And so begins Operation: Destroy That Gun! It may not have been classy, but it was succinct – the committee had admitted as much. The committee consisting of Cubbage himself and no one else, of course.
Still, the Elders have voiced no objection – and they know all. He looked up from the underpass, past the crumbling concrete and to the night's sky. For so many years Cubbage felt so small standing below a Citadel, or even simply gazing at one from the distance, feeling the combined callousness and implacability of their malefactors. Before, looked up at it as either a hapless citizen or posing as one, or standing in the far distance with starvation nibbling his every footstep. Now, from the forgotten underbelly of City 17, he stared up at it as a termite at the doorstep of a very wooden house.
Silhouetted against the impermeable night sky, massive in its own right yet so very small in comparison, a great alien gun pointed accusingly at the heavens – the Combine's very own middle finger against the Elders. Cubbage snorted. While he and his compatriots made use of the smooth and potent plasma guns, whose shape rarely resembled anything from popular media from before the invasion, the Combine's newest "invention" looked like a giant version of an alien ray gun – all fins, and a pointy end punctuated with a few disks that resembled transistors. A pale imitation, like everything they make!
The mutons to either side of him grunted, shifting from side to side. Every time their foot hit the ground it made a thump, and that just made Cubbage grin from ear to ear. The weight of it … the size of them! Who will fear the Overwatch moving forward? He lifted his left hand and opened his palm. Purple light shone from the center of his hand, sparked between his fingertips. The true future of humanity stands here. The true transhuman stands ready!
With a snort and a quick tweak of the old mustache (which had gone quite white, along with the hair – he'd be alarmed if Durand did not look much the same as him) he returned to the dig site.
The bugs worked with commendable speed, tunneling through solid concrete and melting their through rebar with a mix of their natural acidic venoms and their razor-sharp talons. One turned and gave him a hiss as he approached, its multi-faceted orange eyes giving Cubbage pause. He'd never seen one attack a fellow member of the ADVENT, but still … whatever control the Elders possessed over the chryssalids felt awfully loose to him – a like a barely-tamed dog given just a bit too much leash for anyone around it to feel comfortable. How often are they given a yank? Another section of wall fell away, and the bugs hastened to shore it up a bit before continuing, regurgitating a mix of concrete and their own resin to fuse things in place.
City 17 possessed a dark underbelly. All of the world did, truthfully, since it essentially ended twenty years ago. The Combine might have ruled the streets, but no one with a lick of sense would ever willingly stray into an abandoned basement or underpass. An entire section of the city lay quarantined when the fight became too much for Overwatch and Civil Protection – when Xenian fauna took root, it was a problem. When Xenian flora took root, the problem mutated into a catastrophe.
And now the Advent dug through the crumbling ruins, slowly. If the Citadel were to ever shut down fully and its thumpers turned offline, doubtless the antlions would follow the same path they did, through the dark and the dust. The chryssalids didn't like the thumping either – every now and again when they would stop to rest, Cubbage would watch them tremble and squirm in unison, at regular intervals. They can feel the tremors. But they remained, all the same. Whether it was their natural hardiness or the Elder's insistence to ignore the sensation, Cubbage had no idea. Another chryssalid looked back at him and clacked its mandibles. Cubbage glanced to his mutons, frowning. Much better company.
"Follow them for a bit. Let me check on the others." The mutons grunted an affirmative. Cubbage sidled down the abandoned parking lot, his bare fingers tracing lines of dust against the long-abandoned cars as he passed them by. The sounds of scrabbling came from every direction – they would approach this Combine gun from all directions as a coordinated swarm, not in a solid bloody line. He reached out with his consciousness.
The thin men waited on the rooftops, surveilling every Combine movement. Scanners and helicopters passed them by without ever seeing how they clung underneath the bridges, arms and legs stiffly held in place, or hiding behind dumpsters or other impossibly slim places, barely making a breath as their spines scraped against the brick.
The mutons filed together in squads, grunting at one another and flexing their tattooed biceps. To them, this would be the finest battle yet, the moment they would go from merely beating the living shit out of the Combine, to finally forcing them off this world. First the gun. Then the Citadel. Then the planet. It was happening. Dozens of squads, spread throughout old parking garages, breaking through basements, a handful even waiting in the lower levels of former resistance-friendly tenements. He could feel the anxiety from their citizen-collaborators. He could feel their antici … pation.
The cyberdiscs waited far outside the city, hovering motionless above the wasteland. Their thoughts felt cold and sharp, like jagged glass, alternating between a strong desire to inflict violence and running through sets of alien directives that Cubbage could make neither heads nor tails of. Despite this, he'd never felt uncomfortable around them like he did the chryssalids. They know what they are for. He barely spared a moment for the floaters that accompanied them in screaming groups of three and four. He felt pain. He felt rage. He'd known enough of that in his life already.
The sectoids scrabbled against the cold concrete in every direction like the furtive little roaches they embodied, if considerably easier to kill. When he reached out, they reached back, like children trying to join hands in a circle. Far be it from Cubbage to rebuff them. He let their minds link. A thousand individuals, yet all the same person, stared back at him, part amazed, part grateful … and part livid with jealousy. New One, they called out, New One, how could it be you and not us?
They possessed the gift, but in such a pathetic package. The Elders confessed as much, to him and to them. They would be taken forward on the journey, but only as passengers.
And first, they would die in droves. Reaching just a little further, the Combine ringed the Citadel, particularly the gun. How many, he could not say, and he dared not look long. Every time he tried to touch a Combine mind, one of three things would happen, sometimes in conjunction – a sensation of cold and horrible emptiness, a memory of lingering hollow trauma, or (worst of all) something would reach back. Some kind of dream or idea, nameless and thoughtless, yet hungry. The Combine possess a Gift of their own … but it would be more accurate to call it a sickness. Or a nightmare.
"Cubbage!" called out another fighter from behind another pack of digging chryssalids. Odessa Cubbage looked on the man, his angled red armor, heavy helmet that obscured his eyes, and the plasma rifle cradled in his arms. If that is how I look – I'm looking good. It was certainly a far cry from the scavenged metrocop uniforms and threadbare beanies of the old Lambda Resistance. He does not possess the Gift, however.
"Daniels," said Cubbage, nodding. "Time to contact is approximately five minutes. I can feel their presence close by."
"Amazing how you guys can do that, now," said Daniels, smiling. The smile died a little as he heard a chryssalid snarl behind him. He turned to look at the beasts, doubtlessly frowning beneath his all-encompassing ADVENT helmet. "I'm glad they're going in first. Are we sure we have to keep them around when this is won?"
"We all have our purpose to serve," replied Cubbage, hoping he was being sufficiently enigmatic. He nodded to the surrounding mutons, who returned the acknowledgement as best as they were able. "They'll lead the way. I'll be in touch."
One human for every four mutons, for every five chryssalids. He alone possessed the Gift, but the Gift alone did not make a fearsome warrior, as the mutons proved. Every one of them possessed years of combat experience between them, against the worst the Combine could be bothered to offer, and now they finally possessed the munitions to match the experience. The walls fall away, and we emerge from the shadows at long last.
Cubbage returned to his own group. The chryssalids wormed their way through the tunnels, punching through rotting wood and cracked concrete with barely a hiss of effort. Cubbage motioned for his team to follow, and followed the bugs into the hole. Fifteen feet in, the bugs stopped before what once had been a parking space for larger vehicles – trucks probably. Cubbage stepped past the barrier rested his hand against the wall. The hair on the back of his hand stood on end. Energy. A lot of it. The Combine line waited. Do they know? The air felt thick with anticipation, but from whom? He slid his palm against the wall and pulled it away, licking his lips. Colonel Odessa Cubbage unslung his plasma rifle and reached out to his other teams.
This is Colonel Odessa Cubbage. We are ready to punch through. All teams report in.
The dig teams responded in the affirmative – even the chryssalids howled in acknowledgement. Mutons thumped their chests. Thin Men slipped from the rooftops and to the dark streets below, silent and poisonous. In the far distance, cyberdiscs and floaters prepped to take flight, and their own ADVENT dropships completed their pre-flight checks.
"New One." The voice of an Elder, from far above in the orbit. "New One, go forth. Topple their gun. Make way for the finishing blow. Liberate this planet, that we may unite your species and those who wield the Vortessence. We wait for your victory."
"And you shall have it." Colonel Odessa Cubbage pressed his hand against the wall once more, feeling the energy running through it, the bugs that dwelt within it, the compromised structural integrity that would shortly doom it. He glanced back at his alien compatriots. Fight hard. Die well.
"Well, gentlemen," said Cubbage, turning his extended palm into a fist, "on my go, through the breach. No matter what lies on the other end, we must push forward. The momentum must be maintained." No response came. Given half of his audience were chryssalids and the other half possessed no knowledge of English, this was unsurprising. He made sure to relay his orders mentally as well.
"Good luck," he continued, drawing his fist back. The fingers began to burn with purple energy, the smoke curling up past his knuckles. Good night.
Cubbage punched the wall full force. The concrete blasted outward in an enormous column of anomalous energy, sending shrapnel spinning all directions away from the opposite side of the wall. With howls and hoots, his alien compatriots advanced on either side, hulking and spiked forms rushing past him through the dust and debris. With a smile under his newly-white mustache, Cubbage strolled behind them without a care in the world. Above, the Citadel let out a clarion call. Muffled bangs echoed across the city as the planet itself began to scream.
Then everything went to hell. From every direction, bullets. Pulse rounds thudded against concrete, armor, meat, and bone. The chryssalids screamed as they pushed through it, while the mutons found cover behind ancient vehicles and barriers. Cubbage merely frowned and erected a kinetic field, its soft purple energy slicing through the dust, stilling the chaos in its passage. He casually sauntered over to a muton and crouched next to him. The pulse rounds that struck closely home zig-zagged in improbable directions as they came close, the kinetic energy gently encouraging them elsewhere. Cubbage did not feel as much as a whistle by his ear.
"Attention ground units," said the Overwatch dispatch voice, making Cubbage prick his ears and close his eyes. His mind found the ears of distant crows, those far enough from the fighting to avoid being startled. He used theirs in place of his own, which still rang from the explosion. "Stabilization teams report major exogen breach. Loose viromes detected. Infected anti-citizens detected. Hold and reinforce hardpoints. Deploy all available sterilizers. Delay. Diagnose. Clamp."
Holding action. Good sign. Cubbage looked up and over the car. Ceiling-mounted turrets blared with incredible amounts of fire, puncturing tires and perforating car doors. A dozen Overwatch soldiers stood in a line, practically shoulder to shoulder, pulse rifles blazing. The chryssalids already rushed forward to meet them, one or two collapsing under the weight of fire. Cubbage hoisted himself out of cover to join them, to lend them his shield.
Green bolts of plasma answered the Combine's frantic deluge. A ceiling turret burst into melted slag and tried to retreat into its ceiling-mounted casing, only to fall apart completely. An Overwatch soldier caught a blast in the chest and became engulfed in emerald fire, his weapon exploding in his arms. All the while, Cubbage closed to knife-fighting range.
His first target ducked a chryssalid's grasping claws and unloaded his pulse rifle into its face, shearing it to splinters. By the time he turned to Cubbage, he had already aimed his own plasma weapon square the soldier's face. With a single squeeze of the trigger, the soldier's cranium promptly decided it was through with being a solid, and elected to become a liquid.
Around Cubbage, the mutons howled. The bravest, taking full advantage of Cubbage's kinetic field, sprinted to the remaining ceiling-turret, the bullets practically redirecting themselves at 90 degrees thanks to Cubbage's influence. The alien leapt at the gun and grabbed it, like a chimpanzee trying to swing from a branch. The gun came loose with a screech, and the muton flung it to the ground and stomped on its crackling remains with a war cry. Cubbage smiled as he heard the remaining soldiers give the predictable cries of "Outbreak!" and "Sector is not controlled!" as they backpedaled, laying down yet more ineffective fire on Cubbage and his men. The Colonel lazily returned fire, liquefying another soldier before standing still, taking the time to laconically slot another power cell into his rifle. May as well keep things topped up.
Cubbage reached out with his mind. The fight went well in the other zones, the Combine falling back before the onslaught of muscle and chitin. The Thin Men took the overland approach, delaying reinforcement, and their own aerial attack just now began to crest the city limits. So far, so good. He found a crow and listened as best as he could to the next Overwatch dispatch message.
"Your attention, please. Local stabilization teams, confirm status. Overwatch acknowledges major exogen breach. Major airborne pathogen presence detected in outlying blocs. Entering Phase 6 – enhanced compliance. Stand by for temporary local advisory oversight. Uploading override codes."
Cubbage frowned. That's new. Phase 6? Advisory oversight? Is Breen himself going to give orders like Hitler from his fucking bunker, now? He hoped he would get his time with the man. He was half-tempted to go further afield with his mind, find if and where he was making a Breencast at this moment, listen to whatever utter tripe he had cooked up. But he had no time. I could ask the man face-to-face, soon enough. Cubbage raised his fist and then extended a hand forward. He and his men charged, howling, after their prey.
The tunnel extended out into what once must have been the tunnel of a highway, and this time Cubbage paused. In the distance, great shapes lurched into the defensive line. Flanked by turrets both mounted on the ceiling and deployed free-standing on the ground, a great hunk of bronzed and angry metal, bristling with guns and strange blue lining Cubbage associated with synths, stood squat against the roadway. As his people broke in from all directions, the four legs supporting the great trunk of livid weaponry widened its stance, a chaingun revealing itself from beneath its massive torso.
For a moment, Cubbage flashed back to the seven hours of horror he had somehow survived. Dear God. It's been years since I've seen these. The crab synths let loose a terrible howl that crossed between an electric guitar's feedback and a berserk gorilla and let loose.
This time bullets did whizz past Cubbage's ears as he sprinted frantically at the enemy line. His kinetic field just barely held up against caliber of this size and fire of this intensity. He returned fire with his own pulse rifle. One turret went up in flames, but when he tried to drill a crab synth, five rounds rapid, he only left angry smears of burning metal. Shit.
The berserkers and chryssalids closed the distance first, batting away the handful of Overwatch soldiers who got in close with their shotguns. One berserker caught a spray fully in his left arm, sending it flying in a waterfall of green, only to backhand the head off of his attacker. A chryssalid pinned a soldier and swiped its throat out. Cubbage suppressed a sigh as it leaned in for a kiss. Surely, they've realized we cannot convert Overwatch soldiers into more chryssalids at this point? But, as always, the chryssalids did as they pleased.
The crab synths did not retreat. As the other Combine soldiers backed up around them, laying down panicked suppressing fire, the crabs folded their chainguns back within themselves, reared on their squat front legs, and charged.
A muton berserker tried to catch the first one's charge only to be hurled into next week, his body blurring from the impact as he flew past Cubbage and into little more than a bad memory. It swept with its right leg and splattered a chryssalid against the highway wall. Sensing what was to come next, Cubbage pulled out a plasma grenade and cooked it. When the crab synth turned to him and the mutons standing next to him, the chaingun promptly popped out from the plating once more. Cubbage rolled his grenade under it.
The synth staggered backwards as the flash of green evaporated its gun. Mutons pounded their chests and fired indiscriminately at the fresh hole. Another crab synth staggered by, trying to shake off the three chryssalids (and one terrified and inexplicable sectoid) clinging to its top and clawing at its plating. Cubbage kept firing at his own would-be-executioner, squeezing the trigger until his plasma rifle wheezed out a pathetic hiss. He reached for another power pack as the crab synth toppled, accomplishing what he'd dreamed of doing since those terrible seven hours twenty years ago.
"Up and over!" he called out to the survivors, pointing to the ramp that led upwards, out of the underbelly and towards the Citadel. Sectoids joined minds and sent their strongest forward. Mutons plugged their wounds with steaming pieces of shrapnel. The chryssalids ploughed on heedless, even if they missed an eye, a leg, or most of their lower jaw. And around him, Cubbage could hear them. His people, his citizens. Humanity, plunging inwards for the kill. He almost forgot to listen in once, more, finding a crow on a power line, eagerly waiting for the dust to settle and the carrion to ripen.
"Overwatch confirms status of stabilization teams. Multiple hardpoints overrun. Symptoms confirm prior diagnosis. All ground forces, hold for slingshot."
Definitely a new one. Still, they were committed now, and most of what Cubbage heard could be summed up as "We are getting our ass kicked, stand by to get our ass kicked some more." It would take more than conjuring a few ancient nightmares from the war they lost to win the war they were currently fighting. Cubbage and his men crested to the top of the freeway and stood under the stars as conquerors. Before them lay only the ruin of City 17 that had been siphoned away by the Citadel, its buildings scraped into the yawning maw of that monster for God knew what reason. The Citadel, and its gun.
ADVENT dropships thundered overhead. A sectopod plopped down next to Cubbage, freshly deployed. It unfolded into its squat combat stance and began to advance. Other ADVENT troopers like Daniels dropped from above, a mix of red and gray armors, plated and mean. Above and around, floaters and cyberdiscs alike hurtled towards the Citadel, eager to meet the Airwatch that doubtless soon came to meet them.
That is strange. Where is Airwatch? The dispatcher had not even mentioned them. Hell, he couldn't even see any dropships – as far as he could tell they weren't even bothering to reinforce their lines, just setting and forgetting, falling back as became necessary. Have we drained them that dry already? But Cubbage could feel up and outwards for the Combine, wincing as they again tried to reach back. The enemy felt empty inside. It also felt distinctly numerous.
But it was too late to do ought else but commit. Cubbage howled in wordless fury, the fury of a man who had spent too long running and fantasizing about the day he would get to turn around. Even the mutons could not match the screams of humanity this day, and the first wave of ADVENT troopers flooded down the ramps in a tide. Roller mines popped loose from the concrete, only to burst into shrapnel, no match for plasma energy. The gun loomed large overhead, planted athwart what once would have been a massive roundabout.
The gun's perimeter bristled with firepower. Crab synths ploughed outwards in all directions, scattering infantry with sweeps of their pincered feet and blistering pulse fire. Grenades burst in the roadway, thrown with reckless abandon by the clearly-overwhelmed Overwatch. Cubbage's kinetic field sent the bullets thrown his way in all directions but his, and his plasma rifle coughed emerald death at the defensive line. He paused only to throw another grenade, forcing another gap in the enemy's defenses. He laughed as the chryssalids reached said gap.
Floaters dumped plasma from above, a direction the Combine clearly had not prepared for. A soldier plummeted from one of their watch towers, a Thin Man taking his place and taking careful aim with his own pulse rifle from above. A crack went up a window somewhere up high, and an ADVENT trooper fell, sprawling. As Cubbage felt his own flash of anger at this loss of life, a sectopod echoing his outrage with its primary gun. The entire floor of the building the sniper occupied shattered like glass, and the building began to topple on itself.
Combine soldiers stood and died. The crab synths left death in their wake, only to fall in turn to their own swarm. Cubbage stood at the foot of the gun, frowning.
Power source. Where is the power source? Ideally, he did not have to destroy the whole thing, just disable it. If given time, the Combine preferred to leech electricity off the grid, like the Citadel did, but he saw no cords or power lines. In a pinch, they also liked to use vortigaunts. Yet Cubbage felt none around him, trapped or otherwise. He just stood there, surrounded by allies, faced with this large and imposing gun, two-hundred feet tall, pointing up at the Elders like they owed the Combine money.
The slow and stupid way, then. Cubbage reached out, ordering all forces to back up, away from the gun. They retreated, leaving only the dead, allies and foe alike, scattered in their wake. The heaving battlefield of the roundabout became a mass grave. Now, Cubbage turned to his assembled men, lifted his hand, and pointed to the gun's supports, dug into the ground like a tick to one's flesh.
"Topple it!" he screamed, foam flying through his mustache.
Plasma, hot and green. Fusion blasts, blistering the air. Fresh explosions. The gun began to shift as the earth beneath itself boiled, further loosening its footing. The massive structure started to shift, the accusing finger waving back and forth disapprovingly. As the sectopods finished their final volley, a great groan shook the very foundations of the freeway they stood upon. With terrifying finality, the gun gave one more lurch, then began to tip towards Cubbage and his people.
While everyone around him frantically retreated, shouting, Cubbage only smiled. The gun picked up speed as it fell, but Cubbage lowered his kinetic shield and lifted his arms. The gun came to a juddering halt as he grabbed its tip, then, gently, lowered it like a child into a warm bathtub. Finally the gun lay still, its accusing finger now pointing at Cubbage, who strode up to the tip of the once-mighty weapon and gave it a single flick of its finger. And with that, it is done.
He didn't have to listen through a crow this time. The Overwatch dispatch blared, and this close to the Citadel, Cubbage could hear just fine.
"Vital alert – major verdict deserviced. Ground forces - hold for slingshot. Massive signature imprint detected."
Slingshot again? But it was a momentary distraction. The air above hummed. The clouds parted. With a great shimmer, the battleship revealed itself. Flanked by smaller scout UFOs, its own size hardly rivaled the Citadel, but unlike the Citadel it flew. It moved in now for the kill.
ADVENT troopers and mutons alike lifted their rifles and shouted. "For Earth!" "For the Elders!" and all sorts of other personal cries. Cubbage simply stroked his mustache and, despite himself, felt the tears began to well. Relief. Blessed relief. This is it.
The battleship, a great length of purple metal, itself an accusing finger, drew level with the Citadel, its own weapons primed to let loose. Whenever Airwatch deigns to show itself. When the Citadel gave no apparent reaction to its presence, the engines flashed, and the battleship began to lift. The dark energy reactor. It's going for the reactor. This is it!
As the tears ran down his cheeks and through his white mustache, Cubbage did not even notice as his plasma rifle fell from his grip and into the mulched concrete. Go on, then. Take us all to heaven. His arms lifted upwards, in blessed relief, in love for his Elders.
The ground beneath hummed and shook. The Citadel, so long stuck in its artillery configuration, began to shift. Its great ribs twisted and twitched, while the plates lowered, shielding its own gun and moving from artillery … to surveillance? The ground trembled again, and Cubbage looked down from the battleship and to the base of the Citadel. Every hair on his body stood on end as anomalous energy blazed forth from its depths.
The field, invisible yet impenetrable, surrounded the battleship in an instant. Its engines ground to a halt and began to strain against restraints it could not see nor understand. One of its escort UFOs in just the wrong place at the wrong time promptly sheared in half as whatever energy field the Combine concocted cut through it. One half of the smoking craft fell in ruin to the earth, while the other half remained trapped in place, like a fly on paper.
And just like that, everything stopped moving. The battlefield, such as it was, froze in place. The battleship, trapped in a bottle, unable to move. And Overwatch spoke, in a tone Cubbage had never heard before – where once she spoke with clinical precision, now she sounded almost … angry?
"Vital alert: Coordinated constriction is now underway. All ground teams: hold for extra-terrestrial combat reinforcement. Airwatch – initiate skydrops and administer antibiotics. All units – prep for invasive procedure."
All along the Citadel, the bay doors opened. Now they poured out, the troops Cubbage had wondered about, and not in the numbers he had been expecting. Gunships emerged not in ones and twos, but in sixes and dozens, running escort for the dropships who clutched striders and troop canisters alike to their bellies.
Countless spheres began erupting from the surface of the Citadel. The circular ones, scanners, began to swarm the suspended ship. The others, smaller and letting out high-pitched whines, began to descend.
"The hacks!" cried the ADVENT. "Here come the hacks!"
A hunter chopper buzzed the streets, its floodlight almost blinding Cubbage. When he reached out with his mind now, he could feel the Combine everywhere, grasping, closer than he'd ever felt them before. Something wants us. Something wants me!
From above, the Elder manning the battleship cried out in anger, flanked by a near-panicked Annette Durand. The crew prepared for boarding, even as they pushed the engines to their breaking point. A dropship flew overhead, and a strider unfolded its legs atop the roof of what once might have been a supermarket. Cubbage, frantically trying to reassert some kind of control, reached out to control it, as he had in City 14.
The strider laughed as the device so crudely stapled to its brain activated. Cubbage clutched his head and fell to his knees as some kind of feedback snapped back to him, making his entire being buckle in agony. He saw enough of the strider's vision to realize something else, as well.
The strider's new plasma gun, also crudely implanted to its chassis, let loose. Its green spray promptly blew off the leg of a sectopod, as well as the muton standing next to it, while the second volley of rounds destroyed what remained of them. It chortled in amusement as it turned its new toy on the chryssalids scattering in all directions, who had finally met their match in physical ferocity, it seemed.
Cubbage opened his eyes just in time to witness a solid metal cube plummet to the earth not twenty feet in front of him. As the dust cleared, it unfolded, its chassis undented by the impact, a gun built into one arm, some kind of hose into the other. The words Scythe-3 and a strange variant on the Overwatch emblem lay splashed clearly across its chest. Its gun arm started to whine.
"Scythe-3, status is green. Beginning sector sweep." Its voice boomed like thunder. Then, in opposition to how things normally worked, came the lightning. Its gauss rifle cracked, decapitating another panicking ADVENT soldier. But that wasn't what ultimately broke Cubbage. It was the sounds of one, two, three, then four more similar booms behind and around him that made him start to back up, start to run, even as people screamed at him, both vocally and mentally, for instruction.
Mouth agape, heart hammering, all hope banished, Cubbage took one last look at the trapped Elder vessel above him, and then ran full pelt in the other direction, weapon and Gift forgotten. Triumphantly and aggressively, Overwatch made the final announcement Cubbage would hear that battle.
"Dissect. Repurpose. Absorb."