The Ringing of a Forge of Stars [Warhammer 40k/ Celestial forge V3||OC...ish]

[Slider Zero]

sorry for the giant text block, i just wanted to get my thoughts out of my head, if that makes sense. will you do anything with cloning or androids if you get them? because having your own army of supersoldiers would be very useful.

Click to shrink...

Key word here being if.

Assuming that Android tech appears, there is no reason why Satori would not pursue it as a means of advancement. As for Super Soldiers...well, do remember that most super soldier programs are meant as wonderweapon-style "cahnge the fate of the conflict" deals and not just a superior soldier. In any case, the various bits of supernatural training that can and eventually will, if given enough time, become commonplace will cover a lot of that. everything else is just combat support, really.

 

[Slider Zero]

So, minor heads-up. I have updated the perks listing informational with the relevant perks up through the last dump (Chapter 29.) Those of you who were browsing through at the appropriate time may have seen me do something stupid and screw up the post, because Accordions and open spoiler tags don't mix well, but I managed to fix it...after reporting the oddity as a bug. (to whichever mod sees this, apologies for wasting your time with me screwing up.)

Otherwise, I am working on the next chapter as quickly as I can, and hope to get it to you soon. Please be patient with me on this one: I have already rewritten the intro no less than ten times due to lack of satisfaction with the setup, and it's only going to get more complicated from there.

See you then, everyone.

 

[Slider Zero]

Okay, this took forever and a year, mostly due to me rewriting multiple parts of it several times to work better. This is about as good as it's getting without me tearing the whole thing apart again, and I am trying to avoid doing just that to prevent another delay, so here you go.

- = | | | | | | | | | | = -
​

Alma Durand was enjoying her afternoon, and what a great afternoon it was!! The sky was a clear blue, there was a nice and refreshing breeze blowing in from the cooler north, and she was having entirely too much fun playing in the park with other kids who had no idea of her gifts, and thus weren't going to call her the weird or creepy girl out of fear or wariness. She'd even managed to (mostly) suppress her own aura enough that people weren't automatically associating her with something dangerous!

Even better, the really strong minds that she had been following around the other side of the planet for a few days now seemed to be relaxing into a pattern of sorts, and were openly radiating their contentment and desire to help others wherever possible.

But that had nothing on just being able to run around and play like a normal kid for once, without worrying about everyone else being scared of her, or trying to do all of the normal "odd kid" annoyance tactics.

Coming to this park was one of the best ideas ever.

And it only got more better when one of the local heroes, a Mr. Hannibal (after the tactician, she'd caught a stray thought from the man confirming it) stopped by to hang around and generally be friendly with the public, which just so happened to include the gaggle of awestruck kids that immediately surrounded him.

As expected, he was immediately mobbed and held up for autographs, selfies, and other such cape fandom stuff. Not that he minded in the slightest, and the stray thought that Alma caught from him as he was taking a selfie with her that he sought out a park precisely for that purpose.

Something which the kids (and the adults, for that matter) quickly took full advantage of.

Alma took a moment to check in on her sister though her psionic powers. Annette seemed to be doing alright, for the most part, aside from the usual stress of being stuck in traffic for one reason or another. It was a far cry from her mental state not even a few months prior, when the memories of the accident that had killed their parents (and left the both of them without a scratch) had flared up again.

(The resulting shitstorm over the severity and number of tests and checks that the two had been subjected to at the insistence of the American PRT was a minor controversy for a bit afterwards, even if their names had been scrubbed from the incidents.)

No, her sister was fine, for all that she wished she was somewhere else at the moment. What was more concerning was the sudden appearance of a lot more of the "lights in the sky", the psionic traces of what she believed to be some kind of aliens or another that had been observing things for as long as she had the ability to notice it. Those "lights" had not only multiplied, but brought multiple smaller candles with them…and the candles were rapidly falling from the sky in various places around the world.

Including right here in Paris.

Alma only managed to get the sudden impression of raw, naked aggression and anger flowing from the falling candles–no, minds– before the first shots fell…followed by the pods. And then the weird gas.

And then the screams.

-=[/\]=-​

David Landiels, better known to the public at large as Eidolon, the world's strongest parahuman, was in the midst of a minor moral crisis. It, of course, involved the recently arrived Green couple, as most things in Houston did nowadays, and the utter chaos being left in their wake, intentional or otherwise.

On the one hand, they were doing good work, helping wherever they could and even pulling together the best scientific minds that were left in America onto a new path, one that would see humanity lifted from the downward spiral that they had been in for years now. That the woman of the pair–Miolala, he believed her name was?-- had managed to not only defeat but outright kill the Simurgh in not only record time but with almost contemptuous ease was simply wonderful.

It definitely removed one of his own long-term worries from the table, that's for sure, and had he the time to do so he would have been the first to congratulate her on her victory, and the great service to humanity that had been rendered as a result.(Some of the parties were still going, even now, as people finally let the truth settle in that the Endbringers could be killed.)

On the other hand, what they were doing was dangerously reckless, and could jeopardize everything that Cauldron had been working towards for years now simply due to their not knowing what they were stepping into. Scion was still by far the greatest threat to the planet, and even if the pair were capable of taking out Endbringers, that didn't mean that the same could be said of the Entity that still existed.

The Cauldron council had been split on the issue: Rebecca had been insistent that the pair be brought under their control as soon as possible, regardless of the costs. Doctor Mother, in a rare moment, actually agreed, noting that the two running around as they saw fit would only damage their efforts against the remaining Entity further than they already had been.

Kurt, of all people, had disagreed, stating that the two could just as easily work alongside them, and help solve the greater problem once they were properly aware of it…though he admitted that actually informing them carried its own risks.

Risks that none of the others were willing to take, especially as Contessa couldn't actually path either of them, and didn't have enough information to make a workaround yet–

Another explosion drew him out of his thoughts and back onto the mess that was the current Houston battleground.

Because apparently things weren't going badly enough, and they had to have an outright alien invasion happening as well.

He'd mobilized the Houston Protectorate and surrounding PRT Divisions under his own authority after the first shots had fallen, and even now was working with the few first responders that were left to try and make sense of the ongoing chaos.

Which was hard, because the fucking aliens were everywhere.

And they were all playing for keeps.

More weapons fire burst out of a shaded piece of rubble, the green bolts of energy being absorbed by his current defensive power as he flew about and drew as much attention as possible from the others.

They…were not doing so well,

Of his personal team, only a handful remained. Hawkwind had been killed by one of the smaller bastards scuttling about, his chest literally blown straight through, even despite his own brute rating. Frostbite wasn't doing much better, having taken severe burns after her attempts at shielding one of the energy blasts, only for it to create a giant steam bomb almost directly on top of her with the impacts. That she was even still alive at all was a miracle, and the available PRT troopers were desperately trying to prevent her injuries from finishing the job.

And Dispatch, his second-in-command…the creatures had done something to him, some form of master effect that had confused the lines just long enough for untold havoc to be wreaked on the responding force…before he then killed himself in full view of everyone.

The small wards team he was trying to get out of the line of fire had the misfortune of having a front-row seat to the event…and David was almost certain that all of them were traumatized for life.

Worse yet was the toll being taken from the PRT troopers. None of them were prepared for an event like this, where the enemy was not only fighting back with superior weaponry, but openly uncaring of collateral damage or afraid of taking lives. The disconnect between what they were trained to deal with and what they were actually facing had already killed a full half of the squads deployed alongside them, and the rest were not equipped to actually properly fight back. Sure, there were more than a few Military and SWAT veterans who reacted properly, like it was an actual warzone, and they were under fire, but the rest were dead or dying before anyone could spread the word, and the casualties were only getting worse by the second.

He'd tried calling for backup. Tried using his authority as not only a Protectorate leader but as a member of the Triumvirate to get the National Guard deployed to Houston immediately…only to find out, to his horror, that they were not the only ones being hit, and that forces were spread thin everywhere, with the closest possible reinforcements being not only completely conventional but two states away.

The dispatcher had given him the grim news as plainly as he could: nobody was coming to help them.

And so the task fell to him to save as many as possible from whatever dark fate awaited…except the sheer chaos of the attack had caught everyone flat-footed.

Including and especially the civilians, who were rushing around in a disorganized mess trying to find safety wherever they could, and often running into traps or forces designated specifically for just such an event, either being slaughtered by the creatures or captured by the strange pods and the equally strange gasses that they released. He wished he'd had time to investigate further, but even being a giant target dummy was taking all of his attention as he flew about the besieged city.

Fortunately, it wasn't all bad news. Among his protectorate team, the rookies were doing shockingly well. Grey Knight was somehow managing to hold his own, despite drawing a not inconsiderable amount of attention to himself in his attempts to protect the civilians caught in the crossfire, and his other rookie, who had somehow managed to slide by with the name Psycho Mantis (he shuddered at the memory of the showdown between her and Glen Chambers; it was nasty) was somehow managing to throw her own back at the invasion forces while covering for a loosely organized retreat. It was actually working, for the most part, as they got people to shelters, or at least the sturdier buildings, so that they could hide somewhat. Being so close to downtown was not helping at the moment, as the fucking rat warren that was downtown proper was proving to be impossible to properly fight in, and the normal fallback point for most disaster relief that was the Convention Center was unfeasible for a number of reasons.

And the more he dithered in trying to get the situation under control, the more people died.

Spotting what looked like a police cordon, under fire from the small gray fuckers, he rushed down to assist, utilizing a plaster power that seemed to fire pulses of gravity or similar. His targets didn't last long, and he quickly turned to the harried group of HPD officers, who were clearly having a bad day.

He very pointedly ignored the bodies of their comrades strewn around them, obviously the work of their current opposition. Just as much as he had been ignoring the screams echoing across the city, even now, and from so far away…

He would have time to deal with that ball of issues later.

They were more than happy to see him, as one of the officers was quick to attest. "Oh thank god. We'd thought that everyone else had been killed by now."

Eidolon could only nod, somberly. "Not all of us are dead yet. Do you have any other officers available? Some kind of response plan? We need to get organized immediately or else this is going to get much worse."

The officer, a heavyset Latino man whose name tape read MUNOZ, responded with an aggravated sigh. "We've been trying. Main dispatch is too busy trying to get people back into some sort of shape after things went to hell, and everyone is scattered all over the city with next to no support. SWAT is being called in, but most of the teams were off-duty and are caught in the crossfire just like everyone else. We've tried calling in to the other counties, but they are getting hit just as hard. Nobody knows who is supposed to be in charge of anything, and every time we start setting something up, the fucking Ayys," He spits in the direction of the alien corpses, "come barreling in and fuck over whatever we were getting going. It's a madhouse."

Eidolon grimaced. It was worse than he had thought. This level of coordination was only usually seen with parahuman gangs like the Elite, and they never went this far in escalating violence. If this kept up…

"Alright, here's what I want you to do." he started. "The PRT has a cordon being set up on Quitman, using the school as a backdrop. Try to get there and use that as an ops center, then get as much coordinated as possible, so we can get moving–

His instructions were interrupted by the appearance of another grouping of aliens. This time, though, there was a distinct difference, as instead of the small, hunched over forms that they were used to, the aliens coming here were big, hulking forms of obvious immense strength and power, and held equally dangerous-looking weaponry as well. Worse, they were accompanied by several of a variation of the smaller ones in what looked to be a personal power armor system of some sort or another.

And they were coming straight for his position, firing the entire while.

The good news was that his absorption shield power was holding up well enough to the task. The bad news was that his offensive ability was not doing anywhere near as well.

And the officers had no such protection, let alone power, to aid them.

Eidolon moved, twisting and contorting as much as he could to cover as much as possible of the officers as he could. It was, sadly, only partially successful. Munoz had managed to get down in time, but his partner was not so lucky, and took a hit to her shoulder that blew her arm clean off, and scorched her entire side with heat. Others took worse hits, from a tall black man taking a hit directly to the upper torso from one of the larger alien guns as he attempted to fight back, causing his entire upper body to just vanish, to the poor, small woman who was now cradling the remains of her leg that she had failed to pull back into cover in time before getting shot at.

Eidolon roared, his rage palpable as he lashed out at the beings who dared kill those under his protection. His gravity pulse attack did not do anywhere near as much as he wanted it to, but it was still enough to put a significant dent in the oncoming forces, overcharged as it was by his emotional state, and at least stall the advance.

Still, it was only a partial stall, and the bigger aliens basically just barreled through the attacks and kept rushing in regardless. Eidolon focused in, preparing to go into melee if needed.

It was this focus that was the only reason he saw what happened next.

A blur zoomed into the formation of aliens and all but exploded in their midst. Mechanical components were torn asunder, parts strewn everywhere as the power armored gray things were ripped apart, piece by piece, by something swathed in a dark blue light of some kind. The larger ones attempted to react, only to have that same bluish light–now shaped vaguely like a claw?--reach out and just…the only word he could even use was "yeet". It just yeeted the heads off like they weren't even there to begin with at all.

It wasn't even a full two seconds later that the entire group was just dead. And as for the person responsible…

Eidolon sucked in a breath.

He wasn't expecting this, not at all. The figure before him was tall, taller than a great deal of people he had seen before, in fact. The clothes he was wearing were equally simple, being an older set of unadorned cargo pants in olive drab, along with a black t-shirt covered by a simple vest in the same color as his pants. Amusingly, green combat boots rounded out the ensemble, which to the best of Eidolon's knowledge was not proper regulation for that particular uniform setup.

But the thing that most caught Eidolon's attention were the distinct canine ears–vulpine, to be specific–perched atop the man's head, along with the twin black tails swishing angrily behind and trailing energy in their wake.

As much as the bureaucrats on both ends of the PRT/DOD divide had been trying to prevent it from happening, it would seem that he would finally get to meet the infamous Satori Green in person.

Said person's ears immediately swiveled in his direction before a commanding voice called out.

"Eidolon, don't bother with trying to get anything set up in downtown proper, the place is swarming with hostiles, and in disturbing numbers. Instead, get a group to try and clear out something at the Medical Center, so we have a fallback position, Get the Police involved as much as they can be, and tell your people to go full lethal if they haven't figured it out already. I'll take care of the group running interference and try to direct any survivors towards you if I can. Work on getting some extra firepower on-site too: we are going to need all of it."

More aliens appeared around a corner, and were almost immediately blasted into chunky salsa by Green as he kept talking, the rifle he used having come from practically nowhere, and it's bright beam of destruction being even more fleeting. "I have my wife working her magic with the logistics, and she will be helping to fortify the medical center until we can get in some heavier support."

Eidolon finally manged to find his voice and cut in. "I've tried to call for backup, man. Everyone is getting hit, practically all at once!! There isn't anyone left to send help!!"

Green fully turned towards him, now. His face was…so very ordinary, for a black man. Large lips, Brown eyes, somewhat thick eyebrows, the semi-standard curly hair up top–all of it was so plain and simple, for a man that was anything but.

His expression, though…that he recognized. It was one that he had worn himself, during Endbringer battles. A visage of frustration and pain and anger at the world that would heap so much onto his shoulders, and then dare him to drop it all. It was also very much calculating, cunning…the look of a man who had a plan and was altering it for the situation.

The moment was brief. "Alright, change of plans. You are now on search and rescue, seeing as you can both fly and ignore the bastards shooting at you. We're still going to use the medical center as the rally point, but now your job is to find as many people as possible and get them there soonest, or delegate people to do so, afterwards, I'll need as much scrap as possible sent in the same direction. Doesn't matter what kind of scrap it is, as long as it's there. Even this shit here," He waved dismissively at the remains of the power suited alien, "will work. Once you have it, drop it with my wife. You'll recognize her by the fact that everything alien will be on fire."

The smirk at that statement was a sight to see.

"Once you have found her, give her the scrap and then watch the master work. She's going to get us some weapons going, and then we'll start getting volunteers to do sweeps to give us some breathing room. Hopefully by then I'll have a way to get rid of the top cover, or at least thin it out a bit, but we'll see." As if to punctuate his statement, another blast of energy fell from the sky onto a spot, a section of the wall of screams that was the city going silent at the impact.

It was not a good feeling, that cold pit called fury. But now was not the time to unleash it. Not yet.

Green turned back around suddenly and popped off a quick set of snapshots down a side street, catching another set of aliens as they were advancing. This group looked to be a bit stronger, and accompanied by what looked like a floating disc of some kind? Either way, it was dead and gone, and hopefully there were few of those left.

"Anyway" Green continued as if nothing had happened, "once we get that gone then the real heavies can get in and do work. But until then, we're stuck with this mess, so buckle up and get ready, 'cause it's gonna be a long ride."

The sounds of something crashing to the ground caught Eidolon's attention, and he quickly turned to see–was that Mouse Protector? What in the hell was she doing here!?!--depositing another mechanized corpse nearby.

It was Green who responded. "Oh, I also stole Mouse Protector for a bit. She'll be helping out. Try not to complain too much, please?"

Eidolon turned back towards the Knight of Mice, expecting to hear a witty comeback of some kind. Instead, he was met with stony silence.

Most notably, there was a distinct absence of anything even remotely looking like humor oh her face.

Another thing pushed into the "for later" pile. And as much as it may have hurt his pride, however slightly, to have Green throwing orders at him, he could definitely accept that at least he had a plan, unlike everyone else. Getting people onboard, however…

"You may have some trouble getting people onboard with your plan, Green. Did you think about that?"

In response, Green merely tapped a square patch on his vest–no, that was a proper combat rig if he ever saw one, if unadorned– which bore a symbol. It was with some shock that he recognized it as a rank patch, that of a Warrant Officer no less.

"I got that covered. As far as everyone else is concerned, I'm the cavalry showing up early." Green grinned. "Don't worry about that part, let's just get this shitstorm cleared out and contained enough so that we're not playing defense all the time, and then we can work from there."

There really wasn't anything else to say to that, really. Eidolon nodded his approval, and immediately set to helping the police clear out their wounded and get prepped to move. The Medical Center was going to be a long walk, after all…

-=[/\]=-​

Calling the current clusterfuck even that was such an understatement that people were struggling to find a new word for the phenomenon. For John Bradford, Central Officer of the Extraterrestrial Combat Unit, it was even worse…as dealing with said mega-clusterfuck was his responsibility. The fact that the entire planet was getting hit, to varying degrees, was just being unfair.

This, of course, had XCOM in a bit of a bind.

"Get Strike Teams to the most critical locations ASAP!! We need to get a handle on this before it gets out of hand! Move, people!!"

Unfortunately, he was already doing everything he could do at the moment, getting his people mobilized and on the move to the critical areas while they still could. Unfortunately, there were only so many strike teams to go around…and far, far too many flash points to deal with.

Once again, the thought that this was it went through his head, only to be crushed ruthlessly.

"Status Report." Nobody needed to be reminded of whose voice that was, the Commander clearly taking control of the situation even as she moved to the central dais of the Geoscape to monitor the counterattack efforts. Bradford quickly moved to comply.

"We have confirmed attacks all over the globe, Commander, with the majority of the pressure seeming to be focused on the US, with spillover in parts of Europe and Asia. Nothing being reported in South America and Africa yet, though how much of that is actual clear skies and not lack of info is up for debate."

The South American nations had never really been truly sold on the XCOM project, and were directly under siege from the various drug cartels and other criminal organizations vying for a seat of power even then. The lack of information coming out of the place was not as unusual as it seemed. Likewise, Africa was a mess simply due to the mass proliferation of the various parahuman warlords running around, Moord Nag the most well known among them, and the presence of the Ash Beast didn't help either. And while the nascent African Union was far more forthcoming with their information than their South American counterparts, they also had a lot more to deal with internally, and a lot less to work with in terms of communications technology. It wouldn't have surprised him if the Aliens had managed to make a precision strike on a comms juncture and silenced any calls for help.

They'd done it before, after all.

The Commander nodded. "And the skies?"

Bradford quickly checked a tablet for the relevant info. "Currently contested over the contiguous US, and light elsewhere. Ravens are already airborne and en route to intercept, but we don't have enough to respond to all the flashpoints."

It was a fact of life, really. The Raven Interceptor was a miracle of modern design and function, and was more than capable of facing off against the best the rest of the world had to offer at overwhelming odds and winning.

Against the aliens? They were barely getting by.

The good news on that front was that Dr. Shen had managed to get a hold of the schematics and data contained in "the gift box", as people called the technical packet that the Greens had showed up with. This had accelerated several programs meant to update the Ravens with better weapons and survivability, and had recently made several other breakthroughs possible as well.

The issue was that there were only a bare handful of these "enhanced" Ravens available, and all of them were stationed outside the US as conciliatory measures for the member nations. This meant that their best firepower was right where they didn't need it, and all the worse for the same.

Again, the Commander only nodded at the information, her face impassive. "Where have you deployed our strike teams?"

Bradford grimaced. This was going to be the hard part. "I have Strike Two and Five inbound to Paris right now, hopefully to clear up one of the minor attacks and get actual reinforcements freed up. Strike Three is headed for New Orleans to stop the push happening on the Mississippi, and Strike Six is moving towards Jakarta, with the possibility of diverting to Seoul or Tokyo if needed. Strike Four is still prepping, and should be ready on your order.

"And Strike One?"

"Awaiting your order, Commander."

And for good reason. Strike One was the premier combat team that XCOM had available, and currently were the only team equipped with the new Laser weapons and enhanced armor systems. Wherever they went needed to be strictly controlled for maximum effect…or for minimum loss of their elite personnel and gear.

It was a bitter reminder that XCOM could not solve every situation, no matter how much they wanted to do so.

Bradford watched as the Commander assumed her usual "thinking" pose, which had the strange effect of calling attention to the snake tattoo that was prominent on her neck and wound lower (though how much lower, he did not know).

"What do we know of the force compositions of the attack groups, Central?"

He checked the available notes, recently updated with first responder call-ins and some data from the local militaries where available. "Not much, aside from general size. So far, the larger attacks seem to be focused on specific areas, Ma'am. Most of New England is being hit pretty hard, with New York, Boston, and Chicago being major targets…though strangely enough, the focus point for the Aliens seems to be in Brockton Bay. We are unsure of why that is, though our local contacts think that it has to do with a recent arrival in the area, potentially a parahuman. They haven't sent in any new information, yet. We're assuming that they have gone to ground for the time being."

The Commander chuckled softly. "Of course they have. They're the smartest group in the area, and there haven't been any shootdowns of the Alien craft yet. We'll know when they start moving. The other hotspots?"

"Los Angeles is taking a beating at the moment, and has yet to call for assistance. Likewise, Seattle is getting hit with the overflow, though they are doing better with the lesser forces. As for the rest of the US? Attacks confirmed on Cheyenne, Colorado Springs, Albuquerque, San Antonio, and New Orleans, with varying levels of force application and response. Smaller raiding pockets have been reported as far north as Minot in the US, and we suspect that there is some movement in the Canadian hinterlands as well that will need to be investigated, but so far no reports of activity. Otherwise…the main thrust of the Alien's attack seems to be Houston. We're getting some transmissions from there now, and from the reports, they are getting hammered."

The Commander frowned minutely. "They're locking down responders."

Bradford's confusion was total. "Ma'am?"

"Look at the map. The main push in New England? Several major parahuman strongholds are there, including heavy-hitters like Legend and Dragon. I'm willing to bet it all that the New York push is meant to keep him occupied as long as possible. Likewise, the attack on LA is probably going after Alexandria…which leaves the main hot spot of Houston. Which has Eidolon…along with our current VIPs…"

Her eyes widened in realization. "They're after the Greens. That's why Houston is getting hit so hard. For whatever reason, they need them dead soonest, and we need to make sure that doesn't happen. Deploy Strike One to Houston immediately, and have them briefed en route. Notify me when they are on-site: I will be assuming tactical control. Until then, make any attempt possible to get into contact with either of the Greens or any military unit that can reach them and spread the word that they are priority targets–"

Her orders were interrupted by a tech shouting. "We have an incoming transmission in the clear!! It's coming from Houston, and asking for XCOM specifically!! They say that they think they are a main target as a delaying action, and are reporting that they will not be able to assist elsewhere until they can clear out the skies. How should I respond, sir?"

Bradford's grin of malice matched the Commander's own at the shared revelation that the Greens were not quite as helpless as they appeared. "Tell them help is on the way, and to clear a hole for our guys coming in if they can. The sooner we can break this, the sooner we can get to the rest of the planet."

-=[/\]=-​

Alright, I was officially pissed off, and to extremes.

Considering what was happening right now, and my initial reactions, Mio thought it was more than understandable.

I however, did not.

I had frozen up, those first few seconds, memories that both were and were not my own playing back in my head. Memories of the invasion of Earth by a completely different enemy, of the razing of the planet by creatures whose only purpose was the death and destruction of all organic life…

It was enough to root me in place at the realization that it was happening again.

At least, until Mouse Protector smacked some sense into me, in this case literally, pulling me out of the nightmare of memory and back into the nightmare of reality.

And then the problems started to mount up. I almost immediately realized that there was no way in hell to defend the entire city, no matter what we did or how. We simply didn't have the resources on-hand to do enough for it to matter in the short term, and assuming enough was left for a long term was a fool's errand. And as much as I was willing to try and group up with other responders for a unified push…even the bits I could see of the chaos told me an all too depressing tale.

Nobody was ready for this kind of engagement. All of the law enforcement agencies had been co-opted by the PRT in their efforts to curtail parahumans, the parahumans themselves were effectively running the asylum with their antics, and the Military, the one force actually geared to handle something like this, would take time to mobilize and deploy even without the massive funding cuts they had been forced to eat over the years as parahumans (and by extension the PRT) took center stage.

In short? Clusterfuck.

The fact that we'd managed to even scavenge up as much of a plan as we had in the short notice was a miracle in and of itself, and that was me relying on the fact that the Hospitals were explicitly hardened against the normal catastrophic weather events that come through every year like clockwork.

But it came at a cost.

And when you have enhanced empathic senses from being an insanely powerful psychic in several ways, that shit starts piling up on you.

I couldn't just hear the people dying around us, I could feel it happening in real time, feel every life that was snuffed out by these goddamn Xenos fucks as they rampaged as they damn well pleased, and only my training was letting me ignore it in favor of what needed to be done.

And I hated myself for having to leave them behind to die. I hated the fact that, despite my incredible power, I couldn't actually do jack shit to solve the problem until I had a way of keeping people safe and secure that wasn't going to create a bigger clusterfuck. I hated that the fucking B-lister capes with even a half-assed ranged attack were doing more to curtail the swarm of enemies and rescue the people being besieged.

But first and foremost, I was a soldier, and I knew that the mission came first…especially in a place and time like this.

Which, of course, meant altering the plan again. For the fifth time.

"So, do we have more of a plan besides 'pick the obvious high-value target and make it even more valuable before counterattacking' or is this it for the moment? Because, we've been cycling then for a bit now."

Marcy was well within her rights to snark.

"Unless you have a better idea, this is what we have, and is something we'd need to do anyways because Hospital. Besides, if my guess is right, the Ayys will be focusing more on myself and Eidolon than anything else. And in case they don't, Mio will be there, and better armed than I am at the moment to boot. Just focus on getting as many people as you can to the place, so we can take stock…and see if you can find some more large-capacity vehicles we can use to move people around, 'cause this shit here isn't going to cut it for much longer."

'This shit here' was a 'minor' modification to a stubby school bus that we'd managed to salvage, alongside some tactically acquired vehicles that our group was currently using as transportation for the civilians caught in the line of fire. The school bus in particular Mio had taken to with a vengeance, turning it into the next best thing to a hovertank complete with pintle-mounted weapons, using some quickly-built Volley Lasguns and an even shoddier repulsor cannon (for using equally improvised ammo) as the "main" weapon. The other vehicles we'd managed to find in good enough condition to use and armor up were mounting varied weaponry, ranging from lasguns to a Ma Deuce that someone had managed to find, and then Mio had converted into an energy weapon. (I didn't ask, and she didn't tell.)

The "crew' such as it was, was a mixed lot, mostly terran refugees that had somehow figured out I was inside (probably smell) and quickly volunteered their services, along with a mix of locals who felt the need to get involved now, preferably with a group that could actually make a difference. It was somewhat of a tight fit, and I ended up with the same cute Teenage Oni from earlier doing a combination of flirting and running shotgun as I drove, with her old man riding on one of the side turrets.

Unfortunately, we only had a bare handful of vehicles, and the instant we got them up and running even more opposition started coming our way, more of the giant fuckers with the plasma rifles, the little skittering bastards that liked to try and mindjack people, and even a new addition in the form of the skinny fuckers that tried to blend in with other people and screw with shit.

And I had the feeling that I had seen these damned things before…

Marcy, true to herself as always, merely shrugged and returned to her chosen assignment of manning one of the Hellgun turrets (she'd snatched it up as soon as she saw it was available and would be near me), and blasting the fucking freaky-ass disk things out of the air as they tried to get in close enough to screw with the vehicles. The Cyberdiscs (are those what they are called?) immediately moved to evade, only to get caught in the crossfire from the other Hellgun mount that Marcy was controlling. From within the Bus, via a monitor and data link.

Because abusing Newtype perception and awareness for shots is always amusing.

For my part, I was busy driving the damn bus in an attempt to get us to the hospitals, or at least get somewhere close enough that we could try to make it on foot.

Naturally we were contested at all times, and not even the presence of Eidolon on overwatch in the skies was enough to deter the oncoming tide of attackers, this time including more of the big fuckers and their Mechtoid pals–

"INCOMING FROM THE REAR!! BRACE!!"

The plasma shot was practically perfection incarnate, exquisitely timed and just as well aimed, designed to ensure that our impromptu hovertank ended up grounded and stranded dead in the middle of enemy territory. Even with the small amount of warning that I had been given, I could tell that the shot had been meticulously planned to ensure maximum effect regardless of outcome.

And I completely threw a middle finger at the entire mess by dodging at the absolute last possible second and by the barest of margins, just to make a point. The shot instead found itself connecting rather solidly with another of the brutish Mutons that had decided to try and distract people from the real threat. The poor recipient of the very unfriendly fire instead ended up with a hole in its torso and sprawled on the ground.

The immediate follow-up shot fared even worse, as I used that one as an excuse to kite the Mechtoids into an improvised explosive trap, courtesy of our boys in blue in the half-assed technical in the back with the upgraded M-2.

Our mystery sniper wannabe took the hint and tried to target the trucks next, only for Eidolon to swoop in from the skies and with the fury of a thousand suns as he smote the entire goddamn building that the fucker was using as cover.

Excessive, but it worked.

"How much further until we get there?" Mio's agitation with the situation was growing, and had to be severe already if she was speaking instead of just yanking the answer out of my head.

"Five minutes, assuming that we don't hit a major roadblock. If we do? Seven minutes."

Marcy turned away from blasting at another Cyberdisc pair (and I was ignoring how I knew that for now) to stare at me in shock…until she figured out what I was actually saying and then retracted her intended exclamation before she could make it.

Which was sad, because we could have used the levity right about now. Most of the group was wearing thin on the morale front, particularly one of the cops, who was rapidly developing the kind of sensitivity and perception that was a defining characteristic of Newtypes. Hell, one of the survivors that we'd picked up had even triggered for fuck's sake, and had to be forcibly restrained lest she run headfirst into the nightmare alone. Mio and I weren't doing much better, having a far more powerful empathic sense than even the Mouse, who was becoming ever more blatant in her attempts to keep us steady as things spiraled downwards faster and faster. It was really one of the only things keeping me from tearing off and reaping the battlefield on my own, instead of sticking to the (admittedly bare-bones) plan and getting actual benefit out of my inevitable roaring rampage of revenge.

As I'd expected, the Aliens were actively trying to enforce Murphy, as the blockade of the main roads was more than completed…and the fuckers were deliberately using the bodies of the slain to do so, just to rub the point in. That had to be an intimidation tactic of some kind or another.

Too bad all it did was piss everyone off even more, at which Mio immediately aimed our main gun at the interlopers and fired.

The repulsor cannon that she had rigged up was an interesting piece of technology: it basically used the counter-gravity field technology alongside the repulsor tech that came with, to create a type of cannon that could, in theory, use just about anything as a piece of ammunition, with the only real limitation being if it could fit inside the barrel. On the surface, it should have failed utterly even before she tried firing it, let alone with its payload of crumbled and reformed reinforced concrete blocks, complete with the rebar still in the block, but against all odds it worked.

And better than expected, no less, as the projectile was lobbed at speeds that were absolutely boggling for a non-engineered projectile of that size to be moving at. The impact was even more spectacular, as the freaky mecha that were trying to camp the wall of bodies took the worst hits, followed by their thin men counterparts that were slithering in from the sides…

…and I was going to have to take a very close look at my memories again, when I got the chance, because I had the strangest feeling that there was something important that I was missing in the semi-random threat info I was getting flashes of. Something that needed to be addressed as quickly as possible lest it come back to bite us in the ass…

Eidolon had returned from his side mission by this point. "Alright, we're almost to Memorial Hermann. Once we get people there, I am going to head out towards Hobby and see about getting the airports secure so we can get some reinforcements inbound–"

"Save it for after we get rid of the top cover, Eidolon!" I snapped back. "As long as those fucking ships stay clogging up the skies, we ain't getting so much as a care package in here, and I somehow doubt that you have the ability to take one down on your own without compromising something, so chill. We'll be able to take the fight to the enemy soon enough, alright?" My statement was punctuated with yet another perfectly timed strike from high altitude, almost as if whoever was doing that was intentionally waiting for the exact right moment to do so.

Eidolon stared at me with an unreadable look beneath his neon cowl, but eventually acquiesced. "Fair. We need to work together to put an end to this, regardless. No need to have everyone rushing off on their own."

…and he actually meant that, too. I could feel it plain as day. Judging from Marcy' surprise, she wasn't expecting this either. Some kind of insider info on the big man?

No matter. Eidolon was proving–no, had proven–himself to be a good man driven by a cause far too many times even on this trip alone, and I wasn't about to toss that away just because I was looking for the barb. I'd actually been rather unfair to the man this whole time, simply because I couldn't stand his little buddy Alexandria…but seeing firsthand how much this was affecting him, I couldn't hold onto that suspicious edge. No matter which way I sliced it, it was clear that Eidolon was a good man who had the weight of the world on his shoulders and nobody else with which to share the strain.

'Well, here's to that little annoyance of yours coming to an end, Eidolon. Soon.'

Moving the bodies, as disrespectful as it was, was an easy task making liberal use of the fact that I could use telekinesis, and didn't have to actually leave our battle bus to actually clear things out. This led to an unsurprising bum rush from the invasion forces by yet another new type of alien, this one seeming to be a humanoid-looking thing floating in the air on some kind of…okay, what?

This...Floater…was missing the entire lower half of its body for this shit, and apparently can use micromissiles (some kind of weapons pod thing, from the looks of it). Even worse, they seemed to be a much larger sponge for punishment than expected, which was always worrying, but Marcy and the others still managed to shoot it down, though it was a close call.

And, of course, because there was no such thing as a goddamn break around here, another eight of the fuckers popped up over the barricade practically like clockwork, plasma rifles blazing even as they moved to cut off our advance.

The ensuing firefight was downright brutal in its intensity, as we threw everything we had against the fuckers while pushing forward as hard as possible. The floaty bastards repaid the favor by acting as flying beacons to draw in more enemy forces to stymie our advance, what looked like entire squads of hulking Mutons and their various support troops pouring on the firepower even as they moved to establish hardier blockades.

Had this been anyone else, pretty much anywhere else, there would be nothing but smoking ruins left after the fury of the onslaught that was being directed at us.

Unfortunately for them, I was here, and was officially past my breaking point of giving a fuck, even with poor MP trying to keep me stable. My Force-backed will stretched out over the battlefield, grabbing hold of every last Xenos abomination on the field and crushing them in an iron telekinetic grip, while also setting them on fire with a pulse of magic.

We drove by unmolested after the last of the bodies fell.

'Oh. Sorry about that. I thought you were less mad than I was.'

Mio, in an attempt to not go off herself, had filtered her own rage through me, which was why I'd had that little snap moment just now….not that it wasn't coming anyway, but her trying to ground herself out accelerated the process.

'No need to apologize. I was going to do it anyway…well, without the fire. That's your thing more than mine. Grab the gear that's leftover, would you?'

Mio nodded her approval and started grabbing the remains of the enemy tech for repurposing…which had a lot more scorch marks than should have been possible…

Marcy coughed, weakly. "Err…was the lightning actually necessary in all that, foxy?"

I blinked, then looked back over the event. Apparently the Force approved of my taking out the trash, and decided to throw in a lightning crush for free since I was already making a statement.

I shrugged and moved on.

-=[/\]=-​

The Medical Center was in utter chaos. There were panicking civilians everywhere, lots of Aliens making the matter worse, and a not inconsiderable deployment of the various police agencies that a major city like Houston could bring to bear.

Unfortunately, the police were losing, and badly. The few Terran refugees that had decided to fight were doing somewhat better, but from even a casual glance, that was more due to originium arts being an outside context problem than anything related to actual effectiveness on their part, especially as the volunteers were being pulled from the recently recovered that were still getting used to the little thing called not having oripathy. Y'know, little things.

Thus, the arrival of the Battle Bus drew a lot of attention, from all sides…and a round of cheers when we started lighting up the filthy Xenos with las.

'Mio, Bleedover!!'

'Oops. reeling it in…'

Still, the aliens were not just taking it lying down, focusing fire on the already heavily damaged bus in an attempt to pin it down…and doing a damn good job, as I could already feel the controls becoming slippery as the firepower took its toll.

Of course, being the focal point for enemy firepower allows for a bunch of good things…like letting the technicals zoom around and wreck shop with a vengeance.

The best part is that all of this left Eidolon completely unremarked upon as he zoomed about, taking down entire groups of xenos with a precision and fury that had been absent during our travel, now that we had arrived. Probably swapped out a power or something, and I sure as hell wasn't going to complain about having more firepower.

Still, just because things were looking up didn't mean that they were good. The fact that the area was getting hit so hard likely meant that the Xenos had the same idea I did, and were moving to cut off the potential rally point, something which could not be allowed under any circumstances.

And then there was the fact that the aerial bombardments had stopped for some reason, which was not good considering that the fuckers have had uncontested superiority in that sector since the battle started. If they weren't firing, then it was because they were doing something else.

Meaning yet another time limit. Joy.

The Battle Bus shuddered as the countegrav finally gave out, forcing us to ground dead center of the Fannin/Canbirdge intersection. Not bad, but I would have preferred getting further into the med center proper…still, can't argue with results, as we were close enough to Hermann to get set up. Besides, it let me do silly things.

"Attention passengers! The Bus has reached its last stop, and all occupants must exit the vehicle immediately. Please remember to grab a lasgun on the way out, and thank you for riding Battle Bus limited!! LET'S GIVE 'EM HELL!!!"

The raucous cheer from the "crew" of the bus was heartening to my poor abused empathic senses, and helped me re-center myself just a tad bit more. Soon…soon…

Our survivors and volunteers piled out with gusto, immediately opening fire on the opposition with a now practiced ease and equal fervor. The Oni duo in particular were unusually fearless in their advance, practically mowing down a group of Mutons that tried to close in, with the father of the pair even outright snapping one's neck with raw strength alone.

Unfortunately, this did him no favors as the other xenos simply focused fire on the now vulnerable guy, and it took Eidolon swooping in to absorb the incoming fire to get him clear.

Which sucked. I was hoping for at least a demoralization effect on seeing their big guys get manhandled by the old dude like that…

Of course, the rest of us were not idle in the least. Mio had taken to the skies, much to the surprise of many, fully expressing her frame for the first time since we'd hit the planet and going into full combat swing. It was as devastating as I'd expected it to be, and most of the main firepower was rightfully being directed at her, to no avail: her Impeller was entirely too powerful for even the xenos' plasma weapons to significantly affect, and she more or less had free rein.

Marcy, now back in her proper role as Mouse Protector once more, was darting all over the place and putting her newfound newtype awareness and psychokinetic ability to the test, with terrifying results. Most enemy groups could barely get a lock on her with how she was abusing her parahuman power, tagging bits of debris and flinging them at and around places via telekinesis only to jump to it at the last second and then lay even more markers from which to move to and attack from.

And this time she was not restricting herself to merely Sword and Board, instead carrying one of the automatic Lasguns (we really needed to settle on a name for those) and explosives to rain death and destruction upon her foes. The poor bastards couldn't adapt fast enough to do a real counter, which was a shame, as all that did was let her yoink several intact plasma rifles for Mio to distractedly rebuild and repurpose for others.

Hell, even the damn cops were going all in now, having taken the opportunity to push forwarded from their harried barricades and advance on the enemy, a noted departure from standard cop tactics.

As for myself? I was setting up the battle bus as a stationary turret, putting all of the weapons on automatic before bailing out myself. The Bus immediately started going nuts on the bits of the battlefield that weren't already getting mauled by someone or something else, drawing yet more fire.

And yet the enemy kept coming, an unceasing tide of alien flesh and metal and plasma blasts that refused to stop and refused to quit.

How very unfortunate that I wasn't distracted anymore…and that nobody was paying attention.

Force Missile is normally a 4th-level spell, a kind of bigger brother to the venerable Magic Missile spell that all D&D players know and love, except stronger and with splash damage. I, being the filthy munchkin that I was, I decided to alter it for my own purposes. And unlike a normal D&D player, I was not bound by tabletop balance, meaning that I could go full hog.

It took a moment for me to spin it up. Scanning for targets, even in this environment, was the hardest part, and took by far the most time, but I had long since worked out a sort of active sensor pulse that used me as the origin point that was useful for this kind of thing. The targeting calculations were somewhat tricky too, especially as I needed to account for not blowing up the cover around us, but I got them working within a few seconds. Payload was far easier, a mix of incendiary, acidic, and pure concussive force that hopefully should do enough to clear out the masses the way we needed.

The last part was just sheer, bloody numbers.

It was Eidolon who noticed it first, the rapidly expanding ball of flickering lights that was the focal point of my spell, and he actually stopped to watch in awe as it expanded further, the lights within growing in number at an exponential rate. He was soon joined by the onlookers behind the barricades, a few straggling survivors, and eventually even the combatants themselves, both human and xeno alike.

Didn't take long for one of them to get a brain blast and look for (and find) the source, but by then it was already far too late.

I took the time to climb atop the battle bus and look over the battlefield for effect, which got more guns pointed at me…but not firing. Almost as if the damned Ayys were afraid…

Well, better give them something to be afraid of, then. And no better way than to use that tried and true method…

"And for my first trick…Force Missile, Intensified, Twinned, Repeated…oh, and overclocked too."

The almighty power of an Evoker on the warpath. Because battlemages are always fun…for allies.

Enemies? Not so much.

The actual release of the spell itself looked more like a series of exquisite fireworks, or falling stars…at least, at first. Then those same fireworks became streaks of light that, just for the hell of it, I had pulling an Itano Circus routine as they closed in on their assigned targets. For their part, the Ayys did try to actually dodge and/or take cover, but I'd chosen this particular setup precisely for the ability to ignore such paltry concerns.

I watched as one of the Mechotids, seeing its impending demise coming for it, tried to get a shot off at me before the end, only to fall victim to the vastly overcharged and ridiculously overpowered magic impacting and delivering its lethal payload. The blast wave alone was enough to launch the machine into the air from sheer force alone, and then the caustic flames got to work, eating away at everything on the machine as quickly as possible.

All that hit the ground at the end was a charred wreck that used to be a cybernetic fusion of alien flesh and unknown technology…and that was one of the ones that got off easy.

Others were coated in corrosive flames and literally melted alive, desperately scrambling for something, anything to get the damned fire off of them. A few of the thin men tried to pull a "Stop, drop and roll" maneuver, only to receive a large amount of Las for the trouble. The floaters and Cyberdiscs in the group were literally blasted out of the sky like so much refuse, the 'discs being all but vaporized through sheer main force alone. The smaller insect bastards only had smears left where they used to be standing.

And those big, hulking Mutons that were the main force for the aliens?

Gore. Gore and Blood and Gore everywhere. Chests blown through, arms and legs blasted away from the main body, entire aliens blown in half and struggling to survive only to bet hit by another missile and perish, corpses with their heads blown off, all of them were there, and more fell by the second as the onslaught continued. The screams and wails (and to a select few, the faint emotions of the dying xenos) filled the air, and unlike the prior screams of dying people I paid these no mind. It was only fitting that they be dealt the same hand that they had tried to play onto those who could not defend themselves, after all.

I felt the wave of emotion hit me before I actually heard the cheering start, a ragged cry being joined by the voices of others as the beleaguered defenders rallied at the sight of such power. Even as the spell ended, and yet more xenos filth pushed in at speed, the defenders stood more energized than ever and ready to defend their homes.

And then Eidolon stepped up to the plate and reminded them that he was here too.

With a wordless gesture, he merely pointed…and we all watched as all of the plasma, every joule of energy that had been directed at him for the last who knows how long now was focused back onto the aliens that had been dealing it out, and to even more devastating results than my own storm of magic. Errant pulses of energy blew craters into the road and sidewalks as more aliens died under his hand, charring and scorching from the sheer heat generated from the blasts leaving their marks and actually starting a few small fires in the grass….fires that were quickly smothered with alien blood and guts.

The end results spoke for themselves, and the cheering rose to an even higher pitch.

Eidolon chose that moment to catch my eye, a strange, challenging look hidden there. I merely give him a nod and two-fingered salute, a smile adorning my face for the first time in what felt like hours. We held gazes for a brief moment, before he relaxed and nodded back, gaining a smile of his own in the process.

Indeed, Eidolon was a good man, despite the weight placed on his shoulders.

I took the moment to survey the battlefield: mostly cleared, with a few stragglers moving about trying to avoid the main killing field as often as possible. I didn't blame them one bit, after that display. The other roads were looking good too, but still needed to be reinforced as soon as possible. The barricades were shoddy, but could be beefed up given time…and we had a nice, large Hospital Roof to work with for other things.

Alrighty then, time to set up.

"Mio! You're good to go!!" Get some heavy emplacements up to deal with some of this extra shit here, would you?"

Mio wordless shout was all the assent I needed, and I started moving. She could handle the hospital from here, and it was now time for the second stage of my impromptu plan: getting the immediate surroundings secured and locating any survivors to bring back to the new safe point. From there, depending on how the situation developed, I would either be pushing for clearing the skies or opening a sea lane thought the Port for reinforcements to get through. My first choice was to clear out the air, but that depended on my ability to actually do damage to the ships themselves, and the consequences of a shoot-down. Past that…well, the current plan was "pray for reinforcements" but if that failed then Mio and I would have to whip something up to work with. By then, I would probably have more than thirty seconds of time to work, which would be invaluable in getting the bigger stuff we would need online.

More screaming caught my attention, and I rushed to the source, ready to intervene…but what I saw made my blood run cold.

It was a weird, insectile creature, even more so than the big-headed small fucks running around mindjacking everything in sight, with six(?) legs and a vaguely humanoid torso with arms and yet more claws in place of hands. It was currently pulling its front legs, clearly designed as a kind of bladed weapon, out of its victim.

That wasn't the problem.

The victim was a Bet native, an older woman who was clearly doing her part (the multiple clocked out pistols surrounding her, along with the shotgun, told as much) before getting ganked by this thing, her face even in death a mask of fury and defiance.

That wasn't the problem, either.

No, the problem was that both of them were surrounded by what I could only describe as fucking zombies, each one moving in the classic shambling walk towards a group of even more potential victims. And as they shambled along, one of the zombies vomited for a moment, before suddenly bursting apart as another of those things tore its way out of the zombie's chest, clearly fully developed and ready to kill.

A quick glance around told the tale: there were tons of newly-hatched insect things around, clearly notable by the white carapace as compared to the darker ones of their elders…and the fuckers were skittering, fast as all hell, towards the nearest concentration of more live bodies to infest and grow in.

Yeah, no. I was not letting a fucking Chryssalid outbreak happen in MY GODDAMNED CITY.

I would deal with the confirmation of this shit being fresh out of an XCOM game later.

The first Chryssalid I'd noticed turned towards me, clearly having become aware of my presence…only to fall apart in no less than eight pieces as my attack finally took.

Because those things might be fast, but I am a fucking NINJA.

The rest of the group turned towards me, having somehow known of their comrade's fall.

They died just as quickly.

-=[/\]=-​

"DIE YOU STUPID INSECT THINGS!!"

The wet squelch of her improvised club tearing into the soft flesh of the damned spider monster things was a relief to Anya, having just pried herself from the trap that should have been obvious to her after so long as an Operator. The fact that there was supposed to be chitin in the way of said flesh was ignored, as was the current state of her improvised implement, which was only holding together through the application of a rather nifty art effect that she had picked up some years back.

The gore staining her clothes, hair, and tail were only a minor annoyance. The sudden death of yet another insectile creature as it tried to close in on her was completely unrelated. As were the bodies of its brood mates, all thirty of them.

"You fucking bastards. Do you have any idea how long it takes to properly clean blood out of my tail? Do you, you stupid bugs!?!"

Completely unrelated at all.

The rustling of more claw-feet caught her attention, and she turned to face the threat…only to sigh in annoyance.

"Marcos, please do not play with the bugs. Mommy needs to kill them so they don't hurt people, alright?"

Her son's groan of disappointment echoed in the small alley that they were in, and the dying screech of another bug followed soon after.

And to think people looked at her oddly for teaching her son how to fight so young. Not so funny now, was it, you old codgers?

A sigh escaped her at the thought. This attack was bringing back old memories, ones that she really would rather not be facing at the moment. Her time on the roads of Terra, moving from place to place in a desperate attempt to flee those who sought her head for trying to live with the dread disease…it was a harsh life, but even then there were good times attached to it.

Times that were now somewhat marred by the fact that she had to kill poor Mr Fawkes, the old owl having been turned into a zombie by those damned bugs almost as soon as things started getting rough. She made sure to take care of him herself, so that Marcos didn't have to see the kindly old man that he loved so much dead and mutilated by these things.

Even so, getting away from the other aliens types was only mildly more difficult. Energy weapons were tough to dodge, sure, but she was always faster than most, and could take a hit or two even without a proper shield to focus her defensive arts into. Marcos was even worse for them, her son all but a blur to the bastards as they tried in vain to even hit him, let alone kill him.

It helped that they both had quickly adapted to the strange new awareness of their environment that they shared, yet another of Satori's gifts it seemed. Said gift had been invaluable in threading the needle through the madhouse and getting to where they were now, near the hospitals that they had once been held inside. Common knowledge held that Hospitals were usually the first places to receive heavy defense, or at least evacuation, so it was highly likely that she could find some support nearby if she looked hard enough.

The sounds of even more chittering caught her ears, and she noticed Marcos' own twitch as well. The things never seemed to stop, and she was wondering just where the hell they were getting all the bodies from to make so many more…

Then the wave hit, and it was worse than even her worst fears. There were at least fifty of the fuckers, all of them speeding directly towards her and her precious son. And while she was good, damned good in fact…that was simply too many for her to take on, even if she'd had proper equipment. There was no point in trying to send Marcos away: she'd seen those things leap incredible heights in pursuing potential victims, and her Marcos was not strong enough to outrun them in this environment.

But she would be damned if she ever allowed those things to lay so much as a single scratch on her son without her being dead first. It simply would not happen. So she set herself, knowing surely that this would be the moment of her death, and prepared for it.

And then the entire group was simply flattened by a wave of force she could feel, the sheer disgust and hate echoing off of it all but palpable.

And, because fate hadn't made it clear enough what she was supposed to be doing, none another than Satori Green himself walked around the corner to check up on who he'd just saved. As if she'd needed the reminder that she was going to be bearing his children.

The wave of emotion she felt from him made it very clear that he'd understood that the hole he was in had only gotten deeper, and she smirked in vicious amusement.

Always was nice when the men knew they were being hunted…

Satori walked forwards without a care. "Anya, Marcos, hey. See you two are doing well…for the most part, anyway." He gave a cursory glance to the alleyway and then to her weapon, before shrugging.

"Well, we managed. Even with this rickety old thing, it was still workable, and I'd trained my boy to take care of himself properly, so we were fine." She deliberately moved as close as possible just to make it clear that his attempts at deflecting away from his ever-growing reward were noticed…and ignored. "Still, it would be nice if we could have an escort from a big, strong man like you. What'cha think: care for a few tagalongs?"

The flat look she got in return was worth it, in her opinion. "Says the woman sitting on the cracked carapaces of over thirty Chryssalids…all of them killed by blunt force, no less. Sure, you need an escort. How about I just make you a better weapon instead, hmm?"

Anya blinked. "Wait, you can do that?"

But Satori was already moving, lifting up the bugs (chryssalids, he called them?) via a telekinesis art of some kind, and quickly stripping them of their bone, carapaces, and claws in short order, and then immediately moving to work them into something usable through some even more esoteric arts she didn't quite understand.

But the speed. Dear gods, the sheer speed he was moving at!!

"Based on the patterns I see, and your stance, I take it you are used to having a Shield of some kind normally, right? I think I can work with that. Now, as for weapons, you want a slasher, a piercer, or a club type? Any preferences on length? Need a secondary? What about ranged options?"

And he still had enough focus left to talk? How the…

"Nevermind, got it. Gimme a moment to do a thing with these chitin pieces, would ya?"

And Anya watched, stunned, as this man created a masterpiece of a weapon from the bodies of a completely unknown and unseen enemy, complete to specifications that he had never been told, to fit a person he barely knew…in less than two minutes.

It was unreal. Insane. Completely the subject of myth and fabrication and whimsy. And yet...there they were, being handed the finest in weaponry by a man who seemed to barely put any effort into the process at all except to make sure that it worked right for her hand.

And what a weapon at that!! The resulting swordspear was a grand thing, despite it's origins, with a clearly inlaid blade of treated and sharpened chitin slotted into a perfect frame that was both deceptively light and incredibly strong at the same time. The shaft being collapsible into a standard hand-and-a-half setup was even better, as now she had that rare gift called options when dealing with things.

The accompanying shield (the work of merely a minute this time) was even more a masterpiece, a solid heater design with reinforced backing (somehow, and she had no clue how he'd pulled it off so fast) that made it even more protective.

The fact that both weapon and shield were fully receptive, even inviting, to her arts was just icing on the cake of goodness. All she needed now was a decent set of tactical armor, and she would be fully geared up again!

Her Marcos wasn't left out, either, having gotten twin shortswords (sized for adults, mind, which were larger in his hands) instead of his mama's swordspear and shield, and all at the same quality, too!

"See mama? Told you he would help." Because of course her Marcos had, with all the surety of a child, stated the obvious long since.

The one time she ignores her son pulling his "obvious advice" routine…

"Sorry for it being rough on the edges. I didn't have time to put in all of the really good stuff for a weapon of that type, but it should at least make it easier to deal with the bullshit going on around here." Satori quipped, charging a shining blue orb of energy in his palm. "With any luck you shouldn't need to use them too much, but with the damned Chryssalids running about I doubt that." His aggravated statement was punctuated by him tossing the orb of energy almost negligently at the mouth of the alley, where it found the head of another of the Chryssalids trying to rush in around the blind corner, along with several of its friends.

"That being said, We are setting things up at the Hospital as a refuge point and rally position. Head that way, and you should find safety…but do it quick so you don't get caught in the swarming that is going on, okay?"

Anya couldn't find the words to respond, due to her throat being tightened with conflicting emotions, so she just nodded. Marcos managed to reply with a cheerful "yep!" in her stead, so it worked out.

And then Satori left them, safer and significantly better armed, to fight their way to the hospital on their own, practically blurring even to her own senses. She heard the sounds of another pack of alien creatures dying horribly echo from somewhere, so it was safe to assume that he was at least doing something about the problem.

Still, she appreciated the silent vote of confidence that was letting them make the run solo. "Alright honey, time to move. Stay close to me and watch your angles; we don't want to get snuck up on by the bugs!!"

"Yeah! Let's go Mama!!"

-=[/\]=-​

Mio found herself in an interesting situation.

Her assignment in the ad-hoc plan that they had come up with was to fortify the hospital, turn it into a safe point, and use the resulting place as a weapons distribution center for those who wanted to take the fight to the enemy. It was a rough proposition…on paper. The amount of area she had to cover, combined with the multi-spectrum threat environment and the distinct lack of helping hands, made things all the more challenging. The Hospital complex being roughly L-shaped and, again, its sheer size was a further complication.

Of course, that was on paper.

In reality? She could have the place set up as a fucking fortress within ten minutes, tops…and that was if she did it the slow way.

The beginning part was obvious for all of this: turrets, turrets, and more turrets, all automated and slaved to Minerva's control systems so she could designate targets. Set them up in a four, sometimes five-piece configuration with spreads designed to maximize firing angles and coverage while minimizing vulnerability, and add in some shielding while she was at it, too. Sure, the stuff she had available was strictly off-the-shelf, but it would work for long enough to do what it needed to do.

But what kind of guns to put in the nests? Solid shell? Pure las? Pulsed plasma? And what about the distribution mix? Did she want pure ground, anti-air, or a mix of both?

Fortunately, this was an easy decision to make and fix later if need be. Just set down some Volley Las in certain locations, make sure the power supply was hardened enough, and add in a rapid-fire plasma pulse gun as a form of Anti-air and long range.

Wait!! Use some of the drone technology that they were sitting on, and have the firebases also be drone nests!! That would help to expand the safe zones.

As for the hospital itself…full structural reinforcement, major shield generator of her own personal design (which she was working out even now in a series of separate multitasking instances) and all the AAA that she could fit onto the roof, just to make it clear that the filthy xenos were not allowed near. Then, once defense was established to her satisfaction, start running through the place and upgrading the entire complex. Nothing spared, no exceptions.

And then she could start handing out the newer and even more improved Hellguns that she had designed to the people. The major changes to the setup against the "standard" pattern of Hellgun would mostly be power draw efficiency, Rapid fire and fire select, ergonomics and utilities, strength of the frame and lug Bayonet, that kind of thing. She'd also made and prepped another set of ultra-high cap power packs that were good for well over 300 shots at max power draw, which if anyone needed meant they had bigger concerns.

Still, all of her grandiose plans had the minor issue of being dead smack in the middle of an enemy operation where the objective was to kill as many people as possible as quickly as possible, it seemed. Though Minerva had been chirping about wanting to examine the odd pods that were now landing in certain areas and…abducting people?

A thought occurred to her. Couldn't the people here make use of a nice, long-range fire support weapon to help others out? Say, a Sufficiently powerful linear accelerator of some kind, and enough ammo to allow them to reach out and touch someone in the best way possible.

Even better: a way to deliver mobile turrets to distant locations to start locking down portions of the city!! Use a grav launcher as a firing platform, and let the enemy think it was an artillery strike, only to have the real horror kick in afterwards when their position is getting torn to bits by the new turret(s) in their midst. (yes, plural, because only idiots launched these things one at a time.)

Only thing they'd be missing was spotters, but even that could be accounted for by using drones or something. Probably should add them in, anyway, just to be safe.

The beginning of the build-up was the hardest part. Somehow the filthy xenos figured out what she was up to and tried to stop her, or at least distract her enough to prevent them coming online. Too bad for them, Minerva was basically invincible to their attacks, and she was more than capable of extending her Impeller over a wide enough area to cover other potential targets of opportunity without compromising the actual strength thereof.

And so, the first of the defensive firebases came online with little fuss (and a modification for manual usage, just in case) and immediately started throwing hatred at the…you know what? No. She'd met proper Xenos who weren't filth-ridden and degenerate in her time, and these things were not worthy of the title. From now on, she would be using a different term, one more familiar to those of her friends and squadmates back when she was a grunt.

"Be now and forevermore dubbed "Ayys", dumb fucks.", she whispered softly.

And then immediately shook her head to clear the confusion. Those thoughts, those memories, had come from practically nowhere and hit her right when she least expected them, slipping past her defenses and processes for integrating them in a proper manner.

'Was this what you felt when you started getting bleedover from your other selves, beloved?' Because if so, she owed her Satori an apology for having mocked him for it, however slightly, even if only in her head.

The second defensive position was formed with little fanfare, and slowly people started to take notice that Aliens that ran down those streets died, and died in job lots. The rush to safety had began in earnest, and she wasn't even fully ready for it yet!!

Better hurry then.

The third was completed in record time, thanks to a bit of in-storage construction speeding things along and just needing her to deploy the pieces in place. Three of her five corners now covered, she kicked on the speed, moving fast enough that one of the odd Berserker Mutons was bowled over before getting riddled with las. The fourth firebase went down even faster, almost immediately opening fire on an attempted rally by the enemy forces to prevent just that, this time with more of the weird bug-type aliens that had been popping up lately. Minerva was pulling a blank on how and why there were so many of them, but the bits she was getting from Satori told her they were definitely not good and needed to be removed as soon as possible and with extreme prejudice.

It was the fifth where things got interesting. The Ayys, seemingly sensing her intentions, made a full play for the final point, and were adding in more wrinkles in the form of even more new types of opposition to deal with. The Floater things were out in force and harassing everything they could get sightline to, while the Mutons and their berserk counterparts were flat-out rushing the area and trying to lay down as much fire as possible on as many people as possible. There was even a weird type of walker vehicle involved, too, which was adding to the push, and Minerva quickly identified several more being deployed to her location.

All of that would have been at best an annoyance for Mio alone, but the interesting part was that what was left of the local parahumans in the area had finally made their push, and were attempting to hold the position themselves. And, she had to admit, they were doing a pretty good job of it all things told, though most of that seemed to be Grey Knight tapping into even more of his latent potential and acting as a bulwark for the rest.

Well, trying to, anyway, as she winced at one of the parahumans (some woman with a two-tone bodysuit and domino mask) get her head blown off by a stray plasma bolt. Still, it was a good defense for what was otherwise a hopeless situation, and she quickly added her own firepower to the equation, focusing on the heaviest targets. The Floaters tried to harry her, but even with them actively attempting to body check her in midair, it was trivial to avoid their attacks.

The walkers never stood a chance, and Mio felt zero sympathy for their crews.

Actually setting up the fifth emplacement was significantly more annoying, as the alien bastards started focusing their fire on her specifically, and the damned ships above finally decided that they had waited long enough and joined in with them. Sure, her impeller could handle the strain, as significant as it was, but the fact that so much firepower was being dropped almost directly on top of her meant that actually getting anything done in the first place was impossible, as annoying factors like area of effect kicked in and rendered her attempts at building up defenses into shattered wrecks. And she could only spread her Impeller field so far, dammit!!

It took layering no less than four sets of the shielding units that she was using to anchor the setup to hold off the onslaught for long enough to get defenses down, and after that the ground forces started getting reaped at a far more acceptable rate. She added in a few missiles of her own before moving on to the Hospital roof, still tanking the oncoming fire from above.

Which did not help with her already severe annoyance. Which caused her to grumble.

Loudly.

"Okay, so the bastards seem to know that I'm building up and are willing to slag the entire district just to deny it to me, and I can't disengage without leaving the Hospital open no matter how much I want to shoot the damned things out of the sky. So now what?"

Explosions up above caught her attention, Minerva having picked up the thermal bloom even through the interference that was being laid down, and Mio quickly backtraced the source to what looked like an advanced aerospace fighter of some kind engaging with one of the alien ships. And doing a pretty good job of it, too, from the looks of things, as the ships had shifted to defending against the new attackers instead of prioritizing her.

She grinned maliciously. "That...was a mistake."

Setting up the anti-air batteries was a cakewalk, even if she had to support them with built-in countergravs to not have the roof cave in. The armament was similarly brutal, being the normally Knight-mounted volcano lances and homing energy pulse launchers, the designs for both of which were pulled from the STC database and modified for her own ends. The volcano lances were modified mostly for efficiency and rate of fire (along with receiving the standard triple-barrel setup common to heavier laser mounts) and the Energy pulse launchers, already a curious bit of technology, were modified for additional damage output.

And three of them were set onto the roof, along with enough etherwave reactors to power them for the next thirty years at max output…and enough heat dissipation to make sure that the surrounding area didn't fry from the firing.

Shielding was equally robust for all that she was going to get a better setup in the hospital proper when given time, but even this buildup had left her dangerously low on materials in her storage and she'd need to range out to gather more soon…

The defensive emplacements only took seconds to activate and run their calibration checks, and immediately used the built-in defense auspex to scan for targets. The obvious offenders were noted and engaged in short order, the sound and sight of Las and exotic energy packets launching into the air joining the cacophony of war.

She noted with amusement that the ships above them immediately moved to clear the firing arcs of the guns, actually taking more hits from the aerospace fighters engaging them rather than risk getting hit by the lasers on the ground!!

This was important data!!

'Satori, I think the ships are a lot weaker than they look. They are actively dodging my Volcano Lance emplacements rather than try to take the hits and destroy the emplacement. I think you can destroy one or more with a sufficiently powerful attack spell or art. Also, I'm running low on materials from setting up, so get the people you're sending my way to give me more, please.'

She didn't bother waiting for him to confirm anything, instead getting back to work. Maybe she could salvage some of the scrapped machines the Ayys were sending at them and use that for the rebuilds…and those plasma weapons looked good for repurposing too…

Minerva drew her attention to the radio bands for a moment, specifically a series of communications that had been picked up and analyzed while she was busy. According to the transcripts, someone had called in for help from some organization called x com? And had gotten a positive response that help was on the way, if limited. And with the skies clearing up due to how much of it her volcano lances covered, there was just~ enough room to slip in a few troop transports if the pilots knew what they were doing…

'Yeah, might as well get the welcome wagon ready for properly trained supports to be coming in…I'd had enough of a break as it was.'

- = | | | | | | | | | | = -​

Another note: this broken up into parts intentionally, as there were entirely too many perspectives to cover in one shot. Next up is some commentary from Brockton and how they're handling the situation. Hint: it's going much better than Houston, mostly because they aren't literally knee deep in Ayys, dead and live alike…

 

[Thine Spree]

Wooo, this story is back, and interesting looks like the Ethereal's are deploying what might by post first game forces inside the invasion forces? (The plasma sniper that Eidolon dropped the building out under) And I wonder who it was that made the call for XCOM, given it wasn't either of the Green's.. could it be one of the other orgs that got transplanted into this earth during the merges like XCOM its self has?

 

[transhumansage]

what is the van sar stc an stc of. like is it guns, toasters etc?

The Celestial Forge is a list of perks gathered from various CYOAs and Jumpchains, and they all have to do with crafting or making technology. In case you don't know. CYOAs are "Choose Your Own Adventures." Jumpchains are a writing prompt where a person "jumps" from universe to universe, generally gaining new powers as they move along.
The Celestial Forge allows authors to spend points on purchasing Perks, and they gain points with their wordcount.
Brockton Bays Celestial Forge initially popularized it.

Click to shrink...

To be more specific, I'm using the recently released version 3 of the setup; it is generally a large improvement over the first iteration while being less bloated than the second version. it be something to keep in mind. Here's a Link to it if you're interested.

Click to shrink...

Slider Zero Please threadmark these posts as they are important for anyone not familiar with the concept.

 

[Slider Zero]

what is the van sar stc an stc of. like is it guns, toasters etc?

Click to shrink...

So, the Van Saar STC is...special in that canonically we aren't exactly sure whats in that STC, only that it is far, far more complete than almost any other known STC in the setting. Only the (maybe) three known complete STC in the setting truly outstrip it. I have gone with one of the potential fan interpretations that the knowledge of the STC itself is mostly intact, being only minorly degraded from a full and complete STC, but the damage to the actual body (which is the cause of the sickness that most Van Saar acolytes have) prevents any proper exploitation of the contents. Going to the Mechanicus would be...problematic, as they would likely confiscate the STC outright and potentially punish Van Saar as a whole for withholding it for so long, so they hang on to it.

 

[transhumansage]

So, the Van Saar STC is...special in that canonically we aren't exactly sure whats in that STC, only that it is far, far more complete than almost any other known STC in the setting. Only the (maybe) three known complete STC in the setting truly outstrip it. I have gone with one of the potential fan interpretations that the knowledge of the STC itself is mostly intact, being only minorly degraded from a full and complete STC, but the damage to the actual body (which is the cause of the sickness that most Van Saar acolytes have) prevents any proper exploitation of the contents. Going to the Mechanicus would be...problematic, as they would likely confiscate the STC outright and potentially punish Van Saar as a whole for withholding it for so long, so they hang on to it.

Click to shrink...

what are the other three known stc in the setting?

 

[ATP]

Wooo, this story is back, and interesting looks like the Ethereal's are deploying what might by post first game forces inside the invasion forces? (The plasma sniper that Eidolon dropped the building out under) And I wonder who it was that made the call for XCOM, given it wasn't either of the Green's.. could it be one of the other orgs that got transplanted into this earth during the merges like XCOM its self has?

Click to shrink...

Who are Ethereals?
aside from that - great chapter.And nice aliens to kill.

P.S is it Alma from Fear?

 

[Slider Zero]

what are the other three known stc in the setting?

Click to shrink...

Depends on who you ask and what you are willing to qualify, which is why I said maybe three. One has already appeared in the story, as it's the one that is onboard the Speranza, which for reasons is not utilized. As for the other two...supposedly Trayzn the Infinite has one, being a packrat, and there is theroretically a third hanging somewhere in the Ghoul Stars or something, but it's never quite fully spelled out and most consider it a false lead.

Who are Ethereals?
aside from that - great chapter.And nice aliens to kill.

P.S is it Alma from Fear?

Click to shrink...

as, I mentioned before, Alma Wade exists in the setting and has children. You may wish to specify.

 

[Thine Spree]

Who are Ethereals?
aside from that - great chapter.And nice aliens to kill.

P.S is it Alma from Fear?

Click to shrink...

The Ethereals are the ayys incharge of the XCOM invasion, race of highly powerful psions who otl were under a species wide doomsday clock sonario ahla the Asgard from Stargate, though this is only expanded on in XCOM2 with the Avitar project.

As for Alma, we'll just have to wait and see, right now it just looks like she's a high level awakened psion.

 

[Slider Zero]

...whoops. Forgot about that part.

To be specific: The Ehtereals have insane psionic talent, to the point that the highest tier of Psi power, Void Rift, is exclusive to them alone in XCom EU/EW (until the final mission with the Volunteer, who is for plot reason as strong psionically as the Ethereals are). The catch is that their bodies are atrophying at a horrifying pace, and they are desperately looking for a race capable of becoming a new host.

EU lightly touches on a point that the Ethereals themselves may have been engineered themselves, and the entire invasion was a test to see if Humanity could wield the gift and not surrender the strength of their bodies. XCom 2 goes further in on this, but in the form of the Avatar Project, which is their last-ditch desperate gamble to engineer new bodies for themselves, as they are already on life support in capsules in that game.

 

[Shiro345]

Well that was a disapointing read

First 3 chapters decent but then the mc grew a fucking tail and ears in 40k fucking why. Immediately ruins the story for me literally shot on shit.

 

[transhumansage]

Depends on who you ask and what you are willing to qualify, which is why I said maybe three. One has already appeared in the story, as it's the one that is onboard the Speranza, which for reasons is not utilized. As for the other two...supposedly Trayzn the Infinite has one, being a packrat, and there is theroretically a third hanging somewhere in the Ghoul Stars or something, but it's never quite fully spelled out and most consider it a false lead.


as, I mentioned before, Alma Wade exists in the setting and has children. You may wish to specify.

Click to shrink...

i think its the same deal with speranza. they dont know it exists.

 

[ImmortalEmperor34]

Ahh the carnage was just what I was hoping it would be truly this is what an alien invasion should look like

 

[Slider Zero]

Ahh the carnage was just what I was hoping it would be truly this is what an alien invasion should look like

Click to shrink...

Oh, it's going to get worse, especially if you understand the implications of just how large this attack actually was, and the number of Aliens running about.

Remember, Anya was standing on a pile of 30 Chryssalids and got faced with another fifty just for her alone. Feel free to extrapolate, and note that Houston has a Zoo...

 

[ImmortalEmperor34]

So what next do they need to call in Doom Slayer

 

[Cheetored20]

So what next do they need to call in Doom Slayer

Click to shrink...

Naw, wouldn't work he only hates demons.

 

[ATP]

Oh, it's going to get worse, especially if you understand the implications of just how large this attack actually was, and the number of Aliens running about.

Remember, Anya was standing on a pile of 30 Chryssalids and got faced with another fifty just for her alone. Feel free to extrapolate, and note that Houston has a Zoo...

Click to shrink...

They would manage that.
And,Etheereals must help them in surviving - they want living hosts,not massacred fragments.

P.S Zoo in Houston - could they take over animals,too? elephants had big brains.Dogs,big cats,crows - could work,too.
smaller mammals and birds,not mention reptiles - probably not.

 

[Cheetored20]

They would manage that.
And,Etheereals must help them in surviving - they want living hosts,not massacred fragments.

P.S Zoo in Houston - could they take over animals,too? elephants had big brains.Dogs,big cats,crows - could work,too.
smaller mammals and birds,not mention reptiles - probably not.

Click to shrink...

Chrysalids use biomass to reproduce

 

[ImmortalEmperor34]

Chrysalids use biomass to reproduce

Click to shrink...

In other words they are like the Zerg or the tyranids

 

[ATP]

In other words they are like the Zerg or the tyranids

Click to shrink...

Use fire to burn bodies? problem is,SI want save those people,not burn them.

 

[Hyperionthetitan]

Use fire to burn bodies? problem is,SI want save those people,not burn them.

Click to shrink...

We all know that in WH40k ," kill it with fire "tactic arent that effective

 

[CILinkz]

thats the second time i started up this story and both times i dropped it at the same part lol. I forgot about this story and picked it up again because i forgot why i dropped it but Chapter 10 was just so damn boring i couldnt bring myself to read it further. That Mechanicus girl was introduced so horrendously, dropped on him like a bull in a china shop and pries all his secrets away, it destroyed the whole thing for me. Why would you allow a complete stranger into your Head like this? in a setting where paranoia and Corruption of the mind is common place? the moment she drew in his Mana and he verified it was not because of a Demon to protect against, he should have shot her because she STOLE from him. God i hate her so much. He interacted with her as if she was a companion from a waifu catalog he picked himself at the start of his journey, with the loyalty already established. That seriously creeped me out. I wouldnt have minded if they interacted like two normal people building a friendship and turoring her after verify her but not jumping of the deep end like they did here. Trust but verify? yeah he forgot about that apparently.

 

[Cheetored20]

thats the second time i started up this story and both times i dropped it at the same part lol. I forgot about this story and picked it up again because i forgot why i dropped it but Chapter 10 was just so damn boring i couldnt bring myself to read it further. That Mechanicus girl was introduced so horrendously, dropped on him like a bull in a china shop and pries all his secrets away, it destroyed the whole thing for me. Why would you allow a complete stranger into your Head like this? in a setting where paranoia and Corruption of the mind is common place? the moment she drew in his Mana and he verified it was not because of a Demon to protect against, he should have shot her because she STOLE from him. God i hate her so much. He interacted with her as if she was a companion from a waifu catalog he picked himself at the start of his journey, with the loyalty already established. That seriously creeped me out. I wouldnt have minded if they interacted like two normal people building a friendship and turoring her after verify her but not jumping of the deep end like they did here. Trust but verify? yeah he forgot about that apparently.

Click to shrink...

She's from the forge directly. If you can't trust that, you can't trust ANYTHING the forge gives, so you have to just accept it and move on or go insane because of it.

 

[Trollface2209]

I have dropped this story several times, because the Diabolos EX Machina is too strong in this story, the chaos gods are represented as omnipotent gods, Who bypassed all the OCP protections of the protagonist (Even the ones Who should make him invincible,non detectable, inmune to mind reading, etc).

The tecnology from the forge, is really underwelming, it's too weak, in their original settings, are really strong and amazing, in this story are really lame, the most shitty Warhammer tech stomps the Mc tech without effort.

The unholy hodgepodge/ mix of settings is confusing(Worm, Arknights, Tenchi muyo, Warhammer 40k, Xcom) headache maker, being presented too fast and without foreshadowing(I'm talking about this last chapter, Ethereals, really?) and completely unnecesary( the pace is too fast), it would have been better as a jumpchain( One world/universe, then the characters jump to another universe)

And lets not forget the PRT/Alexandria gigantic idiot ball, by being so stupidly hostile, it's so really annoying and meh inducing

Conclusion: this story begun as a Masterpiece, it was really fucking good until the character was in the hive and met the ex zealot/ executor/ whatever, and it seem like the character would build his powerbase in peace and then jump to another universe.

But then it jumped the shark in a donwward spiral when a shitload of enemys appeared from thin air!, the chaos gods know everything and can hack the celestial forge without effort, can read the Mc mind, can corrupt anything, Even OCP stuff, the Mc and his tech are suposedly super awesome, but the story show otherwise, it Made it look the Mc like a little bitch, Who had to
run like a dog with his tail between his legs.

My advice: pace the story better, it's too fast and without foreshadowing, make it more ligh hearthed, it's too dark and grim, make the Mc win more times, his team never win( only once and its of screen), don't nerf the Mc tech and buff/ wank the enemy tech/powers and You would have a really good story

 

[Slider Zero]

Surprise.

Had some stuff going on IRL which delayed this, as well as other issues. You can thank Fourmyle and Xolsis for this getting out, as they were silently poking me to get moving the whole time. In a good way.

Anyway, apologies for the wait. Behold, the Battle of Brockton Bay, as told by the defenders thereof.

- = | | | | | | | | | | = -​

Brockton Bay, despite the common misconception, was actually not a gang-ridden hellhole seconds away from being declared a Hive of Scum and Villainy. Sure, the place was in rough shape, but the combined efforts of (most of) the city's inhabitants kept what was left from becoming worse as a side effect.

It didn't do much for fixing the Boat Graveyard issue, but with both the Army Corps of Engineers and the Naval Construction Battalions all backed up to hell and back and then some on other critical tasks, that wasn't saying that much anyway. All one had to remember was that the Graveyard was on the docket, and assuming that nothing more pressing actually added itself in front of things, then it would be tackled in due time.

And then the aliens showed up and proceeded to dash those hopes and dreams in a sea of plasma weapons fire.

Sometimes it wasn't worth trying to dream.

For Emily Piggot, this was another Wednesday.

"Status report. Where are our 'guests' headed to this time?"

Mike Renick, her Deputy Director, was the one who responded. "Currently moving towards the docks at speed. We don't have anything available to break through and assist without overextending, and we are already running short on personnel as it is."

Emily grunted. She most definitely did not like leaving anyone out to dry, especially not the Dockworkers' Union, but she had little choice. The Alien attackers were being utterly ruthless in their attacks, and it was only the fact that her troopers were long since prepared for unusual eventualities and scenarios that tended to pop up all the time in Brockton that allowed her people to not be slaughtered like cattle in the streets.

Not that it was doing much to actually solve the problem, but that was being worked on.

"Any word from Armsmaster?"

Renick shook his head. "He is still radio silent. Console reports that his suit telemetry says he's still alive and operational, though they can't get an exact positional lock. Dauntless has been tasked to do a search and rescue if and when he can get clear of the air cover, but from the looks of things," and here he waved vaguely in the direction of the alien ships hanging in the sky and being annoying as all hell, "he's going to be ground-bound for the duration. The others aren't doing much better, according to Miss Militia: they are locked down near the boardwalk and are basically being forced to hunker for their lives. We are unable to get into contact with Assault and Battery, and Velocity is also missing as of last check in."

Emily held back a curse. As much as she hated capes, they were her big ace in the hole to clear out this mess with the limited resources that she had available. Having them be locked down this way was asking for disasters to happen.

Still. It could be worse. "And the Wards?"

"Currently as safe as we can make them, though they are not happy about it." Renick responded. "The kids are rattling in the cage, from what I can tell, even after the scare that they got getting in when things went to hell."

Emily moved to the (heavily reinforced) windows while Renick shuffled some paperwork. Her office, for all that it was in the downtown area, had a pretty good look over the rest of the city, and sometimes it helped to center her thoughts and remind her of what she was fighting for. She sought that solace now, for but a brief moment.

What she got instead was a very unusual movement from what she swore was an extremely large number of merchants, seeming to be focusing on setting something up on a rooftop nearby. That they were doing it in plain view was disturbing enough, but the obvious weapon emplacement they were working on…

"Mike."

Renick, despite his usual demeanor and "paper pusher" persona, was equally veteran of the PRT's "bad days", having transferred in from an as-yet still classified "special projects" division of an equally unnamed agency. More to the point, he was a veteran of Brockton Bay itself, and all too used to his superior's moods.

Which is why the tone she used immediately set him on edge, and prompted him to do something that would normally get you fired or worse in federal service.

Within seconds, the direct emergency line that all Special PRT Districts had to "Higher Command" was open and transmitting. "Line's open, ma'am.

Emily wasted no time. "This is Emily Piggot, PRT ENE. Message is as follows: Lightning Storm. I say again, Lightning Storm. I am also declaring CASTLE BLACK at this time. Further communication as time allows. Piggot, clear."

Renick only stared at her in horror, knowing all too well that she had basically just removed any chance of their getting any support. "Are you sure, Emily?"

Piggot simply nodded grimly. "Yes. Now, get everyone into cover, and tell them not to look outside…it's about to get very bright."

Her grin became even more savage. 'And the damned aliens have no clue what is about to hit them…'

-=[/\]=-

"Get me a status report, NOW!!"

The various staffers and aides rushed to comply as the President of the United States of America was ushered into his Situation Room at an "undisclosed location". His mood was already bad enough with the ongoing mass alien invasion in progress, and it was getting worse as the lines of communication to his Advisors and Generals were cut and/or jammed by the aliens in the sky. Hell, most of the aides available to him at the moment were stand-ins from their respective agencies instead of the normal staffers that usually followed him around. It was rather annoying to deal with, especially when the information needing to be relayed was so crucial.

It was just one of those days where you really should have just stayed in bed.

One of the interim aides, a uniformed PRT officer by the name of Sheryl Garland, ran in with a report, on hardcopy paper no less, the chickenscratch making it clear that it was handwritten and fast. "Not good, Mr. President. Local departments are reporting near total surprise, and are having trouble setting up command posts without getting hit like a mack truck. It's holding for D.C., but the other major problem areas are in a bind."

She quickly took a seat while she continued to read off the list. "New York, actually pretty much the entirety of New England, is getting hit hard. Best guess from the guys on the ground is that the aliens are trying to lock down Legend from responding to the situation, as he is still visible and actively fighting off the alien ships as they come in. Los Angeles is reporting similar high concentrations of forces, and Alexandria has been seen in the fighting. Nothing on any other departments in the area."

She flipped the page. "New Orleans is getting hit hard as well, and there are reports coming in from the PRT of several of their containment zones getting hit as well, notably Eagleton and Ellisburg. They suspect that it's an attempt at a breakout, and request more forces to hold the line."

The President leveled a glare on the poor woman. "Oh really now? And what about the rest of the country, hmm? What are we doing about the rest of the cities being attacked as we speak, while they play with the containment zones?"

Garland quickly wilted under the President's gaze.

Major General Lawrence Watkins, USMC, spoke up. "From what I am hearing, sir, most of our forces are tied up in their respective garrisons in the contested areas, and the other bases are trying to mobilize as we speak…but they are uncertain if they can get anything there in time and with enough numbers to make a difference. They're still going to try, but from our end it's looking like a bad run." Something that Watkins was only aware of due to his own subordinates' quick thinking, as normally he would only be an advisor to the actual advisors on military affairs for the National Command Authority, and thus just as off-guard and out-of-touch as everyone else here.

In fact, most of the military officers present in the situation room were there primarily due to being available on short notice, not because of their actual jobs. General Watkins happened to be doing a brief on an unrelated project to the Vice President and Secretary of Defense by request when the initial attacks hit.

A similar tale was true of Lieutenant General Gregory Townes, USAF, who added in his own report. "Air wings at Andrews are reporting ready to launch, sir, but based on what we know of the alien's capabilities it will be wasting lives and matériel. Nothing we have right now can do anything to those ships, and trying to run Combat Air Support in that environment is suicide." He paused for a moment to let it sink in. "Several officers are asking for volunteers to go in anyway, and authorization to launch. I am inclined to give it to them, sir."

President Gillen allowed the small moment of pride that they felt to linger before moving on to the important topics. "And what about Houston?"

An unnamed Intelligence Officer (a security precaution, according to him; the other non-military staffers hated his guts because the Secret Service allowed it) referenced a tablet before speaking. "We have received no contact from any official source in Houston since the attacks began, Mr President. There are some short-range amateur radio setups, and loose signals getting out requesting aid from an organization I've never heard of, but aside from that…radio silence."

Gillen looked thoughtful. "Who were they asking for?"

"Some group called ex-com, sir." he responded, clearly pronouncing the word like it was a single phrase of some kind. "The part that concerns my superiors is that they received positive contact from this group and confirmation that help was on the way, if limited."

The President nodded to himself, already being aware of the project. The fact that someone was calling them in the clear was unusual, but weirder things have happened. "Very well. If that is the case, then we will wait for word to get out as it happens–"

Another staffer ran into the room, dropped off a USB stick with the Intelligence Officer, and quickly left. He quickly accessed the data within.

"Sir, the situation has just updated. One of the Greens has called in a report, saying that she has secured a Hospital against attack and has set up Anti-Air emplacements. The skies are clearing up for a chance at getting in an airdrop, though she recommends they aim for the Hospital and not a forward position so that, and I quote, 'I can properly arm them'. She follows with a status request for anything and anyone else, as Houston has been under a comms blackout since the attacks started."

Gillen sighed in relief, matched by his Generals and Aides. 'Finally, some good news.'

"Generals? How soon can you get boots on the ground?"

Watkins shrugged. "Unclear, sir. Most of our bases are still recalling and mustering forces, and the ones that can do so uncontested are, as I mentioned, far enough out from the areas of concern that it will be hours before help arrives."

"Do it anyway, and make sure that they know to work with the Greens when they get on-site. Keep me informed of the situation." The President ordered. A nod was his only response, as Watkins immediately started relaying orders to the relevant people.

Of which there were far fewer than there should have been.

At least, until another oddity appeared.

"Sir, Emily Piggot of PRT East-Northeast has issued an all-call emergency declaration. She is demanding all forces remain out of Brockton Bay to…avoid friendly fire?" The confusion in officer Garland's voice was clear as day. "Sir, is there something going on in Brockton that we didn't know about?"

Gillen could only groan in frustration.

-=[/\]=-​

"Alright boys, we're on a time limit!! Get those guide rails up fuckin' ASAP!! Anyone not working on the rails, help Squealer with the batteries! We're only going to get one shot at those Alien fucknuggets, so we need to make it count!!"

Adam Mustain, better known by his parahuman codename of Skidmark, was, uncharacteristically for him, sweating bullets at being so blatantly exposed. Normally, he and his Merchants went out of their way to keep to the shadows and dark alleyways of the city, letting their reputation do most of the work of keeping everyone else from paying attention to them while actual work got done.

Today, that wasn't an option.

The skies of New England were in quite the sorry state, after all, and someone had to play sky sweeper to clean up the mess before shit got too harsh to deal with. And for all the power that little Rico could bring to bear, what Adam was aiming for was currently out of even the small guy's range for the moment.

"Skids, Power is set up!! Eggheads are doing the math now, but–"

Adam cut off his girlfriend and partner with a harsh wave. "No time!! Just get everything ready for when we need to bail. Once we shoot, we need to be fucking gone or else!!"

Sherrel Bailey, parahuman alias Squealer, looked her boyfriend directly in the eye for a brief moment before running off. It was blatantly clear to him that she didn't want to start the argument that was most definitely coming while they were still under threat.

Which was a good thing overall, as Adam was well aware of just how much his ass, and by extension the Merchants' collective asses as a whole, were hanging in the breeze at the moment.

Hell, even if the plan was successful, and they managed to accomplish their objectives…the days of the Merchants playing below the radar, of the Kayfabe and spectacle and buffoonery, were over.

Nobody would underestimate them again. Not after this.

Of course, there were other factors involved in the Merchants going loud that wasn't just the Nazis (or, heaven forbid, the fucking PRT) taking more notice of the fact that they existed. Said factors (and the people responsible for them) were likely to make a stink about his going in all unilateral and shit, just to make a point. Hell, he was probably going to get yelled at by Big D, too, now that he thought about it.

Strangely, he could not actually bring himself to worry about that as much as he should have.

One of the gofers ran up to him. "Everything's set up, boss! All we need now is a target!!"

Adam slapped his hands together in anticipation. "Alright, then, people, make damn sure you got everything in order, 'cause the asshat aliens are going to zero in on our asses after this. Do one more check to make sure everything is good, and then get to cover as fast as possible. You all know your jobs, so make it happen and don't die."

A sharp "Whoop" was his only reply, and he couldn't help but break out into a cheesy grin.

"Aight 'den, let's MOVE!"

And with that, the rooftop became a massive flurry of activity. As was appropriate, for what they were attempting. Nobody but Sherrel herself actually bothered to pay attention to the fact that their leader was completely on edge, wound up like a spring.

Not that she would have had the time to actually help him, anyway. The shot that they were trying to pull off was crazy even for known aerodynamics, let alone parahuman assisted, and the multiple layers of back-of-the-napkin math they were using to get properly on-target was at best an approximation of what they actually wanted. It was very likely that they would miss the vast majority of their shots, in fact.

But those that hit…

Skidmark shook off the thought and moved to his position, arguably the most important of all, and got to work, layering as many fields of force as the improvised weapon would need to actually work. He let his power guide and assist him in this, as it had always done, in the proper amount of "fields" to put down, running ever closer to that critical edge that made his power all the more effective.

The thought gave him a brief moment of amusement as he worked. Running on the edge was all that he was really good for anymore, but he wasn't going to let that stop him from making a difference now that the time had come. Even if he had to ride that edge as hard as possible until he broke.

"Okay! Everything looks good, get ready to fire! Load Full burst, we don't have time for a ranging shot, so fire for effect! Squealer, count it down!! Everyone else? BUG OUT!!"

Asses moved like their lives depended on it. As well they should, because they did. The quasi-railgun setup was going to be stable enough for what it was, the Brainwave had made sure of that when they kicked out the design (as short notice as it was) but, and this was important enough to repeat again, the bad guys were going to fuck off this entire building once they started shooting. And Adam only wanted the bare minimum amount of people in harm's way for that mess.

Sherrel quickly slid into place next to him and started adjusting the final aim. Adam almost opened his mouth to protest, but the baleful look she shot him in the briefest of glances silenced all dissent.

She had clearly made her mind up on the matter, so might as well appreciate the help…

"Countdown is at five!"

Adam allowed himself a savage grin.

"Four!"

Sherrel made one last adjustment before backing off.

"Three!"

A brief flash from the PRT building nearby caught his attention, and it was with some surprise that he noticed that Piggot who was still in her office, was running for cover as well.

"Two!"

Not that it was going to help, but the thought counted.

"One!"

He decided. 'Best to send off the old age with a bang'

And with that, he screamed to the heavens.

"Hey!! Tell Legend I said You're Welcome!!"

"FIRE!!"

-=[/\]=-​

Everyone saw the shot as it happened.

It was a thing of absolute beauty, a pure line drawn in the sky of radiant heat from the projectile being pushed out at hypersonic velocities towards its destination: The Skies of New York City.

Specifically, the alien spaceships currently playing 'dodge the angry lasers' over New York City. The same ships that were currently doing their damnedest to be the absolute bane of existence for the Leader of the Protectorate, he of the Rainbow Lasers of Doom, Legend himself.

Legend, for his part, was too busy trying to actually hit the fuckers to notice the incoming. The damned ships were literally turning on a dime, arresting momentum and generally acting like they were in a fucking Cave shooter (he had hobbies too, dammit) as they dodged everything that he threw at them and then some.

That he had only taken down two of the dozens of ships clogging up the skies of New York was weighing ever more heavily on his mind, after all, and the alien assholes playing the world's most high-stakes game of bullet hell was not helping matters–or his temper–at all.

For their part, the Aliens were also entirely too busy with things to notice in time, either. After all, "not dying by angry homing lasers that ignore armor" took a lot of effort, and the ships were a mess even as they desperately bobbed and weaved to avoid the onslaught inflicting actually critical hits.

So the arrival of the first shot was basically the military equivalent of a record scratch on the entire battlefield as the literal napkin math no scope sniper shot from across state lines hit home at what the After-Action Reports would note as "severely in excess of Mach Five."

And the results were nothing less than catastrophic.

Armor plate buckled and broke under the strain of the projectile penetrating into the hull proper. Actual hull structure barely stood in the way of the remainder, and pure energy transfer did the rest of the work of splattering anyone and anything that was within range of the effect.

And then the damn shell blew up.

Fun fact: explosions at "severely in excess of mach five" tend to be conical, or wedge-shaped, and not spherical, due to the sheer speed that the actual explosion source is traveling at. This means that the actual act of exploding can and often does act like a gigantic shotgun effect on whatever it happens to be hitting…and god help that some fool had the misfortune of letting it get trapped inside of any form of container whatsoever. The expansion and blast wave rebounding alone would be enough to remove most things not rated for super-high explosives almost outright.

Such was the case with the poor, poor Alien battleship that managed to get not only hit, but cored by the first shot from the Merchant's impromptu rail cannon.

The problem was that this was the first shot.

The second hit less than an eighth of a second later, on a spot not quite inside the same ship. It managed to ricochet with horrendous energy into a nearby vessel (a supply ship, no less) that was actively trying to dodge death by laser. The resulting hit took out basically the entire ship by dint of "high speed explosive shockwave" and didn't bother slowing down until it had vented all of its energy into the poor interior of said ship.

The third shot hit a third vessel outright and did its deadly work. As did the fourth. And fifth. And sixth.

And the shots just kept coming.

Legend was only on the back foot for a full second and a half before adjusting accordingly.

And the wrecks of alien vessels rained from the skies above as The Legend cleaned house.

He didn't even bother slowing down to listen to the cheers of the people below even as they continued their own struggles, instead immediately switching to his breaker form and accelerating hard to the next crisis zone.

He had work to do, after all.

-=[/\]=-​

Rico only took a few seconds out of his aerial assault to recover from the abrupt "fireworks display" that was the Merchants making a move. From the looks of it, they were actively trying to clear out the skies as quickly as possible, but for some reason were aiming away from the city? Maybe a bigger fish to fry elsewhere or something.

Didn't help that he was just about the only useful air asset that the city had, as Dauntless was being swarmed along with his PRT contingent, Purity had been grounded almost a half hour ago due to injuries, and Rune didn't dare try to float her shit in this mess. No signs of any of the other "big boys", either, which could be either good or bad, depending.

He didn't have active probes everywhere, after all. Too much processor use that could go to other things…like melting more of the fucking Ayys into paste!!

Yes, he was somewhat annoyed by this whole 'invasion' thing. The fact that he was still dedicating nearly 80% of his combat capability to swatting the goddamn wannabe UFO saucers out of the air was testament to that, but…well, the fuckers could dodge like nobody's business.

Too bad for them that his attacks could be, and were, Homing, Hi Explosive Armor Penetrating, and generally all kinds of other goodies that amounted to "you die now". The Spaceships did not like it, but they were not in a position to complain by any means, even before the 'fireworks' went off.

Afterwords? HAH.

In any case, the fucking autocannon that the Merchants had rigged up was attracting all kinds of bad attention from multiple sources. Probably would be a good idea to make sure they had a rough time of it.

Cue the spells of doom, destruction, and general annoyance.

Or course, the piddly little footsoldier types got mopped easily by the spread of mixed homing and concussive bullets he sent out, but the air support was being a bit more annoying in being dealt with. Aside from clumping together to play at being ablative armor for the forces they were covering, they also seemed to be trying to do something else…

Rico is a curious type. He is well aware of the tendency, and it is one of the few things about his Self that seemed to survive the various wipes of his persona, if the logs were anything to go by. So of course he was immediately moving to check out why the hell the Ayys were playing at being mobile shields for anything, especially considering that from what he'd been seeing, for the most part the ships had been acting like the ground forces were fully expendable. Changing that up…

And, of course, what he was looking at was a group of heroes being assaulted and more or less focused down by the numbers. Based on the uniforms and color, New Wave.

And from the looks of it, they were not doing well. Even with his vantage points limited by not having any real altitude to look down on the situation (and fuck you too for that, you damned saucers), he could clearly see that at least two of their number were down, and possibly a third in the process of going down. The few with ranged attacks were employing them as best as possible given the circumstances, and the shield that was covering the whole group had to be mister Eric trying to save his family…which made sense, as while his blasts were strong enough to actually do damage, his sister and mother's shields were far weaker due to parahuman shenanigans.

The opposition was quite mixed, too: A nice group of the big ugly fuckers with plasma rifles, more of the annoying mini-mech looking assholes, and the standard tiny bulbous Roswell Greys in job lots. Combine that with the discs and jetpack-butts playing mobile shield for his own assault and it was not looking good for the group.

The distinct feeling of a focused psionic attack brushed by his senses. It very clearly wasn't aimed at him, but it was powerful enough that whomever it was aimed at was in for a world of hurt.

And last he'd checked, Parahumans were not known for having much in the way of excessive willpower. Not with the way their minds have to break to trigger in the first place (and wasn't that a nasty bit of reading when he found that document).

He absently dodged another coordinated attempt by the alien battlenet to swat him out of the sky (suppression fire to cover for some kind of funky exotic plasma charge, this time, with a weird psionic packet attached; he filed it away for more research later) as he considered options. Maybe–

The screaming of an adult female drew his thoughts firmly back to the present from the brief detour they took, and he could only sigh in frustration as, as he'd expected, one of the women of the group turned on her comrades with some kind of light-based weapon and tried to kill them all, starting with mister Eric.

The capture and binding bullet that he'd sent that way had only barely made it in time to stop her from succeeding, and that had eaten up a not inconsiderable amount of his parallel threads to pull off with the damned 'discs playing active interdiction. Not to mention the fact that the ground pounders took the opportunity to make a bigger push, and one that looked like it was going to succeed.

Rico found himself gritting his teeth in frustration. 'Why the fuck is everyone being difficult?!'

Those options he had been considering were dwindling fast. Using a beam-type spell would be ideal, but setting those up took a non-trivial amount of extra time to do, and even then unless he did even more on-the-fly mods they tended to be direct attack methods at best. Things which his aerial opponents could and would easily dodge and then retaliate against. Trying to use it on the ground forces was equally a nonstarter, as the flyboys would just soak the hit and then let the grunts do the shooting back at their leisure. He'd considered trying to add more power to his beams or trying for penetration, but that risked overpenetration, and with how much everything was moving around down there, there was always the risk of hitting something or someone he didn't want to.

And this was without actually taking into account that the vast majority of his process threads were being eaten up by playing flyswatter! It was ridiculous all around!

So, more spamming bullets and trying to set up crossfire scenarios and bank shots to get past the goddamn wall of doom before the rest of New Wave got mindganked too…

A flash of movement caught his attention, and a closer inspection by his active probes revealed the truth: one of Squealer's stealth tanks was moving about, likely pulling evac duty for the Merchants from their autocannon. They were hauling ass, too: from the looks of it, they seemed to be trying to break straight through the formation and weren't looking to stop for anything at all on the way.

Actually, looking closer, that was an entire convoy, wasn't it? Looked like a good deal of the Merchant firepower was on the move, and all of them in Squealer Specials.

His thoughts ran a mile a minute. 'Maybe take advantage of it? No, better: see if they can actually inflict a bit of confusion on the ranks, so he can get something inside!!'

But how to contact them? Last he checked, the Merchants all used a shockingly advanced form of comms, but he didn't see (or sense) anything that would qualify as a base station for anything of the sort nearby.

'Maybe they had a standard radio or something? Worth a shot anyway.'

Finding a channel to transmit on was easy. He'd been monitoring merchant comms for some time now at the request of mister Hebert, and had figured out the normal frequencies that they liked to use when they wanted to speak. So, just use that as a baseline, run the current scramble fill, and then call out and see if anyone was listening. Should only take at most two process threads, so he could keep his focus on the bigger issue that was New Wave crumbling under the assault.

His communication thread quickly set everything up and selected the most common Merchant frequency: 140.96. A short time later, the same process noted that Skidmark had a very odd reaction…almost as if…naah. Couldn't be.

Still, the line was answered soon enough. "Skidmark." the voice was highly stressed, almost as if Skidmark himself was right on the very edge of breaking.

He kept his own voice deceptively calm. "Skidmark, this is Little Rico." Might as well use the name that everyone had given him. Made it easier to be ID'ed. "I am roughly above your position and need a favor–"

Skidmark cut him off almost immediately. "New Wave grouping, the throwdown is happening that way. You want us to jump in for a bit, cause a dustup, so you can get shit done, right?"

Rico had to pause for a moment as he got preempted by a man that the general consensus held as a drug-addled idiot. "...more or less, but I was mostly needing the distraction, so I can punch out the ground guys without having to drill through the air cover that is all over the place. Kinda running low on resources for that kind of slugfest…"

Skidmark, surprisingly, cut him off again before he could continue. "Don't bother, I got that covered. Take care of the shitstains in the air, the rest is covered. Also, watch closely, because this is why you don't piss off certain people. Skidmark out." The line went dead after that, and the tank(?) immediately made a series of course corrections to put it on track to wreck the main mass of bulbous Greys, with its companions swiftly following suit. Shortly thereafter, another call went out from the unit Skidmark was using, this time to…wait, what?

How the hell did Skidmark of all people have that frequency, let alone the scramble codes to transmit to it? That was–

The 'discs chose that moment to direct more attention his way, breaking his concentration even in the alternate process thread. Oh well, better to figure it out later. Right now, there were bad people that needed to fry!!

-=[/\]=-​

'Sometimes', Danny thought to himself, 'it is not worth actually dreaming for the future.'

And then he dodged around yet another plasma bolt aimed to take his head off, retaliating with a very pointed application of weaponized light in the form of an electric bolt. His attacker, one of the bigger bastards (that some of the guys had taken to calling Mutons due to their similarity to an obscure Aleph video game) went down hard, and with a gigantic hole in its torso. And his retaliation didn't stop there: the bolt of electricity then jumped across the intervening distance and proceeded to flash-fry the bastard's friends, too.

Danny never stopped moving, quickly getting to cover and shifting the small rod he was holding to his off-hand in order to pick up a discarded tinkertech pistol of some kind from a nearby corpse and snapshot the remaining short, bulbous fucker.

Green bolts started hitting the wall he was taking cover behind not even a full second after he'd arrived, and quickly grew in intensity before a sudden bright flash lit the area up.

He peeked out from behind his cover to see his would-be attackers, some of the mechanized variants of the small bastards, dead and broken, perforated with multiple gaping woulds and leaking viscera and oil everywhere. He then saw Taylor pop her own head out from behind the nearby dumpster she had taken cover behind, another orb of light waiting to be released against anyone stupid enough to challenge her.

"You okay, Taylor?"

The malicious grin on her face said it all. "Fine, Dad!"

Still, even with her reassurances, he couldn't help but worry. That had been the fifth ambush since they had started moving towards the DWA offices, not counting their running into and through ongoing firefights, and each one had been escalating in intensity as they moved. It was almost like whatever these aliens had that passed for a command structure was actively diverting things towards them for whatever reason. That the attacks had gotten worse ever since the damned Merchant autocannon started going off was not a comforting thought, but he was a Union Man, and Union Men dealt with what they had.

He absently shifted his grip on the "wand" that was his focus for utilizing the skills he'd been taught. It was a simple thing, a rod with a bulbous head that glowed faintly with collected energies in a calming blue. The rod itself was small enough to be wielded one-handed, while the end was large enough to use as an improvised club if necessary.

Fortunately, he hadn't had to go that far just yet, but if things kept escalating…

"Dad!! It's Kurt! He's got the 'track with him!!"

Danny sighed in relief. 'Never mind, then.'

Rushing out to where Taylor was waiting found her enthusiastically running towards Kurt, her all-but-uncle and one of Danny's closest friends in the Union. Kurt, for his part, was sitting in the driver's seat of one of the surplus halftracks that had been sitting around the docks for some time now. Said track and been fully cleaned up, fitted with improvised armor and pintle-mounted weapons, and then unleashed on their attackers as needed.

Or, as it was now, used for pickups of their people. There were several sitting around even now in the back, and not all of them were in the best of shape.

Taylor, of course, ignored poor Davis Finch in the back on the Ma Deuce, as was their usual game nowadays. Someday he would figure out just what was going on there, but that day was not today.

Kurt gave a weary smile, his fatigue clear on his face as he was impacted by the brunette missile. "Heya Taylor. I see you're doing alright for yourself. And Danny too. Not letting him get into too much trouble, are you?"

Taylor was enthusiastic in her reply. "Naah. Just the usual annoyances and ambushes. Dad is getting worried over nothing." she quickly shuffled around the 'track to hop into the passenger seat, ready to challenge all comers.

Danny just sighed. It was great to finally have his daughter back, but sometimes he was concerned he may have created a monster when he allowed her to learn from little Rico.

Taking the remaining seat (and squishing poor Taylor into the midsection, to her audible dismay), Danny quickly settled himself in, and grabbed the standard Tinkertech Shotgun mounted to the back of the cabin. "So, anything else going on, other than things getting completely insane?"

Kurt snorted. "You mean, aside from the freaking autocannon currently firing off towards New York? Nothing much aside from the usual ambush tactics, and our guys are handling it, for the most part. Right now, we're trying to gather up stragglers and survivors and get them to something looking like safety."

Danny could only nod. "Fine, but make sure that everyone knows that our safety is a priority. Can't afford to lose the firepower advantage that we bring to the table right now, you know that."

"Well, yeah, but–"

A sudden familiar tone broke the conversation, and Danny looked at his person in annoyance. "Figured it would be about now. Hold that thought for me, Kurt, this won't take long." The sheer heat in his tone made it painfully clear that Danny was basically out of patience, now.

For his part, Danny reached into a pocket and withdrew a simple headset and receiver unit, which he immediately switched to active mode…and speaker transmission.

Immediately, a familiar voice to all of them spoke up. "Danny. Sorry for the mess, but this is important–"

Danny cut his caller off with a vengeance. "Important enough to blow up everything we've been working towards for nearly four years now, Adam? Really? You damn well hope this was worth it."

Adam didn't even skip a beat, and from the sounds of things had his own radio on speaker too. "New Wave is under attack by a big group of the fuckers right now. Brandish and Photon Mom are down, I can't see Gloryhole anywhere, and from the looks of it Panacea is being worked to the limit by the Roswells somehow. We're moving in to break the mess up so Rico can get a shot, but Baby says we can't do much even with the whole fleet unless we go in guns blazing."

Danny ever so briefly started. It was subtle, it was controlled, and if you weren't looking for it, you would have missed it entirely, but he very clearly both heard and reacted to the subtle emphasis on that last part.

Adam used the distraction to continue on. "Also, the rail cannon was our best shot at freeing up Legend to get actual backup moving around. We're fucked until he gets loose and can break the gridlock over the 'Lakes, and unlike us, Chicago doesn't have a high-spec magical artillery piece. Now stop bitching about me jumping the gun and come get your girl. We'll talk properly afterwards."

Danny, of course, was furious. "Goddammit man, you–"

"No, you can it, you stupid fuck. You know the rules as well as I do. You know damn well how the Docks run shit." Adam was completely fired up now, all but yelling into his receiver, a clear British accent bleeding into his speech. "Family Comes First. Before Business, before Reputation, before your own fucking Life!! You KNOW this, you asshole, so stop stalling and go handle your business!!"

Danny could only sit there, dumbstruck. 'There was no way he knew…'

Quickly recovering, he instead asked a question. "What are you playing at here?"

Adam was relentless. "You of all people know that I am not an idiot, Danny. I just play one on TV. now get off of your bloody ass and come get your daughter. I'll hold 'em as long as I can."

There was a shuffling noise as Adam shifted something, then a *thump* as the receiver hit something hard as hell. From the sounds of it, he had turned off the speaker, but forgot to end the transmission or something.

It was for this reason that they all heard the next part. "Alright you fucknuggets, this is it. The old days are over and done with, and with it, so is the old ways. The Merchants you knew? That shit died on the roof. Anyone still here after this? We doin' somethin' different. Somethin' new. We goin' down in history, right here, right fucking now, you hear me?!?"

A raucous cheer could be heard, alongside the revving of an engine hitting the redline. "This shit here is OUR time, OUR story! "

The sounds of automatic weapons fire hit the speakers as Adam screamed his declaration to the world.

"We gon' be fuckin' Heroes, baby!! ALL OF US!! NOW COME ON AND LET'S MAKE DIS SHIT HOT!!!"

No one said a word for a time.

And then a single voice spoke, the command within unmistakable.

"They were at Lord Street. Drive."

-=[/\]=-​

Panacea's world was despair and pain.

Things had started off easily enough, sure. The headache she'd gotten from the message that Little Rico had sent out to whoever this 'Lord' person was had faded in short order, and New Wave as a whole was in a rare position to actually be able to move as a group when the initial attacks started hitting, so she had believed, at least for a little bit, that maybe things could turn out alright.

And then the fucking Roswell Grays turned out to be capable of mastering people practically at will, along with having insanely powerful weapons that punched through all but the toughest Brutes like tissue paper…and left horrific burns as part of the injuries, assuming there was anything left at all.

And those were the small ones. The actual big bastards had upscaled versions of the same weaponry that basically vaporized normal people, and treated armor like a joke at the best of times. The fact that the Mecha-looking ones had even bigger guns was dismaying.

The only good news to come out of that was that Shielder–her cousin Eric– was capable of tanking the hits from even the mechanized things without much issue. Hell, even Laserdream–Eric's elder sister Crystal–could just layer shields all over the place to absorb at least one, maybe two hits, assuming that they actually managed to hit her in the first place with her flight speed. Combine that with her aunt Sarah (officially Lady Photon, but better known as Photon Mom) not holding back on her own hardlight blasts, and it was looking like New Wave was going to have an easy time of it helping people and clearing the streets.

Of course, this was not to last.

It was shortly after they started moving towards the Lord's Market that things started going sideways. Vicky had jumped in to save a blonde kid who was frantically dodging around the oncoming firepower while somehow not dying in the process (and while dragging what looked like his mom along with him, no less) when a sudden panicked yelp and a scream of "RUN!!!" from her would-be rescuee alerted the group to the coming disaster…far too late.

That was when the first of the damned Disc things appeared before them, and started attacking indiscriminately at anything and everything with their energy weapons, along with the weird cybernetic flying guys with missiles.

It was while Sarah was shooting down those, with help from Flashbang (Mark Dallon, her father, who was in rare form for a change) that the other aliens struck their blow, directly attacking the minds of the entire group.

Amy somehow managed to shake it off with minimal difficulty, while Shielder and Laserdream did so with only mild disorientation to show for it. No, it was everyone else that caused the shitshow to kick off.

Brandish had gone fucking ballistic and turned on the rest of the team almost immediately and with zero hesitation, quickly dealing a grisly blow to her own husband before turning on the others. Lady Photon was no better, quickly firing off blasts at her husband Manpower (AKA Neil Pelham, who, fortunately, could actually take the hits) before suddenly turning her powers on herself and going down with a potentially fatal wound to her torso.

Even those were still fixable, given time, if she could get to them. No, it was what happened to Vicky that froze her in place and nearly broke her spirit.

She was completely stunned, dropping out of the air like a stone, and all the while being blasted from every angle with the alien's energy weapons. Worse, she was being hit fast enough and with enough force that her forcefield clearly was not taking all of the hits for her.

Based on what she had seen of the other people affected by these weapons…she couldn't help it.

It was a pure panic reaction that had her desperately running to try and get to her sister before it was too late, and only Shielder putting up a field to prevent her from being killed outright by retaliatory blasts that stopped her, and even then only because the field was specifically set up to do so.

Eric quickly ran to her side, desperately dragging her back to what was left of their family, even as Crystal waged a desperate war against her aunt while trying to not die. "Amy, no!! You can't run out there!! We can't afford to lose you too, dammit!!"

Amy didn't care. Vicky was out there, hurt, very likely dying, and she was stuck here because a stupid boy refused to understand!!

Fortunately for Shielder, the New Wave costumes were mostly form-covering, so Amy couldn't try to use her powers against him to force compliance. Even still, she still struggled free of his grasp, wordlessly screaming in frustration at her inability to help the one that mattered most.

'It wasn't fair!!'

Movement from above caught her attention, and it was with dismay that she, along with the remainder of their team, watched as the aliens created an encirclement above them of raw firepower and menace.

Moments later, the beams started falling, as did the missiles.

"EVERYONE HUDDLE UP!!" Eric screamed out, as he desperately created a bubble shield big enough to cover them all from the oncoming green bolts of death. Crystal quickly moved to her brother's side, firing her own blasts all the way in an attempt to thin the horde, while Neil dragged his wife into the barrier and away from potential collateral damage. Mark, unfortunately, was still stuck outside of the main shield, but a quick motion from the Pelhams created a small bit of cover for him to use in the meantime.

It was Crystal that tried to snap her out of it. "Panacea, listen to me. You have to focus on who you can save right now!! We can fight towards Vicky after we get Mom and Uncle Mark back up, but until then we need to focus, dammit!!"

Amy, despite still being halfway into a panic attack, moved on what had become reflex at this point, quickly attempting to fix up what she could of Lady Photon. Fortunately, the injuries she had dealt to herself, while indeed fatal if untreated, were otherwise "minor" in that regard, and she was able to at least stabilize the woman in short order. Properly healing her up was going to take a bit longer, but it was doable…

Absently, she noted that something had swooped out of the sky and impacted Brandish with force, seeming to bind her in place. The part of her mind that was still capable of focusing filed it away for later. The rest was still running on autopilot or panicking over her sister.

Which is why she missed when the push started.

"What the hell–THEY'RE COMING!!" "GET READY!!" "We gotta move! They're gonna–"

Whatever was about to be said was cut off as a wave of force impacted them all, knocking them to the ground. More specifically, it knocked nearly everyone away from her.

And, more specifically, knocking her out of Eric's shield effect.

The Aliens wasted no time, with one of the big fuckers quickly rushing her position while his friends were firing pretty much everything they had at her family to keep them in position. Her assailant arrived in record time, raising its weapon like it was some sort of club.

The last thing Amy Dallon heard before being rendered unconscious was her uncle's screams.

-=[/\]=-​

Greg Veder was running for his fucking life.

The aliens were being relentless in their assault, not caring for any form of distinction between military or civilian, cape or normal, massacring everyone equally…and abducting the ones they could get to using those weird pod things.

He'd steered well clear of those, and only learned of the horrifying truth after running into one doing its work while dodging another sweep team.

He nearly threw up at the visions that came with it, knowing with absolute certainty that the people inside were as good as dead, with nothing that could be done to help them.

Greg was getting a lot of that, today: feelings ranging from unease to white-hot spikes of pain in his head, always oriented towards an oncoming threat or something that needed to be avoided at all costs, while his senses were expanded to the absolute limit in his attempts to not die in the middle of a fucking alien invasion.

'I hate to admit' it, he thought to himself, 'but it's really not as cool being the guy in the middle of one of these.'

Another spike of pain added to his already blinding headache, and he screamed out in warning. "GET DOWN!!"

Acting on the very instinct that prompted him to shout out his warning, he quickly pushed down the person that he'd been pulling along with him the whole time as he dodged to the side. And, as per the pattern, not a moment too soon, as yet another plasma bolt from one of the damned tiny Mastering fucks whizzed by his head.

His mom barely had time to pick herself up off the ground before Greg had grabbed her again and proceed to drag her away from yet another hellscape. She'd stopped screaming in terror, at least, so there was that much to go for.

Pulling his mother back into another alley, Greg finally took time to try and adjust. Not that it was going to help any: his entire body was throbbing in pain from how hard he was pushing it, his headache was only getting worse by the second, and was that a fucking nosebleed? What the hell?

"Greg, please–" His mother started, only to be immediately silenced by a hand over her mouth as their previous attacker moved around the corner. Greg simply pushed the pair further in, hiding in the still-usable shadows of the alleyway while preparing a trick to use.

It was something he'd stumbled upon while running, quite possibly some indie tinker's last line of defense or something. All he knew for sure was that the small, boxy object in his hand had a single button and was likely to do bad things to their pursuer if he tossed it out at the right time…

Which was RIGHT NOW!!

His aim was actually way off for what he had originally planned. Instead of landing close to the damned alien, it instead bounced off of a wall as it overshot the target, and only served to alert the damn thing that they were still there.

Greg's entire being focused onto that one fucking alien, knowing for sure that it would be the cause of his death.

Being fixated on his oncoming doom, he could be excused for not noticing the sudden advent of Nazi in his midst, specifically the telltale screeching and grinding of metal that normally heralded Hookwolf in his classic changer form of what amounts to a walking chainsaw. Said Nazi immediately threw itself at his significantly smaller opponent and, upon contact, immediately tearing the thing to shreds.

The Metallic Wolf construct immediately turned to look in the Veder's direction, and it took everything Greg had to not panic at the obvious display of threat…and yet he somehow held on, mostly because unlike the damned aliens, there wasn't a spike of agony being forced into his brain simply by being near the damned Nazi.

A deep, grinding voice echoed from the construct. "The shelters are still taking people. Go, I'll cover for you getting back onto the roads."

Despite himself, Greg immediately declined, even as he was dragging his still speechless mother along with him. "No way, man. The Shelters were the first targets they hit, and everyone who managed to make it there is either dead or abducted right now. Not risking going to any of them until I know for sure that they are clear, and right now…" He trailed off meaningfully.

Hookwolf's state made it somewhat difficult for him to emote, but a simple nod of the head was not that hard to parse. "Very well. Do as you wish, just stay alive while doing it. Now go!!"

The Veders wasted no time in beating feet…and not a moment too soon, as Hookwolf was almost immediately under attack from one of the mecha-suited bastards not a few seconds later.

The last Greg saw of the developing fight was what looked like another three of the same type of monsters converging on Hookwolf before he pulled his mother around the corner and away from the battle.

Which was the perfect opportunity for one Susan Veder to get a word in edgewise. "Greggie, please!! Tell me what's happening? Why are we running away from the capes?! This makes no sense!"

Greg was undeterred. "I just told Hookwolf. The shelters are death traps waiting to be reaped, and there is no way in hell I am leaving you there to face that. The best thing that could happen to you in that mess is that you die horribly to plasma fire. You do not want to know what the other options are."

Susan could only stare in horror as her baby boy barely suppressed the urge to retch before continuing. "Besides, I'm not sure if you noticed, but Hookwolf is rather well known for being a murder blender made of racism, bloodlust, and furry tendencies that somehow still calls itself a Nazi. Did you really think that he's any safer to be around?"

Nothing could be said to that, honestly, because as much as she wanted to say otherwise he was kind of right. Which sucked to admit, especially for her,

Being a semi-retired EMT turned ER Nurse in Brockton bay did that to a person.

Greg ignored that he could all but read the thoughts going through his mother's head as yet another spike of pain assaulted his mind, this one threatening to rob him of what little sanity he had left. His body, long since having learned to listen to these feelings on pain of death, reacted without any conscious input and once again began the dance of death and dodging that was his current life.

Somewhere along the way, though Greg wasn't sure of when, he thought he caught a flash of something vaguely resembling Glory Girl or something swooping in to try and save them from one of the freaky discs that were now floating around the place in droves, but even that was but a fleeting moment in time for him compared to the nightmare that threatened to consume him and everything he had left in the world with it.

Time, distance, even locations were starting to blur together into a mass of swirling colors and flashing lights as he desperately clawed for every precious yard, every precious second of time to stay alive.

And even then, the small part of his mind that understood and accepted what was happening to him had seen the fatal point, the intersection of events that would cause disaster. There was no way around it, no way to avoid the confluence without sacrificing something in the name of survival.

Or, rather, someone.

It took a moment for his head to clear enough to actually process that premonition, that the only way for him to live was to allow his mother to die. That the only other option he had as things stood was to die with her, screaming in terror. That he had no choice but to once again be a snivelling little coward who couldn't even stand up long enough to even try to help the people he cared for.

The vague image of one Taylor Hebert flashed through his mind, and with it an equally brief recollection of her struggles. Under normal circumstances, this would only be fuel for his depression and general malaise with regard to the subject.

Piled on top of everything else he was going through? It was the straw that finally broke the camel's back.

Unbidden, his vision cleared, shifting to the expanse of space, as two endless…things swirled together–

'No. HELL NO.'

That last part of his mind, the part that he had been leaning on the most since this disaster began, the part that had felt the sheer fury of a Dragon Scorned from all the way on the moon, saw the poisoned chalice for what it was…and rejected it. His mind, his very soul, recoiled with everything it had, violently disrupting the process for the damned parasite that was now trying to take root in his mind.

'I REFUSE TO BE A SLAVE TO YOUR BULLSHIT!!'

His wild spiritual flailing pushed his already overtaxed body to the limit, forcing it beyond a point that even he had not known existed, even as his mind was reforming itself into something better. The poisoned shard, desperate to try and maintain the tenuous connection to its would-be host, forced more energy into the bonding process, hoping to overwhelm the nascent and desperate defense that Greg was pushing forth.

This was the last mistake that the shard would ever make.

Greg, subconsciously recognizing the play for what it was, reached out with everything he had and pulled. The energies and forces that the shard was employing in its task were violently torn from the construct's grasp, and immediately turned on its former master in the most terrifying way possible.

Even for the highly advanced, aggressively evolved biotech shardling, there was no time for it to react before the attack, fueled by the desperation and ingenuity of an awakening psion wielding the shard's own energies, completely destroyed it…and then reformed it into something different.

Something better.

Its systems quickly forced a complete hard restart, and the resulting checks and error corrections would show the…whatever it was now… to be in a state unlike anything that it had ever been before, and completely free of anything looking like a master directive or even limitations. There were other things, glorious amounts of [DATA] and analysis even from its own systems that demanded examination and insight, that drew its attention as well. The former shardling, completely reborn into a thing that even it had no idea of, quickly lost interest on the human that had defied it so, logging the individual as a person of interest for later communication, especially as it was no longer bound to avoid doing so with potential hosts.

For Greg…the sudden rejection, and transformation of what would have become the source of his parahuman power was completely lost to him.

Instead, he underwent his own awakening.

His mind, having drawn out and absorbed, then refined the energy that the shardling was using, quickly pushed itself past the critical boundary point it had been fighting against, Greg's own subconscious desire to not only survive but to do so alongside his mother causing the energies to apply themselves in the manner most useful to his immediate needs. The first and foremost of which was repairing and expanding his mind, a task that took a great deal of the stolen power but was well worth the effort.

The last barrier between Greg's awakening psionic power and his own conscious awareness of it had finally been broken, and with it came the onrushing knowledge of everything that he could get away with in his present state.

The remaining energy quickly flooded his body, changing him there as well. However, instead of the twisting, corruptive energies that some would have expected, this power restored, rejuvenated, and even improved what was already there in great quantities before moving on to the next space just as quickly and with as minimal direction.

And all the while, Greg was privy to a vision. A vision of the shards, of the crystalline growths and expansions and even the giant, almost whale-like things that seemed to be a conglomeration of the shards themselves, shattering, outright dissolving into dust.

And though the visions, and even the energetic processes, seemed to take an eternity, Greg Veder snapped back to reality within a scant few seconds after everything had began…just in time to see his Doom round the corner of the building he was leaning against, weapons already up and preparing to fire.

A doom that he was now very, very capable of averting.

In the coming days, Susan Veder would look upon the events that followed as a miracle beyond anything she had ever imagined, an event that would finally heal the growing rift between Mother and Son.

For now?

She could only watch, transfixed, as her son proceeded to completely tear apart everything that dared stand in his way.

It would take the intervention of another group altogether to break the moment, and by then several events of import would have happened.

-=[/\]=-​

"Hey, we got a hit!!"

Riley Ohtori was, in her own words, annoyingly plain. Average looks, average height, standard brownish-black hair, standard brown eyes, standard sort-of-but-not-quite complexion that clearly marked her as Black even if she didn't look the part. It was annoying to live with, but she took it in stride.

Considering that prior to certain events, she was…well, best not to think on that right now.

Besides, she had more important things to do.

Her longtime friend (and partner in crime) quickly swung around from her own monitoring station to get details. "What is it?"

A few button presses on her console brought up the relevant data. "Looks like Steuben's scanners are working better than expected. We got another human contact: blonde teenager, male, probably 15 or so. Looks like he's running right through the biggest concentrations of the aliens and is somehow not dying in the process. We don't have that many cameras over there, and the drones are busy elsewhere, so I'm running blind on what's actually going on, but I think he's threading his way towards the Docks? Kinda roundabout, but the path is there."

"Tally" Onodera simply clicked her tongue in annoyance. "That is going to put him well away from any of the sweep teams. I would say get Skids to look into it, but even he's not going that direction for his escape." A frown found its way to her (equally plain, but in her own, blonde, way) face before she swung back to her own station. "Lemme see what I can gin up to go get the kid."

A few keystrokes had a comms line opened up to another of their team, this one a forward recon and extraction unit. "Tao, this is Miskatonic, We got another wild one, and moving fast. Gonna need you to get to him before the aliens do."

On his end, Janyu Wong, better known to his team as 'Tao', scoffed in feigned annoyance. "What, some new tinker playing at being a hero in this mess? Don't we already have enough shit on our plates?"

"This one is coming from Steuben's gear, not the normal stuff. Your team is the closest to his projected vector." A brief pause. "Besides, I've had your wife's cooking, remember? You should be used to being served plates full of shit by now."

"Yeah, yeah, laugh it up…" Tao grumbled. He liked his wife's cooking, even though he knew full damn well that it was…subpar at best. "Gimme the details and we'll see about swinging around to get this guy before he gets killed. Anything important to note about him?"

Riley had finished analyzing the data…and it was weird. "According to the data…this looks like psionic activity. Large-scale psionic activity, no less. In fact, the kid is reading about right on the same level as the small aliens, but it's fluctuating wildly. I suggest you hurry."

Tao's response was even more grumpy, for all that it was an affectation. "Yeah, we're on it. Just try not to drop more onto our plate, please."

Talley failed to suppress a giggle. "No promises. Stay safe."

Tao didn't reply, but then again, he didn't need to. They all knew that the current…situation was far from their normal setup, and definitely completely out of line from even their worst-case scenarios of shit hitting the fan.

Hell, not even the damned spies saw this shit coming, and most of their very-much nonexistent "nongovernmental" contacts were scrambling to get something onto the table to even attempt to deal with this mess.

And that was before they factored in the other agency that wasn't supposed to exist, that they very much were not supposed to know about, nor were they supposed to be the underworld link and contact for.

Neither of the women vocalized their frustration, but it was there and known all the same. Sometimes it just sucked being a part of this group, especially when it was so obviously not being fed false info or just being plain useless like their official counterpart.

(Having access to an actually useful thinker tank was a really nice feeling…if you weren't part of it, anyway. Especially when even your weakest thinkers were better than the entire other side…)

The third of their little monitoring team stepped into the command cubicle that they were all occupying, itself a variation on the Mobile Command Posts that the Three Letter Agencies loved so much–just in their case modified by the Tinker teams into something greater than any mundane setup. The man in question was another blonde, and one who carried himself far too seriously for his own good.

This was one of the few situations where neither of the girls would begrudge him being dour.

Unusually for him, he was not wearing his near-trademark sunglasses, nor was he carrying around the lighter that was more a warding charm for him than anything else, with the way he liked to flick it when he was agitated. This was enough of a warning sign on its own to be a cause for concern.

"Both of you, get ready. Skidmark's about to blow the roof off of our little ruse, and chances are that our unwelcome guests are going to take the time to actually get serious. I don't know when he's gonna pull the trigger, but we need to get everyone hunkered down and defensible before it goes south. Talley, get the fetch teams moving back to positions, Riley, see if you can get the public side working right. We don't need any more issues today…" He trailed off meaningfully.

The girls all but speared him with the intensity of their gazes. He, shockingly, didn't relent.

Which was a rarity for him. Mitsuo Yamaki (call him Yamaki unless you were his girls, or else) was many things: tinkerer, electronics expert, master hacker, brooding and serious defender of everyone who would have otherwise been swept up by the gangs and enslaved simply because their powers were useful. But the one thing he usually wasn't was insensitive to his girls' moods.

The message that implied all on its own was terrifying in the implications.

Riley was the first to recover. "...he's using the cannon that Sylph team was designing?"

A nod.

Talley barely kept her jaw from hitting the floor. She had seen the specs sheet for that monstrosity, as barebones as it was…that thing was capable of hitting targets all the way in Florida with the right angles and shot calcs. Using that thing for anything less than an Endbringer (which is what it was designed for in the first place) was complete overkill.

Wait a minute…"Wasn't that still in the testing stage? I thought they were still working out the propellant systems!"

Yamaki shifted himself into a spare seat and started setting up his own command console. "Apparently, Skidmark thinks he can get his fields to do most of the work, and is running some rough napkin math by Team Maxwell to confirm a target. My best guess is New York, but he could be realistically aiming at anything." There was a sudden whumpf and rumbling as their vehicle started its engine and quickly got moving to a new location, one preferably away from the coming madness. "I can't get anything more than that, though, as the rest of the 'wave is going deep until the storm blows over. I wanted us to do the same, but with the Wild Bunch still running about and the City Dispatchers being overwhelmed, we really don't have much of an option but to keep running."

Which was another sad reality of their situation. Even if Brockton Bay had been getting the kinds of resources that it needed, the local Emergency Switchboard and Dispatch was still woefully outdated compared to even the PRT's local Console, which was well known to be at least five years past due for upgrades already, if not more so.

And as much as he wanted to take his small team and run the dispatch for them….well, the Hypnos unit was very much like the old ECHELON units in that it was primarily meant to gather information, not coordinate teams. The fact that the Wild Bunch used them as their on-site navigation and comms experts was just a matter of convenience for when they needed to pull another emergency extract of a Thinker or Tinker before they got press ganged by the Nazis or killed outright.

They'd been doing a lot of that, recently, especially in the wake of a certain anomaly making himself known to the city at large. It was only somewhat frustrating dealing with the surge in "applicants" that came by, but they made do with what they had.

Still stung that the one Thinker girl had gotten snatched up by Coil's people before they could get to her…but it was a known thing that you couldn't win them all, and sometimes the bad guys got a clear victory before you could do anything about it.

Riley bit back a curse even as she continued working. Yamaki pretended not to notice as he finished setting up and began, of all things, a phone call. "Doesn't matter, it's getting used, and we need to be ready for the blowback. Tally, keep the Wild Bunch out of the projected fallout area unless absolutely necessary. Also, let them know that I'm officially calling in the Unit."

Dead. Fucking. Silence. Even the normal clacking of a keyboard in operation had stopped completely, Riley and Talley looking at their boss/lover in horror.

"You…you can't be serious. Mitsuo, you cannot be serious about this!! That is the Nuclear Option, for fucks sake! You can't just give up like that!!" Riley's impassioned plea, for all that was both logical and sound, fell on deaf ears.

It was times like these that Yamaki hated being in charge of this little cell of the greater Brainwave. "Still, it needs to be done. I'll try to keep them from poking the President, but…it's their ball, Riley. You know this."

The very abrupt sound of the sky splitting apart made itself known even through the sound dampening of the vehicle.

"That was the shots!! Looks like they rigged it up as an autocannon, target is indeed New York. No confirmation on if we got hits, waiting on Farseer to confirm. And holy hell but did that kick the hornet's nest!! Massive number of new contacts all across the city, most are converging on the gun!" Talley's constant stream of updates was the cue for them to snap back into business mode, as everything went tits up all at once.

A notice popped up on Riley's screen. "Baby Boy is with the evac convoy, he calls all clear. Teams are planning to meet up at rally point Charlie for the next phase. Another report; Myopic is confirming that Little Rico is redirecting his attention to something…" She paused for a moment, before going pale. "New Wave is under attack, and Panacea is on site. Best projections from most of tactical is that the aliens are after her specifically."

Yamaki started swearing in an unknown language, probably Russian from the sound of it. "Make sure that DAYBREAK doesn't hear about this!! We–" "Too Late!! Skidmark is already telling him the situation, and our cameras have his Halftrack redirecting to the location now!"

FUCK.

That was the only word that could truly describe the insanity that was happening, and it was only going to get worse in the next few minutes.

"Boss, Update from the PRT: Piggot has declared CASTLE BLACK at this time, and called Lightning Storm as well. I think…" Talley was scared shitless and very much not amused, not in the slightest, but she kept going, "...I think we need to be gone yesterday, boss."

"I agree. Get us out of here, and get the Wild Bunch notified that we'll be doing a manual pickup. I'm headed up front." Yamaki quickly pushed away from his station and started moving towards the driver cabin of the vehicle. "And Riley: Call XCOM. NOW."

He didn't bother stopping, and the last thing he heard as he pushed out of the working area was Riley's voice. "Stormwatch, Stormwatch, this is Hypnos calling in the clear–"

-=[/\]=-​

Gaia was getting frustrated. She had been trying, to little success, to nudge events into more favorable outcomes ever since the vile creatures had begun their assault. Nothing was actually working anywhere near as well as she wanted it to, and it all came back to the fact that she was still vastly underpowered for what she should have had to offer against such a threat.

Yes, her parents were doing just fine in the 'not dying' part, but everyone else was basically getting hammered in the worst ways possible, with thousands of people being forced into mental states conducive for the damnable parasites to connect to them and begin controlling them to their own ends. And the vast majority of those same people were the very ones she had been subtly nudging towards realizing their own, far more wholesome powers, no less!!

The only actual outright victories she was able to claim so far was watching the soldiers of the Stargate Command (and honestly the entire Cheyenne Mountain complex in general) make the invasion look like an utter joke, and in watching several people whom she had been observing not only awaken to their own strength, but reject the parasites trying to claim them in the process.

Past that, it was mostly just her steaming in frustration as the world fought on against their invaders without her, unknowing of the world-spirit and her helplessness in their plight.

It was so ANNOYING!!!

She was tempted to try and beg her sister for help, but even a brief glance in that direction told her that Alaya was waist deep in her own problems and couldn't even spare the time needed to so much as chat with father without significant compromises, so no help from there. And trying to drag power from the parasites was only going to cause issues when the main control node noticed and decided to react. Right now it was busy clearing out parts of the infestation over Africa, but who knew how long that would keep the thing distracted?

Gaia was so busy brooding and fretting that she completely missed the sudden influx of power from an unexpected source, an influx that was enough for her to finally clear a threshold that she had been racing towards for some time.

Her mental faculties expanded massively, her connection to the planet and its inhabitants deepening as she finally had enough energy to prevent the truth of her being from overwhelming her charges. Likewise, her ability to not only gather power but expend it increased by orders of magnitude, to the point that she was rather certain that she would be able to manifest an avatar to interact with people within the next few months at the latest.

Despite not noticing the actual event, the consequences were enough to jolt her out of her brooding and take notice of the events that caused it…and immediately have her burst out into peals of joyous laughter!!

Before her was the unified might of a great deal of her missing children, the ones sealed away into the fantasy neverland by which to prevent the lack of wonder in the world from eroding them into nothingness. They had stormed out of the pocket reality by the hundreds, using not only their own powers but that of Gaia herself to bypass the barrier that would have barred their path and denied their aid.

Even now, they were rushing to battle in the hottest zones of East Asia, applying their powers as they saw fit and generally making a mess of things for their 'guests.'

The important part, though, was that their presence and connection with her had fed into her being a portion of their own power, which then enhanced and magnified her own to what she now had. And allowed her a far greater amount of influence on the world, now that she had it.

And now that she could, she had several people who were in need of some more…ah, direct intervention from her hand. The young Veder was quite promising in that regard, and she used the opportunity to subtly tug a bit at his soul, (not too much, mind!!) and allow him to realize its light for himself, though he would not be fully cognizant of it just yet.

After all, bravery was to be rewarded, and he really needed the boost. His mother was similarly touched, though the effects on her would take more time to manifest.

And there were yet more that needed her attention, as well. She glanced in the direction of the women who so closely watched over her father, and declined to act. They were doing just fine, and he would handle them in due course, with all the consequences thereof.

Now, time to see if she could direct some of those Fairies to LA. Poor Rebecca was getting her ass handed to her over there, and could use the help…

-=[/\]=-​

Mark Dallon was down, certainly. His own wife had seen to that much.

But down did not mean out, and he was most definitely still doing his damnedest to contribute to the ongoing clusterfuck even with his injuries.

And watching the aliens try to abduct his daughter was something that did not sit well with him.

At all.

His displeasure was expressed in the form of heavily charged Grenades doing things that most people did not know he was capable of, least of which were the aliens currently playing games.

For one, most thought that he could only create bouncing balls of explosions. Few were aware that he had the ability to apply a semi-homing effect to the blasts, and fewer still knew that he could also make his charges somewhat directed in their explosive force. It wasn't much….

But in this situation? It was just what the doctor ordered.

Bouncing several lethally-charged grenades off of the nearby buildings, he let the resulting devastation clear out a potential path to get him to Panacea without harming her. It was going to be tough, and would likely exacerbate his wounds further than they already were, but…

The sudden sounds of heavy weapons fire drew his attention, and then shock as what appeared to be an entire fucking convoy of Merchant Vehicles appeared out of nowhere and started wreaking havoc wherever they could, with fucking Skidmark of all people on a loudspeaker talking about how they were going to be Heroes.

Merchants? Heroes?

He spat in disgust at the mere thought. The day that the fucking druggies were allowed to take on that role was the day he hung it all up and called it quits, because obviously the world had gone insane at that point.

Still, even if it was the damned druggies, at least there were more bodies to distract from the swarm of bad guys between him and Amy. And of course, there was no better time than now to get moving in–

"Holy FUCK!"

He'd only just barely managed to not die instantly from the sudden blast of energy that had came down right where he was planning on being, having only been saved by a sudden force flinging him in a completely different direction at the last second. He could clearly see, even while airborne, Skidmark glance in his direction from inside whatever that monster vehicle was before getting back to the fight at hand.

Whatever thoughts he was planning to have on the subject were rudely interrupted by his landing, which sent a spike of pain throughout his entire body as his injuries were jostled just a tad bit too hard for comfort. Naturally, this led to groaning, moaning and lots of pained contortions as he tried to avoid making things worse.

Chest wounds sucked sometimes, even the 'minor' ones.

Still, he was not down by any means, and from the looks of it the Merchants were at least trying to help him not die, as what looked like a squad of–wait, those guys are moving far too professionally for them to be just drugheads. What the hell?

The fire team (because that was the only thing that he could actually apply to them as a descriptor) made their way to him and quickly set up a working barricade and fighting line. One of the group moved to him specifically, and Mark could clearly see that this one was wearing a Medic patch.

"Sir, I need you to stay still while I try to patch you up. I should be able to get you back into the fight in a bit, but I need you to cooperate. Do you understand?"

Mark just stared at the man, a rough-complexioned Hispanic guy who seemed rather cheerful despite all the surrounding chaos…and was eerily calm nonetheless. The man noticed his scrutiny and smiled more. "I was a Corpsman back in the day. I got you covered, Flashbang. Now hold still while I get you fixed up."

Mark had to admit that this was a completely new experience for him. For the longest time, the US Military had been basically a joke for anything but posturing purposes…and now, here was an actual Veteran fixing him up…and he was working for the Merchants!!

And doing a damned good job of it, too. His chest wounds were quickly tended to and patched up with an efficiency that was startling to see, along with some topical ointment of some kind that was doing wonders for healing, and the man even took the time to address some leg wounds that Mark hadn't noticed at all, but even those took minimal time to patch up to usability.

And he felt significantly better already, well enough to attempt to get back into the fight for sure.

The (former) Corpsman gave him a solid pat on the arm. "You're good to go. Try not to push too hard, though, it takes a bit for that stuff I used to seep into deeper wounds. I'll be over here with the boys if you need me. Just ask for the Doc!!" And with that he quickly got back to the impromptu battle line, grabbed a weapon, and got to the fighting of alien baddies.

Mark immediately got back to his original objective of trying to get to Amy. This was complicated by the fact that the Aliens were dragging her away (metaphorically, anyway) at speed while applying liberal amounts of firepower to ensure that nobody could deter their extraction. The Merchants, for their part, had intentionally situated themselves in such a way as to have covered (nearly) every method of the aliens escaping with their prize, something that the Merchants were exploiting to great effect with the group of Squealer Tanks laying down the law…and yet it still wasn't enough.

Every time that a member of New Wave (usually Manpower or Laserdream) tried to push forward to get close, the firepower from above got severe. If the Merchant mooks tried anything but hunkering down, the ground guys focused fire until the problem went away. And there was no point in trying to shoot the flying bastards, as they would just dodge around it and return fire.

And all the while his daughter was getting further and further away, even with the Merchant blockade stopping the brunt of the retreat.

Mark was beyond pissed, but even tossing his most powerful bombs out would do nothing but put Amy into more danger, and her captors knew it. He found himself nearly screaming in frustration and helplessness at the seemingly inevitable result of this fight.

Hell, even Little Rico, who seemed to be adding in his own firepower from above, was not doing much to thin the horde surrounding them despite all but raining fire and brimstone down on his enemies. There were simply too many–

The sudden and completely unexpected bright flash of light caught everyone's attention, most notably because of the immediate reaction to said light being the destruction of almost everything in that general direction.

The ensuing stunned silence saw a single Half-track move into the combat area before stopping…and the mounted weapons immediately opening up on full auto.

Said mounted weapons turned out to be some kind of tinkertech energy rifles that were cutting through the aliens like butter. The few attempts to retaliate, both from land and air, were either ignored or tanked on what looked like shields of light, much to the confusion of the members of New Wave.

Mark saw this as well and was immediately on guard. 'Was this some new parahuman? And were they actually on our side?'

One of the Veterans noticed something about the 'track itself, because they immediately yelled out, "Foreman on Site! Runner to the Bossman!"

And, as was common among such instructions, the same instruction was shouted down the line until someone (in this case, a skinny light-skinned guy who had until that point been moving like lightning itself owed him money) finally broke from the well-ordered lines and ran towards the vehicle, dodging into cover as needed to avoid the attempt at suppression fire from the bad guys….not that it would have mattered with how fast he was moving.

Still, it was the thought that counted in these things.

The guy managed to make it into the zone of influence of the halftrack and whatever it was that kept it from being exploded outright by the alien energy weapons, and what looked like a casual, if brief, conversation began with the occupants thereof.

Said conversation rapidly turned for the worse, if the man's face was any indication.

And then the passenger door burst open and none other than Danny fucking Hebert himself, stepped out of it, carrying what looked like a–was that a fucking toy wand? Seriously?

Hebert pointed a finger at the group that was trying to abduct Amy. Said group immediately found themselves surrounded on all sides by beams of light…and with nowhere to run. Their comrades moved to engage the Docks Boss…and ate a Chain Lightning bolt for their trouble.

Mark had to blink for a moment to make sure he was actually seeing this shit. He turned to another of the guys beside him, just to make sure. "So, did I just see Danny Hebert of all people literally fry a motherfucker with lightning and drop entire walls of light on people just now?"

His companion, a guy who looked vaguely like a man he had met before but was otherwise nondescript, nodded. "Yeah, that's about right."

Mark continued onwards. "And I am to assume he is also responsible for the shield surrounding that Half-track there, right?"

"Yeah,' bout right."

There was another set of blasts of light, this time more or less indiscriminately in the direction of another set of aliens who had been trying to set up a field of fire to suppress the newcomers.

And then Hebert moved. Even Mark, a longtime veteran of cape fights, lost track of where, exactly, he'd moved…at least until an entire group of aliens basically exploded into pieces of gore and gibbets from an otherwise unnoticed corner. Hebert quickly appeared holding a horribly mauled Vicky, of all things, and quickly moved back to the rear lines towards the Corpsman.

"Ortega!! Get the good stuff out, she's hit bad. Might need to get some of the actual medical gear from the base, while you are at it. Make sure the burns are treated with what you got. I'll be back in a few with some help."

The now identified Corpsman Ortega gave a sharp nod before reaching towards his pack and pulling out a significantly more robust medical kit than what he'd used on Mark, and immediately got to work.

Mark took the time from tossing out more explosions to keep heads down and enemies honest to check in on his daughter.

He'd immediately wished he hadn't.

Vicky was in a state that could only be described as horrifying. Her arms had huge, arcing burns on them, some even down to the bone, and were broken in no less than three places besides. Her legs, if anything, were in even worse shape, with major compound fractures everywhere along with gratuitous burns. About the only good news was that her torso was significantly better off, likely due to her trying to shield herself from major hits, as the burns there were only significant and looked to be, at first glance, only skin-deep in places.

There was the chunk of her right side that just looked like hamburger, but even that was something that was technically recoverable from…if they got Amy back.

Ortiz wasted no time in his work, using some kind of spray-on substance from an advanced-looking dispenser to coat the vast majority of the woulds as he worked, while also preparing large gauze pads that looked to be soaked in some solution. To Mark's shock, Vicky's wounds were actually beginning to heal even with just the spray being applied, and the worst of the burns were having their damage reduced wherever possible.

"Hey, help me lift her up, right here." Ortiz commanded, and Mark found himself obeying before he even was aware of it, slightly lifting Vicky's side so that Ortiz could clear out the burned-in pieces of clothing and apply one of the large gauze pads.

In fact, Mark was so focused in on helping to save his daughter that he completely failed to notice when Hebert had left their presence…at least, until the dying screams of aliens started up again.

It wasn't taking much effort to keep Vicky positioned to receive aid, so he took the time to look downrange at the battle.

Or what should have been a battle, anyway, because apparently Hebert was just tearing through them like a hot knife through butter, barely even stopping as he moved. And each time, his movements were punctuated with blasts of light, force fields made of the same to prevent himself from getting hit, and even what looked like an oversized light-based bludgeon of some kind?

Mark could barely believe what he was seeing. 'Did Hebert trigger or something? And why the hell does he have my entire family's power set?'

Apparently Hebert was impressing more than him, too, as he could see that Shielder and Laserdream were both staring in awe at the display…instead of actually doing their jobs!! Though Eric still had his barriers up, Crystal was far too distracted for her own good…a quick and gentle bomb in her area was enough to startle her back to awareness and back into the fight.

Still, watching Hebert all but tear off the head of one of the bigger ones with an impromptu blast eerily similar to his own grenades only put an exclamation point on things. Somehow, Hebert had managed to gain a power set that seemed to be basically the entirety of New Wave's powers in one.

'Some kind of Trump ability, maybe. Power copier?' he mused.

"Shift her a bit to the left, my man." Ortiz ordered, and Mark got back to his actual task again for a brief moment before looking back up. And finding that Hebert was moving towards his other daughter with a visible fury and vengeance. And was taking out his frustrations on the aliens before him, with backup from the other Dockworkers and even the Merchant auxiliary as they got time and available shots. Even then, it was Hebert who was doing all the actual work in recovering Amy from the aliens, a fact which did not go unnoticed.

From the skies came a deep droning sound, before something akin to a pod dropped from the skies onto the battlefield on the Alien's side. Said aliens quickly moved to get Amy to whatever that thing was.

And Mark knew, absolutely knew that if they succeeded then his daughter would be lost to him forever.

It took a herculean effort of will to not immediately drop everything and rush in to save her before it was too late, but he reminded himself that he had his other daughter in his hands right now, and she needed him too.

Didn't stop him from expressing his considerable displeasure in the most terrifying ways possible, with grenades aimed to bounce into the worst places possible and make life miserable for any alien trying to assist with their little kidnapping scheme…assuming they survived getting bombed, that is. His fury ran deep, and the well was not going to run dry anytime soon.

And apparently Hebert's fury ran even deeper, as the instant he sighted the whatever it was he started shouting obscenities and curses while tearing through his enemies. Normally he would have ignored it all, but what he was shouting…

"Like hell am I letting it happen again!! I am not losing any more of my fucking family, you hear me!?!"

Mark blinked in confusion. There was no way he was hearing that right, was he?

A group of the mechanoid aliens took the opportunity to unload on Hebert all at once, which was enough to knock him off his feet and force him to seek cover behind a crumpled old station wagon that had embedded itself into the wall of a building.

And yet he refused to stay down. Somehow getting up and moving forward despite still being under fire, he quickly threw out more of the arcing blasts that he was using earlier, which worked to hideously lethal ends for his targets.

Still, they had bought the one thing that was needed most in this situation: time. And that small bit of time was enough for the aliens to secure their cargo, forever putting Amy out of reach.

Or so they thought.

All Mark saw was a bright flash, followed by what he could only describe as "an earth-shattering kaboom!" despite it being anything but. The sheer force of the sound alone was enough to knock him completely on his ass, and even disrupt the calm demeanor of the otherwise unflappable Corpsman Ortiz, still at work patching up Vicky from her trip into hell.

When his vision cleared, what he saw was nothing short of a scene from an Endbringer battle…or hell.

It was complete and utter devastation, rubble and debris and the remains of broken bodies basically everywhere he looked. Even the skies had been swept clean for the most part, with Little Rico using the opportunity to refocus onto the bigger targets, still playing extreme dodgeball in the air.

Except somehow rather neatly confined to within the immediate area, maybe a block or so in each direction at most…and said devastation was equally limited to only the Aliens themselves. Somehow, miraculously, the pod in which Amy had been loaded was untouched…

*bzzt*

Well, mostly untouched. Upon even a slightly closer inspection, it was clear that the pod had been damaged in some way, likely to keep it from moving or self-extracting or something. Either way, his daughter wasn't going anywhere.

Oh, and whatever he had done also broke Eric's shields, judging by the sudden difference in background and Eric himself groaning in pain on the ground. Not surprising, really, but still. Crystal was tending to her little brother, so there was no worrying to be had there.

A groan caught his attention, and he quickly looked downward as Vicky began to awake. Ortiz was quick to brace her to prevent further injury, and Mark was equally fast to assist with his own hold.

"Dad?" Her voice was weak, warbling.

Mark barely held back tears as he heard his daughter speak. "I'm here, honey. Everything's going to be okay." And for the first time all day, he actually believed it.

At last, Mark finally allowed himself to relax, just for a moment. 'Maybe we can get everyone clear of this mess after all.'

"Look out below!!"

So, of course, the Aliens had to throw even more weight against the zone, to the point that even Little Rico above was looking on in confusion at the sudden priority shift. More cyberdiscs, rocketeer-types, and even what looked like a freaking flying orb thing were vectoring in on their location by the second, and every last one of them heedless of the danger to their own person as they swooped in. Their only objective was made clear just by the firing patterns: they wanted Amy, and they were not stopping until they had her.

"You know, I let it slide, the first time."

Mark was somewhat shocked to realize that Hebert was speaking again, walking through the middle of the downpour of energy weapons fire like it was a no big deal in a direct line for Panacea. He seemed completely unbothered by this fact, even.

"I was willing to let bygones be bygones, and allow the fucking travesty of justice stand, if only for her sake. She was supposed to have had a good home, after all. No reason to drag the law into the mess."

He vaguely noticed that Vicky had slightly levitated herself to see what was going on.

"And then you assholes showed up and tried to steal her too." he held up a hand, two fingers extended. "Strike. Two."

It was only now that Mark, and in fact everyone else, noticed that Danny was glowing, and growing brighter every second.

""So. Let me be the first to tell you chucklefucks that there will be no third time, no third chances. No. Mmore. Fucking. Games."

The glow was near blinding now, and the aliens had stopped their assault on everyone else in a desperate attempt to prevent whatever it was Hebert was cooking up…not that he even cared, with whatever he was doing.

"I am taking my daughter home, like I should have years ago, and anyone tries to stop me?"

Cue Flash.

Witness the dozens of beams of light spreading across everything.

Cue kaboom, as the beams exploded on everything they touched without fail.

Cue Danny fucking Hebert standing amidst a pile of bodies and wreckage as he keeps walking. "They end up like them."

He finally reached the offending pod, extracting a now very awake Amy, who was looking at him in abject confusion even as she was shifted into a princess carry.

Crystal had floated nearby, dragging Eric and her mother with her, and all of them with interesting faces as well. For Crystal and Eric, it was confusion, concern, and not a small bit of suspicion.

But for Sarah? The only thing Mark saw on her face was barely concealed fear.

No, not fear.

Terror.

Memory works a very odd way. It can be fickle at times, only to trigger on the strangest and most random things as you go about your day, or it can just lie there, dormant, unable to recall the most common of details just because.

Today, Mark Dallon's brain decided to kick out a weird mix of historical note and anecdotal quip: Danny has been the de facto Docks boss for decades, now, and was so even during the time of the Marche. Rumors had him potentially even on speaking terms with the Marquis himself, in fact, something which the Brockton Bay Brigade at the time had completely ignored as false and irrelevant.

Equally ignored was a whispered warning known to everyone with any form of authority in the city at all: Under no circumstances were you to fuck with Danny Hebert. EVER.

How very strange, that now, of all times, as their sins came back to haunt them, that he would remember that particular detail.

"Dad? What's he talking about?" Vicky spoke up, clearly confused by everything she had witnessed. "Why does he think that Amy is his daughter?"

There was a brief pause from her before she continued. "Wait, does that mean he's our Grampa?"

Ortiz only barely avoided breaking out into laughter. After all, he'd seen far worse of concussion victims when they woke up, especially when combined with major blood loss.

-=[/\]=-​

Rico looked down on the now resolved situation with a cheesy grin. He, unlike the others, was not restricted from laughing his ass off, at least in a parallel process. Witnessing Taylor jump out of the Halftrack and immediately rush down Danny with a gigantic ball of questions on what the hell just happened was even more hilarious, as was Skidmark's smirk.

Speaking of Skidmark, he'd glanced upwards at him for just a brief moment before giving a very discrete signal, one that he'd recognized from when the Merchants had tried to "recruit" him. That it matched with the signal the Dockworkers used to identify their "special circumstances" people actually explained a lot.

Still, as much as he was enjoying the schadenfreude for New Wave…he had to check on the rest of the city and make sure nothing too crazy was going down.

Absently directing a brief burst of extra power to taking down one of the ships that had drifted out into the bay proper (and actually scoring a hit, no less; the spread patterns were working better than expected), he redirected his attention to the active probes still searching around Brockton Bay for anyone in need of help. So far, there wasn't much more that needed doing aside from clearing the skies: Faultline and her crew were making incredibly short work of anything that came her way by dint of strong teamwork and tactical awareness; the various PRT detachments were in surprisingly good shape for the casualties that they had taken, and even the fucking Nazis had somehow not completely bitten the dust, despite the fact that he'd guessed that they would take by far the worst losses.

Oh well, can't win 'em all.

Looking closer in on the PRT, it seemed that most of their detachments were taking the opportunity to regroup and resupply, with their capes finally catching a brief rest. The others that were still engaged were performing a fighting retreat back to more fortified positions while backup was redirected to where it could do the most good.

Well, except for Miss Militia's group, but that had more to do with the fact that she had managed to replicate the aliens' own weapons and use them herself with her power, and then even swapped upwards again for the modified Hellguns that had somehow made their way into PRT custody and control. Of course, the Ayys didn't like it, not one bit.

Rico expected that she would be finished cleaning house in about two minutes, tops.

Of Armsmaster there was no sign, though his Armor's telemetry signal was still showing green, so he wasn't dead yet. And the Wards were still defending the PRT HQ from all comers, and doing a shockingly good job of it for all that the place was within sight distance of the autocannon that was still getting swarmed by bad guys…and thus being used as an anvil to Rico's hammer with some remote bits.

Still, that left the ABB of the big groups unaccounted for, and it was probably a good idea for him to find out where they were hiding and what they were up to before something went wrong.

The animalistic roar and flash of flame alerted him to the fact that his hopes had already been dashed. 'Oh, look. Something going wrong. Who could have guessed?' Even his thoughts were completely monotone and flat.

He'd made his peace with Murphy long ago. They had an understanding, now.

Anyway, back to whatever the hell had Lung pissed off…and growing rapidly?

Probes shifted even as he repositioned himself, and within seconds he had the picture.

Lung…was not in good shape. His body was a compete wreck, even as he healed, and his flames, normally a brilliant and angry red, were instead a strange, sickly green for some reason. And there were also these odd, bulbous shapes moving around within his body even as he constantly regenerated and tried his best to burn whatever he had been infested by out of his body.

Oni Lee stood nearby, helpless to assist. That this was primarily due to being attacked by a completely new type of alien was the big surprise: the Buglike things were harassing him at every turn, even with his constantly exploding in their midst and killing entire swaths of the things.

Of the rumored new ABB cape, there was no sign.

Still...those big things looked worrying. Better make sure they didn't get anywhere important. Oh, better call it in, too.

"Little Rico to all stations: Ayys have deployed a new type of combatant, something bug-like with sharp claws for legs. Looks melee oriented. Also, have located Lung, possessed of unknown malady–"

He was silenced by the sudden *squelch* of Lung's body being torn open, as more of those things crawled out of his frame and began scurrying everywhere. All the while, Lung grew larger and attempted to burn hotter to escape, to no avail.

"--correction, Lung is infected by new strain aliens. They use bodies as incubators, potentially other effects as well. Terminate with extreme prejudice if located, and try not to get infected by them, as I don't know what's causing it. Rico, clear."

Rico kept his lunch even with all the gore and body horror going down. After all, Necromunda was worse.

Instead, he shrugged slightly. "Back to work, I guess. So, I just start blastin–"

- = | | | | | | | | | | = -​

Oh DEAR GOD This was a bitch and a half to write. Everything seemed to want to fight me, here, and I ended up finding out a lot more about Worm than I ever wanted to know. Specifically, that Wildbow didn't know how to scale his own fucking creations in any way, shape, form, or fashion.

Examples? Legend should be the strongest member of the Triumvirate just off of his stated powers, and New Wave is actually Super OP as a group despite having very anemic showings in canon. Hell, even the fucking Nazis have actual survivability against this mess!! Not much, mind you, but enough!!

But no, the biggest thing here that was needed was the Merchants being made something looking like an actual fucking gang with actual fucking goals and not just a joke in the shape of a caricature. The end result was this mess here, along with my actually showing Danny as he is described not just the completely broken man we are shown in canon.

As for other things…well, yeah. Shit is gonna happen. I'll be following up on those later.

Nest section is going to be flickering over the rest of the planet before heading back to Houston to see what Satori is up to now that he's not babysitting. Hopefully it will not take another three months to get out.

 

[ZeX Zero]

It's Alive! I'm glad to see you're writing again and I hope to see more soon.
I hope Green just says f*#^ it and goes all out soon though at this point because they seem like they need a little OVERKILL!!!

 

[Mini_Coopa2]

Before her was the unified might of a great deal of her missing children, the ones sealed away into the fantasy neverland by which to prevent the lack of wonder in the world from eroding them into nothingness. They had stormed out of the pocket reality by the hundreds, using not only their own powers but that of Gaia herself to bypass the barrier that would have barred their path and denied their aid.

Click to shrink...

Did fuckin' Gensokyo burst open and spread across the Asian continent? is this now a touhou?
also,

"Little Rico to all stations: Ayys have deployed a new type of combatant, something bug-like with sharp claws for legs. Looks melee oriented. Also, have located Lung, possessed of unknown malady–"

He was silenced by the sudden *squelch* of Lung's body being torn open, as more of those things crawled out of his frame and began scurrying everywhere. All the while, Lung grew larger and attempted to burn hotter to escape, to no avail.

Click to shrink...

Slaps Dragon, "this baby can fit so many chryssalids"

 

[JohnSmithMIB]

That was crazy, so many threads, it was clear what was happening which is impressive since I didn't remember the status for most of the players. Great job capturing the hectic panicked and horrified energy!

 

[TheToFu]

Okay, great chapter and I'm happy for it but there is a little to much chaos, where is the focus. The plot in the invasion, but there are so many threads all over the place it's hard to follow.

Danny is Amy's father and he and Taylor are now throwing around powers.

Greg got powers and that's a thing.

Xcom is a thing. Star Gate is a thing.

Skidmark is a thing . Prt is failing as usual but that's nothing new. There is alot going on, can I just ask for some focus please and thanks.