Timmons threw his flashbang before the first Chryssalid hit the floor, and the clump of aliens all landed within its range by the time the grenade detonated. Following the bang, all fireteams opened up on the stunned aliens with a degree of accuracy that impressed Ruby. Laser rifles lanced out from the catwalks and struck the exposed assailants, cutting down two of the three Chryssalids and wounding the second Thin Man. The survivors scrambled for cover or raced towards the closest available victim, but Alpha and Beta took aim and cut them down as they ran along the assembly lanes.

Ruby began to hear commotion on the commline from the other Strike leaders.

"Mutons sighted at the labs. Vahlen is secure, and we're engaging hostiles."

"Comm sat detail here. We've got Berserkers inbound!"

As Ruby steadied her rifle in preparation for another wave of contacts, a loud bang snapped her attention back to the ceiling. Three more grates dropped to the floor, followed by several more Chryssalids, Thin Men, and even a few Floaters. The three blue-shirts Ruby had marked for flash duty readied their grenades, but two of them were attacked by Seekers dropping out of cloak. The long, tendril-like appendages coiled around the helpless victims and tightened into a choke hold that crushed out any precious air from the victims' lungs. The flashbangs, already primed for throwing, went off uselessly at their feet. Ruby's situation just turned from "manageable" to "problematic."

"Yang…" Ruby said through gritted teeth as she swung her rifle around and shot one of the Seekers off its target with a single pull of the trigger. The other two members of Epsilon made short work of the robotic flyer. With only three fireteams focusing on the killzone, the Chryssalids began to make progress in their advance towards Alpha and Beta.

"Yup," Yang's responded, her launcher already lined up with its target. The rocket thundered towards the center of the room and flames plumed outward from the point of contact. The aliens fortunate enough to survive the explosion slammed into the conveyor belts like ragdolls. The few seconds of distraction offered by the rocket were enough for Alpha and Beta to cut down another two Chryssalids.

"Shit!" a voice shouted on the comm, "This is Strike Three, confirming Sectoid Commander presence in the assault force. Fucker managed to get 8-Ball shooting at us before we could put it down."

"Hey, at least you don't have Floaters trying to cram themselves up your ass. Some of them even learned to wear armor"

Strike Four was right: the Floaters presented a dangerous problem for Ruby. None of the ones in Engineering had any additional armor, but that didn't mitigate their ability to kill Ruby's blue-shirts. They flew at high speed around the room, making it difficult for the troopers to connect any shots and wasting precious time that could be spent gunning down the equally deadly Chryssalids. Further, their completely unrestricted flight path let them easily flank the base personnel, even the ones high up on the catwalks, which they abused without mercy. Just after they managed to deal with the Seeker, Delta was forced back down into cover from Floater suppressive fire, and one from Epsilon was outright killed by a shot to the back. With the Thin Men also punishing any soldier stepping out of cover to take shots at the aliens, Ruby had herself a recipe for slaughter-by-Chryssalids.

"Ground teams, focus on the 'Lids! Epsilon and Delta, you need to deal with those Thin Men! Eight-Four and I will handle the Floaters!" Ruby shouted. She took aim at one of the flying, flesh-and-steel monstrosities. It stopped its erratic flight pattern to suppress one of the troopers, and Ruby made sure it paid for its mistake. Although Yang wasn't able to beam the Floaters with the pin-point accuracy of her sister, she still managed to put her firearms training to use. A clean shot to the ribs was enough to pull her target's attention off of Epsilon, allowing one of the soldiers to toss an Anti-Personnel grenade into a cluster of Thin Men.

As Alpha, Beta, and Gamma continued to fire at the Chryssalids, the alien horrors succeeded in getting closer and closer before falling. More continued to drop from the ceiling while Thin Men accompanied them to keep the defenders locked down behind cover. Every now and again, a soldier from the catwalks would toss an AP or HE grenade when enough of the invaders clumped together, but the tide of purple showed no sign of slowing down. Ruby was so focused on taking down the last Floater that she didn't see the first Chryssalid finally reach its target. She definitely heard the terrified scream, though, and looked over in time to see the alien pick up a helpless trooper from Alpha and impale her through the gut with one of its wicked talons. Ruby had to fight down the urge to retch as she watched the soldier's lifeless body get tossed to the floor, followed up by the Chryssalid leaning over to spit into the corpse's mouth.

The other Strike teams seemed to also have their fair share of bad luck, "Four-Five is down! I swear, the accuracy of those fucking Thin Men is complete bullshit."

"Strike One, here. We've got Cyberdiscs are coming in through the cavern by the rear guard station and Mechtoids through the supply entrance. These guys aren't pulling any punches. Eight, we've received instructions from Central to assist with Engineering's situation after we clear out Delta, but these mechs just raised the stakes."

The Chryssalid's gruesome execution immediately affected Ruby's soldiers. The two other soldiers on the Alpha started to hyperventilate and shoot wildly (and ineffectively) at the alien. Beta, with its front-row seats to the spectacle, also panicked. One soldier screamed "No, goddammit, NO!" before bolting towards Gamma's position. A Thin Man popped up and took aim at the fleeing soldier. Before it could shoot, a heated beam of light crashed through the infiltrator's skull and the alien exploded in a cloud of acid.

"Yang! Chryssalid! Now!" Ruby shouted. The two of them stood up in unison, took aim, and fired upon the Chryssalid from across the room before it could claim another panicked victim. Ruby scored a clean headshot that sent the insectoid stumbling backwards while Yang, aiming for its center of mass, drilled its chest with her volley and killed the monster. The damage was done, though. With the two frontline fireteams panicking, it was only a matter of time before the horde overwhelmed them.

Almost as if on cue, the doors to the elevator opened with a ding and the lifeless carcass of a Chryssalid was kicked into the room.

Ruby almost cried in relief when she heard the familiar voice of her partner shout, "Anyone else want a piece of this?!"

A Thin Man stepped around a pile of crates and lifted its weapon to shoot Weiss, but was knocked off its feet with an orange beam to the chest as Blake also emerged from the elevator. They didn't need Ruby to give them instructions before leaping into action. Blake grappled to Delta up on the catwalks and got to work picking off the Thin Men while Weiss charged towards Beta to blast any Chryssalids that got too close from their drop point.

Ruby checked in with Bradford. "Central, Eight-Two and Eight-Three have arrived. They'll help shore up Engineering's defenses, but I don't think we'll be able to hold out indefinitely. How's Strike One doing with the mechs?"

"It's nothing Strike One can't handle, but Cyberdiscs and Mechtoids require… finesse if casualties are to be avoided. You'll need to hang on for a while longer."

A loud blast caused Ruby's heart to sink when she looked up to find the source.

"Understood, Central, but it looks like the assault craft sent a few of those heavy hitters our way as well. I've got eyes on a pair of Cyberdiscs that just entered Engineering."

She watched as the sleek discs silently glided into the room through the smoldering remains of Engineering's service door, as if they were not at all worried about entering a warzone with seventeen armed XCOM personnel. Then again, if Ruby had a hardened alloy shell and horrifyingly powerful assault cannons, she wouldn't be worried either. Thankfully, her fireteams didn't waste time gawking at the new threats and continued shooting down the advancing Chryssalids. The new mechanized contacts definitely required attention, however.

"Hey Yang, I think it's time for that Shredder Rocket…"

"And I think you are completely right, little sister."

Yang hefted her launcher, took aim at the two discs-

"Yanggetdown!"

… and was knocked to the ground by Ruby as the machines unfurled themselves to reveal four assault cannons and opened fire on their position. The volley was withering, and Ruby winced as large chunks of concrete were blasted away from the corner of Shen's office and ricocheted off her arms and face. For five full seconds, the Cyberdiscs worked on completely and utterly destroying the wall Ruby and her sister used for cover. When the shooting stopped, Ruby peeked out to see the two constructs slowly advance on her position while steam poured out of their cannons as they vented in preparation for another salvo. The concrete wouldn't survive a second onslaught like that, and Ruby scrambled to find a solution.

"Hey! Over here!"

… Or she could just wait for her partner to make a solution. Ruby watched Weiss dash towards the Cyberdiscs and bombard the nearest one with her her Scatter Blaster. Its (comparatively) fragile guts became exposed when it switched to Assault Mode, and the damage from Weiss's attack forced an immediate reaction: the two machines folded back up into their Compact Mode and floated towards their new target. A target so intently focused on the high-priority Cyberdiscs that it failed to notice the Chryssalid breaking past Alpha and Beta's killzone.

"Weiss!"

Ruby's partner turned around in time to bring her arm up and deflect the talon slash intended for her spine, and she cried out as the force of the Chryssalid's blow caused her to her back and sent her shotgun clattering away. Ruby watched in horror as the two Cyberdiscs unpacked and prepared to fire at their now very-exposed target. There was nothing Ruby could do to eliminate both discs and the Chryssalid before one of the three murdered her friend.

A flurry of high-speed laser fire slammed into both Cyberdiscs. Ruby didn't waste time in sniping the Chryssalid while Blake leapt down from her position on the far catwalk, put an arm around Weiss's waist, and grappled to Ruby and Yang's cover. The timely arrival of Dr. Shen's Super Heavy Infantry Vehicles bought the team an opportunity to rescue their wounded comrade, but the wound inflicted by the Chryssalid did not look pretty.

"Umm, I don't think skin is supposed to turn that color…"

"Oh really, Yang?" Weiss hissed through gritted teeth. "I thought a disgusting green color was normal for a scratch."

Ruby looked around the wall to see the SHIVs continuing in their efforts to keep the Cyberdiscs occupied. She knew it wouldn't last, though. In a straight-up fight, those discs would win every time. The situation in the rest of the room also wasn't looking that great. The Chryssalids had managed to "tag" two more of Engineering's security detail, and all three soldiers rose as zombies to attack their former friends. Ruby raised her rifle and snapped off a shot that hit one of the soldiers square in the chest, but it continued to shuffle after the direct hit.

On the bright side, the flow of fresh aliens slowed considerably since the arrival of the Cyberdiscs. They were likely the 'endgame' for the invasion efforts of Engineering; however, unless Ruby came up with something to help the Shenbots, the aliens wouldn't need anything else to clean up shop.

"Strike Six here: we're suffering heavy losses at the hangar trying to keep these bastards from fucking the Skyranger worse than they already have. Could use a little help if anyone's feeling generous."

"Six, this is Five. Had a stroke of luck beating back a Muton incursion, so we're looking pretty good here in Comms. I can send an operative or two your way." Ruby allowed herself a small sigh of relief. This was the first time she heard good news on the channel.

Ruby gave Weiss a quick once-over. There was no way she could keep fighting without aggravating that wound. The situation looked grim, especially now that Ruby's Assault was down for the count, but no worse than some ops Strike Eight finished over the past month. Their best bet was to take care of the discs as fast as possible and hope the blue-shirts could keep the remaining Chryssalids and zombies locked down.

"Blake, can you take care of Weiss? Yang and I need to keep working on those stupid discs before they turn their attention to the rest of the soldiers."

Blake nodded, and Ruby turned to her sister.

"Still got that shredder?"

"Yep! Do I get to shoot them in the nuts?"

"I hope you're looking forward to volunteering yourself for kitchen duty next week-"

"Worth it."

Ruby sighed, "Just wait until I get into position, and then shred them."

Yang gave her usual salute, and Ruby took aim at a mechanized rail meant for crane work. While any other operative would appreciate the height advantage offered by the rail, it's narrow frame made it difficult to safely balancing atop the beam. Ruby, however, was a lot smaller than any other operative. She zipped towards the new position with her grapple and easily flipped herself up into a standing position. Yang gave her a thumbs up, then launched her rocket at the two Cyberdiscs.

The fight between the discs and the Shenbots left the former deployed in their Assault Mode, which made it all the sweeter when Yang's HEAT shredder rocket detonated between them and laid waste to their inner machinery. It would take more than that to destroy them, of course, but the attack caused significant damage all the same. Even better, their insides became so bent out of shape from the blast that they were unable to completely fold back into their Compact Form when they tried. A small gap in the hardened alloy shell left their fragile mechanics exposed to Ruby's vantage point. The Sniper took careful aim with her rifle and lanced one of the Cyberdiscs with a shot that cleanly slipped through its defenses. A second hit to its precious hardware was enough to drop the construct, sending it to the floor and taking out a nearby Chryssalid with its death throes.

A rallying cheer went up with the fireteams. The remains of Alpha and Beta had fallen back to Gamma and finished killing their comrades-turned-zombies. Delta and Epsilon, previously pinned down by the Thin Men, finished clearing out the Chryssalids thanks to Blake's assistance. With no other targets in sight, all capable soldiers helped Ruby by concentrating their fire on the Cyberdisc while the Shenbots kept it suppressed. Another ten seconds, and the remaining Cyberdisc fell to its death.

Ruby wiped the sweat that began forming on her forehead and keyed her comm to give Bradford the good news. "Central, this is Eight-Actual, the Cyberdiscs have been elimin-" STOMP. "… a-" STOMP. "…ted whatonearthisthatthing?"

The confused response from Bradford became background noise in Ruby's head as she watched a new… thing make its way through the wreckage of the service door. It was unlike anything she had seen before during her team's training and education on the alien invaders. Cyberdiscs and Mechtoids already filled the role of 'terrifying robotic alien,' but this… they had nothing on this. Two thick legs supported its massive frame, and every inch of it looked better armored than the Atlesian Paladin her team fought back on Remnant. The body itself was this heavily plated… Ruby couldn't think of a better description than "face." Four bright white lights that looked like eyes dotted the left and right sides of the frame, and an almost imperceptible gap ran right down the center. The head hung low between its feet, and the entire thing formed a loosely-shaped "M" with its knees acting as the two peaks. Chatter erupted from everyone all at once when the new threat stepped into the room, and they were all talking to Ruby.

"Uh… No-Scope? What's… what's that?"

"Rubes? Any ideas for how we're taking that thing down?"

"Christ, that fucker's huge."

In addition to Ruby's soldier's all asking for a combination of instructions and explanation, she her commlink lit up with eight different voices.

"Eight-Actual, what's going on down there? You've got a massive heat signature unlike anything we've encountered before."

"Eight, is everything okay in Engineering?"

"Holy shit, we can feel the ground shaking from down here in the labs. What the fuck did Eight walk into?"

Ruby snapped out of her funk when one of her soldiers shouted, "Boss! It looks like it's charging up or something!"

Ruby stopped breathing when she saw that the blue-shirt from Epsilon was right. The behemoth's forehead split open, exposing a very large cannon that began to glow a bright red. Ruby knew enough about doomsday weapons from cheesy action films to recognize one when she saw it, and this particular death ray was aimed at Delta's position up on the catwalk.

"DELTA, CLEAR OUT."

Too late, a beam of light shot out from the robot's artillery piece and struck the metal walkway. Ruby held no small amount of pride in the power of her Pulse Sniper Rifle's beam shot, but it didn't hold a candle to the sheer power and energy that this thing unloaded on Delta. An explosion far more powerful than Yang's rockets easily splintered the catwalk, and the the destructive force sent Delta flying. One soldier screamed as her flaming body fell to the first floor with a sickening crunch. The second body simply couldn't withstand the force of the attack, and Ruby saw it shear in half with blood and gore painting everything nearby. The third was impaled against the jagged rebar ripped open by the robot's unrelenting assault. With a single shot, this thing eliminated an entire fireteam ducking behind cover.

A tidal wave of panic immediately followed, spreading through the remaining fireteams. Ruby heard more than one blue-shirt scream "I'M LOSING CONTROL OF THE SITUATION" as they all scrambled to avoid the new threat's deadly gaze. The Shenbots spun up their Pulser guns to shoot at the construct's back in an effort to take its attention off of the living targets in the room. The monstrosity merely looked at them for three seconds, then continued lumbering further into Engineering while it launched several cluster bombs back at the SHIVs, reducing them to nothing but burning fuel and twisted metal.

Ruby keyed her comm and finally responded to Bradford's desperate pleas for information. "We have a new construct in Engineering. Unidentified, but it took out three soldiers with a single shot. It's big, Central. Like… really big. We need Strike One, and we need them now."

Another voice was on the line before Bradford had the chance to respond, "We're on our way, Eight, and hauling ass as fast as we can. I need you to try and find that thing's weakness, but remember that your life takes priority. That information is no good to us if you're dead before you can relay it."

For the first time since the alien's base assault began, Ruby heard Vance's voice, as calm and cocky as ever. "Hang in there, kiddo. The cavalry's coming, and you can bet your ass we're itching to ice this son of a bitch."

Ruby switched back to the local comm channel and threw protocol to the wind. "Blake, how's Weiss doing?"

"She's stable, but none of us will be fine if that thing-"

"I know, and I need your help with that. You and I have the best mobility here, and we need to distract this thing long enough for Strike One to come and help us put it down."

"Understood. Let's move."

Ruby slung her rifle over her back, knowing that there was little point in trying to chip away at the giant robot with it. Instead, she readied her suit's grappling gun and fired it at a small railing behind her foe. A moment later, she was zipping across the room at high speed past the construct's armored legs. Ruby pulled out her pistol and started taking pot shots at the robot's back to grab its attention. Sure enough, the robot began to stomp around as it rotated to face Ruby. Before it could charge its death ray, Ruby had already lined up her grapple with the catwalk spanning the east and west walls and was once again airborne.

While the robot was turning to re-align itself with Ruby, she spotted a blur of jet black hair race past her vision as Blake gracefully landed at their enemy's feet. If it wasn't happy about Ruby shooting it in the back, it was even more displeased with Blake pulling out a knife and stabbing it in the foot between armored plates. Ruby watched as her friend narrowly avoided an armored kick in the gut as the robot flailed its leg in an effort to squash its latest nuisance. Even though the threat of getting crushed by hardware was not to be taken lightly, Ruby discovered a very important weakness about their target. Try as it might to get an angle on the dancing Scout, Ruby noted that it was never able to look direct at its feet where Blake was weaving in and out.

Without any words spoken between the two, Ruby and Blake formed a makeshift tag team. Blake would zip in, take a few stabs at the feet, then zip out before the robot could retaliate. At the same time, Ruby would grapple to a position behind their assailant and shoot it with her pistol to take the attention off her teammate. Once Ruby had the deathbot's full attention, Blake would jump back in and once again find a good spot to bury her knife.

Blake's luck couldn't last forever, though, and the robot eventually got lucky and manage to graze the nimble faunus with one of its kicks. Even a glancing blow imparted enough kinetic force to send Blake skidding across the floor, and easily within range of the death ray. Before her friend had even stopped sliding, Ruby was in motion. She dropped down from the catwalk and hit the floor hard, but immediately started an all-out sprint to pull her friend out of harm's way. Her heart dropped to her stomach as as she saw the robot's forehead split open, and she felt a low thrum as the cannon began charging. Blake, still dazed from her recent trip across the room, remained completely unaware of just how short her life expectancy had become.

Ruby threw every ounce of energy she had into her legs, desperate to get to her friend in time. Then, as if something had snapped into place within her, she felt her body accelerate to ridiculously impossible speeds. Within a fraction of a second, she reached Blake's slowly recovering form. There wasn't any time to waste, so Ruby simply hooked an arm around Blake's waist as she ran past, forcefully dragging her friend out of the way as the concrete floor cratered behind them. She continued running until she reached a makeshift alcove in the back of the room where she gently put Blake down.

"Blake, are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm… how did you…?"

"No idea, but I'm not complaining. Take your time recovering, alright?" Ruby flashed her a devilish grin. "I got this."

Whatever adrenaline had started pumping, whatever 'Electromagentic Field' had begun working, or whatever switch had been flipped, Ruby didn't really care. She was on.

The young huntress zipped back to the robot, who's attention began to shift to the blue-shirts in the room. Ruby quickly rectified that by running up the machine's leg and deftly landing on its head. She pulled her pistol off of its maglock, and Ruby unloaded the entire power cell into the top of her target's frame. It didn't matter if the damage was minimal, the attention was back on Ruby and that's what mattered.

"Try and catch THIS, you oaf!"

She jumped off and reloaded her pistol as she fell. On the floor, Ruby sprinted to and fro, firing off shots at the behemoth while it tried (and failed) to track her movement. For one beautiful minute, Ruby outclassed her opponent in every way that mattered. She could do this. That thought, however, quickly vanished when her body decided it no longer wanted to move at lightning speeds. Within seconds, Ruby became painfully aware of how tired she had become, as if all the energy surging through her for the last minute instantly vanished. All she could do was collapse to the floor and watch as the robot's forehead split open for the third time. She stared down the face of death itself as the giant cannon charged up for a kill shot.

Ruby heard a crack from the far end of the room and saw a smoke trail zip into the gaping maw of the robot's cannon. The ominous sound of the cannon charging immediately changed to one of it lamely sputtering as it suffered a clear malfunction from the shot. Then, Ruby heard the most beautiful words whose robotic tones were practically music to the young girl's ears.

"Firing primary weapon."

Ruby heard a sound of rolling thunder as the alloy-jacketed metal slug ejected from the MEC trooper's elerium-powered Railgun and she watched the supersonic projectile slam into the exposed hardware beneath the robot's hardened face.

"This is Field Commander Peter Van Doorn ordering all able personnel to fire on One-Seven's target. Light the bastard up."

The smell of burning ozone reached Ruby's nose as the air above her filled with a mixture of Gauss and Pulse weaponry from all the operatives and blue-shirts who simultaneously opened up on the robotic invader. Yang's final rocket soared from above and rocked the machine with its explosive payload. After the wave of destruction, the target was smoking, sparking, and swaying, but still standing.

"One-Twelve, you know what to do."

"On it." Came the modulated reply of Strike One's second MEC trooper. The ground shuddered beneath Ruby's legs as One-Twelve charged rumbled forward. In a few short bounds, the cybernetic soldier closed to melee range with her prey before leaping up and bringing both arms down on the charred face of Ruby's would-be killer. The robot collapsed under the sheer force of Twelve's opening assault, but Van Doorn's trooper wasn't finished. Powerless to resist, her opponent could do nothing as Gizmo pried open its faceplate with one hand while she warmed up the Kinetic Strike Module on her other. In one swift motion, several million Newtons of force crushed the robot's unprotected body, and Ruby watched as the entire head exploded.

If the security detail for Engineering gave a loud cheer for Ruby's Cyberdisc kill, the cacophony was outright deafening when the new threat finally went down. As the noise slowly subsided, Ruby felt two firm hands slip underneath her arms and pull her up to her feet. She looked back to see the faces of Major Vance and Colonel Zhang staring back at her, with the former flashing her a big smile.

"Major Vance speaks very highly of you, Lance Corporal Rose," Zhang said. "Now I understand why."

Ruby watched Commander Van Doorn approach from behind the two, stopping short to snap a salute at Ruby, "I know my team stole the glory of victory from you in the end there, but that in no way trivializes the miracle you pulled off in Engineering, Miss Rose. Sounds like you had your fair share of fun during this mess."

He gave Ruby a sly wink before continuing, "Would you do the honors of reporting the good news to Central Officer Bradford?"

Ruby smiled and weakly returned Van Doorn's salute, her strength not yet fully returned, before keying her mic to Bradford's channel.

"Central, this is Eight-Actual. The x-ray has been neutralized, sir."