Annette stared up, and up, and up at the looming monolith of the Citadel. Through the shimmer of their infernal energy shield, slats parted up and down its thick trunk, spraying yet more infernal synths and mechanical monstrosities in their direction.
In every direction they buzzed, armored and angry. Scanners, manhacks, dropships, gunships, and even a handful of angular synths she could not recognize, although she recognized elerium trails when she saw them. They're juicing on elerium, now. Incorporating our energies and designs. She kept her eye on one of the sparkling blue trails, her mind tracking its spiky intentions as it wound round the entirety of the battleship's hull, smoothly making a circuit in under thirty second. They're fast.
The Elder floated next to her, its arms folded inside its crimson robe, its expression impossible to discern beneath the ornate mask. Yet the anger – and the fear – came out in steady pulses of red, streams of orders and panicked intentions radiating out to key crewmembers as the Elder desperately sought some way to cut themselves free of this spider's web.
Annette waited patiently for the moment the Elder would realize what needed to be done, when it would turn to her with that quiet authority and announce how the Combine's overconfidence would be their undoing. Instead, high above them, a familiar face flickered into view, his teeth shining. Some massive projector from within the Citadel now did them a further disservice by broadcasting Dr. Wallace Breen's smug face just below the cloud layer for their viewing pleasure. His exact features were difficult to discern, given the sheer size and grain of the image, but Annette recognized those brilliant white teeth anywhere. And as for the voice…
"Well, if it isn't Earth's newest visitors, here to knock on our door. At last."
Wallace Breen's words echoed through the barrier and the din of countless circling synths. The Elder stiffened. Annette spat on the floor next to her, wishing the bastard could see it. The Elder tilted its own head upward, glaring back at that dazzling white smile.
The synths continued to circle. Hundreds of feet below, the battle raged on, dozens of death on both sides every minute. Flashes of green and orange illuminated the empty air below, beyond the edge of the ship. A peal of thunder sounded overhead.
"Well, since I have you as a captive audience, I may as well take the time to explain the state of things," said Dr. Breen, in the practiced tones of someone who spent a great deal of time in the mirror. "Allow me to take the time to personally express my displeasure at your ongoing efforts to destabilize the rehabilitation of the human race after a series of devastating conflicts, and for coming to the questionable conclusion that what Earth needed, after the prior two extradimensional wars, was an additional extra-terrestrial struggle."
Annette glanced at the Elder again. Two of its hands now protruded from the crimson robes, the fingers pressed against one another. The Elder bowed its head, as if in prayer. Please have a way out of this…
"Up until this moment, doubtless you have pressed on, heedless of your own devastation, lumbering forward under the conclusion that this is a conflict you could win," continued Breen, some steel creeping into his tone now. "Even more disturbingly, it seems you have co-opted some of our own wayward citizens to share this view, despite having witnessed twenty years ago how the might of our own ingenuity measures against the Universal Union."
"You sold us out," hissed Annette, fists balling, the tears stinging her eyes as the rain began to fall.
"So let this moment act as a clarion call – a return to reality for all parties involved," said Breen, his arms spready wide now. "This vessel that you have so kindly donated to our Benefactors will be taken, and its crew summarily dealt with to the fullest extent of Universal Union law, which I assure you will be neither a terribly pleasant nor expedient process. However – should a so-called "Elder One," submit themselves for immediate interrogation, non-human crew members will be permitted to evacuate to the best of their ability without active interference from Overwatch forces." Dr. Breen chuckled. "The choice is yours. Message will loop every two minutes. Save for this next sentence." His voice dropped. "Begin the bombardment."
"Overwatch acknowledges substantial antibodies in primary infection zone," came the reply of the Overwatch AI. "Administering immunosuppressants."
Muffled bangs erupted all over the Citadel, and dark shapes flew upwards from the many opened slats. For a moment, Annette did not know exactly what was happening. Then she saw the first shell crater into the hull in front of her, the rocket puckering from the exposed deck like a tick. It sat there, smoking for a few moments, before the rear end of the headcrab shell opened up. Oh no. No! Not like Ravenholm!
"Such spite," said the Elder, as the first headcrab, pitch black and its legs covered in wiry hair, leapt from the canister. "They care not for their own forces who must fight in this hell, only that we suffer more than they do."
Another canister burst against the hull behind them, making the ground ripple. Annette turned, snarling, readying her own rival, only for the Elder to lower it with a gentle push of the hand.
"Steady, child. The crew will make quick work of them. We must secure our own future."
The buzzing around them intensified. The synths now closed the distance, taking advantage of the chaos the headcrabs doubtless instilled amidst the gunnery crews and security teams. Blasts of green plasma and red fusion energy still erupted from their battleship. A gunship burst into blue chunks overhead as fusion blast caught it full in the belly, making Annette grin. That grin vanished as three additional gunships replaced it, their own bellies blazing with blue light. She never physically saw which crew they exchanged fire with, but she felt them disappear in a column of blue light all the same. This close to the Citadel … there's going to be too many.
"What are we going to do?" asked Annette, using her mind as well as her actual voice, struggling to make herself known over the din.
"Secure my personal craft," said the Elder. His lengthy fingers briefly caressed Annette's face, sending a flurry of images. "It is small and swift. It may yet punch free. They are here for us, child. The ship itself is only of passing interest. They crave our Gift, and our knowledge. The crew will fight to the last. For us."
There are humans in the crew. And Chum … Annette did not say this aloud, however, only looked over the chaos. A Thin Man wrestled with a headcrab latched to its cranium while a sectoid looked on, aiming wildly. A dropship lowered over a broken gun embankment, its troop container laying down heavy suppression fire, while mutons huddled and waited for the juicy contents within to expose themselves to their rifles. A sectopod fired heedlessly into the heavens, emptying fusion and plasma blasts alike at the fleeting forms of those sharp angular synths, their speed rendering them too fast to catch. A spindly hand rested on Annette's shoulder, pulling her free from the chaos.
"I will send your friends to you, child," said the Elder, and Annette genuinely could not decipher if it had read her mind or simply *knew* this as what Annette wanted. Does it make a difference? The hand gave her a small push as it lifted. "Go. Swiftly now. Make ready for my arrival. I will see to scuttling the ship."
Annette sprinted to the nearest ramp that led into the bowels of the ship, the rain slick against the alien alloy beneath her. She darted past a Berserker wrestling a hunter, both sides punching holes in one another as they locked limbs and screamed. A dropship carrying a strider burst overhead in a flash of violet – the Elder's work – sending the tripod howling into hell in a violent display of thrashing legs. A chryssalid spun in place, trying to dislodge the poisonous headcrab latched to its head and feebly attempting to gnaw its way through the armor.
Below, the chaos did not dim. She felt a flash of consciousness and dove to the side. The wall to her left glowed bright blue and promptly blew inwards, leaving her ears ringing. A strider poked its gun through, and now Annette could hear the faint sounds of metal being punctured with every step it took along the ship's hull, to which it clung to like a spider. Annette kept very still as the strider turned its gun left, then right, then left again, as she remained prone, her breathing steady. The strider pulled itself up and away out of the hull breach, only for the low drone of a dropship to replace it. As Annette rose unsteadily, she almost buckled again as a troop container rammed against the fresh breach, the door promptly opening. Damn it!
Annette sprinted away, down and into the depths. Strange wailing klaxons sounded down the corridors, and sectoids rushed past her to plug the breach, their own little hearts hammering in their chests. Familiar Combine callouts echoed behind her.
"Exogens detected. Overwatch, we've got loose viromes in this zone."
Gunfire chattered in her wake, but Annette did not slow until she reached the next sublevel. She paused at the top of the ramp, feeling forward. Only gnawing hunger reached back – Combine yes, but also too many victims of headcrabs. She sighed, readied her weapon and proceeded down the steps, only for something to stop her.
I haven't seen those in years.
"Wallhammer, prep necrotics for stasis and transport," called out the Elite, its own red optic blazing even through the smoke and the flames of the canister impact. A large Combine soldier, padded and tall, brandished a stun baton and lashed out. A sectoid zombie, small but ungainly, fell in a crumpled heap, stunned. Another Combine soldier, one of the regular variants, reached down and pried its still-attached plasma pistol loose. Oh. Oh no.
ADVENT weapons disintegrated on death. But headcrabs did not strictly kill their victims, leaving the guns intact. A muton zombie gargled and roared, but its shambling strike did little more than make the Combine Charger grunt before dealing an electric blow to the side of its neck-equivalent, sending it twitching to the floor. The Thin Men zombies, shrieking, slithered across the floor, having fully forgone the use of their legs. Watching the Charger chase them down might have been funny, had it not been accompanied by the sight of Combine soldiers carrying armfuls of plasma weaponry behind him.
Annette knew her mission. She also knew she'd be damned if she let yet more of her people's weapons end up in Combine hands. She reached deep inside, thinking of her mother, of years spent eating pinecones just to stave off the sensation of hunger, of the countless loved ones savaged and brutalized by these bastard Combine, who even now set headcrabs loose among them for the sake of weapons development. Cruelty and spite – the Elder misunderstood the Combine. All this evil is just a side product of what they really want.
The Charger looked up as the ground beneath him began to groan. The Thin Man zombie clawed uselessly at his leg, and he gave it an absent-minded kick. He turned around just in time to see a small French woman, hair a stark white, armor a deep purple, with her arms splayed before her. He lifted his shotgun, but it was busy becoming anti-matter. The Charger grunted as the air distorted.
The singularity pulled zombies, headcrabs, soldiers, and the weapons associated together into one grunting heap of metal and errant limbs. With a groan, the psionic singularity collapsed, sending a super-heated spray of metal and blood in all directions. Annette stood there, leaning against the wall, panting for a moment, giving her time to hear the battle being lost around her.
"Attention stabilization teams – anomalous energy detected in secondary containment block, Zone D. Prioritize immediate capture of individual responsible."
They already knew what she had done and where she was. Annette tore off again with a grunt, the soles of her boots burning as she trod through the remnants of what had once been a room full of soldiers and friends.
Deeper and deeper she plunged, past the fighting and the dying. A chryssalid reared and lashed out as a hunter laughed at it, pelting its hide with quivering blue darts which burst in showers of blue. A crab synth lumbered through the cargo sector, barely cognizant of the plasma fire laid down by four sectoids as it faced down with a lone muton elite, gun missing, yet still pounding its chest in defiance. A strider punched three quick holes through the engineering bay with its warp cannon before forcing itself through, just in time for a cyberdisc to meet it face to face and unleash its own devastating barrage of energy.
The ship rumbled as she stumbled into the hangar bay. Only one vessel remained – the rest already sent into the fighting to become so much debris. But not this one. A single human in his own purple armor waved to her from the loading ramp.
"Annette Durand?" he asked. No Gift. She nodded. "We got your muton onboard, plus the rest of the ADVENT guys. We were told to wait for you and the Elder. Said you could get it started up for us?"
Annette nodded, remembering what the Elder had shone her. She strode confidently into the craft as the ground shook again. She took her place at the helm's seat, shutting her eyes and directed her attention to the floating crystal before her.
With the briefest of mental touches, the lattice accepted her authority and dissipated. Around her, the craft hummed to life.
The sectoid commander next to her squeaked, confirming they were ready to move on her command. But Annette shook her head.
"We wait for the Elder. Stay here."
Chum lumbered out from the antechamber beyond the helm, grunting a question. Annette waved him off.
"Later. Keep the craft secure." The muton gave another disappointed grunt.
The hangar bay door, or window depending how you wanted to look at it, shimmered with a purple lattice. While the ship may have been going to hell around them, here at least remained peaceful, for the moment. No headcrabs nor corpses to be seen. Annette reached out for the Elder, only to get a flash of admonishment. Not yet. Wait. A vision of a Combine Soldier falling to the floor with a psionic lance through its head imprinted itself upon Annette. Soon.
Another muffled bang from the Citadel made the back of Annette's neck prickle. She stared through the hangar window, trying to make sense of what she was feeling – something cold inside, full of so much clotted pain. Yet when she tried to press for more, only emerald green eyes stared back at her, and the cold grew more intense. A psionic imprint. But from what? What could be…
Annette threw herself to the side at the last second. Something immense and metal crashed into the hangar, punching partially through the hangar door, making it look like one of its teeth had been knocked out. With a scream of sparks it came to a sudden halt, revealing itself to be a steaming cube of white metal, spikes of what might have been hair punctuating it. Then the cube unfolded and stood, far over Annette, revealing a flash of an Overwatch emblem and the words "Scythe-2" splashed across its chest plate. Weapons roared to life as Scythe 2, despite possessing no visible eyes, still turned to meet Annette's terrified gaze.
"Anti-citizen Durand."
Annette lowered herself into a combat stance, gun ready. "Merde."
The monstrosity wasted no time opening fire, its tubular right arm coughing with the familiar and unwelcome sounds of Tau Cannon energy. With a pinch of the neurons, Annette threw up a telekinetic field, jouncing the blasts just enough to turn them away from her own comparatively fragile armor and body.
Stay inside! She mentally screamed at the crew of the UFO as she darted backwards, returning fire with her own plasma rifle. She rounded the corner and out of sight, out from the once-safe hangar and back into the chaos. Sure enough, Scythe 2 followed, the pistons moving its legs sounding strangely organic.
Annette slid into cover behind a thick pillar. Scythe 2 literally burst through the wall after her, just in time to be jumped from above by a Thin Man on an upper level. Scythe 2 peeled the alien from its chassis like a plaster from a healed wound while Annette lit up the robot to absolutely no effect, each plasma blast quickly dissipating against its bright white armor, the heat dispersing without difficulty. Scythe 2 gripped both legs together and slammed the Thin Man against a wall, kicking up a spray of toxins as it died on impact. Scythe 2 promptly dropped the corpse and charged Annette again.
Annette ducked behind cover to reload, only for a fist to punch squarely through the pillar about half an inch to the right of her ear. She swore again, dropping her rifle and pushing herself off the pillar as Scythe 2 yanked its fist back through the solid pillar.
HELP. She broadcasted to anyone and everyone that could still hear. The Elder sent back a question of concern. Annette took one look over her shoulder as an answer. Scythe 2's arm now whirred with Tau energy, and Annette looked behind just long enough to see it fire once. She grunted as the blast hit her in the side, punching a hole in her armor and through a chunk of her torso. She pushed through another door and around another corner and felt for the wound. Red leaked through her hands, but nothing she could not fix in the moment. With a wince, she welded the wound shut with her own fingertips, letting the heat banish the worst of the damage for the moment. The bleeding ebbed and Annette staggered away from the door which, sure enough promptly became wreckage beneath the onslaught of Scythe 2.
This time, Scythe 2 emerged into a firing line of mutons, each barking orders in their own language. Scythe 2 paused and lifted its other arm, revealing a shimmering energy shield – the kind Annette knew they put on Combine walls occasionally. The plasma bubbled and burst against the shield, and Scythe 2 advanced still.
It's me it wants. Annette sprinted from cover, side still burning. Scythe 2 promptly brought its shield down as Annette darted past the firing line, letting free another burst from its Tau Cannon. This time it missed, sending a sheet of metal crashing from the ceiling. Annette turned around again to see the first muton swept aside from a single blow from Scythe 2, its face caved in. Despite the shield's lowering, Scythe 2 showed no appreciable damage, even as its chassis now glowed a faint cherry red from the sheer heat they were dumping into it.
With a moment to breathe and her weapon discarded, Annette reached out to Scythe 2 with her mind. Regret flooded her immediately, along with the tears. Oh my God. A human being lay beneath all of that, barely recognizable. And it searched for her, now, breaking apart aliens with single punches, the human form twisted to its breaking part. And worse … something had stamped itself upon Scythe 2, something cold and dark and unyielding. Green eyes flashed across her vision once more, warning what further interference could bring. I've felt that before…
It wasn't Combine, whatever it was. And that filled Annette with a kind of fear she could not fully articulate.
"Child," called the Elder from the UFO. "Back, back to us, child."
Annette shook her head and picked herself up off the floor once more. The way back was no good. Scythe 2 plucked the final muton from its feet and began to squeeze. The howls of pain made Annette shiver. Can't go back that way.
The Elder paused.
"Up then, child. Come to us."
Beneath, the UFO hovered and prepared for its ascent. Annette understood. She punched her wound and grimaced. Merde. Go.
Annette flew from her hiding place and up the ramp. Scythe 2 thundered after her, uttering further updates to Overwatch in a bass voice so deep it made Annette's bones rattle. She cried out mentally, sending what was left of the craft's defenders who could hear her to delay the monster. But they were hardly alone.
"Damn it!" shouted Annette as something grabbed at her leg. A Thin Man screamed at her, its voice muffled beneath the headcrab gripping its face. Lengthy fingers gripped her ankle as it placed its other hand higher up her leg, dragging itself upward from its belly. Annette punched the creature in the jaw as hard she dared and sent it sprawling. As she turned, a small arms round pinged off her shoulder, leaving her left ear ringing. Overwatch soldiers, coated in mixed green and red blood, filing in from an upper balcony.
Annette unclipped a plasma grenade and hurled it at the three of them before sprinting onwards, smiling a savage smile as she heard the grenade go off and a soldier flatlining.
Chryssalids brushed past Annette as she ran only to meet swift death at the hands of her pursuer. A few incredibly unlucky sectoids followed suit, most of them already injured from the fighting. The sting of guilt only spurred Annette onward faster, her footfalls hammering against the metal of the craft. Finally she emerged from where she had descended, to find a craft coated in craters and corpses. Zombies shambled listlessly about the place while a handful of fighters on both sides took potshots against one another in the handful of places to take cover that remained. A scanner floated overhead, flashing. Annette blinked and covered her face. In the distance, the cries of striders, many of them. Responding to a picture of my face.
The UFO crested the boiling edge of the craft. Chum extended a gloved hand from the entrance. Annette did not hesitate, hearing the heavy footfalls echoing up behind her. She ran, not even breathing anymore, and leapt. Something whirred and cracked from behind her, and for a fleeting second she caught a fleeting glimpse of an orange line of energy shooting over her shoulder, punching a neat hole in the craft but otherwise going wide.
Annette fell full force into Chum's arms, who grunted and pushed her inside. The craft door slid shut and the ship jumped into motion jerkily. Annette rose to her feet and dusted herself off, feeling for her wound. Still not bleeding. Good. Needs to be looked at, though.
The Elder, sitting in his throne, now rose. "Child, it is good to see you well if not whole."
"Yeah," said Annette, panting. "Good thing he missed."
"It did not miss, child." The Elder sounded … frightened? It first turned to the sectoid commander. "We possessed sufficient velocity to break free?" The sectoid squeaked an affirmative. "Good. We brace for crash landing. Child, you must help me contain the worst of the damage."
"Crash…?" But then Annette understood. That final charged shot had not been meant for her. Through the still smoking holes that punched through the exterior hull, then the inner wall, and the inner wall again, the steaming remnants of their ship's reactor core whistled its last. It grounded us. Then, worse – it knows our ship designs well-enough to do this!
"Child?" The Elder whispered, arms outstretched. Annette joined its side and lifted her own arms, trying her best to steady and lighten the craft. She felt that old familiar sensation of her stomach jumping on the descent, first slowly, then quickly. The crew rushed about, a few clinging to chairs or desks, one ADVENT trooper just standing still, shrugging.
"At this point, if I die, I die," he said, making Annette stare incredulously.
The moment of impact came far too soon for Annette's liking. The floor screamed as the UFO scraped against the forest floor, kicking up a plume of flame from the friction as it went. Their craft smacked into a tree and eviscerated it, its trunk exploding into so many splinters. Annette tried to fight the momentum, holding the craft in place…
From behind, an impact, hard and unexpected. Annette's vision flashed orange as something she did not understand probed her mind, probed all of them. The craft accelerated as she and the Elder relinquished their telekinetic fields in confusion, causing everyone to slam into the wall. Annette's vision went black, then purple, then orange again, something echoing inside her skull.
For who knew how long, her vision swam in half-remembered memories, of names and faces and places all long-buried by the Combine. She hardly recognized what she saw as she turned over, coughing, something jutting into her rib cage. Her hand felt all hot and sticky. The Elder floated over her protectively, all four arms out now, its cloak flung aside to reveal its spindly body.
From above, the ceiling of the UFO peeled away like the opening of a sardine can. Something green and massive floated inside, a livid blue electronic eye fastened to the side of its head and now staring at the Elder. Great mechanical limbs jutted from its back, a pair of arms the better with which to grip its prey. Annette's vision flashed orange again, and she clutched her head. Even the Elder twitched a little at the psychic blast.
"You cannot have us." The Elder's hands glowed purple. The grub, whatever it was, gave a little chortle. It floated inside the craft.
The Elder struck first, pulling his own fallen chair, now torn to so much jagged metal, to pierce the grub's side. The grub stopped it dead in a distortion of air and reality. Annette's head pulsed orange again, and she screamed in pain. The Elder buckled slightly. The grub turned to examine the chair then, without ever twitching a muscle, crushed it into a pancake of metal, which it then flung at the Elder like a frisbee.
The Elder deflected the heavy disc with a flick of its wrist. Annette now crawled, away from the pain, away from whatever that thing was. The Elder conjured purple energy and sent the psionic blast full at the grub's face. The grub emerged from the smoke a little sooty, but otherwise unharmed. It reached out with its arms.
The Elder held out its own arms and, without ever making physical contact, held the grub in place. They know floated face equivalent to face equivalent. The grub slipped its tongue out from its facial aperture and jabbed it at the Elder three times. You. You. You.
A purple canister, somehow unharmed in the crash, lifted into the air behind the struggling pair. The grub did not let this go unnoticed, crushing it into countless shards of glass without even turning to look at it. However, the shards still floated there, glistening and deadly. Inch by inch, they advanced to the two of them, a sharpened swarm.
The grub did not notice what was happening at first. Its own arms inched downwards towards the Elder, who shook with exertion. Annette turned over and began scooting backwards against the floor. Her back met something warm and familiar. Chum turned over and stared at her.
"Annie?"
The glass shards now pushed against the olive green body of the grub. The sensation turned from cold and curious to sharp and painful as the Elder started to jab, slash, and most prominently, push against the grub's body. It bellowed in pain as the shards cut as a swarm, but it did not relinquish its grip. Even as it bled freely from countless tiny (and still growing in number) wounds, it worked its way towards its prize. The Elder, trembling, pulled the shards around itself and this time, plunged them into the grub's face.
This did the trick. The grub gave an electronic wail and shuddered backwards, the psionic arm wrestle lost. The grub flew backwards, pinned against a wall as the victorious Elder floated there, half buckled over, arms still outstretched. With a jerk of its head, the glass fused together now, into one long blade. The grub trumpeted from the wall, calling or crying or pleading, Annette could not say. Then, in one last almighty effort, the grub jerked and sent Annette to her knees, head spinning.
The Elder maintained its grip on its prey but still buckled, falling free from its float and coming to a knee on the ground, arm still outstretched. It did not notice the metal peeling from behind it, above, another entrance. The Elder readied its blade. The second grub reached out with greedy arms.
No! Annette wanted to scream but instead vomited, making Chum stand up in concern. He pulled her up, swore in an alien tongue, and then went back down for his weapon. Instead, both of them flew backwards against a wall, the injured grub having rejoined the fight. It paused to look upon them for a moment, tongue lolling at the sight of Annette's face. Then it turned its attention back to the struggling Elder.
"No!" Now Chum was shouting, muscles twitching but helpless against this psionic might. His own gun floated into the air turned lazily on him, pointed squarely against his skull, but it did not fire. It did not need to. The grubs paid them no heed.
The first grub, wounded now floated triumphantly before the struggling Elder. It floated, face to mask, with Annette's mentor. Annette reached out with her mind and found only fear and a clawing, maddening sickness. The Combine Advisors, for that is what she now knew they were, glanced at her knowingly. But they did not hesitate any further.
The advisor's tongue punched through the white mask of the Elder with a sickening crunch, followed by an even more sickening slurping. Annette felt the vomit boiling up, and it came out in a spray, only to be held in place, a waterfall of puke through which she could see an ancient being dying.
The Elder cried out, then slumped, then burned a brilliant purple. The Advisors looked to their meal in confusion, moments before the blinding purple light erupted, collapsing the wall between the engine room and the helm, and making Annette and Chum fall to the ground, crumpled.
Annette pushed herself up, too many injuries to count, but not hesitating nonetheless. The Elder's corpse, purple and twisted and so, so decayed, remained where the advisors had fed on it. And the advisors-
A cold hand gripped around her torso from behind. Chum shouted, but Annette knew the sound of something heavy hitting a wall meant that he was incapacitated. Still he shouted, calling "Annie!" in that thick guttural approximation of English as the hands turned her around to face the beast.
Half of its face bubbled and warped from the heat of the explosion, but the lack of lacerations marked this advisor as the one who had not fed yet. Annette felt around with her mind for anything she could fling at this thing, only for it to lash out with its tongue, smacking her upside the head with surprising force. She saw stars, followed by another splash or lurid orange as the advisor handed her another migraine, free of charge, just to shut her up.
It watched her, thoughts and intentions imperceptible. Annette grimaced as the tongue jabbed at her neck once, its skull once, an eyeball once, feeling her out. The vomit rose again, and the advisor turned her around to let her spray … and to ready her for the feeding. She looked down at the sprawled corpse of her elder, of the humans and aliens pinned in place, Chum included. The other advisor watched on impassively, its own hunger sated. Annette looked up and out through the top of the craft, to the moon, past the trees, past the silhouette … from a lens flashed.
Crack.
Something hit the advisor in the face full force, spraying the back of Annette's head with green. The advisor buckled and screamed, and Annette landed on hands and knees before rolling away from the thrashing behemoth. One of the few still-intact walls of the ship burst open, and unfamiliar figures rushed in – armored, armed, and blazing with green light.
"Forget about us, you fat fucks?" called out a deep male voice from the dark. Another sniper round cracked overhead, sending the second advisor sprawling, blood spurting from both its wounds. The primary advisor, still bleeding, lifted itself into the air, claws flashing, malicious intention all too apparent.
"Vital alert," called Overwatch from the distance, still all too close. "Advisory override in progress. All available Outland units proceed to Sector 2, Zone 5. Code: Protect. Sterilize. Amputate."
"They won't save you," said the man from the dark. "All right, Freeman. Let's make this quick."
"Come," said Chum, pulling Annette up and away, but she stopped him, turning back to the corpse of the Elder. Something smoked from it, something old and sickly but still alive. She beckoned, and gasped as she inhaled it. A presence. Old.
Something even older shifted in the stars. The remaining Elders trembled in their ships.
Power pulsed through Annette's arms but she was in no shape to use it. A third sniper round forced an advisor down, its belly scraping the UFO floor, and now a sectoid scampered loose, its plasma pistol burning a hole in its side. It flicked out with its arm, crushing the alien's skull effortlessly, Annette all but forgotten.
"They know. We must go." More actual English words from Chum. He pointed upwards. "More come. Both sides."
Sure enough, here came the dropships, ADVENT and Combine alike, to converge on this fallen UFO. Chum shot a flare into the sky with one hand while he cradled Annette in the other.
The dropship landed and ADVENT troopers stormed out, plasma rifles flashing. They disappeared into the angry night. A Thin Man pulled Annette aboard and Chum followed, the craft tilting a little at his weight. He banged an impatient hand against the craft's door, and they began to ascend.
"The Elder's body," began the Thin Man, "will they…?"
"There will be nothing left," replied Annette, staring at her palm. Dancing purple lights curved in place, a kaleidoscope of energy. "I carry it with me."
Now, at last, she understood the true purpose of the journey. Mind and body alike, to withstand the might of the Elders, and to evade even death. And that other, greater thing.
Even the Combine would not slow their flight. Even the threat of the advisors would not slow their journey. Annette sat there, wounded but far from broken, knowing exactly what the next step had to be.