward over the rubble, corpses, and metal. There was the occasional blast of blue from a mercy kill, but otherwise there was nothing.

Now came the next phase, after some open land that had clearly been razed by the aliens. The city proper was visibly in the distance, but there were still plenty of residential districts to go. Just from what she'd seen, Abby figured that the Commander was probably going to be fine with the Chronicler running things here.

It probably wasn't safe to do otherwise, and the Chronicler had not even suffered a single casualty, aside from the recently dominated aliens.

The next defensive structure was dead ahead; similar to the second one, it was an interconnected series of converted houses and barricades, but stretched much farther. "Coming from the side," Harper informed as the Chronicler's army suddenly formed a semi-circle as aliens began firing not just from ahead, but from the sides as well.

Abby took cover from behind a tree, glad she hadn't stayed in the middle, because as good as the armor was, the hailstorm of green plasma hitting the aliens could not be good for integrity. She supposed that it should be expected that the aliens could flank them, given that they were the equivalent of a dagger striking the heart of the city.

They couldn't hit every perimeter defense.

Andromedon Battlefield Engineers were deploying their shields from the sides, and these were sufficient to provide protection from the particle weapons, although it could apparently be overloaded much easier, since she saw some of the generators explode after a sustained barrage.

Abby looked up and saw a cloud of Cyberdisks flying in from throughout the entire city, and deploying into their battle mode from a good distance away. Sectopods stomped over from the sides, and didn't bother deploying their guns, only opening up their center pods and charging the main laser. Harper and his soldiers were using their palm-weapons and slicing through generators, aliens, and cyberdisks, but they seemed to be suffering some damage.

A shot from deeper in the city hit one of the Chronicler's Mutons in the head, and it collapsed with the head smoking, the first casualty suffered. The Chronicler, lifted his arms and twin barricades in front of the Sectopod beams appeared, just as they fired. "Enough." At that statement all the organic aliens clutched their heads, screaming in pain.

One Sectopod was raised into the air, and flung towards the other causing both to tumble away in a crumpled ball of metal, fluids, and explosions. For good measure, a flat, psionic shield slammed down onto the wrecks, smashing it beyond all repair. Whatever the Chronicler was doing to the living aliens, it was awful enough where the Vitakara were shooting themselves in the head, and Mutons were trying to bash their heads on walls or sharp objects.

Harper and his soldiers destroyed the rest of the turret emplacements and Cyberdisks, and with no more plasma fire raining upon them, the rest of the Chronicler's army put the rest of the living aliens out of their misery until there was a brief silence on the battlefield. Three had died so far, and considering how close they were, that was almost perfect.

Sniper fire still came from within the city, but it was intermittent, and the Chronicler had a shield in front of them as they continued marching forward, ever deeper into the heart of the alien operations in Australia.

Abby realized that she hadn't had to fire her weapon once yet. For as much danger as they should be in, she felt strangely calm. With the Chronicler around, there didn't seem to be any reason to be afraid.

She would have wanted to know exactly what the aliens were thinking.

She hoped they were scared for once.

---

Mars Observation Station – Mars Orbit

11/21/2016 – 5:15 A.M.

When Ravarian had been woken up by reports of attacks, the first odd thought that came to his mind was Hawaii? Why attack Hawaii of all places?

And not only were they attacking Hawaii, they were clearly intending to conquer Hawaii. Ravarian knew that they had to use their navy at some point, but had expected them to focus on defenses rather than for attacking a lone series of islands. It was strange, no matter how much he thought about it. He understood that the islands had sentimental value, especially for Americans, but in the end, it was a small series of islands in the ocean.

The main hub of the Observation Station was as chaotic as it had ever been. Several dozen analysts and Runianarch strategists were centered around haptic consoles or holographic displays showing feeds from the battles going on.

The short version was that it was going badly.

ADVENT had indeed been working on a psionic branch of their military, and from the footage he'd seen, they were much more dangerous than the Vanguards. There was some obvious variance, but their most powerful Priests easily eclipsed the static capabilities of the Vanguards. He kept his expression clear as he saw two Priests annihilate an entire Muton team, psionically ripping them apart and leaving a gory mess behind.

The Battlemaster was coordinating reinforcements, but at least half the islands had been lost already, and it was going to take an emergency Gatekeeper to have things stabilize, as well as liberal deployments of Muton Elites and Andromedons. Resources that shouldn't be devoted to an island. Were it up to him, he would have called a retreat and bombarded the island from orbit.

But that would give ADVENT a victory, and a bigger boost in morale. The Battlemaster had a plan, but what that was had yet to be revealed.

And that was before the attack in Sydney had been reported.

He'd thought he'd misheard at first, but no, Sydney of all places was under attack. No one had been able to identify if it was ADVENT, XCOM, or something else because the reports couldn't agree what they were being attacked by. Oyariah had been cited as a potential perpetrator, and there were apparently other aliens in the ranks, so likely a telepath was behind this.

And now for the question he was trying to answer: Why?

The only possible motive for attacking strange locations, or at least Hawaii, was as a distraction. Was it a distraction for another attack in America? So soon again? Or Japan? ADVENT had been mobilizing forces in America, and they were fortifying in Korea…or were they simply trying to drain the Collective of as many resources as they could? Even if they were ultimately pushed back, it would be the Collective who would suffer a morale loss instead of ADVENT, who could point to the exceptionally high body counts over an unimportant island.

And since they were poorly equipped to fight psions, anything short of bombarding the area was going to cost time, resources, and lives. Ravarian shook his head, just instinctively, thinking how frustratingly slow the Collective was to adapt at times. At some point they needed to be able to win against ADVENT without relying on an Ethereal to ensure victory.

Return to your chambers, Zar'Chon, it is time to discuss the situation.

Quisilia. About time.

Without a word he turned on his heel and began walking towards the cylinder lift that would take him to his chambers. Australia was Quisilia's sphere of influence, so perhaps he would have some idea of what was actually going on. A few minutes later he was in the circular and dimly lit room that had a haptic map of Hawaii and Australia, with the Battlemaster and Quisilia standing over it.

"Battlemaster," Ravarian inclined his head. "What are we planning in retaliation?"

"I've ordered transport reinforcements with a fighter escort," the Battlemaster answered immediately. "Gateways are inefficient, but they will assist in stemming the advance of ADVENT. These Priests are more numerous and dangerous than anticipated."

If only there had been some warning that ADVENT was probably doing something like this.

He knew better than to speak that, but he sometimes wondered what the point of his job was if the information he gathered wasn't actually used. The Battlemaster was smart, he couldn't deny that, but when it came to Earth it was almost like he wanted the Humans to get continuously stronger, and watch what they were doing instead of intervening in any way.

At some points he wondered if the goals of the Ethereals had changed.

Not changed, but the Battlemaster wants to know the capabilities of the Humans before responding in kind. There is only so much more they can do. They have copied our weapons, armor, and now psionics. What do they have left after this?

Quisilia. While Ravarian could intrinsically see some value in letting the enemy overdevelop and tailor exact responses to that…it still struck him as unnecessary. But that was something to consider for another time. They had a crisis to resolve. "Reinforcements will be needed. Should I request Cleanser Ships?"

The Battlemaster looked at him, considering for a moment. "Request a unit. Hold them here, and do not deploy without my order. Now that ADVENT has a critical amount of psions, additional measures will need to be taken." He returned his concentration to the haptic map, which was a real-time display showing the territory captured by ADVENT so far. "ADVENT has established mobile Gateways, and their forces are comprised of largely special forces and elite units. Losses they suffer will hurt them."

The development of Gateways had been an initial surprise, but Ravarian didn't consider it completely surprising as they were supported by the traitor Ethereal. They had reports of them being built in cities, so their usage in battle was expected.

"Numbers will do little good," Quisilia noted. "The Lancers especially are enhanced, not to mention XCOM and the Priests."

"Yes, which is why we will begin deploying several of Fectorian's units," the Battlemaster answered. "Elites will also be used. I intend to bleed ADVENT in this fight; winning is unlikely and intervening over an island isn't a priority."

Quisilia turned his head toward him. "The Spectres?"

"No. This is a distraction for ADVENT. The Spectres will be useful when their true attack strikes."

"It's been hours since their attack," Ravarian reminded him. "If this was a distraction, what are they waiting for?"

"Unknown," the Battlemaster admitted. "But let them show their hand before we respond. I have put Japan and our outer territories in the United States on alert. But if they march an army our way, we will know ahead of time."

"Australia is a larger issue," Quisilia said, moving around to look at the haptic display of Australia. "What is happening is quite curious."

"Indeed," Ravarian mentally pulled up the appropriate file and raised his prosthetic hand and projected the holographic image of the mystery army to them. "Whatever they are…they do not appear to be ADVENT. Or XCOM for that matter. Their weapons are shredding our defenses, and there is at least one psion with them." Ravarian allowed a frown. "This doesn't make sense. If either organization had developed this level of weaponry, why aren't they using it?"

"Because they didn't," Quisilia mused, looking at the image. "Quite curious. Especially since I made sure that the cells were destroyed beyond salvaging."

"You mentioned there was a psion that escaped," the Battlemaster noted. "But one psion should not result in this."

"No," Quisilia laced his fingers together, sounding amused. "However, it does explain several things. Who else could possibly possess technology more advanced than our own?"

Ravarian cocked his head. "Sovereign tech? Impossible. The Humans would not be able to comprehend it, much less actually construct it. Aside from that, are you suggesting that there is one who is helping them?"

"Not necessarily helping," Quisilia said. "But it's quite possible someone found it, and has devoted their lives to solving its mysteries. Interesting they would emerge now. We know they have visited this planet before, as they directed us toward it, but we always assumed it was because of the Humans…" he trailed off contemplatively. "Perhaps it was something else."

The Battlemaster looked to Quisilia. "Can you handle it, or will you require assistance?"

"I only require two of the Spectres," Quisilia said, lacing the fingers of his upper hands together. "I will handle this issue decisively."

Ravarian knew Quisilia was a master spy, but direct combat did not seem to be his specialty. "With respect, Quisilia, that seems inadequate for the task at hand."

Quisilia gave a short laugh. "I have killed a Director Flagship, Zar'Chon. I have killed millions of Synthesized thralls. Putting down an army enhanced by the gifts of the Sovereign Ones can be handled, I assure you. And if there is a puppet leading them…I can also handle them."

He waved a hand and vanished from sight. Ravarian decided to trust Quisilia knew what he was doing. If nothing else, if he got himself killed he really didn't want to have to look after two cats instead of one.

Right now though, the battle in Hawaii was more important, and he focused his attention on what might possibly be the biggest waste of the war on both sides.

---

The Island of Hawai'i - Hawaii

Operation: Kamehameha – Day 1

11/21/2016 – 6:32 A.M.

The Collective was rallying, for all the good it would do them. With their defenses fully breached, they were fighting ADVENT on a street-by-street level, and while they weren't pushing them back, they were giving up ground far more slowly. This likely had to do with the sudden influx of Muton Elites, and the Priests had reported being disrupted, which meant a Gatekeeper was probably here.

Their telepathic advantage was unfortunately gone, but unfortunately for the aliens, the Priests were still showing just how lethal they were. Having crossed the current battlefield several times, swooping and flying around it, dodging and tanking plasma fire, Sierra had a pretty good grasp on the state of the battlefield.

Time to focus on where they were needed.

"Destroying the Gateways is the priority," she said as she fired her pulse rifle at several Vitakara who were trying to set up on one of the rooftops. "But it's too dangerous to hunt them by ourselves without knowing where they are."

"Not to mention I'm running low on missiles and grenades," Anna added as she swooped to the side, providing suppressive fire on a street held by several Mutons. One was ripped apart and the others were forced back into cover, which let the four Lancers charge forward and kill the stragglers. "Permission to fly back and restock?"

"Granted," Sierra allowed. "Make it fast, me and Ted will provide support in the meantime."

Anna didn't waste time and was already flying back to the carrier. Sierra glanced around the battlefield, looking to where help was needed. "Carmelita, what's your status?"

"Making progress," the lightly strained voice of Carmelita answered, sounds of battle in the background. "We've got around twenty Elites on us and another small army of Mutons. Ah, correction, make that fifteen Elites. We've got it under control, and ADVENT is coming to support us."

Sierra smirked. "Copy, we're looking to provide support elsewhere."

"Seraph Morrow, we could use your assistance," the voice of Admiral Walter interjected. "We're moving up Purifiers to begin cutting off parts of the city to the aliens and box them in. We would appreciate it if you could clear the area of the majority of hostiles."

"Copy that," Sierra confirmed as the location appeared on her HUD, on the edge of the city. "We'll be there shortly."

She angled herself towards the designated location and shot off; Ted was right behind her. "Purifiers are risky, but they will definitely allow asset denial."

"And there they are," Sierra commented as she saw teams of two Purifiers, with one Priest behind them, moving within the parts of the city ADVENT controlled. They definitely moved like robots, slow and methodical, as if each step could blow them up. Since they were carrying ClF3, this was an actual danger.

Probably what the Priest was for. "I can see the problem," Ted noted as they came up to the street where the Purifiers were supposed to go. "God damn Sectopods."

An accurate assessment, Sierra had to agree. The two-way street was now utterly wrecked, and there were several dozen Cuirassier and Lancer corpses. This was due to the towering Sectopod in the center of the intersection, flanked by four Cyberdisks. ADVENT was only set up partway down the street, a mix of Dragoons and Cuirassiers firing at it.

The smoking wrecks of several Cyberdisks and the potholed street filled with Muton and Runianarch corpses spoke to some effectiveness, but they were pinned now by the Cyberdisks and Sectopod launching barrages, which only seemed to have had minimal effect due to the two Priests in the back creating psionic bubbles.

However, the relatively untested psions would likely give out after some time. "Provide covering fire," Sierra instructed, deliberately overshooting the mechanical pod of aliens. "Readying a flame circle."

"Copy," Ted agreed, arms awash in the purple mist of psionic power as he caught the attention of the back row of Cyberdisks, shooting weak lances of energy at them. Golden streaks flew his direction, forcing him to take evasive action and not concentrate on building his power. While he served as the distraction, she readied her flamethrower once more.

While not the liquid hell the Purifiers had, Napalm was still effective. From her knowledge of Cyberdisks, ordinary Napalm wouldn't be especially effective if they were closed. However, when in their battle configuration, there were many vulnerable components exposed which would melt if exposed to a hot enough flame.

As she circled around, going faster than she'd done before in practicing this maneuver, she raised her wrist in preparation. The force might make her spin out of control, but she was going to have to master this sometime. "Ascend!" She barked as flame spat from her wrist, immediately engulfing the front row of Cyberdisks.

She immediately commanded the jets to angle and spin her around the pod of Cyberdisks and while the sheer force almost made her invert herself, she held on and continued shooting the white-orange flame in a circle of fire that caught all the exposed Cyberdisks in a perfect ball of orange. Several loud pops and sizzles were heard as the machines either fell out of the sky or exploded into scrap metal.

Sierra let out a whoop at the sight, adrenaline flowing through her and she stabilized and shot upward, finally slowing down to observe the results. The Sectopod had slightly turned and partially angled up the main pod towards her, the plasma cannon deploying and beginning to fire. It was obviously unaffected by the fire, but that hadn't been the goal.

Sierra easily avoided the plasma projectiles, although some got exceptionally close. "Keep its attention!" Ted called, shooting more lances at the Sectopod. "The Purifiers are here!"

"Thanks!" Sierra called, firing a sustained beam towards the plasma cannon itself, not really trying to destroy it, she wasn't stable enough for that, but keep its attention. She zig-zagged, ascended, and descended as Ted scored hits on the hull, corroding the armor and weakening the joints. Hurry up, Sierra thought furiously as the Sectopod was getting more accurate.

"Ascend, Archangel Morrow," a synthesized female voice said. "We do not want you caught in the blast."

"Confirmed," Sierra acknowledged and shot into the sky and angled towards the ADVENT line. She twisted in the air and looked down to see the Purifiers released their payloads. White-orange flame shot from their flamethrowers and the entire street exploded. The Sectopod was almost immediately blow apart as the joints melted and the hellish chemical seeped into every weak point and crevice available. The abandoned cars also went up in explosions, and the asphalt itself caught fire, as did the buildings around it.

"Burn in hell, alien trash," Sierra muttered to herself as she looked down at the ground which was a sea of fire that spread far down the street. The Purifiers swept their weapons in small arcs to ensure the entire street was literally on fire. She also noted with some amusement that the alien corpses that had littered the street were just gone; likely vaporized from the flame.

As dangerous as it was, she was considering asking Shen to see just how…safe he could make it to carry ClF3. Maybe a small amount?

"Did I miss anything-oh," Anna said as she flew towards them, fully reloaded and equipped. "Nice."

"We're not done yet," Sierra reminded her. "I doubt that was the only Sectopod, and we've still got the Gateways-"

"Alien reinforcement ships have just entered the atmosphere," Admiral Walter suddenly interjected on the open channel. "All air forces initiate temporary retreat. Time to greet our new arrivals."

Ted whistled. "He's actually going to do it."

Sierra grimaced. "I really hated this plan," she switched the comm channel. "Carmelita?"

"We heard," she answered. "They know what they are doing. Land temporarily just in case."

Sierra targeted a flat roof that was a comfortable distance from the burning street, and settled down, just in time to see the faintest image of the alien fleet incoming. "They really want this island," she commented to no one in particular.

There were at least twenty, maybe more, alien transports likely filled with soldiers flying in, and this was with her HUD as zoomed in as possible. They were surrounded by a mixture of Sectoid Fighters and Scouts, along with odd dagger-shaped ships she hadn't seen before. They definitely looked like fighters. Vitakara maybe? Andromedon?

"Missiles are away," the Admiral said, voice deceptively calm, and Sierra witnessed one, then two, then three nuclear missiles shooting towards the oncoming fleet. Using nuclear weapons was yet another questionable decision ADVENT was making, and she had to wonder just why they thought it was a good idea.

Supposedly the negative effects were lessened in the atmosphere, where it was set to detonate, but considering that there was also an accompanying EMP blast, not to mention that this hadn't been tested in decades if at all, it seemed like a horrendously bad idea. And if something went wrong, or it detonated too early, well, they might all be vaporized or irradiate part of the ocean.

If it did work, though, she would give credit where it was due. It just seemed a massive risk to just test out. Using conventional missiles seemed safe and just as effective.

She was going to laugh if the aliens just shot it out of the sky though.

"So when will it be close enough?" Ted asked as they watched.

"I'm assuming we'll know," Sierra shrugged. "Nuclear weapons aren't exactly subtle."

Nearly a half-minute later the sky exploded in a blinding flash that temporarily made her HUD see nothing but white. It was a good thing that the helmet protected her actual sight, otherwise she'd probably be blind. Her vision was temporarily restored, only then two more successive blasts were seen and felt, and when the whiteness finally cleared, there was a smoking cloud in the area where the fleet was. Zooming in, she saw maybe a few pieces of scrap metal, but otherwise, the fleet was just…gone.

She waited a minute, and no other ships emerged from the wreckage. She engaged her engines, and floated a foot or so off the ground. They hadn't been hit by the EMP aftereffect either, so everything seemed to be ok. She looked back up, and there were still no ships coming. "Well," she said slowly. "It actually worked."

"I really want to see their faces," Anna chuckled as they ascended once again. "What do you think they're telling the Battlemaster? 'Sorry sir, I'm afraid we just lost all our reinforcements.'"

"Someone's probably getting executed," Ted commented. "Alright, we should go hunt down those Gateways. And we have a Gatekeeper to kill."

"It might be more effective if one of us just carries a Purifier wherever we go," Sierra suggested half-seriously as they shot towards the battle once more. "I mean, they destroy Sectopods in one hit."

"Take it up with Viktoria," Anna chuckled. "But I'm pretty sure additional passengers are not recommended."

"In that case," Sierra said as she checked the status on her gear. "We'll just have to make do with what we've got."

---

ADVENT Media Center – Switzerland

11/21/2018 – 9:18 A.M.

The Media Center ADVENT had constructed was one of the less grandiose buildings she normally was in, and she quite liked it for that. It had some of the tightest and most up-to-date security measures invented and rigorous identity checks and facial recognition systems, with ADVENT Intelligence agents watching ensured that no one entered without authorization.

As disconcerting as it seemed for the media, at the very minimum they could be assured that they would be completely safe within the walls. As far as media centers went, Saudia was quite pleased with how it worked. Communication was essential, and if the media was to (hopefully) be an effective source of information, they should have access to pertinent information.

The main lobby of the building had multiple kiosks and rooms for each different branch and agency of ADVENT for the sole purpose of communicating with the media. While not all of them were open 24-7, they were open every day, for the majority of the day. The media was likewise unrestricted in when they chose to take advantage of this opportunity. They could arrive anytime, and either speak with a representative or schedule a meeting with someone even higher up.

As far as Saudia was concerned, when it came to transparency, they had no reason to complain. Of course not everyone was allowed; reporters for extremist, intentionally slanted, or otherwise sources of disinformation were not allowed. The bar of entry was not what she considered exceptionally high, and any media outlet, including those existing on social media such as Twitter and Youtube could participate provided they could prove that their reporting had clear effort put into it in the interest of informing the public.

And to make it better, there was a small restaurant that served multiple kinds of meals that were on the house for ADVENT. Free food and drink always made people more agreeable and dispelled the irritated attitudes people sometimes had. It was hard to write a hit piece on the evil authoritarian ADVENT when they made you steak and a nice cool tea. Or coffee in the morning.

The main briefing room itself was fairly standard. Red carpet lined the floor, and chairs filled the rectangular rooms in a neat order. At the end was an elevated platform and podium which the main speaker presented from. Behind the podium was a white wall with a red and black ADVENT banner hanging down. There were always two SSR soldiers who stood behind the speaker, as well as two guards per door in the event of emergencies.

It wasn't uncommon that she addressed the Press, but it was usually scheduled in advance and rarely this early. The room was always filled to the brim, and today was no exception as the media had been reporting nonstop about the sudden attack on Hawaii, and now that the trains had been deployed, they would soon be talking about the rest of the attack.

Three nukes had been launched into the air from the latest reports, which had so far caused no negative effects other than wiping out an entire fleet of alien reinforcements. She had breathed a sigh of relief at that, because as much as the scientists had assured her it was mostly safe, using nuclear weapons was always a risk.

Nonetheless, her risk had paid off and Hawaii would almost certainly fall to ADVENT.

Now, time to begin.

"Ladies and gentlemen, and all citizens of ADVENT. By now you are likely aware of the current military operation taking place in Hawaii." On cue the reporters scribbled on their notepads and tapped on their phones. "I can confirm that yesterday I, along with the ADVENT Military, Intelligence, and XCOM, authorized an operation to retake Hawaii…"

She paused once again. "In addition to the remainder of the United States," she raised her voice slightly at the sudden burst of gasps and whispers. "This operation is commencing as we speak, and will strike directly into the heart of alien controlled territory in the country."

Saudia let that revelation sink in for a few seconds. "The latest reports from Hawaii are extremely positive. We have caught them by surprise and are currently pushing them back until every last one is either captured or executed. Their reinforcements have been annihilated due to our strategic usage of surgical nuclear missiles, which have been deployed in such a way that the negative repercussions are negligible, and the alien reinforcement fleet is in ruins, leaving the islands free for our soldiers to take."

She briefly swept her gaze across the room. "As for the mainland operation, it is too early to say, but I have every confidence in our brave soldiers who are fighting to ensure that each and every citizen of ADVENT is protected from the aliens. Each of you will be continually updated as the situation develops, and there will be no questions today, thank you all."

Saudia gave the ADVENT salute and stepped down. Despite what she'd said, the Press always shouted questions as if they expected an answer…just after she had said she wouldn't.

Maybe she should write a rule against that.

A minute problem for another day. Right now she had an operation to oversee, and she sincerely hoped that it would continue going as well as it had been so far.

---

Mars Observation Station – Mars Orbit

11/21/2016 – 7:07 A.M.

Ravarian, along with most of the Vitakara in the main station command center stared in disbelief at…well, it was a blank screen now. There was nothing left. Disciple-7, who had been assisting in determining resources and tactics, was equally silent. "Are there any left?" He finally rumbled.

"No," one of the analysts, a worried Vitakarian woman, said meekly. "No signals or feeds. All of them are gone."

Ravarian was trying to think of what the Humans could possibly have that could wipe out an entire landing fleet. Three missiles had been detected, but they assumed that even if they hit, the damage would be minimal, and unless they had developed some kind of super missile, even their largest ones shouldn't have wiped everything out.

What the fuck happened? That was what he wanted to say, as Humans did have excellent phrases for almost any situation, but at the moment, the last thing any of them needed to be reminded of was the word Human.

"ADVENT aircraft pulled back before the missile launches, yes?" Disciple-7 asked suddenly.

"Yes," another analyst confirmed. "The spotted Archangel units also temporarily landed."

"The scenarios are limited," Disciple-7 said slowly. "ADVENT has either developed a high-yield anti-aircraft missile, or they have launched nuclear weapons. Considering nuclear weapons often disperse an EMP blast, it is imperative that all aircraft and vehicles be outside the radius. As nuclear weapons launched in the atmosphere have limited damaging effects on the environment, using them in this scenario is plausible."

"Feed from the ground coming in now!" Another analyst called out, and the holographic display showed the airspace the reinforcements had once occupied, which now bore the telltale sign of the nuclear mushroom cloud.

Well, they'd actually done it. Ravarian had wondered if they would resort to using their effective, but highly destructive weapons. Given their historical averseness to the weapons, he had expected it to only come in the later stages in the war, and against ground or high-value targets. For some reason, it hadn't occurred to him that they could be potent air weapons as well.

Regardless of the reasoning, ADVENT was now willing to use nuclear weapons, and they were also capable of vaporizing entire reinforcement fleets. Which potentially meant that any entry point was now a hazard. And in major operations like attacking entire countries, that would not be a massive target for their nuclear submarines.

And to think he'd actually suggested utilizing the Andromedon Aquatic Forces. Maybe if the Battlemaster had actually taken his advice, they wouldn't be in this situation now. He was going to bring it up again, now that he'd been proven right here.

At the irritating cost of an entire reinforcement fleet.

The situation suddenly became worse.

"Outpost Two-One is under attack!" One Zararch officer said in disbelief, as the area pulsated red on the holomap. It was joined by more blimps of red. "So is Outpost Seventeen! Eleven!"

Ravarian blinked. This was the expected counterattack, but there shouldn't have been any surprises. ADVENT couldn't move an entire army without being watched, and he had his agents watching the main Legions. "How?" He demanded. "How heavy is the attack?"

"Uh…" The officer looked down, briefly speechless. "It appears the outposts affected are…gone."

"Sacramento, Los Angeles and Redding Bases are under attack!" Another called out.

"What do you mean gone?" Ravarian demanded.

"They aren't responding," the Officer said slowly. "The main feeds are offline. Communication is cut. I would suggest it was a bomb…but there was no aircraft reported in the area."

"How are they attacking the major bases?" Disciple-7 demanded harshly.

"Pulling up feeds," an analyst said. "Center display."

And Ravarian was greeted with a very familiar sight. "Trains." He said without any emotion. He didn't think there were any other words needed to describe the situation. There were those armored trains his agents had reported, except they were now outside the bases and carrying ADVENT soldiers and equipment. There were turrets on them as well, already firing into Collective defenses.

There were no other words for what he was feeling now; like an idiot.

So that's what they were for.

He had literally had the information in his hands, and misinterpreted it. Granted, he didn't know how much blame he should take, and trains were almost never used for anything beyond transportation. He doubted they had ever actually been used in battle before now, but history didn't matter. The railways they hadn't really thought to do anything with, and ADVENT was taking full advantage of their ignorance.

He had to admit, they'd outsmarted him here.

"How many of our bases and outposts are under attack?" Disciple-7 asked.

A brief pause as the officers and tacticians looked down at the holomap. "Almost all of the American territories," one said in disbelief. "They're going to try and drive us out completely."

And with how much they'd been outplayed already, in addition to suffering substantial losses, they might very well succeed.

No. Ravarian shook his head.

ADVENT had made their play. Whatever plan the Battlemaster had, he had better plan to put it into motion now. The loss of America would delay the war months at least, and give the Humans a persistent morale boost. They couldn't keep suffering defeats just because they didn't want to cheat.

But if so…that raised a rather disturbing question. If the Humans could beat them now in a fair fight, how much more dangerous would they be the longer they were allowed to advance?

This entire operation needed to be reevaluated. But once it was over, one way or another.

---

Redding, California – United States of America

Operation: Sherman – Day 1

11/21/2016 – 9:12 A.M.

"Deploy!" Roman yelled, both to his squad and the other ADVENT teams as the trains came to a stop, gauss fire already pounding from the train turrets. Konstantin threw open the doors and the soldiers poured out of the train cars. Roman activated his PDS field, and knew that for a short time they would be protected.

The rising sun illuminated defenses that Roman found almost laughable compared to what was coming to hit them. At least the way it was now, the train had stopped in front of a clear alien base in the city. It had been some distribution center at one point, but was now fielding plasma turrets, and a substantial Muton garrison that was already rushing to defend it.

Some of the Mutons carried grenade launchers which were already raised at the charging soldiers, gauss fire already rushing towards the aliens. Had the ADVENT force not also been accompanied by every branch of the ADVENT Special Forces, the Priest Division, and XCOM, it might have held out for some time.

The Mutons began firing as they fell into cover, and seemed to stutter as plasma bent away from Roman and his team, as well as every other Shieldbearer deployed. The Muton Grenadiers fired their payloads, but that was almost as ineffective as one of the Priests raised a hand, stopping the grenades in the air, and several were even blasted out of the sky. Probably one of the Hussars, since they were composed exclusively of snipers and scouts.

The Dragoons were almost as impressive as the Lancers had looked initially. They were close to what Roman would describe as walking tanks. One planted itself firmly into the ground, raised their hands and oriented themselves toward an alien barricade, and a stream of micromissiles shot out and eradicated both the structure and aliens themselves in a bright orange explosion.

The train turrets were firing at the main base behind the alien lines, collapsing the doors and sealing any possible reinforcements within. The Lancer Executors finally reached the alien line, and were as lethal as Roman had expected. More so, in fact.

As strong as the Mutons were, they were poor melee combatants. With roars they swung with fists and rifles, but their efforts proved futile as the Lancers bashed their skulls in or crushed their bones. More Mutons fell from Hussar fire who had deployed in makeshift sniper nests on the trains, and within them as well.

"Shield running low," Roman updated those around him. "Shutting down in half a minute."

"Acknowledged," the Officer beside him confirmed, as did his team and the Lancer squad also beside him. Although Roman honestly didn't know how worried they needed to be. The Muton line was shattered as the Executors were going through and slaughtering the Mutons with seeming ease. More were charging forward from the base, but they ran straight into a hail of gauss fire.

However, these Mutons were slightly different. They had helmets. Not a massive difference, but a noticeable one. Several purple lances suddenly sprouted from the arms of advancing Priests, which were able to damage the armor substantially, leaving smoking and charred metal, even if the Mutons were still alive.

The PDS fields from all the Shieldbearers were down now, so there was no intrinsic protection from the plasma anymore. The outer perimeter was breached, however, and ADVENT was claiming the outer defenses for their own and preparing to encircle the alien force still inside. The aliens were doing likewise, enacting downed barricades and rolling out what appeared to be portable turrets, both automated and manual.

Interesting.

"[Suppressing fire on center-left group,]" Galina informed as she began suppressing a group of four Mutons behind the dark alloy barricade. [Heads up! Grenadiers incoming!]"

Now it was apparent that there was someone smarter coordinating the Mutons, as Roman noticed that the Grenadiers had moved back, and the standard soldiers were taking the brunt of the ADVENT assault. There was enough volume of plasma fire to stop the advance completely, and even the Executors weren't braving the sudden outpouring of plasma bolts crossing the battlefield.

A few moments later after Galina's warning, dozens of plasma grenades were shot towards the ADVENT lines, to varying degrees of success. A few were shot, and some were caught by Priests or deflected by sudden psionic shields. Some landed on ADVENT positions, however, extracting the first major casualties from the attacking force.

"Wing Captain Leewood to Redding forces," the leader of the ADVENT air forces in this attack suddenly said. "The main AA defenses for the city appear to have been taken out. Commencing aerial drops."

"[Not a moment too soon,]" Elena commented. Roman concurred, this was where the main wave of reinforcements was going to come from, before the main army itself of course. The airdrops would bring soldiers, supplies, and even some tanks. Speaking of vehicles, the MDUs should be coming up soon…

Right on cue the lumbering white robots strode up behind the lines, and began laying down their lethal firepower against the Muton defenders. The high-powered lasers didn't kill them in one hit, but it did keep them in cover. Several Dragoons protected by Priests stepped out and unleashed their payloads on the Muton lines, blowing holes in the barricades and Mutons themselves.

Roman observed that the majority of Muton soldiers began focusing their fire on the MDUs, and managed to take a few down from the sudden green barrages, but this just left openings for the rest of the soldiers to focus fire on the defenders. Roman fired several shots and the barrage of fire hit, but didn't kill it, though the second shattered the weak alloy helm and blew the head of the Muton apart.

The Priests in the area were now also taking the upper hand. While few, once entrenched Roman could see just how powerful they could be. A storm of psionic energy destroyed one squad of Mutons, cutting through their armor with almost no effort. Random Mutons suddenly began attacking each other, although they were quickly subdued.

Other Mutons were lifted into the air and exposed to the full firepower of ADVENT, while others deployed defensive shields, allowing the Engineers to construct makeshift cover from corpses, and deploy the portable cover they always carried with them. "This is Buckeye One coming in to reinforce," a female voice came over the radio. "Stand by. ADVENT Reinforcements dropping close to your position."

"[Looks like they're here!]" Anton whooped, glancing up. Roman briefly followed suit and saw the planes overhead and parachutes opening up as tanks and soldiers were dropping. An XCOM Skyranger shrieked overhead flying at a ludicrously low height and one figure jumped out, shimmering with a purple shield over the body, and fell towards the Muton lines.

Roman blinked as he saw…him? Her? It wasn't easy to determine gender from armor, but whoever it was, they were attacking the Mutons with a damn axe. A Templar, one of the XCOM psions that fought in melee then. He hadn't seen one properly in action before, and it was rather amazing to behold. The soldier must have been enhanced beyond psionics, as they were striking with enough force to puncture the helmets and killing the Mutons in one or two hits.

As the soldier was covered in the purple shield, nothing seemed to be able to damage them, and the soldier seemed to laugh off plasma as they struck, kicked, and dashed from alien to alien, fighting with a zeal that was even forcing the Mutons to back off, despite outmassing the Human by a significant margin.

The alien lines were faltering, and the XCOM squad that had arrived was now entering the fray. One of their gunners began striding right into the alien lines, yelling for them to advance as another Templar joined the first one in taking the fight to the Muton lines. That was the cue for the Executors to charge the front lines, and they joined in the carnage, eradicating the Muton lines and clearing the way for them to advance.

"[Move forward!]" Roman commanded, seeing a fairly safe opportunity to move forward. The Mutons were in full retreat, and they were being picked off as they ran by the Snipers, Hussars, and MDUs, not to mention the Executors and Templars running them down with a furious rigor. The first alien stronghold was taken.

The battle for Redding was fully underway.

---

Near Los Angeles, California – United States of America

Operation: Sherman – Day 1

11/21/2016 – 9:02 A.M.

The dimly lit train rattled as it sped towards LA, although Patricia wasn't focusing on that, nor the soldiers around her. Eyes closed, she tried getting a sense of what was going to be facing them within the next few minutes. LA was expected to be heavily fortified, but she had taken Vegas without extensive strenuous effort, and she could do the same here.

Creed would lead the actual assault in her stead while she exerted her telepathic dominance over the aliens, and the squad she had would likely perform expertly. It was going to be the first conflict for some, such as Sussan, but the new psion would likely perform well once the battle began. Just in case, she had been sure to project a calm aura over the entirety of the train itself.

"Quite a curious plan," a familiar voice mused as a shadowy figure stepped up beside her. "Yet I am not sure you consider the…consequences of such an action. Your strike, while bold, is one of escalation; a grasping chance of exploiting your apparent advantage before it is lost. One I cannot fault your species for, but you should know the reality of the situation better than most."

She turned her head to see herself standing directly beside her, a perfect replica except her double wasn't wearing the helmet she had on now, and the eyes were pools of black. She briefly glanced around at the others in the train car, and none of them seemed to notice the figure. How shocking. The doppelgänger smiled slightly at that.

What are you doing here now? She thought, knowing the Imperator would be able to hear her. Don't you have better things to do?

"Considering all of this is the result of my decisions, I have a vested interest in keeping my eye on it," he answered, the deep voice sounding wrong coming out of her mouth. "And the scale of this is one that I am personally interested in. You don't know what you will unleash with this."

Get to the point, or get out of my head. She thought with as much disdain as she could muster, narrowing her eyes at the figure. I really do not have time for more of your mind games.

"This is what will happen," the Imperator said, her double clasping its hands behind its back. "Los Angeles is a stronghold of thousands of Mutons, a network of twenty-five Gateways, and five thousand more mechanical units including Sectopods, Cyberdisks, and Seekers. Enemies which you are poorly equipped to handle."

Which is why I'll focus on the thousands of Mutons. She responded. Like how I've always done it.

"Your attack will initially succeed," the Imperator continued. "You will gain ground. The Mutons will fall. You will dominate them. Yet I am amused you have not thought about how this is going exactly as you planned. Why are you allowed to attack with no initial response?"

Patricia smiled under her helmet. Because maybe we outsmarted you?

Now the Imperator was amused. "No. The only reason your initial attacks are succeeding is because the Battlemaster is waiting. He wants you to make the first strike. He wants to see the composition of your forces, because then he can counter them. The Battlemaster is many things, but he is not someone who can be easily tricked."

I don't suppose you'll tell me what he is planning then?

"The Battlemaster is one of the few I cannot read, but I can certainly speculate," the Imperator nodded, the unnatural smile deeply contrasting the black pools of eyes. "Fectorian has been developing infantry units. These are far more powerful than the ones you have been fighting. You have little experience with controlling a mind enhanced by cybernetics. You will try, but you will exhaust yourself long before the battle is over, not because of your lack of power, but the incorrect application of it."

Get to the point.

"Of course," he raised a gauntleted finger, pointing it at her. "You are powerful, Patricia, but almost all you have learned has been through trial and error. Experimentation. You have had no training. You have had no teacher. At this point you have as much mastery as the ancient Ethereals of old who had begun to fully harness the Gift. Aegis has certainly done what he could, but he is no telepath, as I have said before."

Again, get to the point.

"I can help you," he said. "The cybernetic mind is one that can be dominated as easy as an organic one…but it is different. The techniques and outcomes are changed. All you need to do is allow me to transfer the technique directly into your mind. I will do that, and nothing else."

Patricia had to smirk at the absurdity of that statement. Do you really think I'm that gullible? I'm not stupid enough to think letting you into my mind would just be for information.

"And what motivation would I have for lying to you?" He asked knowingly. "I could break your mind at any point, Patricia, but I am choosing not to. If I intended to do such to you from the start, we would not be speaking now. There would not be choice. But you have one, Patricia, your choices are true and they matter. Your choices will decide the outcome of this war and the future of your species."

He smiled at her. "I am simply offering you one more, with no catch, aside from the consequence that your mastery over the Gift will grow. I will be watching, and if you choose to accept my offer, I will be waiting." With that, he instantly vanished from sight.

She would have found his dramatic exits amusing if the conversations weren't so disconcerting.

She jolted as a hand rested on her shoulder. "Hey, you alright?" Creed asked, cocking his head. "We're almost there. Can you sense anything?"

"Fine," she said curtly. "I'm…ready. There are a lot of Mutons. Sectopods, Cyberdisks, and Seekers as well. More Gateways than expected I think too, Muton minds aren't the clearest."

"Alright, good," he nodded, and all of them gripped their weapons as the train began slowing down. "Prepare to deploy!" He ordered, with all of them and the ADVENT soldiers lining up at the doors. The Archangel Host was supposed to deploy immediately after initial engagement, so Patricia knew that would give some extra flexibility in dealing with the immediate entrenched defenses.

And now she could sense the hordes of aliens directly ahead, Mutons of all kinds. The question then was what she was going to force them to do. There were many options, but she felt like it would be best to…take advantage of the information the Imperator had given her.

Sound seemed to slowly fade as the doors opened and the XCOM and ADVENT soldiers charged outside and towards the fortified city. She stepped out half-aware of her surroundings, the map of minds in the city dominating her own sight. With one hand extended towards the mass of concrete, stone, and metal, psionic power flowing around her, she began to dominate the minds of those within.

With each mind she infected like a virus, she gave a specific order: Destroy the Gateways.

She wouldn't have to worry about cybernetic units if there wasn't any way for them to come.

What she didn't see, was the immaterial form of the Imperator standing behind her, observing with the faintest of smiles on the face of the doppelgänger he imitated.

---

Sacramento, California – United States of America

Operation: Sherman – Day 1

11/21/2016 – 9:27 A.M.

Oliver had gotten used to psions over his time spent in XCOM. Once you got past the whole 'doing things with their mind' part, they were regular nice people. Iosif beside him was one such psion he got along with easily enough, and of course respectful to his fellow soldiers. The new psion Moriai Jin was also a pleasant soldier. While supposedly weaker than most psions, he was dedicated to being as helpful as possible.

Geist on the other hand, was unnerving.

Every single action or word spoken by the man seemed to be calculated and deliberate, with a delivery that would make a machine seem to have more emotion. And when Geist decided to actually put some emotion into his voice, it sounded nothing short of malevolent and sinister. He had yet to put on his helmet, despite everyone else doing so, and seemed utterly unmoved by the oncoming sounds of battle ahead.

Granted, all of them were soldiers and used to battle at this point. But from what Oliver knew, Geist was not even a soldier, but someone they had recruited from the PRIEST Program. He'd also gotten the feeling that during the brief time they'd spoken, Geist had been poking around in his head.

While he didn't necessarily have anything to hide, the number of people he would be comfortable with in his mind did not include Geist among them.

However, the Commander apparently had enough confidence in him to make him Overseer…so he supposed they would have to wait and see how it went. The skyranger lights turned red, indicating that they were coming in for a landing. Unlike some of the other squads, they were not going in on the trains, but to reinforce by Skyranger.

"Do not move forward until I give the order," Geist stated in a tone that did not allow compromise. "We will appraise the situation on the ground, then deploy as needed. Understood?"

"Yes, Overseer!"

The Skyranger ramp descended, and they were greeted with the sight of a mix of ADVENT soldiers, Lancers, and Cuirassiers engaged in a perimeter shootout with a large contingent of alien defenders who were within the city itself. The aliens had actually demolished much of the outer buildings by the tracks, and there was a small no-man's land between the converted defensive towers, and the ADVENT forces.

The Engineers had set up some small defenses, but most were using the train itself as a defensive structure. The train defenses were firing at the aliens, and there was visible damage, but it was an essential stalemate until ADVENT decided to commit. Focusing on the alien defenses, Oliver saw that the ground forces were a mix of Muton soldiers and Elites. Not good.

It appeared the aliens within the structures themselves were Vitakarians, snipers and soldiers occupying all four floors of the building and raining green plasma down on the ADVENT train. "Telepath Jin," Geist said slowly, raising a hand. "Establish telepathic enhancement to as many sniper and long-range personnel as you can. Templar Bronis, gather the Lancer Executors in the vicinity and prepare to move forward. You may take Engineer Kun to assist."

"I can do that," Iosif said slowly, shifting the mace in his hand. "However, I don't necessarily command them-"

"You will take command temporarily," Geist stated flatly, not looking to him. "If they refuse, inform me and I will take care of it. Understood?"

Oliver winced. This did not seem a good tactic, and one ADVENT would not approve of. Iosif just started walking to the respective Lancers with a brief nod and Nuan followed him. Jin was already finding a safe space to begin his own telepathic support. "Scout Man, Assault Darego, move towards the designated Goliath drop point and prepare to provide covering fire."

"Yes, Overseer," Khulan Man nodded as she and her Nigerian counterpart dashed off to where the drop point was.

"The rest of you follow me and fire at will," Geist said, and they began walking; walking way too slowly for Oliver's liking, towards the ADVENT line. It was maddening, he wanted to run to some kind of cover, but he really couldn't. He didn't know if it was Geist or some innate knowledge that sticking to the psion's side was best, but he felt unnecessarily exposed.

"What's the plan, Overseer?" David Cannon asked, his rifle raised. "I assume you have one?"

"The enemy has the defensive advantage, and we will suffer unacceptable casualties if we attempt to cross," Geist stated. "Their primary support is within the two defensive towers, with secondary support on the ground. With the towers negated, and cover established, ADVENT can make a methodical charge forward."

"Right," David said, noticeably unimpressed. "And the plan?"

"Join the initial fight," Geist said, pressing a button on his wrist. "This will be unnecessarily difficult without coordination." His arm suddenly was engulfed in purple energy, and he motioned towards the open space and purple shapes suddenly materialized out of nothing. "The cover will protect you," Geist assured him. "Aegis has been helpful in refining my applications of psionics."

Oliver looked at David and shrugged. No reason not to do it, and no matter what he thought about Geist personally, he did appear to be a competent psion. With that in mind, they charged towards the shimmering shield arranged into cover. Now green plasma was raining down upon them, and both of them managed to avoid the worst of it and on instinct Oliver slid into cover.

Interestingly enough, despite being translucent, the cover held and some quick testing did seem to indicate it was steady. Well, as plasma bolts started hitting it and vanishing, that was proven rather quickly. Oliver wasted no time in firing back with his gauss rifle, aiming towards the Mutons on the ground since they were easier to target.

"This is XCOM Psion Geist to ADVENT forces in the immediate vicinity," Geist said over the radio. "All PRIEST Division forces in the area please converge upon my location. Remaining forces prepare to advance. XCOM Goliath support is incoming shortly."

"Think they'll come?" David asked as he fired.

Oliver managed to hit one of the Mutons, although not kill it. As nice as the enhanced eyes were, it still wasn't possible to turn assault rifles into sniper rifles. "If someone sounds like that and orders you to come? I think you get over there."

"Yeah," David grunted. "I don't want to make him angry."

They continued the fight for minutes more, and now there were ADVENT soldiers who were also taking advantage of the psionic cover and taking much better shots at the aliens. The ground suddenly shook, and a look back confirmed that the Goliath had indeed landed. The lumbering behemoth raised the massive gauss weapon and immediately started firing at the defensive towers.

The bare battlefield suddenly was lit up with more psionic shields acting as cover, painting the whole area with purple streaks. "ADVENT Forces advance at will, stand by for tower negation." A few moments later, the towers were suddenly encased in purple. It didn't seem to be doing anything, but all fire was immediately stopped.

Huh. He had to admit that was a pretty good tactic. "Forward!" Iosif yelled, and with the sudden ceasing of the majority of plasma fire, he and the dozen or so Executors dashed through the maze of psionic cover towards the now-weakened Muton line. ADVENT soldiers were also charging forward and taking places behind the cover.

Oliver and David followed suit, getting closer and closer to the defensive stronghold itself as Iosif and the Executors hit and began destroying the ground line of aliens. Armor didn't protect them as Iosif bashed their joints, heads, and weapons with his mace and more often than not seemed to kill on contact with a vital body part.

The towers were still imprisoned, and Oliver watched with some amusement as the aliens inside were trying to break the shield by shooting or hitting it. Out of curiosity, he looked behind to see Geist with a dozen Priests beside him calmly marching forward. So encased by psionic energy was Geist that Oliver found it somewhat difficult to make out his form.

The Priests beside him were also enshrined by psionic energy, though now they were gathering it in preparation for something. The answer to that came shortly, as the shield to the first tower fell, and it was immediately hit by the Goliath's weapons, and purple maelstroms of psionic energy. Rockets from ADVENT Rocketeers also slammed into the tower, telekinetically enhanced by the Priests, and within a few short minutes the first tower crumbled to the ground with a crash.

The second shield fell soon after, and it met the same fate once the Goliath fired a half-dozen missiles at the structure, and the Dragoons and Priests unleashed their tools and powers on it. The moment the second tower fell, all of the psionic cover disappeared and as ADVENT rushed to claim the previous alien territory, Iosif and the Executors cleaning up the last of the aliens, Geist looked further into the city.

His golden-rimmed eyes flicked minutely every second as everything was taken in, calculated, and planned. The neutral expression on his face didn't change, but briefly Oliver thought he saw some satisfaction flicker over it. "We move forward," Geist said as he strode up. "This was a first engagement. Now the real battle begins."

Despite that, after the display Geist had put on, Oliver wondered just what the aliens would have to stop them.

Hopefully nothing. It would be good to see them run for once.

---

Mars Observation Station – Mars Orbit

11/21/2016 – 10:17 A.M.

ADVENT had finally shown their hand, and it was one with more ferocity than the Battlemaster had expected. He had, at most, anticipated ADVENT attempting to completely secure Nevada and perhaps the outer cities of California. But instead, they were going to attempt to push the Collective completely out of the country itself.

Now that the Zar'Chon had confirmed that ADVENT was mobilizing their full army, if there wasn't a suitable response, they would succeed. Now that ADVENT was fielding psions, he now had to contend with the possibility that they wouldn't succeed, or at minimum suffer heavy losses. ADVENT had escalated this conflict, however, so he would need to respond in kind.

There were three holograms before him, Fectorian's Replicas he'd begun seeding throughout the Collective military. While the machine intelligence was not perfect, they could be isolated and their purpose was to report and observe without the risk of falling to telepathy, exhaustion, disease, or poison.

Now that the chocolate problem had become more…extensive, poison was an actual concern, if largely unwitting.

He felt frustration at that thought.

No time to focus on it though. Pushing that away, he addressed the holograms, all reporting from different cities. "Have the assaulting forces been categorized completely?"

"Confirmed, Battlemaster," the Sacramento Replica said, having the appearance of a Vitakarian female missing one eye. "Corroborating data with other units indicates a similarity in unit composition. These initial attacks are composed of ADVENT Special Forces, and a varying amount of XCOM support. We are currently facing a Goliath-class MEC, and an unknown number of psions."

"Due to unit irregularity and comparison with previous battles, it is likely that XCOM Psion Patricia Trask is attacking this location," the Los Angeles Replica reported, appearing as a Vitakarian male. "We are losing substantial ground."

"Reinforcements will be arriving shortly," the Battlemaster assured them, glancing down at the data stream to confirm their uploads. This was all he needed. "Continue observation and engage as needed."

He shut off the holograms and the image reverted to the haptic map of the United States. So ADVENT wanted a fight. They had committed their forces to driving them out, but they had made the mistake of assuming that his resources were finite. While in actuality they were, the numbers were so far beyond what ADVENT could contend with they were virtually limitless.

However, he was never one to throw away resources unnecessarily. Even Mutons didn't need to be wasted.

But there was a problem here: The Collective had a distinct lack of advanced units to counter the elite units of ADVENT and XCOM. Fectorian's soldiers solved this to an extent, and the Elites played a substantial role, but one-on-one, a Lancer or XCOM soldier, much less a Priest, was a match for any soldier in the Collective, and usually exceeded them.

He would have to take a hard look at the military composition and make adjustments once this battle was over.

He pressed a button on his wrist, signaling for the relevant beings to meet him. It was time to fully launch their attacks and counterattacks. He brought up a haptic display and sent the signal for the designated fleets to begin arriving in the Solar System. He was going to need a lot for what was coming next.

The door slid open soundlessly and those he had summoned began walking in. The Zar'Chon of course, along with Disciple-7, and finally two of the Creator's Chosen, the so-called Hunter, or "Dave" as he liked calling himself. He had another name, but the Battlemaster saw little point in using it. He had a tendency to be disrespectful, but as long as he did the job, the Battlemaster could tolerate it.

Considering he came from the Creator, it was understandable that the alien had developed means of coping.

Then there was Senorium, the unflinchingly loyal zealot and complete tool. Little independent thought, but he had his uses. Then came the two Guardians, who the others had clearly never seen before. The Warlock bowed deeply, and even the Hunter stood at attention. The Zar'Chon did likewise, and Disciple-7 didn't react whatsoever.

"ADVENT has revealed their plan," the Battlemaster began. "It is unlikely they have the resources to launch additional attacks. At this moment our major bases are under attack, and they are facing trained psions and genetically enhanced special forces units. In addition, they have revealed that they are capable of eliminating fleets entering the atmosphere using nuclear weapons."

He swept his gaze over them. "ADVENT is willing to escalate this conflict. We will oblige them."

"What is the plan then?" The Hunter asked, a sly smile on his face. "Bomb them from orbit?"

"No," the Battlemaster said flatly, slightly offended that was even a suggestion. "We will launch attacks of our own. I have identified appropriate forces to respond to the current attacks, and depending on how those hold, we will take additional measures." Parts of the map illuminated red. "I have authorized a full invasion fleet against Alaska, the Yukon territory, and British Columbia. This is in immediate effect."

"They will not expect that," the Zar'Chon nodded approvingly. "Their forces are out of position."

"In addition, I have also authorized an invasion force to target Mexico," the Battlemaster continued. "Specifically, the city of Guadalajara and the surrounding area." The Battlemaster looked at the two Chosen. "Your…sibling…will lead this attack."

He pressed a button on the console and the map shifted to one of Asia. "Finally, the attack on Korea will commence as planned. Hunter, you will participate in the attack."

The Zar'Chon seemed slightly taken aback at the plan, but nodded nonetheless. "And what of us, Battlemaster?" The Second Guardian asked.

"You will stay until the situation develops further," the Battlemaster said to her. "However, you may coordinate the attack on Alaska and Canada. You may be needed in California, First Guardian, but it is too early to make the assessment yet."

"And what of me, Battlemaster?" The Warlock asked.

"You will accompany me," the Battlemaster stated. "I intend to show ADVENT the consequences of escalating this conflict."

---

Redding, California – United States of America

Operation: Sherman – Day 1

11/21/2016 – 11:24 A.M.

The fight had been taken from their initial command bases to the streets of Redding itself. They had taken a short amount of time to regroup and refuel after taking the base, and Roman had gotten word that the other attacks had gone similarly well and that ADVENT was sending the Legion proper to help mop up, assuming they didn't purge the aliens before that point.

Priests, XCOM, and Lancers; there seemed very little that could stop them when working together.

Even more so as they marched down the streets themselves.

The aliens had been working on constructing more turrets and barricades on street corners and in intermediate places between intersections, but they were clearly not prepared for an all-out assault. Roman actually believed that they had expended the majority of their Muton force, since now they were fighting Vitakara Runianarch soldiers.

Red lasers and green plasma was exchanged down the streets, but the Runianarch were clearly going to fall soon. In addition to all of his squad, his march forward was accompanied by a full Dragoon team of four, two MDUs, and three XCOM soldiers. The one Templar had turned out to be a woman, Ellinor Aagard, who was joined by two more soldiers, Rosario De Leon and Fakhr al Din, the latter also carried enough explosives to be a Dragoon.

The Priests were assisting elsewhere, but frankly, they weren't needed.

Two Runianarch fell to his rifle shots, largely thanks to Galina pinning them in place. More were running up, or slithering in the case of the armored Cobrarian soldiers. Those were definitely the most unsettling, as the idea of fighting man-sized snakes was something he'd only really heard about. The Borelians were the hardest to kill by far, still fighting after sustaining what he would consider lethal wounds.

"Firing rocket!" Fakhr yelled, launching a missile towards a barricade several aliens were hiding behind. Several were killed in the blast, and the soldiers quickly picked off the ones who ran away. Maksim seemed pleased he sniped a fleeing Vitakarian and Cobrarian in their backs.

"[They don't take hints, these aliens,]" Maksim commented as another shot brought a Borelian to one knee. "[Brave aliens, but I don't think we've taken many losses yet.]"

"[No,]" Roman agreed as he fired some more shots at the aliens. "[I don't think we have.]"

Ellinor had largely been standing in the middle of the street, maintaining a psionic shield in front of her, while she protected everyone else as they advanced. The Dane Axe, glistening with alien blood was hooked to her side, since she apparently needed two hands to maintain the various psionic shields. Now that they were close to the major intersection, which the aliens had turned into a mix between a checkpoint and tower, she dropped the supplementary shields and grasped the axe in her hand.

"Hit the tower!" She yelled to the Dragoons. "Everything you have! Fakhr, you too!"

"Locking on for barrage," one of the Dragoons stated, planting himself in the ground, the other one joining him. Roman saw launchers extend from their shoulders, angling towards the intersection. "Firing." A dozen micro missiles shot into the sky and descended on the frontal position of the aliens in seconds.

With nowhere to really run, most aliens in the area were ripped apart by the blast, and Ellinor charged into the fray. Roman and the rest of the soldiers took this opportunity to charge as well. Laser blasts from the MDUs took out soldiers hiding out at the top of the platform overlooking the intersection, as well as those hiding out in the buildings.

Fire licking at the metal and aliens still alive, they were already backing up, although the confined space did very little against Ellinor who took all of them on in a fifteen-to-one charge. Or at least it would be that way until ADVENT caught up with them and had clear shots through the smoke and metal.

But Roman could see some of the action. Nothing seemed to be able to touch her as she not only slammed the axe down on the various aliens, particularly focusing on the Borelians who had parts of their face exposed, but also disoriented them by lashing out with her hand and throwing them back with the force, or lashing out with an armored foot towards the joints.

By the time Roman and his team had clear lines of sight, the aliens were either on the ground and killed with straight execution shots, or they were dead. One shot killed a Cobrarian soldier, and Roman looked up to see Ellinor bury the axe in the faceplate of a Borelian soldier, kicking the now-dead soldier away. "Think that's all of them here."

"Nice work," he complimented, taking the opportunity to reload. "Don't know if we needed to even help."

"Unlikely," she surprisingly agreed, twirling her axe, flinging yellow droplets of blood around. "But it is appreciated."

"We've got Andromedons incoming!" Rosario yelled from outside. "A lot of them from two sides!"

"They probably have an Andromedon leader," Ellinor said contemplatively to herself. "Saving their own for last. We hold out here, we can probably take the town."

"Unless they have Gateways," Elena pointed out. "Do we have enough to withstand a flanking attack?"

"That depends on how many they're attacking us with," she said slowly. "However…we might be able to even the odds a bit." She pressed a finger to her helmet. "Captain de Leeuw, requesting an airstrike at the following location. Andromedon forces are converging."

"Request received, A-10 squad being sent to your location, hold out for a little while," the answer came instantly. "De Leeuw out."

"Fakhr, set up main defenses on the right flank!" Ellinor called out, as she motioned to Roman. "You and your team will help me hold them back until the A-10s raze them." Roman nodded, and they dashed out from the platform to the left side of the intersection.

"Well, that's not good," Galina commented as she saw the Andromedon force approaching. There were a minimum of a dozen Andromedons marching forward…and it appeared they had received some kind of upgrade. They marched directly down the street, unafraid of any oncoming fire, which Roman assumed was because of the red shield that was being projected from small mechanical extensions on their arms, which didn't seem to interfere with holding and firing their weapons on the now-defending ADVENT forces.

Behind the front line of Andromedon soldiers were some Battlefield Engineers, and there was another hulking unit that Roman hadn't seen before; this one didn't seem to carry any weapons, and bore massive tanks on their backs, with what looked like chemical dispensers on the arms.

"Contamination Operatives," Ellinor said grimly, hooking her axe on her waist. "We can't let them get near."

"Thank you for that very helpful advice," Maksim said deadpan. "I can see why XCOM are considered the experts."

"Yeah, yeah," Ellinor snorted as the plasma fire began hitting their position. "However, I can keep them in place for a time." Arms glowing with psionic energy, she thrust out one hand and a massive psionic shield stretching from one side of the street to the other appeared, taller than the Andromedons themselves.

The aliens stopped and began shooting the shield experimentally, although they quickly found out that it was pointless. Instead they began backing up, presumably to find a way around, before Ellinor chuckled. "Oh no, you're not running away." It was difficult to see, but Roman thought he saw another shield go up in the background, effectively trapping the Andromedons in a neat purple box.

"Here it comes!" Anton yelled as the sound of aircraft overhead was head. Ellinor let the shield fall and the Andromedons barely had time to make a decision before the sound of the A-10 guns ripped through the air and shredded the area the Andromedons inhabited. Their suits were punctured, scrapped, and in some cases a plasma weapon exploded.

The sheer volume of fire and damage even rendered the suits unable to come back to life, and all that was left were a pile of Andromedon corpses and suit wrecks. "That was fun," Ellinor commented, turning around. "Let's go help out the others."

Roman turned to follow, thinking that even with the Collective trying to make advancements of their own, it didn't seem to help them much when psions were involved. And really big guns. The battle for Redding wasn't over, but he didn't see a way that they could be stopped.

Their victory was only a matter of time.

---

Sydney Outskirts – Australia

11/21/2016 – 8:22 A.M.

The city proper was in sight, and the aliens were struggling to actually combat the Chronicler's army. There had been a few losses, but the numbers were continuously replaced by the Chronicler dominating the next group of aliens encountered. They were now engaged with an Andromedon defense force, who had presumably also been the ones responsible for the red shield going over the inner city.

These Andromedons also had rectangle energy shields in front of them, apparently projected from new forearm attachments. They actually were managing to hold up against the particle weapons of the Chronicler's army, but at the same time, they were overloading them far quicker than Abby presumed was normal.

But in true Andromedon fashion, they were handling this with some degree of intelligence. Soldiers were almost immediately swapped out if the personal energy shield fell, and drones flew in front of the Andromedon, deploying another shield to absorb fire while the Andromedon retreated and another took his place.

At the same time, their plasma weapons were not highly effective against the Chronicler. At best they were absorbed by the armor of the aliens, and otherwise didn't do anything at all if they were absorbed by psionic shields or missed entirely. Sniper fire was still steadily coming in from the city, also to limited effect.

"Enough of this," the Chronicler growled, dropping the psionic protection and extending a claw-like hand towards the Andromedon line. "Your shields cannot protect you." The area around the Andromedon lines was suddenly distorted, and to Abby it almost looked like the reality itself was being warped and compressed.

The Andromedons were suddenly flattened and crushed under the psionic grip of the Chronicler. Yellow chemicals rose from their shattered helms and the suits sparked as they were broken. Drones became metal pancakes and weapons exploded in green flashes of plasma. How many had the Chronicler killed there? Twenty? Thirty?

How long could he actually keep this up for? They'd been fighting non-stop for at least four hours now, with the Chronicler performing similar feats against the aliens. On some level he had to be enhanced by the suit, but even then he was still one man.

Limits were still apparently unknown to him though, and he continued marching forward deeper towards the now-shielded city. "Elites are coming," Harper called, pointing further down the road they were on. Abby focused in that direction, and there were indeed a lot of Elites coming. A small army of them in fact, accompanied by the black-armored figures of the Sectoid Vanguards.

"Little threat," the Chronicler said. "They will join our army."

The heavy plasma cannons of the Muton Elites began firing, and the Chronicler's army responded in kind, blue lances returning the fire and cleaving through several of the Vanguards who then activated their psionic shields and began returning plasma fire which proved as ineffective as before.

"There is something else…" the Chronicler said slowly. "Something wrong…"

A sustained barrage of plasma fire managed to take down one of the Chronicler's Mutons, but in retaliation several of the Muton Elites were targeted and shredded by repeated blasts from the particle weapons. The psionic shields the Sectoids had seemed to be protecting them, and they were moving to psionic attacks, as Abby saw purple energy forming around their wrists.

What was taking him so long? The Chronicler should have been able to dominate these aliens by now.

Abby leapt onto one of the small flat tops of the buildings; a perk she'd realized her armor had, in that it allowed her to perform physical feats that were impossible except through genetic modification. She raised her own rifle, which configured itself to something she assumed was long-range, and she fired on one of the Vanguards.

It would have been perfect, had the Vanguard not immediately moved the shield to where she had fired, blocking it completely. Odd, but she immediately moved to one of the Muton Elites and fired a sustained particle blast on the face of the alien, and a few seconds later it burned through, causing it to tumble to the ground.

Just as they were gaining the upper hand once more, the Chronicler audibly growled and violently gestured towards the mass of aliens. Corrosive psionic energy convulsed around him, and the alien mass was suddenly engulfed in a massive psionic maelstrom that vaporized the ones at the center, and just as easily overwhelmed even those on the edge.

And just as quickly as he had brought it into existence, the maelstrom vanished, leaving only purple wisps. "Something is blocking my telepathy," the Chronicler stated. "Or more accurately, someone is protecting the aliens."

"You can't break it?" One of Harper's soldiers asked.

"Not on my own," the Chronicler admitted. "The skill is…unlike anything I have encountered before. Nonetheless, we should be able to continue even with this roadblock."

Then in the middle of the street, in the center of where the psionic maelstrom had been, the air shimmered a faint purple and an Ethereal literally stepped out of thin air, much like the Chronicler had done before. A very familiar Ethereal, now that Abby thought about it.

Quisilia raised a hand in greeting. "Hello there!"

Every alien of the Chronicler's army, and Abby herself, trained their weapons on the lone Ethereal. The Chronicler himself stepped forward. "Ethereal. I was beginning to think you would let me continue unopposed."

While Abby didn't know the exact abilities of Quisilia, that he was apparently powerful enough to block the Chronicler's telepathy was concerning. "I'm afraid not," Quisilia said mockingly. "I must say you…aren't quite what I expected. Just who are you? Not ADVENT or XCOM."

The Chronicler seemed amused. "And just how would you know that?"

"Because I'm looking into the mind of your XCOM associate now," Quisilia said clearly from behind her. Abby jumped and flew around to see the Ethereal standing behind her, the metal helmet looking forebodingly down at her. The Ethereal raised one finger to where his lips would presumably be, and vanished from sight.

Heart pounding, she returned looking to the street, where Quisilia was still inexplicably there and continued. "It appears she doesn't know what you really are. Not surprising. Puppets usually stay quiet in these situations."

"Like you are any different, Ethereal," the Chronicler responded. "Or has your arrangement with the Sovereign One changed?"

Quisilia vanished and suddenly appeared directly before the Chronicler, standing over him by several feet easily. "I somehow doubt you know the intricate details, little puppet, suffice to say you vastly underestimate just how much we know." He vanished and reappeared further down the street in his original position. "Do you really think we are as ignorant as the puppet species normally are?"

"I think you're stalling for time," the Chronicler responded, psionic power gathering around him. "I would expect nothing less from those who ran from the ones who destroyed their species. Even now you fight using the tactics of a coward. Otherwise you would not be able to stand and fight."

Quisilia laughed and something flashed in his hand and he vanished once more and reappeared behind one of the Chroniclers Vitakarian soldiers and stabbed him through the chin with some kind of blade. With another arm he did the same thing and a third dropped some kind of ball that exploded into a black swarm of nanites that crawled up and into a nearby Muton, eating him alive.

Quisilia vanished and reappeared in the same place as before, now accompanied by a perfect copy of himself, then two, then more until the street itself had several dozen. "You are not fighting the Battlemaster, little puppet. Fighting fair is only for the naïve and honorable. Even then, when faced with overwhelming odds, even the Battlemaster would use every trick he could."

The Quisilia figures pulled out another blade, this one colored obsidian and clearly visible. "So show me what you can do, little puppet; show me the gifts your benefactor has blessed you with."

The Muton being consumed by the nanites suddenly flared in psionic fire, incinerating it completely presumably to kill all the nanites and keep them from spreading. "You are walking a dangerous line, Ethereal," the Chronicler warned. "You don't want to make me angry."

"Oh, I do, little puppet," Quisilia mocked. "In fact, I'm counting on it."

The Chronicler swept out an arm, sending an arc of crackling energy towards the alien. It passed through the illusions without doing anything, and they all vanished. "Come and find me, puppet. I will be waiting."

---

Busan – South Korea

11/21/2016 – 12:16 P.M.

"This is Chief Marshal Kong to all ADVENT Forces," the Chief Marshal said into his helmet as Duri led his squad towards the trenches, accompanied by thousands of ADVENT soldiers all rushing to their positions. "We have confirmation of alien invasion fleets heading to the city, as well as other cities in South Korea. Flak Towers are online and armored vehicles and artillery are moving into position now. Take position and push these vermin off our world."

"Encouraging speech," Cara commented as they ran. "Bold to attack when we're crushing them in America."

"No, is smart," Aleksandra countered as she checked her armor. "ADVENT busy with America. Might not be elsewhere."

Duri would have found that argument a little more convincing except for one minor detail. "See, if they wanted to exploit that, South Korea is the last place they should have attacked. We've been preparing for weeks."

"I don't think this is in response to that," Beatriz added as they reached the descending trench entrances. "I think they've been preparing for this for a while. They just decided to launch it now."

"All right, let's get focused and get ready to fight," Duri interrupted, cutting everyone off as they descended into the trenches. They'd spent enough time training here that all of them were fairly comfortable with what would likely be a prolonged fight. They had been assigned to the Yongho 1 District of the city, which had several important components such as hospitals to protect.

In theory, ADVENT would want to have the entire country protected from coast to coast, lining the border with Flak Towers to blow any alien attack out of the sky. Realistically, they needed a more concentrated defense and resources were not infinite. So the main trench line had been formed around the district itself, and ADVENT had gone from there.

Fortunately, there were dozens of trench lines that were interconnected throughout the city itself. There was at least one route that ran the entirety of the Busan city itself, with some working as tunnels instead of trenches. In front of the trenches themselves, there was a flat, open space that had once been a forest.

The goal was to give the aliens clear places to land, otherwise they might resort to bombing runs or orbital bombardment, neither of which were ideal. So there had to be some spaces that were 'designated' for alien landing. However, the no man's land was massive and there was no cover whatsoever for at least several miles.

Further compounding the issue for the aliens was that mines had been laid at random in the open space itself. The massive Flak Towers also dotted the trench line, just constructed behind the trenches at intervals of half a kilometer, with the trenches also being a means to access them. True towers, Duri was constantly amazed at how much firepower those things had at every floor.

Behind the trench lines were lines of tanks, artillery, and armored M2 Browning machine guns, as well as other stationary turret defenses. Throughout the trenches themselves were also stations where they were established as well, one of which Cara was going to be using; something she had told him she was looking forward to.

The trenches weren't covered, unfortunately, but tops had a metal sheet slanted away from them, allowing them enough sight to view and fire from, while providing some kind of protection. The entrances and exits had metal protection as well, as did the trenches going under the Flak Towers. All in all, the aliens were in for a really bad time.

They reached their position, and Cara took the elevated position and grasped the Browning in her hands. "Oh yeah, forgot how good this feels."

Duri grinned under his helmet, and made sure everyone else was in position. Mana took a position on the other side of Cara's emplacement, rifle raised to the currently-empty battlefield. Aleksandra took her position beside the Hawaiian, glancing over to Duri. "Say when you want me to create field."

"If everything works correctly," Duri said, rechecking his weapon again. "You won't need to."

Beatriz took a position by him, and rested her sniper rifle on the edge of the ground and was already peering through the scope. Nobuatsu was rushing to the nearby medical and ammo sections of the trenches, making sure everything was ready. The roles had been decided long ago, most of them were going to be fighting, but Nobuatsu was going to be performing medical duties wherever he was needed, and Miguel would be making sure everyone had ammo.

Speaking of Miguel, he was moving his SHIV to an appropriate position, which was on the edge of the back wall of the trench, overlooking the squad itself and cannon aimed down the open area, waiting for anything to even get within range. "SHIV in position," Miguel reported, hooking the remote control to his waist and turning to Duri. "All of you let me know when you even think you're running low."

"Copy that," Cara said giving a mock salute. "Don't worry, I'm not going to deliberately waste ammo."

"I wouldn't be concerned about that," Miguel shrugged. "We've got enough ammo to probably fight off an alien army three times the size of whatever's coming."

"UFO on approach!" Beatriz suddenly said. "Four of them, Scouts I think."

"Time for the Towers to do their thing-" Mana said before he was interrupted by the thunderous sound of the Flak Towers firing every available weapon on the oncoming UFOs. Duri looked into the sky to see the orange-white streaks of AA fire combined with lasers that sped towards the oncoming UFO fighters.

The frontal two UFOs were ripped to pieces by the rounds hitting them and further carved apart by the lasers. The latter two only survived a few more seconds before they were similarly torn apart by the towers. Cara cheered as the UFOs crashed into the nearby ocean or just behind the trenches themselves.

Collateral damage was a concern, but supposedly ADVENT had thought ahead to a degree and stationed the new Priests in various positions around the city, many of them telekines to deflect or catch falling debris. That was really all that was missing on his squad now, a Priest. Although they seemed to work in teams made up of their own, so that probably wouldn't happen.

Perhaps it was for the best. He wasn't sure how comfortable he was having someone like that on the team.

"I don't think they try that again," Aleksandra said wryly.

Well, they knew the Flak Towers worked now. Duri suspected that the aliens had assumed the same, and almost felt sorry for the pilots who had clearly been selected for suicide duty. Then again, they were aliens, so he didn't feel they really deserved it to begin with.

"Now we wait," Duri said. "Won't be long now."

As it turned out, he was partially right. Roughly twenty minutes later the first blips of the aliens appeared from the other end of the no man's land, from the remains of the forest that ADVENT had left. "They're just a little out of immediate engagement range," Beatriz said. "Looks like a mix of Mutons and Vitakara. No armor units yet."

Cara whistled. "They are going to get slaughtered."

Duri had to agree. That was perhaps the worst composition possible to use to attack the trenches. The plan regardless was to let the aliens advance a certain ways, and then open fire and kill a large number at once. They'd figure it out eventually, but the goal was to make the initial engagement as costly as possible.

"Do you think they'll charge?" Miguel asked. "Or-"

They were all suddenly cut off by a loud burst of static, which seemed to be affecting all of the nearby soldiers. "Greetings, ADVENT, and it is a pleasure to fight you on the battlefield today," a dry, sarcastic voice said over the radio. "I am Venadiar, Watcher of the Elders and Hunter of the great bitch herself, come today on behalf of your soon-to-be alien overlords, and am to give you a warning that if you do not surrender, blah, blah, you know how it goes."

The ADVENT soldiers looked around in confusion. "I'm sorry," Cara said to no one. "Who the fuck is that?"

"We all know how this goes," the alien continued. "And unlike my idiotic alien brethren, I won't waste any of our time anymore. But on the orders of the glorious Elders, I will lead the Collective to victory against you. Except that's rather trite and boring if I'm being honest, so we're going to do something a little different today."

Duri didn't know if this was something he should find intimidating or funny. Right now he just felt confused. "We're going to play a little game," the speaker, the Hunter, said. "The rules are simple and straightforward. There are two sides, Humans and aliens, you will fight each other. The one left standing, wins!" A pause. "And in the meantime, I get to kill whoever the fuck I want."

Duri exchanged a look with Cara in disbelief. "Was that supposed to be a threat?"

"The Vitakara seem just as confused," Beatriz reported. "I…don't think they know what is going on either."

"Get moving, imbecile aliens!" The Hunter growled. "I'm not going to wait just because you're scared!" Duri heard the faint sound of a weapon firing, even though he didn't know from where.

"Uh…" Beatriz looked up at him slowly. "Three Mutons are dead now."

"Same goes for you, Humans," the Hunter said. "If I have to kill all of you too, I will. And no, your trenches won't protect you."

The weapon fired again and Duri heard a scream further down the trench as a soldier was thrown back, helmet completely caved in and dead before he hit the floor. "How the fuck did he make that shot?!" Beatriz asked, alarm clear in her voice. "And from where?"

"Aliens are charging forward," Cara reported, voice tight. "Guess our trigger-happy alien friend is spooking them as well. Preparing to fire."

The long-range artillery fired in the background, and the lower floors of the Flak Towers also began firing from the windows. "Let 'em have it!" Duri commanded. "Open fire!"

As one the trenches of ADVENT fired, sending lethal gauss rounds and bullets into the defenseless alien horde, and the front line was ripped apart almost instantly. While they were still too far away to make an accurate shot, Duri contributed by firing in the general direction of the alien forces.

The armor the Mutons and Vitakara had was essentially worthless against the hail of ADVENT fire. Intermittent explosions claimed more aliens, as even more were falling in sprays of golden blood and torn metal. No man's land was also lit up with artillery fire, taking out even more scores of aliens. It wasn't anything close to a fair fight.

"This is more like it," the alien hummed in approval. "A bit too one-sided though. Let's even the odds a bit."

Duri heard, more than saw the explosion behind the trench lines. "What was that!" he yelled.

"Artillery piece!" Miguel yelled from behind him after around half a minute, one hand to his helmet as he listened to radio chatter. "Don't know which one or how that was taken out in one shot!"

"Yeah, you run away cowards!" Cara shouted as she sprayed more rounds from her Browning. "They're running away!"

"I can't blame them," Duri said, as he saw what remaining alien forces there were turning around and fleeing back to the alien-controlled territory. "I'd run too instead of a suicide charge."

"Oh, dear," the Hunter chortled. "The aliens are running. Well, I don't always pick my targets."

"Yep, he's actually shooting at them," Beatriz confirmed. "They're apparently arguing about what to do. Looks like they're going to try and build some kind of trench of their own." She snorted. "Which is going to be difficult since they don't have any tools. And assuming that we don't kill them first. Or our Hunter friend decides to take out a few more ADVENT targets."

Either way, the trench lines had held against their first major charge. How well they would continue to hold up would depend on what the aliens did next, and if this Hunter was going to continue shooting at both sides.

Duri grimaced. Someone who could apparently make a shot anywhere was not a risk he enjoyed having hanging over his head.

Based on how the alien talked, he suspected the alien enjoyed having that effect on people.

---

The Island of Hawai'i - Hawaii

Operation: Kamehameha – Day 1

11/21/2016 – 12:44 P.M.

The attack on Hawai'i was proceeding well, at least from what Sierra could tell. ADVENT had established Gateways on the island, as well as temporary command centers and supply depots. One of which she was at now, refueling and restocking before she went back out there. The good news was that the island was sparsely populated, and all the defenses were on the coast, where both sides were under attack as ADVENT was attacking from multiple points.

"Hey, Sierra, looks like the aliens are sending in their stronger units," Ted reported. "Elites are being reported. Almost all the gateways in this town are shut down or destroyed. The last few have Sectopods and Elites. They need our help."

Sierra activated her engines after doing a quick check to make sure everything was ready. "Copy, on my way now." She shot up into the air, roaring to rendezvous with the other members of her Host. The aerial view of the city illustrated the situation much better than she could put into words. The Purifiers had continued their work and there were noticeable swaths of the town burning, boxing the aliens in a ring of fire preventing retreat and putting them between ADVENT and toxic flame.

A fitting end for them, Sierra believed.

The Purifier teams had of course come under attack, but with Priest and Lancer support, as well as their own whenever they were called, there wasn't much that could stop them. Sierra saw where Ted and Anna were flying over now, plasma bolts flying up in their general direction. Anna had expended her replacement rockets some time ago, and was simply using her autorifle.

Ted was still shooting psionic lances, although he was noticeably becoming more tired as the fight progressed. The armor around his arms and hands was blackened, cracked, and in poor condition. XCOM really needed to develop more psionic-resistant armor. Two Runianarch Soldiers crumbled under one lance, and he swooped to the side as Sierra shot in, flamethrower extended as she moved to torch the street.

The orange-white flame spat from her wrist, engulfing the street and torching the Mutons and Vitakara as one. She spotted the Gateway not too far away, the massive red-armored Elites pouring through and beginning to raise their plasma cannons to her. ADVENT was advancing on the streets below, the Lancers picking off whoever was still alive.

Anna swooped down to briefly land on a flat rooftop as she laid down gauss fire on the Elites, causing them to roar in pain as they brought their rifles to bear on her. Sierra reached to her waist and pulled out a thermite grenade, and tossed it towards the trio of aliens. "Ted! Cut the power when I give the word!"

"What?" He demanded as the Elites howled as the thermite ripped through their armor and Sierra dropped from the sky to land in front of them. Anna saw what she was doing and began targeting the other aliens around her.

"Be quick about it," Anna warned as she shot a flanking Vitakarian soldier. "I can't hold them back forever."

"Doable," Sierra confirmed, raising her wrist and engulfing the weakened Elites in napalm. The exposed plasma of their weapons couldn't handle the heat and exploded, taking off their arms and much of their torso with it. That out of the way, Sierra took a few tentative steps forward, focusing on the Gateway itself, directing the flame towards the concentrated maelstrom of purple ethereal energy.

"Now!" She called to Ted who swooped down towards the powering cables, while she continued spraying flame into wherever the Gateway was connected to. She thought she heard shouts in the distance and smiled grimly at that. Ted's arm glowed with crackling psionic energy; a purple lance of energy shooting from his arm and with one swipe he severed the power.

The swirling purple vortex dissipated almost instantly and Sierra ceased her fire, and leapt into the air, jets firing the moment she was airborne. "One more Gateway for us," she commented in satisfaction. "Good job everyone."

"Think most of the aliens are cleared out here," Anna said, also rejoining her in the air. "Been listening to ADVENT comms. The other assaults are going well, and Hawai'i itself is almost taken. Nearly all Gateways are down and the stragglers are all that's left on this island."

"What about the inner islands?" Sierra asked, shooting down at one of said stragglers, a Muton who she killed with a few rounds to the head. "That's where the alien command is."

"Intact for the moment it seems," Anna said, swooping to the side and outflanking a Borelian soldier which she promptly tore apart with her autorifle in a spray of golden blood. "Don't know what they're planning, but the leadership is intact. Right now they're exchanging fire with ADVENT naval forces. Neither side is doing much right now. Guessing that will be our next target."

"Then let's clean up here," Sierra ordered. "Ted, how are you holding up?"

"I'm alive," he said non-commitally. "I can't feel my arms, and I'm exhausted. I need a stimulant, telepathic or otherwise, if you want me to keep this up for another island. Assuming that it's at this level of difficulty."

Sierra thought for a brief moment. "We'll finish up on this island, then we take a short break. ADVENT will likely want to have a coordinated attack for the inner islands. We'll take a look at you once this is done. Can you hold out until then?"

"I can," Ted confirmed, and as if to prove it, gestured a purple-encased hand towards a Muton and the alien was encased in purple energy which began eating away at him. "Let's finish this up."

An explosion in the distance several blocks over signaled another Sectopod falling. The bright sun above, Sierra appraised the scattered alien forces below her, determining where best to strike. In the end, she supposed it didn't matter too much. She picked one out, and angled herself down and gunned him down from above, like a lethal bird of prey.

That wasn't too inaccurate, in fact. They were indeed hunters.

Alien hunters, but hunters nonetheless.

---

Sacramento, California – United States of America

Operation: Sherman – Day 1

11/21/2016 – 11:46 A.M.

One thing Nuan had never really grasped before actually participating in combat was the sheer scale of war. It had been decades since there had been an actual, proper war with armies fighting over cities. Was World War II the last one? Every one after that seemed to get smaller, and more asymmetrical. Armies were removed in favor of guerilla forces, maneuvering was less important with the rise of airstrikes and drones.

Enemies were harder to defeat if they had no allegiance to a country. Terrorism had changed how war was fought, conducted, and won. But it clearly wasn't that way anymore. The aliens were a clear, present, and entrenched threat. They wouldn't be defeated by drone strikes or guerilla squads. Only by legions of men and women marching to fight them.

And it was going to take a very long time.

The mass of ADVENT and XCOM forces marching down a barricaded street was one Nuan figured would be on every propaganda piece ADVENT put out after this. Which she couldn't fault them for. It was a powerful image, especially seeing Humans of all various nationalities and backgrounds coming together to fight a common foe.

Somewhat romantic, in fact.

She was dreading the war coming to China though, not simply because it was her homeland, but because the war there would be messy at best. Beijing or Hong Kong consumed by war would be a nightmare of tactics, logistics, and scale. Not to mention that she didn't know where the civilians would go.

They couldn't just relocate hundreds of millions of people. And where would they go? What could support them?

China hadn't shared with her, and she doubted they would bother to ask her opinion.

The road, or the road the aliens had carved out, as it was clear that they'd removed multiple buildings and houses to accomplish it, was seeded with towers, barricades, and other defenses. They weren't close to the main base proper, but the defenses had only gotten more and more extensive. They'd just punched through a small base which had two Gateways, both of which they'd been forced to destroy.

Now things were getting more difficult as plasma was fired from the distance. Not to mention Geist had mentioned a little problem.

"Something is blocking me," he'd said non-commitally, brow furrowing as if it was a minor issue. "Large telepathic attacks are being negated. I suspect there is an Ethereal supporting them. An issue. I will work on subverting this."

Nuan found the man unsettling, yet at the same time trusted that he knew what he was doing. Maybe he was a good actor, but when he said he was 'working on subverting this', she got the feeling he might actually have a plan. She wished she had the ability to be literally unfazed by anything. The sheer confidence and command in his voice had also made him the leader of the current ADVENT forces they were with.

Although, she had to admit, he hadn't given them much choice.

Geist planted his feet and extended an arm, psionic energy flowing off him as a massive barrier appeared before them, effectively cutting each side off from each other. "Begin the establishment of a defensive line," he commanded. "Shieldbearers, prepare activation of PDS fields."

The MDUs in the group also advanced to the front, aware enough not to try and fire at the shimmering shield. The alien fire had stopped as well, and Nuan focused to see exactly what they were facing.

It was not encouraging. Four towers that were abruptly cut off at four stories were arranged in a square, and covered by a layer of black alloy. Within them were automated defenses and openings manned by what appeared to be Vitakarian soldiers. They were connected by walls roughly one story high, manned by….

She frowned. These were new. They appeared to be Mutons on first glance, but they were…altered. They were black-armored, almost mechanical in nature. They wore helmets and the eyes were a bright orange. "Iosif," she said slowly to the Templar as ADVENT continued setting up their line. "Do those Mutons look different?"

Iosif cocked his head and took a step forward. "I would say they were the Centurions. I know there were some in Japan, but they haven't shown up for a while. But they were different. Larger and they seemed more…alive."

Nuan, after watching them a few more seconds, realized the same thing. None of the Mutons had moved so much as an inch. Their weapons were also different. Many plasma weapons the aliens employed had exposed plasma innards for some reason, one Nuan could only imagine was for cost or maybe energy output, but nonetheless was a major flaw in the design.

The weapons these Mutons had kept the main model of the plasma rifles, but it was bigger, encased in the black alloy, and completely covered up the exposed plasma. "New unit?" She wondered out loud.

"Yes," Geist said unexpectedly, walking up to them, the familiar serious look on his face. "They come from Fectorian, an Ethereal specializing in cybernetic enhancement, and deployed on the direction of the Battlemaster himself. The aliens are intent on keeping these cities, we should prepare for an extended siege."

Both she and Iosif looked at him in mild surprise. "How the hell do you know that?" Nuan asked.

Geist sniffed. "The one protecting the aliens here is either incompetent or simply doesn't care. While I cannot take control of the aliens, there is shockingly nothing preventing me from reading their minds. These mechanical units have their brains cybernetically altered, which ironically, makes their thought patterns straightforward. I suspect I would not be able to alter their minds even if they were not protected, not at first. But it is not important, at this moment, they are waiting for orders."

Nuan somehow found the idea of Geist referring to an alien that was managing to somehow protect all aliens from mental control as incompetent highly amusing. But she limited it to a smirk under her helmet.

"I was similarly amused," Geist nodded, the faintest sliver of amusement running through his eyes. "But they are Ethereals in all likelihood. They are arrogant by nature and uncreative in their pursuits."

And he was right back to being creepy. "Please don't read my mind," Nuan said. "Take a cue from Patricia."

"Patricia is idealistic and deliberately handicaps herself," Geist said flatly. "I do not. But this is not the time for that discussion. We need to prepare for our attack." And with that he marched off to go speak to a trio of Priests.

Nuan decided not to dwell on it and regrouped with the other XCOM soldiers who were grouping near the front of the shield, behind the cover ADVENT was establishing. Soldiers were already using it, aiming their weapons at the alien fortress. More were massing out front, and she saw a mixture of those enhanced Mutons and…she squinted…Oyariah.

"Titans," Moriai stated, the scowl plain in his voice. "I remember them from Japan. The damn things took several rockets to take out just one."

Nuan had never seen them in person, and they definitely looked foreboding. They stood as tall as the Mutons, carrying massive shields that seemed to be made out of stone, nearly as tall as them, and in their free hands they held flanged clubs like Iosif's. Nuan knew they were naturally tough, and the black armor they wore was only going to make them more difficult to kill.

Then as one they began moving forward down the street towards them. The twenty or so Oyariah stood in front of the larger number of enhanced Mutons, effectively providing a barrier. Not that it was needed as the shield prevented anyone from firing on them. "Clever," Oliver commented. "Guess they're going to force us to do something unless we want them to get close."

"Take your positions," Geist commanded, walking up, with a dozen Lancer Executors beside him. "I will be lowering the shield momentarily. Begin firing. The Priests will provide offensive support, and when the Lancers and Iosif charge, focus your fire on the base itself."

The energy pulsating around his arm vanished and the shield fell. "Open fire."

The pounding gauss fire slammed into the Oyariah line, the sheer force causing them to slow momentarily, before they closed ranks even tighter than before and began advancing, although at a much more methodical and slow pace than before. Rockets firing from the Dragoons sped towards the Oyariah line and the Mutons behind them, although the damage done seemed negligible to the Mutons who shrugged off the loss of armor or limb and continued forward.

The Oyariah Titan shields hit had pieces blown off, but they still maintained their integrity. That was when the Priests began their attack. A psionic maelstrom erupted in the Muton ranks, ripping one apart at the center and causing substantial damage to the ones around him. Psionic shears of energy slashed around the Titans, although it seemed to not be having much of an effect outside of damaging the armor.

One Priest screamed some kind of battle cry, as she extended a hand towards the encroaching Titans, and one was slowly lifted into the air, and with a thrust of her wrist, was sent flying into the sky. Nuan was doing her own part as she firing into the line of aliens, although they all had to contend now with the fire from the base, which was constant and unrelenting; barrages of green plasma raining down upon them.

The Goliath was the focus of a good portion of the defense, and the Priests were maintaining shields on it as it returned fire. "Engage at close range," Geist directed calmly. "All ADVENT and XCOM forces, focus fire on base defenses and personnel."

Iosif and the Executors charged forward, and the Oyariah took the opportunity to finally split and charge the encroaching Humans. Over a third of their number had been killed, so it was a much fairer fight than before, discounting the Mutons behind them. Fortunately, Geist and the Priests were also on top of that.

The Mutons were clearly able to take more damage, and were unrelenting in their attack as they moved forward, firing steadily at the defensive lines. However, Geist seemed to have a way to deal with them. One Muton was suddenly surrounded by psionic walls, and the ceiling barrier above him suddenly slammed down, crushing it to the ground. A small psionic barrier also popped up between the melee duel and the Mutons, forcing them to go around while the Priests continued their psionic attacks.

As for the duel that was taking place, it was not exactly going as planned. The Humans were smaller and faster, but the Oyariah were also faster than they looked, and easily outmassed even the strongest of Humans. It wasn't so much of a duel as it was pairs of Humans and aliens avoiding being crushed by the other.

One Executor missed a swipe with his warhammer, and the Oyariah slammed the shield into him, forcing him to stagger back while a lighting strike with the alien's flanged club slammed into the Executor's knee, shattering the bone and while pinning the fallen Executor with the bottom of his shield. The Titan raised the club and slammed it down on the Lancer's face until it wasn't anything but mush inside.

Iron skin didn't do much for blunt injuries it seemed.

In general the shields were giving the Oyariah a gross advantage. That they also outnumbered the Lancers, even slimly, was also another advantage. One on one, it was clear that the Oyariah held the upper hand. Iosif was unsurprisingly doing the best, although he was more surviving instead of actually fighting.

Two of the Titans were fighting him, and he was doing his best to block their attacks by well-placed psionic shields, dodging, and when possible, giving return strikes of his own. Although there was little he could really do against the shields which the Titans continued to try and slam into him. "We need some help here!" Iosif called.

Geist motioned to several of the Priests, who directed their abilities not towards the Mutons, who while not completely destroyed, were far fewer than before. The Oyariah were suddenly thrown back, tossed into the air, frozen, or had their weapons torn away.

"Order the Hussars to eliminate the Titans," Geist ordered, as he created several more crushing prisons on the Mutons. "They are more dangerous than I anticipated."

The Officers quickly communicated that order, and a few moments later heads of various Titans began snapping back. Some took nearly a half dozen shots, but they did go down, leaking golden fluid form their faces. The Titans held in stasis allowed the remaining Executors and Iosif to get in some strikes of their own.

The helmet of a Titan crumpled under a two-handed blow from Iosif, and a repeat blow seconds later penetrated the head itself, spraying blood all around it. Nuan looked around the defense lines, trying to see how much damage they had sustained beyond losing many of the Executors. There were multiple ADVENT corpses from the Muton fire, and that from the base, and others who were being dragged away to be fixed by the Medics.

The MDUs had suffered losses as well, being easy targets and exposed to sustained plasma fire from a distance. Nuan couldn't tell what losses had been inflicted on the aliens, but she doubted that it was equal. She hoped it was, but realistically, that probably wasn't the case.

There were more aliens coming out of the base now, and they appeared to be Vitakara that had been similarly modified like the Mutons. Very not good. They were accompanied by drones, and were carrying what looked like tools with hovercarts behind them. Engineers probably, and ones who were likely trying to establish a closer line.

"The current strategy is ineffective," Geist said, swiping a hand towards the battlefield. "We need to reevaluate." The purple barrier between the two armies reappeared and the plasma fire slowly stopped. Nuan glanced around again, noting that there were many of the Priests who had taken their helmets off, and looked exhausted or sick. For some of them, this might have been their first actual combat mission.

Now protected, the Medics were everywhere, and the soldiers, Officers, and Lancers were rushing ammo around, reloading, and frantically talking with each other. Engineers were working on repairing and reinforcing the defenses, while Geist was frantically talking with several Priests and Officers.

The battle had now turned into a siege. Nuan supposed the plan now was to hold out until the main ADVENT army arrived. Air support was likely not going to happen until the main AA defenses were taken care of, and there were already dogfights in the skies.

Hopefully they could last until then.

---

Near Washington D.C. – United States of America

11/21/2016 – 3:17 P.M.

There were certain expectations in war. Humans in particular expected certain things from their enemies. There were fights on certain fronts that were to be expected. Japan, Korea, America, ADVENT knew they were going to be attacked. There was some honesty there. Both sides accepted that the war was going to be fought along the forever changing lines.

Yet there were certain things they would be surprised by.

An attack on the capital of one of their biggest countries was likely among them.

"We are approaching the outer defenses," the Battlemaster stated as they strode towards the city in the distance. "Prepare to open fire."

He had wondered how best to send ADVENT a clear message without provoking Aegis to significant action. Perhaps he would miscalculate here, but he doubted it. There were certain figures that would prompt a response. Chancellor Vyandar was one, and he doubted he would be able to penetrate the ADVENT HQ as Switzerland was by all reports, a fortress.

The same could not be said for Washington D.C, or President Nicole Treduant. The landmarks of America would be razed to the ground today, and their President would join the numbers of the dead. No holding back; the goal today was a simple display of consequences.

If ADVENT wanted to make a statement, he would oblige them.

"Honored Battlemaster," Senorium said by his side, the Warlock fully armored and ready for battle. "The Cleanser Ships are in position. ADVENT is likely aware now. They are requesting permission to open fire."

"Granted," the Battlemaster stated as they began approaching several of the outer trenches. While ADVENT maintained a garrison here, as well as some of the Flak Towers, there hadn't been a sustained effort to make it the fortress Korea was right now. Likely because they had not expected an attack here.

He was aware of what would happen once he was spotted, and indeed it probably already had. The President would be evacuated, likely through the underground tunnels from the White House, and evacuate at the Anacostia Naval Support Facility. The Battlemaster was expecting several additional contingencies, since he wasn't naïve enough to believe they would be so brazen as to make their actual evacuation plan publically available. How he had been able to find it with a simple Google search was baffling.

As such, the Cleanser ships weren't just going to target the Support Facility; they were going to target every airport in the D.C. area. While one focused on the airports, the other would hit any Flak Towers available. The protection fleet of Sectoid fighters would be sufficient assuming ADVENT could even reach them in the middling atmosphere.

The small strike force he had brought along were all chosen for specific purposes. Very few could fit in the Cultro, so he had to make do with what he had. The Warlock was an obvious choice, and would provide substantial psionic support. There were a dozen of Fectorian's modified soldiers, six of his Muton Ravagers who specialized in explosives and destroying buildings, and six modified Zararch agents, primarily long-range snipers.

The only other units were the four Spectres. Black humanoid figures who occasionally rippled as the nanites continuously recalibrated, they mimicked Humans and Vitakarians in shape, including the five-fingered hands, although they held no weapons in them. The heads were akin to helmets, with a symmetrical green light strip running down the sides of their faces. From what the Battlemaster had seen, this color changed once they were in combat. They said no words, but would follow his orders without question.

A half dozen yellow streaks rained down from the sky and slammed into the facility. The Battlemaster couldn't see it of course, but he could hear the muffled explosions in the distance. Another dozen streaks landed a short distance from that. The Battlemaster knew there was still a heavy civilian presence in the city, and thus many would likely die today, although he had taken several measures to mitigate that.

The airstrike on the main Reagan National Airport wouldn't hit the facility proper, but it would target the airstrips themselves, as well as the planes, rendering escape impossible. Aside from that, there was another rule enforced for his strike team. "Remember," he warned Senorium as the ADVENT soldiers in the distance began scrambling to get into the trenches. "Do not target civilians unless they attack."

"Of course, Battlemaster," Senorium planted his feet and drew upon the psionic energy as more airstrikes pounded in the distance. Encased in the swirling vortex of energy, he thrust a hand forward and hundreds of ghostly purple figures charged the defense lines. Scattered gauss fire and screams of panic greeted this, and the Battlemaster charged forward.

"Destroy your assigned targets!" He commanded, performing short staccato psionic dashes to make it more difficult for the Humans to target him. "Leave none in ADVENT alive today!"

The Spectres dissolved into a black swarm of nanites and joined the charge forward, as did Fectorian's soldiers. There were four main targets, which would be led by one Spectre and four of Fectorian's soldiers. The Warlock would continue waging a constant attack from the spot he was in now, continuously summoning more of his ghostly and disposable soldiers.

There were three targets the Spectre teams would attack: The Pentagon, the Anacostia Naval Facility, and from there, the underground tunnels, and finally a march through the city targeting the various monuments. At the same time, he and the remaining Spectres would march towards the White House and Capitol Building to destroy both of them. Once President Treduant was located, he would converge on her position and execute her.

The possibility of her escape was higher than he would like, but even if she was not killed, this would have a significant impact. The Battlemaster materialized in front of a trio of ADVENT soldiers rushing towards the trenches, and he decapitated them with one swipe, and sent another twelve around him flying with a telekinetic blast.

The Spectre materialized in the trenches and grabbed one soldier by the throat who began screaming as the Spectre infected him with nanites. At the same time it extended another hand towards the soldiers behind it, almost invisible wisps of nanites flying towards them. The soldier in the front began clawing at himself, and was gradually covered with a thin layer of nanites, and a few moments later he was still.

The gauss fire against it was ineffective as the Spectre simply opened up holes in itself where the slugs were calculated to hit, and they passed right through with no damage whatsoever. The Spectre dematerialized and rejoined the Battlemaster as he continued advancing forward down the street into the still-bustling city.

Behind him, the first of the new Spectres emerged. For all intents and purposes, they were the same thing, except they retained the outline of the victim. The Battlemaster decided to wait several minutes for the new Spectre army to form, and soon enough, they emerged. Black forms of ADVENT soldiers, with the now-red lines running down the helmet.

The Battlemaster had seen them work, and knew there was unlikely to be anything left of the body, and even the ones the Spectre had killed quickly would eventually rise as another one. Every nanite had the programming to create more Spectres, no matter if it was one nanite, or one million.

The civilians had noticed him as he continued advancing, and while he didn't attack, most broke down in an utter panic as he approached, swerving away and crashing, or getting out of their cars and fleeing on foot.

Inconsequential, not worth paying attention to.

However, they were making it difficult for the ADVENT soldiers to target him or the Spectres. Missed shots would almost certainly hit civilians, but he was not so hindered. While the soldiers yelled for the civilians to get down, he reached out with his two lower arms and telekinetically snapped the necks of the ADVENT soldiers in the area.

Normally he would spend some time fighting them, but today there wasn't time.

The Spectres paused by the bodies as they marched by, implanting several nanites to begin the creation of more Spectres. No holding back today. Not anymore.

Even if XCOM decided to engage, he did not plan to toy with them. He had a mission to accomplish, and nothing was going to distract him this time.

---

The Citadel, Situation Room – United States of America

11/21/2016 – 3:51 P.M.

The day had started out very well. To be fair, it was still holding steady through most of the day, but it was now starting to falter. The Commander had to admit he hadn't expected this to happen. Where the Battlemaster would show up was a constant guessing game, and he had expected LA or Sacramento, if he showed up at all.

But definitely not Washington D.C.

The Citadel was not quite chaos at this point, but something very close to it as reports were scattered and contradictory over what exactly was happening. The Collective had actually used orbital bombardment and had targeted the airports and Flak Towers. There were Firestorms being sent up to fight, but the damage was already done.

Given that they had specifically bombarded the place where the President was supposed to evacuate, it was likely that Treduant was a target for the Battlemaster. They hadn't received anything on her status, and the Commander assumed it would be a helicopter evacuation, although he didn't know if there were any that would be able to get there in time.

He wouldn't put it past the Battlemaster to blow up the whole White House if he learned there were helicopters going to it.

Tactically, this was a brilliant move, devastating as it was for ADVENT, and he was furious with himself that he hadn't anticipated it. Such a surprise attack seemed atypical of the Battlemaster, something more akin to what Quisilia would do. Which was quite possibly what the Battlemaster had been relying on.

And the response was going to take time since the team responsible for fighting the Battlemaster was on the West Coast, and had to spend valuable time flying to the other side of the country.

On top of that, the Collective had launched additional attacks.

"We're losing too much ground in Alaska," Commander Christiaens said grimly, looking down at the holotable. "It'll take a couple days to get support there, even if I can send several Russian Legions immediately. The Canadian Legions are preparing their own country, but they might not be enough. A lot of the Mexican Legion is also assisting us right now."

"It's luckily concentrated in a few cities," the Commander noted. "Even if they sustain heavy damage, they can hold out for a couple days at least."

She scowled. "Not if they decide to bombard us from space."

That was a good point.

"Still no word from the President?" He asked, hoping it wasn't rhetorical.

"None," she shook her head. "And apparently the entire city is under attack. The Pentagon is saying they're being attacked by cyborg aliens and some kind of nanite weapon. Others are reporting the same thing. Black humanoid things that dissolve and reform – and then replicate."

"No video?" He asked.

"Nothing actually usable yet," she said. "But we do have images of those psionic manifestations again. That Warlock is apparently with the Battlemaster, who is apparently not even giving us a chance to fight back. Apparently all those times before he was holding back." She rubbed her forehead. "He snapped the necks of a dozen soldiers with a gesture. Fuck. Even if I get every available soldier there, it will be too late, and I can't just bomb the city."

While the Commander didn't have any hesitation sacrificing civilians, he did agree there. It would accomplish nothing and likely not work. "At least he's not targeting them," he noted. "Which is…something."

"It works to his advantage," she said. "Makes us hesitate to open fire, and they get out of his way without him prompting. Win-win for him. Not to mention it doesn't give us more fuel for propaganda." She paused. "Although after this that's not really going to save him."

"Let's focus on the other battles," the Commander suggested. "We've both done what we can for D.C. Now it's up to the soldiers."

Despite that, he wasn't confident in what the outcome would be.

Hopefully the XCOM team could handle him.

And even if that was successful…these apparent nanoweapons might be a bigger issue.

He shook his head. One problem at a time. The Battlemaster was the key to their military operation. Weapons could be destroyed eventually; Ethereals were not so easy.

---

Los Angeles, California – United States of America

Operation: Sherman – Day 1

11/21/2016 – 2:10 P.M.

The battle had been proceeding relatively well; Patricia's domination had successfully permeated thousands of aliens and already she had forced the destruction of multiple Gateways, although the Collective had wised up and began sending through mechanical units and Vanguards, who while they couldn't resist her concentrated power, could protect themselves against the cursory commands she imposed on the more vulnerable aliens.

And then it had all been stopped, and she had been metaphorically kicked out into the real world with a burst of dizziness as the sights and sounds of the world rushed back to her. ADVENT Special Forces and soldiers were still rushing into the city, but she knew from briefly scanning the mood that it was a continuous hard fight.

Frowning, she closed her eyes and extended her reach yet again. The aliens she could still sense…but there was indeed something else there. She stiffened upon a cursory inspection, and felt the presence of something ancient. It wasn't the Imperator, she was familiar enough with him that she couldn't mistake his presence, which meant that there was only one logical explanation.

The Overmind.

She didn't bother turning around as her hands clenched unconsciously. So this is how you will try and force my hand, Imperator? Cheat?

"I did nothing," the Imperator stated walking forward, wearing the same form as before, although he didn't exactly sound displeased. "I suspect the Battlemaster asked for his assistance. Be thankful he is restricting himself to defense."

Patricia figured she'd might as well walk forward into the city itself, since her telepathy wasn't useful right now. Then would you politely ask him to leave?

"And why would I do that?" The Imperator asked, his voice split between amusement and sincerity. "What do you expect would happen?" He raised a finger at Patricia. "You are dangerous. You are a threat. It should not be surprising that you would be dealt with as one."

He paused briefly, then once more clasped his hands behind his back. "Nonetheless, my offer of help still stands. I know what the Overmind is doing, and how to combat it. There are more aliens coming in now, in numbers your soldiers will not be able to hold out against. Fectorian's soldiers are only some of what you should be concerned about, and I doubt you want to lose today after what has happened."

What are you talking about? Patricia mentally growled as she stormed around the street corner, ignoring the ADVENT soldiers snapping to attention as she passed them. The sounds of combat echoed in the distance, and she followed.

The Imperator kept pace beside her. "The Battlemaster has launched attacks across the coasts. South Korea is under siege, and the Battlemaster himself is attacking Washington D.C."

Patricia spun to him. "What?" She demanded out loud. "How?"

"Confirm it with your superiors if you wish," the Imperator dismissed with a wave. "I have no reason to lie to you, but I suspect that it raises the stakes for you. Now you cannot afford to lose. And why are you skeptical, Patricia? Is it because I am supposed to be your enemy that is holding you back?"

Just a little bit. She fumed, trying to consider the implications. And also because Aegis told me enough about what you can do. Letting you in my head is a bad idea.

"Debatable," the Imperator mused, glancing around at the rushing soldiers. "What I am offering is information. Knowledge. Things that you are continuously seeking. If you have a noted flaw, Patricia, it is that you lack nuance. You are blunt and see the world in certain ways, whereas reality is not as straightforward. Aegis represents one such viewpoint. I represent another. Neither are necessarily right, nor absolute, yet you insist that one is more valid than the other."

You are trying to confuse me, Patricia physically shook her head as she approached the frontal defense line. Plasma was flying in green waves toward the ADVENT and XCOM soldiers, as they besieged a carved-out tower which had likely been part of a greater block, and now was an alien command center. Surrounding it was a black alloy wall, with multiple barricades and cover placed in squarish formations around it.

Elites, Vanguards, Fectorian's soldiers, even Cyberdisks were floating above. The purple of psionic attacks flared on both sides, and ADVENT soldiers were falling, succumbing to plasma fire or psionic attacks. The aliens were filling out their ranks with reinforcements presumably from the Gateway housed within the tower.

"You do not need to fail, Patricia," the Imperator said. "Witness what I can do before passing judgement on my sincerity." She watched as he stepped forward, observed the battle before him, raised a gauntleted hand and snapped the fingers of one hand. As one the entirety of the alien forces, minus the cyberdisks, fell to the ground.

"I have taken the liberty of ensuring the Gateway is deactivated from the inside," the Imperator continued. "Consider this a lesson, Patricia, what I did you could have very easily done. Yet you are too quick to give up when faced with a roadblock, only returning when you have overwhelming strength to destroy it. Every psion has their weaknesses, and the Overmind is no exception. I can always give you what you want, but I am now curious what you can figure out for yourself."

The sounds of ADVENT destroying the Cyberdisks, and a few Vitakarian soldiers who were somehow still alive, faded in the background as she appraised the Imperator. I suppose I should say thanks. Whatever your reasons. If you're being so generous, might you kill the aliens elsewhere?

He smiled. "Not today, psion. But you should go for now. If I might offer some advice, take your position in the tower as the defenses are more entrenched further in. Goodbye for now, and I will be waiting should you accept my help."

And with that he vanished once more. He always left her with a lot to think about, and maybe she could do that once there was a lull. But right now they needed to take the tower and fortify it. "Secure the tower!" She demanded, marching forward, Creed rushing towards her. While ADVENT and several XCOM soldiers moved to help, he came up.

"Was that you?" He asked.

"No," she answered honestly. "Not this time. There's an Ethereal protecting them. Something was probably miscalculated. That's…easier to do than you think. It doesn't matter, we need to keep moving forward. It's only going to get harder."

Even through his helmet she could sense the questions swirling around. "Alright," he finally said. "We need to get caught up on the larger situation. Some of the things I've heard are bad."

"So I've heard," she muttered, still somewhat in awe at the sheer gall of the Battlemaster. "Let's get communications fully up."

---

Washington D.C. – United States of America

11/21/2016 – 4:39 P.M.

The area close to the White House had a large amount of military forces, and for what little good it did them, they put up a fight.

Unfortunately for them it was largely ineffective against the Warlock's psionic manifestations, and absolutely worthless against the Spectres. The nanite figures had reached the point where they nearly outnumbered the ADVENT soldiers in the area, and were spreading like locusts throughout the city. The Battlemaster found them to be by far one of the most useful units in combat.

No one was immune to them. He dashed towards a team of Lancers and blasted several back with a telekinetic push, snapped the neck of one, and picked up the other by the helmet and tossed her directly towards a Spectre. The body passed through the Spectre and emerged on the other side, completely encased in nanites and thrashing on the ground as they began consuming her.

Explosions in the distance signaled the fall of monuments and buildings. The Capitol Building was burning and the Spectres were already inside, killing the ADVENT personnel within. The Battlemaster had made the distinction between civilian and ADVENT clear – anyone affiliated with ADVENT in a governmental and military capacity was a valid military target, the rest were not.

Ironically, considering how Humans despised their politicians, some might not consider it a great loss. But the destruction of the center of United States government would hinder them for weeks at least, and with the President dead or in hiding, it would take longer. Streaks of gold from the sky struck intermittently, likely targeting more Flak Towers.

Now he was at his primary target, the White House stood in front of him and the ADVENT forces were going to fight to the death to protect it from him. Admirable, but pointless when facing his army of Spectres, who bore the appearance of the soldiers they had killed. He paused as he heard the familiar roar of a Skyranger overhead.

XCOM. Expected, and today, he wasn't going to waste time dealing with them.

Right on cue, three XCOM soldiers jumped out and two flew out, an odd combination. He recognized several of them. One wielded a warhammer encased in psionic energy. Chan Jin-Taek, if he recalled the name. The latter soldier who had dropped out was a larger concern. Matthew Hawkins, one of the Furies.

Target one was now designated. The telekine posed the greatest threat and needed to be eliminated. All of the Templars were approaching him like they were expecting a standard duel. He wouldn't resort to the Spectres, they did not fully deserve that level of refusal, but he was not interested in them slowing him down.

One psionic dash and slash later, aiming right for the neck of the Fury, and the headless corpse of Matthew fell to the ground before he could even make a motion. The Battlemaster lifted two of the Templars with a free hand and slammed them violently to the ground, while using his other free hand to grasp Chan telekinetically and pull him towards his grasp.

Another psionic dash forward, and the Battlemaster stabbed downwards into the skull of one of the Templars, a woman judging by the brief scream, and twisted the neck of the Templar in his grasp with surprising ease. It appeared he had not received the Iron Skin genetic modification, but nonetheless he was killed easily.

The other XCOM soldier, who he now saw wasn't a Templar, but another psion, on the ground he lifted up, and squeezed the helmet; applying physical and psionic pressure until it shattered under his hand and the skull underneath was crushed. He dropped the body and leapt in the air towards the Archangels, one of whom was unable to get out of the reach of his greatsword, and cut easily through the engines, forcing the Archangel to crash to the ground.

While not dead, the Spectres were converging, and he would die to them. He reached up with a hand to telekinetically grab the other Archangel, and began crushing it. The delicate components could not withstand the psionic pressure, and with a thrown hand the solder was slammed to the ground.

His back turned to the soon-to-be-dead soldiers, he resumed his march to the White House, seeing two more XCOM soldiers retreating in the distance. Snipers most likely, irrelevant. He had noted one had been wielding one of the electricity weapons, and felt some regret that he hadn't been able to test out the armor properly, but there would be time for that later.

A dozen of the Spectres peeled off to follow him, and he simply pointed to the interior. "Locate President Treduant, do not kill her without my command." His size made entering the White House an issue, but the Spectres would perform that task well enough, as well as kill anyone else inside. As far as he was concerned, the hard part was over.

While he waited, he observed the fires in the distance that permeated the air. The muffled booms of rockets signaled another relic of Human civilization falling. They would not see it that way, of course, but Humans placed a surprisingly amount of sentimentality and symbolism in their monuments and statues.

But that age of Humanity was over.

"President Treduant has been located," the dead voice of the Spectre informed him. "White House roof. She has not attempted to escape."

That was surprising. He would have expected at least an attempt. Regardless, he marched towards the White House itself and leapt upward, landing on the roof with a thud. President Nicole Treduant stood before him, closed a briefcase she held in her hand and calmly set it down to face him fully.

She didn't look any different than how she was during her various public appearances. Calm, charismatic, and proud. Fearless too, judging from the way she faced him.

It was the body language of a woman who had accepted she was going to die, and was going to go out on her feet. Admirable. He had intended to kill her quickly to begin with, but she had gained some respect in his eyes.

"Battlemaster," she finally greeted.

"Madam President," he briefly inclined his head. "I suspect you know what happens next."

She gave a sad smile. "I do."

"I am surprised you did not try and leave."

"We began," she said, looking away in the distance. "Although the bombardment rendered the initial plan impossible. The chaos made a ground exit similarly difficult, and leaving by helicopter would be conspicuous and would likely be targeted by your ships. So I did what I could. All ADVENT forces were ordered to retreat and you get to kill me. Little more I can do except fight a battle I'll likely lose."

She reached for the pistol at her side, and the two Spectres moved forward before the Battlemaster waved them off. She didn't pose a threat, not to him. "You are brave, Madam President. You will die well."

She smiled unexpectedly. "As will you, I hope."

"You cannot kill me. Nor can XCOM."

"No," she said. "I can't. But I'm not going to just let your army of…" she looked behind her. "They are made of nanites right? Little machines?"

"Correct. A highly advanced weaponization of nanotechnology."

"Good." Her smile widened, and the Battlemaster took a step forward. "I didn't want to make a mistake that big."

"Nuclear launch detected!" The CODEX suddenly interjected.

Impossible.

He looked at the woman in disbelief. "You ordered a nuclear strike here?!"

"It seems you do have some way to know," she lightly chuckled. "Not exactly. But you can't outrun it now. You like talking I guess," she lifted the briefcase. "Right before you came, I authorized a nuclear launch, and the rocket will detonate before you can escape."

Not likely, the Cultro could probably pick him up in time. But he didn't like the position he was being put in. "Killing me won't make the Collective leave. And my ship will arrive before the blast hits."

"Oh?" She asked. "Who said the nuclear blast was going to hit here?"

She looked down and the sky suddenly exploded in a blast of orange and white. He looked up to the sky and was wondering why she would bother launching a strike in the atmosphere when the ground below was hit with a noticeable shockwave. Then the Spectres began disintegrating; falling to the ground like dust.

The ones around Treduant were the same way. The lights across the city suddenly flickered off; cars stopped moving; the city itself came to an abrupt, screeching halt. Only now did the Battlemaster remember that an effect that a nuclear weapon had when detonated at a certain range was a dispersed EMP effect.

All of his suit electronics were no longer working. No communication with the Collective; no HUD, even his new resistance against electricity was likely no longer effective. Not once had he been attacked with that kind of weapon, and as such had never thought to have the suit hardened.

That was probably what Fectorian had mentioned when discussing the flaws of the suit. He should have listened and followed his advice more closely.

The situation was now surprisingly precarious.

In the distance, the Battlemaster saw the Cultro fall from the sky and crash. "Well," Treduant said coming to stand beside him. "It worked."

All he could do was nod. "Well done. It did."

Tricked again by a Human. They were certainly proving to be intelligent and worthy opponents. He couldn't hate them for fighting for what they presumed was their own survival. "You didn't target the civilians," she said. "Noble for an alien."

"No reason to."

"Do you want to say anything else to me, or should we finish this?"

He turned to her, right as she raised the pistol, waiting for him to make a move. "No. Die well, Nicole Treduant. It is an honor to kill you." Before she could even fire off a shot he lashed out with his sword and easily separated her head from her body in a spray of red.

The headless corpse tumbled over, the head a short distance away. The Battlemaster flourished his blade and considered the city before him. He had no communications, no support, and no direction. He was a target for ADVENT for miles around.

Unfortunately, he was nowhere near Collective territory, and he had no idea where the Warlock was, and it was likely ADVENT would be targeting him next. He would have to fight his way to safety, and that was going to be a long and bloody road.

With sword in hand, he jumped to the ground, and prepared for a long battle ahead.