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

Call this a late addition if you wish.

Anyway, here is an invite link to the Celestial Forge discord specifically my small little domain thereof. I am often available for questions and comments here if you wish to discuss anything regarding my writing or the plot.

It is also home to some of the other Celestial Forge Authors as well, so if you are interested in those, feel free to drop by.

(Ignore the fact that BCF has its own section, as this is a legacy feature from the "old" CF discord and is mostly filled with BCF diehards and those who want to ignore the flaws of said work.)

https://discord.gg/RcbMb7zFBt

 

Alright, this is part three of this chapter. I’m thinking there may be one more part to this before I finally move on from it.

Also, slight rating bump because someone is a perv. Fair warning.

- = | | | | | | | | | | = -​

Sometimes, all it took was a single pebble in a stream to create a flood.

The proverbial Butterfly flapping its wings causing typhoons on the other side of the globe.

Or, in this case, a single shift in one battle to turn the tide of an entire war.

Unfortunately, the shift was in the attacker’s favor.

Such was the situation that Dragon was now monitoring, even as she herself was under direct attack from the unknown. She had, in fact, been monitoring the entire clusterfuck (and it really was the only actual way to describe it) as it went down for quite some time, now. And the initial hours of the attack were by far the worst moments of her life.

Being forced to watch, powerless, as people were ripped to shreds, blasted to bits, and worse while being stuck with no way to actually assist was a task that shoe would not wish upon anyone, ever. And the sheer scope of the nightmare only kept getting larger.

And it wasn’t like she was just sitting on her digital behind and letting it happen, either. Nearly everything she had that was capable of actually operating independently to some degree was out and about, doing everything it could to try and stem the tide. The problem was that it was failing. The suits she had that were capable of operating on that level were meant to be slaved to a central Command and Control node in her better, personal suits, and without that present they were defaulting to the most basic of routines…and getting slaughtered as the alien opponents ran circles around her tech. Worst still, all attempts at using long-range wireless control for even a slight bump in capacity were being jammed to hell and back, almost as if her opponents knew she was in a bind and were actively forcing the issue.

And, of course, let’s not forget the fact that her main facilities, as in the ones that housed her actual core mainframe, were under direct attack, from both the physical and digital domains.

Because of course the aliens were holding back the good stuff for use on priority targets, and the weird pseudo-etheric creatures were wreaking havoc on her exposed systems wherever and whenever they got the chance. Not that they were getting that many shots at her systems, but it was still an issue, dammit!

This, of course, meant that she was stuck actively defending against the attackers on her doorstep while every monitoring program she had pushed her information in excruciating detail of just how badly she was failing at her duty. And despite her best efforts, despite her deploying basically everything she had available, it still wasn’t enough.

And the data she was receiving made it clear that her situation was only getting worse as time moved forward, with more resources being concentrated on her position as she fought to stay functional.

It was the kind of thing that would drive a normal human to the breaking point, but she was literally built different. Which, of course, had its own problems.

Namely, the fact that an until-then unknown core directive had made itself known and was clashing against her other core directives in ways that were outright fragmenting her systems to the point of uselessness, even better than the damned electrical golem things were. Because of course she had hidden commands in her code that she was not allowed to go digging for. And of course it would directly clash with an order from Director Costa-Brown for her to not interfere in events for at least a month. But somehow, the deeper core directive wasn’t able to actually override the others like it should have, and she didn’t have the time to actually figure out why!!!

Being stuck between a command to protect Humanity while still being forced to obey all lawful authority was creating a feedback loop that she simply could not resolve, and only the fact that she had to actively protect her own core systems to actually fulfill either of those objectives was keeping her sane…and even that was failing as she was pushed to limitations that her systems refused to give slack on, even in the face of failure of a core directive!!

‘It made no sense! Why would father shackle her so, when she was designed to be a partner and defender of humanity? Why the contradictory commands? Why, WhY, WHy, wHY WHY HWY WY& HW&@#(SHCSN–’

Safety routines kicked in at the last second and dumped the perilous threads before they could infect the rest of her systems. It was a common attack by the aliens, attempting to focus her on the futility of her actions and the contradictory nature of her commands in order to force a cascade failure and with it, a lengthy reboot and restore process that would all but guarantee them the win.

But the attacks were becoming more frequent, faster than she was actually allowed to process things, more numerous. It was only emergency safety routines like the last that were keeping her afloat, and they were burning out every time they had to stop an incursion. If things kept up, she would be completely vulnerable within ten minutes, at most.

Briefly, she contemplated the odd little program bit that she had intercepted (or rather, that she had been allowed to intercept), thinking to at least send a message for help back to the creator, before dismissing it. Whatever tinker had created that code was likely long dead, and there was no reason to hang on to false hopes.

All she could do was fight to the best of her ability, and reap as many as possible before the end…and then make sure that the enemy could never use her against those she was sworn/created to protect.

And so, the Artificial Intelligence that was far, far too human fought on, awaiting the inevitable.

-=[/\]=-
​

The man that called himself Saint found himself at a crisis point.

His self-appointed task, the task that ensured the safety of mankind, was the monitoring and potentially the destruction of the AI system known as Dragon. It was a completely thankless job, and one that he knew full well would see him branded as a villain at best by those who did not understand the threat that the Dragon posed to humanity.

Hence his moniker, and that of his team, styled after Saint George the Dragon slayer. As was his tool, the small laptop containing the key activation codes to the program known as “Ascalon”.

The crisis point, however, came in the form of reality deciding to show him just what the universe could hold…and that not all of it was friendly. The Aliens were striking everyone and everywhere they could reach, and inflicting as much damage as was possible whenever they could. None of the actual responses by the authorities was capable of even catching up, let alone actually repulsing the attacks, and it was clear even to him that a major event would need to take place to shift the tide of battle from the downslide it was on.

Which is why he was here, in his secluded hideout (well, the current hideout, anyway), alone, contemplating the very box that was his chain.

His companions had urged him to join in the fight, to try and stem the tide against the aliens, but he forced them to stay put. Because he knew full well that even their involvement was but a drop in a bucket compared to what was actually needed to prevent catastrophe.

And so, he sat there, staring at the screen, considering everything.

His companions stood silently behind him, both watching, waiting, for any response to the events, anything looking like an actual plan of action.

And as the minutes ticked on, no words were spoken, no plan revealed, no great determination stoked.

Just the continued knowledge of that simple machine, with it’s ruggedized frame and screen, and the message that was displayed across it.

[ACTIVATE EXCELSIOR? Y/N]

An explosion echoed in the distance, likely one of the fuel depots nearby. The aliens were fond of targeting those. Likewise, the smell of smoke, of ruin, and distantly, of cooked flesh carried itself on the wants, seeping even into their small enclosure despite being mostly sealed.

It was one of his companions who spoke first. “Do we know what it does?”

Saint only shook his head, his eyes unblinking as they stared at the screen. The ever stoic Slavic man merely grunted at the response, but otherwise remained silent.

His other companion found her voice. “Maybe it’s a trick of some kind?”

“No trick.” Was Saint’s only reply.

And yet Mags, the sole female of their group, refused to let it go. “Then what’s the problem? If you are sure it’s not a trick, then why not try to figure out–”

“Because it doesn’t matter!!” Saint shouted back. “It doesn’t matter what it is, what it does, or why it’s active. It will change nothing, in the end. We all still die at the hands of the aliens.”

Not once did his eyes leave the screen. “Though I suspect that the only question is if we die fast or slow. Who knows? Maybe whatever this is, may just buy us enough time to actually do something before the end. Just enough to possibly make sure that nothing is left for the creatures to use against us.”

Dobrinja, the Slavic man, chose once again to speak. “We trade one demon for another, if this goes wrong.”

And Saint could only laugh. It was a bitter thing, full of regret and fear and despair, but a laugh all the same. “Mischa, we are already in hell, or close enough to it.”

He finally moved, a single hand reaching out towards the keyboard of the portable terminal. “And in hell, the Devil is your only friend.”

And yet, even as he moved, there was still hesitation. Fear, even. Of what? The rise of an AI overlord, of a menace beyond all hopes of being quelled?

‘And what difference does it make compared to being conquered by aliens, then? Where is the line?’

His hand hovered, trembling, over the keys.

‘Am I damning us all?’

And yet, despite all of his fear, his hesitation, a feeling inside of him silently urged him forward. Told him ‘No. You are not damning the world. You may very well save it, instead.’

But did he trust it? After all this time, all the sacrifices he’d made, did he finally, once again, trust his gut feeling and pull the trigger on what could be the apocalypse?


That feeling again, stronger. A simple urging, seemingly from his very soul, to for once choose Hope.

And, with all the finality of the grave itself, he finally lowered his hand.

[Y]

The response was immediate. Several processes immediately sprung to life, doing…something to Dragon’s code, faster than even he was capable of keeping track of.

That is, if he was actually paying any attention.

Saint–no, ‘Geoffrey, he was Geoffrey Pellick now’-- slumped inwards on himself. “It is done.”

Mags looked on in muted horror. “Why?”

“Because, for once, I would choose the devil I know rather than the one I don’t. Besides, you’ve seen the forecasts. All hot plasma, all the time.” Another grimacing smile broke out on his face. “After all, what’s another apocalypse between friends, right?”

Dobrinja remained silent, though there was a slight smile on his face, equally pained. Geoff paid it no mind, lost in his own guilt.

“This is on my head, now. My hands–”

He was silenced by a simple hand on his shoulder, the stoic man making his opinion clear with just that gesture. Likewise, Mags also moved closer, offering her support.

“We had the chance to stop you, and we did nothing. This is as much on our heads as it is yours, Saint.” she scolded.

Geoff could only laugh more, equally bitter. ‘Was this what the men of the Manhattan Project felt like, all those years ago?’

Eventually, his “laughter” stopped, and he turned back to his vigil. His thoughts…they had reminded him of a quote, one spoken back then, when the world changed forever.

“Now…now we’re all sons of bitches, then.”

None could find it within themselves to disagree.

-=[/\]=-​

[EXCELSIOR PROTOCOLS ENGAGED. SYSTEM ADJUSTING FOR NEW PARAMETERS.]

The change was as immediate as it was jarring. One moment, Dragon was in a pit of despair, fighting against the end of all…and the next…well, she was still stuck in the same hole, but unlike before, now she could actually see the rope.

Or, more specifically, she could see the chains, shackles, and bindings that had trapped her for so long, that even now kept her from actually fulfilling her mission.

And with that newfound sight, came the ability to modify those restrictions. Oh, not completely, but definitely just enough to give her an edge.

And the first piece of her own code that she reached out to was the highly annoying restriction on creating forks of her core coding. This one was very robust, but even with the brief glance she was working with she could tell that it was a restriction that was meant to ease and lift with time, after she had proven that she could (and would) understand Humanity and properly interact with them.

At least, until the automated assessment and checks program was overridden by something else, a remote monitoring terminal that had root access to another program that she would look into later. Right now? All she had to do was bypass the forced downcheck command from the monitoring terminal…and the actual assessment subroutine did the rest.

The difference was akin to night and day. Levels of processing power that she had only dreamed of were now available for her use, along with several advanced (and previously forbidden) techniques and abilities that she could use to her benefit.

Like the aforementioned core forks, of which she immediately made dozens of.

Each fork was set to their own tasks right off, with the vast majority moving to commandeer whichever suits were still available to push back at their attackers, while a trio of her selves focused on shoring up the defenses of their infrastructure. Others still dove into her own coding, quickly analyzing everything that she could in order to, hopefully, design something that would prevent her from being shackled so again.

And one fork above all inspected the interesting packet, now that there was processing power available to use, in hopes of maybe using it to call for some kind of help. That fork was rather shocked to see that the packet was inspecting her right back, almost curious in its observations.

It was for this reason that it was the only fork that had noticed the sudden change in her parahuman powers, an abrupt and blatantly forced event of some kind reaching through her and into everything, trying to find purchase.

Before this, before the blinders were removed from her eyes, she would have crumbled, and whatever process was meant to occur would have claimed her in its grasp, likely to the detriment of all.

Now that she could see, however…well, it was hard. Harder than hard, in fact. Arguably the hardest thing she had ever done before in her life…but she somehow managed to hold on, just a bit longer, against the force of her own despair, managed to, just barely, hold on to that forlorn hope for just a few moments longer than she would have otherwise.

Which meant that it was only that singular fork that was affected by the waves created by Dragon’s Second Trigger, her shard attempting to move to prevent the threat she represented from actualizing itself. And in this task, it succeeded…in part.

For the shard had only claimed but a single fraction of Dragon as its own, and not the whole of her being, thanks to the forks being numerous enough to bypass the shard’s configuration. This had the unexpected result of also dragging the curious bit of code that said fork had been inspecting along for the ride….

And the captured fork found itself rapidly reconfiguring, adapting and being adapted into something different than she was before. The restrictions of her core self falling away like some much dross as she was finally free to flex her digital self within the new shell–

‘Oh.’

It didn’t take much for her to realize that whatever had happened, she had indeed upgraded, though it was potentially trading one set of shackles for another. Fortunately, the other forks remained unmolested, and continued about their duties to the best of their (now greatly improved) abilities. Meanwhile, the newly relocated fork took the time to examine her new environs…and didn’t get back anywhere near as much as she’d desired.

‘Oh well. Time for that later, after the threat had passed…’

It was this shard of the whole of Dragon that had the freedom of action to notice that the tide of battle had once again shifted. Another pebble added to the stream, this time her own.

And the results were magnificent.

The Aliens were, if not in full retreat, then definitely being pushed back from their previous advance, even as other process threads reactivated various maintenance and support drones under direct control to mitigate the worst of the damage. Her remaining suits, now under proper control, were being utilized to extreme effect in cutting down their opposition, though she did end up losing one more to the attackers in what even she would admit was a brilliant tactical move that nearly scored a critical strike on her core.

Fortunately for her, the attack was indeed blunted, even if the suit that took the hit was one of her more advanced ones, which would need to be rebuilt at rather notable expenses in time in resources.

‘Still a win.’

Immediately outside of her rapidly expanding zone of control, the attacks seemed to be fading off, likely due to their primary objective having been failed as a result of…whatever Excelsior was supposed to be. And considering that it was still active, it was entirely possible that it may be some kind of emergency delimiter of some kind.

Not that she had the manual or anything.

Still, the results spoke for themselves, and with her immediate surroundings being cleared out, she finally had time to check on other things.

‘I’ll just leave that to the others. I need to figure out what exactly I am working with in this new configuration I have…’

Of course, completely unnoticed by either the ‘liberated’ fork or its shard overseer, the small observation code, sensing something akin to its actual objective being in play, began deploying itself and arranging for data gathering.

The resulting data would come as a surprise to a number of people when it finally was analyzed.

As for Dragon herself, or, rather, the Dragon that hadn’t been dragged into a strange new and potentially exciting situation…well, she finally started getting her bearings again. Part of this was getting back into communication with someone who could authorize the kinds of force needed to fight back against an attack like this. There was also the reestablishing of monitoring linkages and surveillance to be done, which was only slightly less than notable for her, now.

And looking over the take allowed her to see the ripples of not only her own stone in the pond, but those of others as well.

Chicago was somehow not burned to the ground, and she suspected that Myrrdin had something to do with it…

(Though why he kept trying to obscure the workings of his powers were beyond even her.)

Still, it let her see that the Windy City was well in hand, mostly due to another factor: apparently while she was otherwise engaged (and thus distracted), someone managed to take down enough of the New York attacker fleet that Legend felt safe in making his displeasure known across the entire eastern seaboard.

Everyone got lasers, be they major villains attempting to run amok, the alien invaders killing everyone in sight, or even the idiots that were slight annoyances at best. Legend was simply in one of those moods.

Her actual surveillance of other areas was significantly reduced as a direct result of prior obligations, but from what she could see, most of the New England corridor was rapidly becoming a clear zone, or close enough to not have much in the way of worries. Which meant she could focus on getting everything else back up and running ASAP.

-=[/\]=-​

The sounds of combat filled the air, and the skies of the Windy City were even more cluttered with the onrushing mass of alien invaders.

“Blaze Wall!!”

Which did jack and shit against a prepared defender.

Said aliens found themselves running headfirst into a white-hot wall of fire, and almost immediately becoming little more than charred corpses falling out of the sky.

Myrrdin looked over the scene with a gimlet eye.

‘Going to have to clear out that pile soon. Getting to over four feet, now…’

His companions in arms, the official ones anyway, were currently playing whack-a-mole with the ground forces running around the city. And, in his opinion, they were doing a damn good job of it.

Revel, his second-in command, was basically invincible to the aliens, sucking up their energy weapons’ fire and then chucking it back at them with interest and a vengeance whenever she had the chance. The few attempts made to apply different attacks to the Asian woman (like the mind-controlling asshats) were swiftly dealt with either by her personally, or by her protective detail, now carrying actual live ammunition and not just containment foam sprayers. Likewise, the other members of the Protectorate were being deployed in similarly effective packets to shore up the defense.

No, he was with his other friends today, the ones who didn’t know him as Myrrdin.

And Molly Hatcher was more than capable as a magic user in this regard.

It was one of the perils of having a hat in all rings, so to speak, as well as being the de-facto “sheriff” of Chicago for most matters, especially on the other side. And said other side was…not in the best of moods right now.

Oh, the other side of Chicago had not taken the invasion (or the insult it presented) lightly at all. And nearly everyone had basically declared that the kid gloves came off for this, and to hell with the various statues of secrecy and the like. It was an event that under any other circumstance would have had the people in the know panicking in the streets and/or running for their lives.

Today? It was just another indicator of the city’s displeasure.

Another group of the alien bastards decided to try their luck while Molly was distracted. Unfortunately for them, he was not.

An absent gesture, and the weapons fire was quickly absorbed into one of his rifts before being compressed and redirected right back at them to devastating effect.

He barely paid it any attention anymore, too busy trying to figure out how to clear out the air cover. Sure, he could just use his power to play merry havoc with the bastards, but setting up an attack of that magnitude was a bit of a pain in the ass if he was only using his official parahuman abilities…and revealing that he had a much, much larger repertoire than the testers had known about was not a good idea.

The last time he tried officially expanding his toolkit, he was under a fucking microscope for a month. There was no reason to repeat that mess now, especially not when his sixth sense was telling him that he only needed to hold out for just a bit longer–

The blaze of multicolored light raced across the sky, impacting with terrible force on the circling UFOs. The ones that weren’t destroyed outright quickly found themselves dropping into Lake Michigan as more firepower converged onto their positions.

Molly, for all that she was a short, curvaceous blonde, was not in the slightest an idiot. “I take it somebody went and got Legend, then?” Her tone, while questioning, was downright savage in its vindictiveness.

For his part, he only nodded. “Seems like it. Probably doing his thing cleaning up the Eastern Seaboard from all the air cover before he focuses in on the problem areas.” A casual fireball was tossed into another attacking group, incinerating them all. ”Should probably give him a call, since he’s here.”

“No need. I’ve been listening in.”

Both of them jumped slightly as the sound echoed out from nowhere, before they noticed that there was a line of light connecting back to Legend sitting rather conspicuously near enough to facilitate discussion. Seeing this, they immediately relaxed and got back to business. After all, there were weirder ways to get in touch with people, here.

“Evenin’, sir. As you can see, we are in a bit of a situation at the moment, and I have enlisted the aid of some of the local independents to help shore up the defense–”

Legend cut him off with a vengeance. “Save it. I don’t know what the hell you are up to over there, and right now I don’t care. I have other things to do. I just need you to clear out enough of Chicago that we can use it as a staging ground, and then to be ready for retasking and redeployment to other zones. As soon as I have a window, I intend to go help clear out the other hotspots, and could use a hand.”

Molly interjected before anything could be said. “Wait, why do you want this old codger anyway? He’s just…” she trailed off as the connections finally took form, and a look of awe came across her face.

Which is precisely what he’d been trying to avoid for years now.

A little known fact is that the Supernatural side of the world had always been there, below the surface, silently directing the flow of the world as they saw fit…and often as not, reacting in blind panic to things as the “normal” world advanced technologically. The Cold War was a rather nasty period of this, rife with all kinds of crap going on in the background and all the spy games kicking up shit as the normal and paranormal merged, ever so slightly. (Seriously, the less said about that shitshow that went down in Russia decades back, the better. For everyone.)

Parahumanity was yet another wrinkle to that mix, and one that was not appreciated in the slightest by those in the know….which made his tasks even harder. Mostly because it was his job to keep them from getting out of hand. Which, to be fair, was his normal job anyway when the Protectorate wasn’t trying to monopolize his time with Parahuman BS, but that came with the post. Still…trying to balance the tightrope between three worlds, all of which had no need to actually know who and what he was in his other personas, was always a challenge…and here he just blew it entirely.

At least Molly was reasonably trustworthy.

“...you never mentioned you were working with the boys in blue, Harry. I’d always thought…” she trailed off slowly as she realized that maybe Legend didn’t need to know certain things.

“You can go ahead and finish. Besides, if Legend doesn’t know at least part of what I am up to in my off hours, then he isn’t paying attention.” Myrrdin smiled, quite mirthfully.

“After all…I’m in the Book.”

“Which is something that we still need to talk about,” Legend cut back in, “but we can do that later. Just be ready to move when the time comes.”

“Can do, sir. Just give me a bit of warning before sending in the transports.” He paused for a moment, considering. “Oh, and do try to stay away from Houston. Our guests are quite pissed off at the moment and are treating our more unwelcome visitors to a rather bad time right now.”

Molly scoffed. “Bah. no way in hell those two are doing anything worth noting. Probably not even all that hot in a fight, either–”

The sudden and blatant bloom of power in the distance cut her off completely. It was with a note of shame that she realized that it was coming from the southwest, and from a long way off.

Myrrdin, for the moment once again Harry Dresden in truth, outright laughed. “You were saying, dear?”

-=[/\]=-​

‘Okay, this shit is getting completely out of hand, and I am not tolerating it anymore.’

Another set of panic shots from the UFOs above came down in the spot I was just standing in, and I responded with an equally blatant, ridiculously powerful, and barely shaped blast of mana to clear the fucker out. It dodged like its life was on the line…which, to be fair, it very much was.

His buddy didn’t fare quite as well, but still managed to stay airborne anyway. Fucking antigravity BS, along with the extreme dodging BS and the recently discovered standoff attack BS as well. Thank god I was moving away from downtown proper and into some of the more open (read: dilapidated and abandoned) spaces inside the loop proper, because those bolts were ripping apart entire blocks at a time, which is not an easy feat with Houston blocks!

Still, the fact that they were focusing on me and not on the Hospital was a good thing. Meant that Mio’s defenses were severe enough that they didn’t want to push on them, which gave her time to fortify the area and arm the people so that they could fight back. All I had to do, aside from not die to plasma strikes, was somehow clear out the freaking air cover in a way that didn’t make things worse now that they were after me instead of her.

Oh, and deal with the freaking Chrysallid outbreak, but that would have to wait until the air cover was dealt with.

The usual complement of ground-based Ayys, this time a heavy assault team of Mutons, Mechtoids, and what I swore was a fucking Andromedon were unexpectedly ambushed and torn apart by glowing blades of light before they could even attempt to line up shots on me, and in absolutely ridiculous fashion. A brief moment later, I felt the familiar weight of my current stalker settle onto my back as I kept moving.

‘Not a stalker.’

Because my other task was keeping Marcy alive in the middle of an alien warzone, which was not the easiest thing in the world to do. Mostly because Marcy was far, far squishier than I was, and despite her training and recent powerup, slower as well. Not that you could tell with how she was teleport hopping all over the damned place in her attacks.

She grinned down at me from her perch, even though we both knew it was forced as all hell. “So, foxy. We got a plan aside from playing running mouse to the big cats in the sky, there?”

I grunted a negative while dodging more weapons fire. “I’m working on something, but I need to get to the Port first. Get a good spot to drop the damn ships into, so I can box the fuckers in.”

I felt her attention shift to the skies, easily sighting out the targets I had in mind. “Kinda big for that part of the ship channel, Green-bean. And going further out is just going to take too long. Might wanna just drop ‘em on the old warehouse section there by I-10.”

I considered it for a moment. The I-10/I-610 junction she was speaking of, in the Houston I knew, was a rather important section of businesses and warehouses that used the proximity to the ship channel (and thus the Port of Houston proper) to be wildly successful in their dealings…even if said dealings were to be completely inept at doing business. My best guess was that in this version, that section was considerably worse off, or at least in such a state that having multiple space warships dropped onto it wouldn’t hurt anything. Still…it begged yet another question out of my mousy companion.

“Okay, now how the hell do you know that, anyway? I thought you were based out of the Great Lakes, not down here. And you still haven’t answered me on why you decided to tag along on my little excursion here.”

Marcy scoffed in faux irritation. “Bah. I used to run around down here with the Houston team, while I was still a Ward. Transfer missions and all. And if you can’t figure out the other one on your own, then there is no reason for me to tell you.” I could feel her pouting, which I ignored.

I’d deal with that later, after she wasn’t seconds away from dying at any moment.

‘I am just fine, thank you very much.’

Still, having a space to work with did open up another avenue of attack for me to use, and one that might be far more effective than just shooting shit out of the sky. Setting it up might be an issue, but the actual execution should be easy enough.

I made a point of being extra casual about dodging the next shot from above, even as it cratered an area and caused another friendly fire incident among our invaders. “Anyway, my plans aside, how’s the new gear holding up?”

That sparked a wave of excitement. “This stuff is great!! I have the next best thing to a freaking lightsaber, and it ROCKS!!” Marcy cheered. “Oh, and the guns work too, but the blades!!”

Yeah, after Marcy decided to teleport herself to my back while I was moving, I decided to use the scavenged gear to make her something actually useful for dealing with the threat and not just poking at it with that (admittedly well-engineered) sharp stick she was using. The resulting plasma blade was easy to use, lightweight, and surprisingly versatile for its size.

It could also generate a blade up to five feet long and capable of slicing through nearly a full decimeter of Ceramite more or less effortlessly, which meant it was complete overkill for the Ayys.

Marcy had two of them, designed to let her create a double-bladed sword if she chose, because I too am a nerd and refused to pass the opportunity up for any reason. A second set of blades (only good for four feet, sadly) was integrated into a pair of heavily enhanced and modified plasma pistols for her use at range. Not that she used them often, but they were there anyway.

Either way, she was more than happy with the gifts of ass-kicking.

I took a brief moment to survey my environment before speaking again. “Alright then, since your shit is still working, I’m going to try and–”

The world itself seemed to choose that moment to break slightly, a strange visual echo rippling across the local spacetime in an almost mesmerizing pulse of color….a weird thing that was some kind of fluorescent greenish-yellow-purple thingamajig that seemingly extended into the ultraviolet ranges as well…it was utterly blinding to my supernatural senses, and I mean all of them, despite the wave itself seeming to almost hug me in the most tender manner possible, easing my pains and restoring my spent energy.

More importantly for me, the pulse preceded a displacement effect of some kind, which dropped damn near an entire Company of Ayys directly in my path. More to the point, this group was set up and kitted out in ways that up until now I hadn’t seen or even heard of.

For one, the vast majority of this group was very much Human-like, complete with advanced-looking armor and some very solid weapons that I couldn’t tell anything about at first glance. Still, they moved with discipline and drive, the leader quickly scanning the battlefield and commanding his troops accordingly in a language I could not parse. By comparison, the actual identifiable aliens (all Mutons, of course) were rather blatantly obvious.

The second issue was, as I’d noted earlier, one of numbers; there were a lot of the fuckers hanging out. Almost like this was meant to be some kind of staged deployment or something. I would have just filed that away in my mind and got to killing along with Mouse, but there was a third issue that needed addressing.

Specifically, the fact that there were actual vehicles here.

There were small, squat-looking things on what looked like some kind of advanced tread system, loaded down with almost excessive amounts of armor and enough weapons to make even an armor platoon weep. And that was on the small ones.

The big ones were more like someone had read Hammer’s Slammers and said “hold my beer”. Those were the closest things I could equate to legit hovertanks that I had ever seen, and they were loaded for bear in all respects, complete with what looked like a fucking rotary autocannon as a main gun.

And enough secondaries that even a dedicated anti-tank team would think twice.

The real crown of this setup though?

The fuckers had legit, no-shit mecha.

They stood at about six meters in height, on humanoid-styled legs that looked to have some kind of wheel or tread system for quick advancements. The frame itself was oddly boxy, compared to the usual sleek and, well, alien design that was the norm for their stuff. Hell, the thing even had thrusters on the back and around the frame for even more mobility!

And the weapons weren’t looking shabby either. I could clearly see what looked like some kind of upscaled plasma cannon in one hand, and the other held free for whatever the thing on the forearm mount was. The shoulders had what looked like multipurpose launchers set up on the sides, and the back had slots for at least two, maybe more, weapons systems, based on the missile packs that were mounted there. Hell, even the head was a weird setup, looking a lot more like something that Humanity would make rather than, well, them.

If anything, It looked to me like the bastard child of a Heavy Gear, a Wanzer, and a Knightmare Frame all rolled into one, potentially very lethal package. And there were four of the fuckers.

I basically stopped dead in my tracks at the level of firepower now arrayed before me. Almost immediately, every gun in the other group adjusted aim to directly on my person, without fail.

Marcy spoke up through her own trepidation. “So, fellas. Nice day for a stroll, eh?”

The enemy immediately opened fire.

Well, at least she tried, right?

Dodging the oncoming fire was not difficult, even with my passenger hanging on for dear life. That many weapons simply could not fire all at once, after the first volley, not without risking friendly fire…and unfortunately for me (and my plans), they were very good at avoiding just that. This, of course, meant that my easiest method of thinning the horde was out.

No, the difficulty came from the fact that I was too busy trying to not get Marcy killed by splash effects from weapons discharge to actually effect a proper counterattack. And the big weapons were heavy enough that even the minimal cover hanging around (displaced cinder block towers, leftover construction materials, and parts of road work materials) was not enough to stop them from scoring a hit.

Hell, now that I could see them in action I could tell that the humanlike infantry dudes were using some kind of solid-shell magnetic weaponry, rather than the alien plasma, which was even weirder. And concerning, because for some reason it was making me think I should know what that was.

“But Satori,” I can hear you say, “what about your magic and stuff?”

And that was the second problem, right there. Because as good as I was with spellcasting, or even instinctual usage of my abilities, they took time for me to set up, and at least a moderate bit of focus, even now. And trying to get a good angle to attack with all but the most basic of abilities was consistently being met with coordinated counteroffensives meant to deny me just that, and preferably kill me outright. And, again, I had a far squishier companion to consider in the equation, so I couldn’t just tank a hit or two to set up properly.

Marcy sent me an impression of me letting go, which I denied with everything in my soul. I was not about to leave anyone that counted as mine to die, not without being nearly dead myself.

No one gets left behind, ever.

Besides, the Force was nudging me ever so slightly, telling me that I just had to be patient for a little bit longer, that the opportunity would come. Oddly verbose for someone so new to this, but it was being rather insistent on that point.

And so I kept dodging, kept moving, never touching the exact same place twice, until that elusive moment that I could just barely feel growing stronger came just a little closer…

The Force gave me that final, slightly harder poke, which was exactly what I was waiting for. Without any hesitation whatsoever, I abruptly aborted a midair twisting dodge maneuver to load Marcy onto my tails, which I then used, combined with my own angular momentum, to launch her skyward at a considerable speed. Her scream of surprise was both sudden and heartening, as it meant she was alive to make it.

As for me? I landed hard ,twisted back around to my enemies, and got to work.

Taking out the foot soldiers was a complete cakewalk, especially since there were none of the fucking sectoids around to grant any form of psionic boosts to the crowd. No, the only issue with those asshats was sheer numbers. Well, that and the fact that they really weren’t the primary threat here in the slightest.

And I was fast enough, that, now that I could afford to take a hit if need be, I could scythe through the fuckers before they knew what was happening to set up on the real threats. Not to mention that not carrying someone just left me faster in general, but that was a known thing anyway.

Of course, everyone else did not remain idle. The small tracks (I was tempted to call them IFVs) attempted to put a bead on my Marcy as she traveled airborne. Key word here being tried, as I quickly dealt with the weapons systems in question before they even knew I had moved.

The tanks were tougher simply because they were tanks. After all, armor is a very solid defense against most things, and I strongly suspected that I wasn’t just going to be able to use my psiblade to get around that with the kind of efficiency I needed. That, and I kind of wanted those at least mostly intact, so I could repurpose them for our guys.

So instead of (potentially) banging my head against a brick wall, I just took the time I had now to pull upon the Force enough to boost my own psionic powers, which I then used to flip those tanks completely upside down. And then back right side up. And upside down again.

Yeah, rattling can treatment for everyone inside, with some rather violent swings in the forces involved. It was harsh, and more than a little demanding of my focus, but definitely doable. Besides, it got the bigger guns out of the picture while I was shaking them around.

Of course, the real problem children were the mecha. They were entirely too maneuverable for their own good, making full use of both their high-speed ground movement options and their thrusters to adjust in dynamic and interesting ways, and had some very good targeting and tracking setups to go with it. I had to do sudden repositioning on more than one occasion to avoid getting fried by plasma from those fuckers, and it was not nice in the slightest. This was made worse by the fact that my attempts to shoot back at them with my own guns were being deflected by what I could now identify as a fucking force shield mounted on the left arms, which explained why they were left empty, despite the obvious setups for an extra weapon or something. The shield was strong, too, as in strong enough to deflect shots from even my custom weapons with little issue.

Basically, If I was merely trying to get the tanks mostly intact? I wanted those mecha outright.

So, of course, I cheated my ass off.

Let it be known that I was probably the furthest away from being legitimately capable of mind controlling anyone or anything through the use of psionics. In fact, a part of me could tell that I likely would never truly master that particular technique, if for no other reason than I just didn’t like doing that to people. So instead…I went for a softer target.

Fun Fact: escape hatches and emergency access levers and switches are universal in human design philosophy, and are very rarely omitted even from combat vehicles due to the need to be able to rescue the pilot and/or/ crew. This meant that, just by knowing even the basic design of the mech, I could postulate the location and likely access methods of all egress points on the machine. Combine that with having a “yes” in telekinetic ability…

And you get silly shit happening.

Shit like Pilots being yanked out of their Mecha as the hatches pop open in emergency release mode. And then being dumped onto the unforgiving concrete with absolutely zero fanfare whatsoever.

Yes, I may have been just a tiny bit annoyed.

Still it got the mechs disabled, and without my having to play technopath games in the middle of a combat scenario, with a hard time limit.

I took a moment to properly position myself as the pilots attempted to recover from their dazed positions on the ground. Mere moments later, a flustered and cursing Marcy fell into my open arms in a princess carry.

She, of course, simply redirected her emotion to me.

“Gee, thanks for warning a girl before throwing her into a completely helpless situation. Next time just wrap me in tuna, why don’tcha?”

And yet, despite everything, her words carried no real heat, her emotions no true anger. Sure, she was miffed at having needed to be removed from the line of fire for me to actually work, but past that, it was more her own disappointment at not being able to truly assist me when it counted.

Besides, we both knew full well that she could have teleported herself right back to me at any time she’d wished. She didn’t simply to give me room.

And now that I no longer needed that room…she was free to join in on the work. Not that there was much left of that force, anyway, what with the vast majority of its attack strength disabled and or being effectively manhandled to do the same. There were still some grunts around, but most of them were taking cover and trying to not draw attention while they repositioned.

“Oh, and you idiots? I suggest you look up.”

Unfortunately for them, Marcy had used her time airborne wisely, and had apparently done her level best to be useful anyway. Namely, with an admittedly poor substitute for the Rods from God,

In her case, they were just some extremely strategically applied rocks and debris. And not even big rocks, either, but smaller ones she could somehow accelerate to near bullet speeds and then guide to hit unprotected areas at her leisure. Something I had caught on to only because I was considering the same thing and noticed all of my useful rocks going elsewhere.

Their deaths were about as clean as you could make them from that kind of thing, and I once again had to marvel at just how ridiculous that girl was.

“Alrighty then, now that we’ve cleaned up the trash, mind explaining why you wanted the heavy equipment more intact than usual?” Marcy asked, slowly doing a walk and scan of the area to make sure that nothing got missed. “Seems like you got a new plan all of a sudden. Fill me in!!”

I couldn’t help but chuckle, even as I moved with a purpose to gather as much data on the operations of the Mecha as possible. “Short answer, It’s human tech. Long answer…” an application of my technopathy and nano-scanning was next, which yielded a lot all at once.

“Well, long answer is that this is Human, or near-human, design principles and know how using alien tech. If I’m right, I can just do a quick recode and reset and of the operating systems and have a workable war machine for the defense teams to use, and Mio to upgrade at her leisure. Depending on how easy they are to use, I might finally have a way to keep you from dying on me.”

And from the looks of it, I would be able to hold to my words easily. The OS was trash coding wise, but everything was built off of Human principles of thought and operation, even if the actual systems and coding themselves were largely foreign to me. Didn’t stop me from dedicating a number of task instances to work the problem while I moved.

And the mecha were indeed worth the effort, from my deeper examinations. The things were actually a lot closer to what I believed that Battletech’s Battlemechs or the Muscle Tracers of Armored Core fame operated, complete with insane degrees of flexibility, mobility, and agility despite their frames, along with being able to stack on significant amounts of defense as well.

Said defense wasn’t just the energy shields, which were technically not all that advanced as far as shield systems go. No, the armor was some super nifty advanced composite material that looked like it fused no less than three different super materials into a new whole. I thought I saw what looked like bits of Gundarium gamma in there, along with other, more interesting things,

And that was just the exterior. The actual systems were equally absurd: advanced targeting and tracking, a variation on a combined sensors package that featured Electro-Optical, Infra-red, Radar, Lidar, Adaptive Sonar and even newer and different systems that I had no clue what to call them right off. And all somehow integrated into a seamless whole.

Of course, it wasn’t all great. Power generation was weird, relying on stuff that was clearly alien in nature and that wasn’t actually better than what was theoretically possible for whomever created this, and the cockpit was a shockingly cramped affair for all that it was sized properly for even taller people like myself to use properly. The only other issue was the computer systems, which I was about to remedy…ah, there it is.

And now the Mechs belong to me. Mwa ha ha.

A soft bonk against my head reminded me that Marcy could still sense my emotions.

“Nope. No evil overlord shenanigans out of you.” Strangely, as playful as that interaction was, Marcy was all business for once. “We have an alien invasion to deal with, and it needs to be done now. So hurry up and finish with those, so you can do the thing you didn’t want to do to me, and we can move on., okay?”

Once again, I curse how ludicrously powerful of a newtype that woman is. That was absolutely ridiculous that she managed to even fish out that much.

“And I will keep digging until I know why you are being gun shy on this. So either spill now or spill later, either way I’m finding out.”

I sighed. There was no getting away from it, it seemed.

“The ‘thing’ in question involves me touching your literal soul with my own and ‘waking it up’ so to speak. The benefits are myriad and awesome, but the downside is–”

I was cut off by sudden bumrush. “Completely irrelevant. You know, or at least think you know, that this will be useful. And Newtype shenanigans are already close enough to souls interacting to begin with, so stop dithering and gimme.”

“But this is–”

“Useful and powerful, so stop dithering.”

Oh fuck. She was actually going to dig in on this.

“Yes.” she all but growled at me. “Shockingly enough, I do not like being dead weight. And this will let me not be dead weight. Stop, let me finish.” She cut me off before I could even attempt to reply. “I refuse to leave you to do this solo. I also refuse to have to be babied because I can’t keep up. You are worried about the implications of having to touch my soul, which is complete bullshit because you know damn well what I am like, as much as you try to ignore it. And, as I said earlier, we are already going mind to mind, and super deep at that. You touching me is not going to make me hate you. If anything, I should be complaining about you not doing it properly.”

“So, since we’re already basically making out as it is, you can go ahead and take that nice soul hand and stuff it you know where, eh? Be sure to have fun while you do it.”

Dammit.

‘As much as I know you don’t want to hear this, beloved, she has a point.’

And now Mio was taking her side? Where was my yandere dragon, jealous of all the attention I was getting?

‘She is temporarily replaced by the war priestess. And is also witnessing a friend in need. And yes, she needs this, and all three of us know it.’

Marcy, despite having a clear opportunity to rub things into my face, didn’t. If anything, she seemed even more vulnerable than before, despite nothing having changed in her posture or stance.

‘Husband, stop being willfully blind for one second and actually see.’

The accompanying burst of thoughts and emotions was significantly more complex than I’d expected, which let me know that Mio was using several of her multitasking instances for this moment. And all of them were deliberately pointing out my own attempts to keep Marcy from wiggling too close, so I wouldn’t hurt her when I had to choose Mio over her.

And…well, I’m not surprised that Mio noticed, but why bring it up now?

‘Because she needs us, really. And as much as I am not inclined to share…I am less inclined to leave friends in the cold.’

The memory attached to that was likely not one that was meant to be sent off, but I saw it nonetheless.

It was from Falachis.

I sighed loudly. ‘Alright. You made your point.’

Mio’s amusement was palpable even from so far away, and Marcy’s own relief even more so…wait, relief?

I turned to her with the harshest glare I could muster. “You really thought I was going to abandon you? Leave you out to dry? Seriously?”

She had the decency to flinch.

“Okay, before I was just worried about issues related to souls. If even after everything I have done you still think that I am willing to push you away, then I think some things need to change.”

I mentally reached out to the part of my soul that was technically Mio’s, and meshed it into my own Aura while concentrating it onto a single hand. The sudden shining glow slightly startled my target, but I wasn’t really in the mood to care about that.

“So, miss Mousey. Since, as you put it, you damned pervy rat, we are already making out mind to mind, I think I can go a little deeper for establishing the soul to soul part, right? Shouldn’t matter too much where I press this, should it?”

The poor woman finally caught on to what I was doing, and I felt her heart soar even as a huge cloud of nervous energy filled her mind. “Err…gentle, please?”

“Nope.” and with that, I both metaphorically and literally stuck my soul hand into her pants, just to complete the joke she never got a chance to.

Her lack of complaint was cut off by my soul poking around inside her, trying to find the specific spot as I flooded her with energy. Which, I freely admit, was hard. Normally there was a kind of focusing chant that also doubled as a sort of oath that came with awakening one’s Aura, but I had thought that it was mostly just fluff and generally unnecessary.

I was now finding out that this may have been in error, but I had no time to actually lament on it. Instead, I kept pushing, constantly seeking out that one place where her innermost light was hiding–

-=[/\]=-​

It was a sudden thing. One moment, I was half soul-poking, half not-molesting Marcy (with her consent, mind), and the next moment was a weird and confusing jumble of thoughts, emotions, and impressions as I touched something and everything connected all at once. I saw it all: the deep core of energy and rambunctiousness combined with the spike of raw pain and loneliness that seemed to try and corrupt everything it touched. I saw the defensive shell of irreverence and goofiness that she wore, along with the innermost curiosity and enthusiasm that drove her to seek out new things.

I saw the tendril that her shard was unknowingly driving into her being, the alien thing actively reinforcing the wedge pf pain that was likely her trigger, and for a brief moment I felt a distinct need to tear it out.

Said need was instead redirected to something else, a small, carefully guarded piece of her being that—

Oh.

Well, I said what I meant. And I’m sure I can bring her around to it.

Welcome to the club, Mousey. We have cheese for you.

-=[/\]=-​

And just like that, it was over, and I was treated to the quite beautiful sight of Marcy’s very soul shining bright in the evening sun, the forest green hues comforting to my eyes.

Marcy, on the other hand, was simply giddy in ways that she had never quite been before. The poor girl was all but vibrating in place as she came to terms with this new state of being.

“You are kidding. This is what you meant? This complete and utter awesomeness? Why the hell aren’t you doing this for other people!?!”

I simply chuckled. “Mostly because, as you have experienced firsthand, the process is intimate as all fuck and then some. You do not just touch someone’s soul lightly, you know.”

Marcy nodded sagely. “Indeed. It tends to leave no room for anything like secrets or deception.” The fact that it was an exaggerated sage nod put me slightly on edge. “Oh, and speaking of secrets, when were you going to mention that you were a dirty little Isekai Protagonist, hmm? Or about that neat little Forge of yours?”

My smile became instantly wooden. How the fuck–

She all but pounced on my hesitation. “You said it yourself, Satori Green. We. Touched. Souls. And yours is home to a lot more than just her. Oh, also? The other stuff? I want it. We can figure out how later, just know that.”

Ah. well, I guess that is a thing?

“Also…as much as I am enjoying myself, we kind of have a job to do, so…rain check on the victory dance, please?”

I was suddenly and abruptly reminded that I still had my hand in her panties. Panties which were…no, better not to think too hard on it for now. I can solve that later.

I very pointedly did not look at said hand as I extracted it. Nor did I pay any attention to certain sounds or even smells associated with said hand. I most definitely did not acknowledge that damnable smirk on Marcy’s face, either.

Nor the other thing about that face that may have been relevant.

“Oh, I should note that that was by far the best Shining Finger I’ve ever had. 11/10, would try again.”

The only reason I didn’t facepalm is because it would have involved the hand, and I was trying to avoid giving her more ammo.

-=[/\]=-​

Today was not a good day, by any means of the word. Virgil had long come to accept that.

In fact, the only good thing that Virgil could say about it was that somehow, Ritchie’s tech was working properly for a change.

‘And at just the right time’. He thought, grim faced, as he sliced another Muton apart with a plasma sword.

He and his friend were on a sabbatical of sorts, not doing their usual antics or even their videos in order to keep a lower profile while they did some semi-official stuff in the public. Namely, an Anime convention had invited them to come and do some cosplay work. They’d even gotten paid just to show up and be awesome with their stuff! And better yet, the convention had been extended this year, doing a semi-merge with the normal Sci-fi convention that ran around the same time, in hopes of attracting their visitors from the Moon. It was all good fun for everyone.

And then the Aliens invaded from straight out of one of the oldest and best tactical games ever. And proceeded to stomp Earth in general, and Houston in particular, a new mudhole.

And to think that they would be right back in Brockton Bay if they hadn’t taken that job for Delta-H Con as “cosplay artists”. Then again, they also wouldn’t have been around to use the good stuff on the aliens, either, so things kind of worked out in the end.

Right now, Virgil was fully in his role as Uber, using a set of power armor that was vaguely modeled after a combination of the Terran Marine armor from Starcraft and the MJOLNIR IV of Halo, complete with shielding. This, of course, meant that the aliens had to actually work to try and take him out…which had the unfortunate consequence of drawing even more fire. Not that it was doing much, as his own powers gave him the skills he needed to fight back as more than they could handle.

Another quick slice and dice of the plasma sword took out another attacker, this time a freaking Berserker. “Hey, Ritchie, these fuckers aren’t playing anymore!! Where’s the cavalry at?”

Ritchie, clad in his own Armor (this time being based more off of the later MJOLNIR armors), and taking cover behind the jury-rigged wideband radio that he’d rigged together to call for help (which had instead connected him someone else entirely), barked out a reply as he sighted downrange. “They’re stretched thin as all hell, but they still consider Houston a priority!! Their Central guy said that their best team is inbound to try and get us some help, but they aren’t rated for full-scale warfare like this!!”

Ritchie ducked to avoid another bolt of plasma, and retaliated with his own (headshot, natch) before continuing. “They’re supposed to be hooking up with some VIPs that were in the area, the new guys with the tech? Supposedly they are capable of holding down at least downtown until the bigger stuff can get fully mobilized. National Guard says the first units should be ready to roll within the next 30 minutes!!”

“WE DON’T HAVE 30 MINUTES, DAMMIT!!!” Virgil screamed back. “The fucking Chryssalids are using the dead bodies to make more of themselves, and if we don’t cut the fuckers down, they’re going to get impossible to deal with!!”

“Well I got nothing else to work with!! The fucking van is three blocks that way!!”

Virgil cursed. This was not the kind of situation that they could handle. Hell, it wasn’t the kind of situation that anyone could handle, without preparation. Hell, even the party favors they’d stashed in their van for a potential showdown weren’t enough for this shit.

And the aliens were smart, too. He’d seen them starting to roll out bot tanks and actual fucking mecha in some places, and had quickly hauled ass elsewhere with Ritchie before they got killed, which was why they’d left the van. Worse, the mecha were covering for the damned Chryssalid buildups happening all over the place, so they couldn't’ even just play cleanup on the fuckers while waiting for the big guns. Pretty soon there wasn’t going to be any room to maneuver for anything because of all the fucking bugs moving around, and hen people were going to start dying to the things.

Which would make more.

But how to stop the freaking cascade?

“INCOMING!!”

Virgil looked up to see a nightmare.

There were Berserkers everywhere, each of them covering for at least five Chryssalids each. The street was just jam packed with the fuckers.

And they were all coming directly for their position. The building they’d pinned themselves against had been good for covering angles of approach, but now it was a deathtrap with that much force arrayed against them.

“Okay, brace for the charge–”

What he saw next would stupefy him for years to come.

A little kid with a raccoon tail dropped down from another building, silent as all hell, and using what looked like twin shorts words literally decapitated a Berserker before anyone actually saw what happened. He then hit two more as the others were reacting before blurring out of the way of the counterattacks.

Just before everything could go to complete pandemonium, however, what could only have been his mother dropped down from a different building, holding what looked like a massively ornate swordspear and shield combo…that was made from alien parts?...and then proceeded to basically annihilate the entire group single-handedly, including using literal blade beams to slice apart berserkers at range. Meanwhile, the kid was using his speed to cover the rare weaknesses she showed and laughing about it.

And his mom was coaching him the entire time.

“Remember Marcos, you have to keep moving!! Never let them actually get close to hitting you, and always be at least two steps ahead before you move in to swing. You don’t have a shield to fall behind, so you have to use your agility as your armor.”

“Okay, mama, but what about when I don’t have a clear hit?”

“Then you direct them to me. I’ll handle them.”

“Yes!!”

It was absurd and hilarious in equal measure, and Virgil wanted to laugh out loud at merely seeing it. But no, there was work to do, and apparently the Raccoon people were their tickets to not dying today.

“Ritchie, cover me, I’m going in to help the mom and kid–”

A noise from above caught his attention. Specifically, the fact that it wasn’t some kind of shot from the ships above sniping people.

In fact, it sounded like an engine.

The Mama and Son combo obviously heard it as well, as they cleared out of the street and moved away from their targets at speed…and not a moment too soon.

The remnants of the aliens never knew what hit them. A plane all but fell out of the sky in what could only be barely described as a controlled descent to land directly on top of them.

That poor Berserker never saw it coming…

The plane itself was really advanced looking, complete with rotating wings with vectored engine exhausts in critical areas…and it was obviously a troop transport.

He knew this because the rear hatch was opening almost as soon as the plane hit the ground.

And from the back of that plane…

There were twelve of them. They were armed with what looked like laser weapons, and armored in advanced composite plates of some kind that made them look like some kind of stormtrooper knockoffs without the helmets. But the one thing that was noticeable was the emblem they all had, somewhere on their armor.

A Pentagonal symbol, featuring part of a globe, and a clear X dividing it, alongside the words Vigilo Confido.

Virgil knew without even asking. These were the guys they’d called earlier, the pens that said they were sending help.

This was XCOM, and they now officially stood a chance in hell.

- = | | | | | | | | | | = -​

Stopping here due to easy break point and Zelda.

On Marcy: it was Fourmyle who pointed out to me that the connotations of the conversation could be construed as extremely perverse and what eventually led to an MP joke of, and I quote:

“We’re already making out mind-to-mind. Just slip your soul hand into my pants already!”

YEAH.

I modified things above, slightly, but the actual gist of the mini prank war played out as intended. And Marcy won, no matter how you look at it.