A/N: Boy, did those two weeks go by fast. Good news is that I'm about 1/3 of the way done with BoB's finale, so... maybe it'll be ready in time for posting? On a different note, this thing clocked in at 11k words, which I think is a record for me. So that's pretty cool. Maybe I should take three weeks to post the next chapter since this one was so long.

(Spoilers: I won't)

"Jesus Christ, Penny is going NUTS."

"Yeah, holy shit. The sooner Vahlen can land this thing, the better."

"Who says she's gonna land it? She's dealing with some bullshit virus, remember?"

"Man, this whole thing is going FUBAR, isn't it?"

Weiss's pilot sighed heavily and adjusted her comm piece. "No point keeping ourselves tuned into that mess. We've got our own to worry about now."

The pilot had a point. Weiss reached up for her own piece and re-tuned the ground team's channel. Her small detachment still had another minute or so before they reached the fairgrounds, but it couldn't hurt to listen in and get a feel for the situation before she put boots on the ground.

"More Grimm coming in from the sides!"

"Then put them down. We need the huntsmen focusing on those fucking Nevermores; they do not need to be distracted by a couple of wolves."

"Is it just me, sir, or are the new waves getting harder to kill? Like they're evolving or something."

"Corporal, you do know how evolution works, right?"

"Well that situation isn't sounding much better." The pilot muttered.

Weiss checked the Dust chambers in Myrtenaster, then eyed the fairgrounds as they came into view. "It's up to us to fix that."

With an energized flourish of her rapier, Weiss got the attention of the other Icarus troops flying in her formation before keying her comm to give out instructions. "We're just in time for the next wave of bullet fodder. I want a strafing run on the Grimm charging from the treeline, followed by the shock troops coming in hard and fast. Use the jump jets to stay one step ahead of your targets, and put on a good show for Otter's crew. They could use the morale boost."

The familiar shriek of a Nevermore pierced the sky. Oh right. Those. Well, it couldn't hurt to give Glynda a hand before Weiss joined the rest of Icarus. And she did say to put on a show, right?

"I'm going to do a little bit of light duck hunting before joining the ground team." Weiss said to the pilot, "Take us over that Nevermore duo so I can get the drop on them, if you please."

"Yes, ma'am." The pilot changed course while Weiss signaled for the rest of the Icarus team to stick with the original plan. The Nevermores continued on their flightpath towards the fairgrounds safe zone, evidently unaware of the danger flying in from above. Myrtenaster cut through the air a couple of times as a brief warm up before Weiss held the rapier at the ready, her frame poised for the impending drop.

"Good hunting, Sarge." The pilot said, and Weiss felt a small click that signaled her detachment from the Albatross. "Give 'em hell."

Wind whipped past Weiss's face, but she focused on the small silhouette's slowly getting larger as she plummeted towards the ground. Her plan was simple enough: crash into one of the birds, use a little bit of Dust to put on some fireworks, and ride the corpse to the ground. Given that she saw Annette do something similar during Icarus's initial descent towards the Colosseum, she figured it would be a sufficiently impressive feat to score herself a few badassery points with the operatives. Unfortunately, the Nevermore's trajectory looked to be slightly off from her own. The pilot's aim was decent, but Weiss wouldn't hit her target without a little push.

Good thing she was a Schnee.

A cascade of snowflakes materialized like stepping stones, marking Weiss's path through the night sky. One by one, she kicked off from each glyph and propelled herself right into the backside of her monstrous prey. The Nevermore shrieked in pain once Weiss buried Myrtenaster up to the hilt into its shoulder. The rapier's revolver cycled twice to lock the Fire Dust into place, and Weiss pulled the trigger. Searing flames ignited down the length of her blade and cooked the Nevermore from the inside.

"Vector locked, SAWs are hot."

Weiss looked down at the fairgrounds and saw the airborne Icarus soldiers tear through the fresh Grimm reinforcements. Autorifles spat out high-speed death, scattering the Beowolves, Creeps, and Boarbatusks as the fliers streaked past. The Assaults came in next, landing in the midst of the fray to fire point-blank shots at the shaken targets before lighting up their jump jets to reposition and eviscerate their next victim. Snipers and support operatives landed at Strike Six's defensive line and quickly took up positions to reinforce their weary comrades.

"Ursa inbound."

"That's a funny way to pronounce 'walking headshots.'"

Weiss pulled Myrtenaster out of the Nevermore and lunged forward to bury it once again into the exposed base of its neck. The revolver cycled to the Elerium vial, and Weiss allowed herself a slight smirk before she powered up her weapon for a second time. The Nevermore loosed an earsplitting scream as it reacted to the raw energy of Vahlen's experimental Dust compound. Her 'injection' complete, Weiss fell back towards the flier's tail and away from the ticking time bomb she had just created. She didn't have to wait long for the head to explode in a halo of flame, and the spectacle elicited more than one response from the soldiers below.

"Little early for celebratory fireworks, isn't it?"

"The Queen has officially arrived for the party."

"Fuckin' hell. THAT'S how you murder a crow."

"Nitro… the man is standing right there."

Weiss jumped off the back of her makeshift vehicle moments before it crashed into the ground and made a quick dash towards XCOM's position. Though the sky had begun to grow dark, small fires and scattered flares provided enough lighting for her to recognize Captain Fonseca.

"Believe me when I say you are a sight for sore eyes, my friend." Otter greeted as Weiss fell in next to him, "We are managing to hold against the Grimm for now, but they seem to grow stronger as the night falls upon us."

Desperado grunted his agreement. "Your huntsmen have been extremely helpful, but even they need time to take down some of the bigger critters. We've already encountered a couple of Deathstalkers and a... Taijitu?" The Rifleman took aim and popped off a few shots at another oncoming wave. "The fuckin' hydra snake. That one caused us some trouble."

"Distracted us so we didn't notice the burrowing Creeps before they were right under our feet." Fonseca explained, "That ruse alone accounts for a good chunk of our casualties."

"Any deaths so far?" Weiss asked.

"Several, unfortunately." Fonseca sighed. "We've lost two of our own -one to an Ursa rush, and the other from those damn Nevermores- and a number of civilians have fallen as well. The Atlesian security managed to round up everyone who was caught in the fairgrounds when the fighting broke out, and we've established a protective perimeter around them. Not much we could do to stop the air raids, though. Goodwitch is doing her best to deal with the birds, but even she is only human."

Weiss nodded. "Could be worse, though."

As if to punctuate her point, a chorus of guttural roars erupted from the forest, far deeper than anything Weiss had heard from an Ursa or Beowolf.

"Thank you for the insight, Elsa." Desperado commented dryly, checking his supply of ammunition before their new guests arrived. The Icarus operatives that arrived with Weiss fell back to the fairgrounds defensive line. Once they had a better understanding of the new threat, they could spearhead a counterattack, but the Long War had already taught them the wisdom of 'hunker down first, shoot aliens later' when faced with an unfamiliar foe.

"Uhhh, Captain? I hate to tack on even more bad news, but we have a detachment of 'bots en route from Beacon. They've got Paladins."

"Chinga tu madre." Fonseca muttered darkly. Weiss never had a chance to learn Spanish from the operatives at XCOM, but she could guess the meaning from his tone. The Captain tweaked his comm piece before speaking again. "Commander, please tell me that you have authorization to deploy MECs."

"About a minute ago. I just deployed the Odin to the Colosseum, and now I'm moving into position for a low-altitude drop over the fairgrounds. I had planned to contact you once I had the relay warmed up."

"Whoever you plan to airdrop, sir, I need them ASAP. It looks like things are about to get bumpy down here."

"Ten-Four, Otter. I'm giving you the best we've got."

That meant Talos and Gizmo. Weiss looked forward to fighting alongside them again. Another roar from the forest drew her attention from the radio conversation, and Weiss readied herself for… something. However, she didn't expect a small boulder to come hurtling out from the trees and crash through XCOM's barricades. The projectile winged one of the operatives, who cried out in surprise as he spun through the air once, twice, three times before slamming into the ground.

The tree closest to the clearing between the forest and the fairgrounds split in half as the stone thrower leapt into the air and slammed the earth, beady red eyes staring at the XCOM forces behind a battered faceplate of white bone.

"Is… is that a gorilla?"

"Commander." Otter said over comms as two more of the strange Grimm charged into the clearing, "The sooner we can get that airdrop, the better."

"Are we all here?"

Lily looked around at the assembled group of survivors from the crash. Thankfully, a number of adults were in good enough condition to where they could take control and leave Lily to just worry about herself. Well, herself and Eldric. The little kid almost made her feel like a big sister, something she never got to experience before. Her father tried to give her a 'digital sibling' once, which was… weird. Although she knew that her father had nothing but the best intentions with the gesture, Julian wasn't exactly the same as having a living, breathing younger brother.

As Lily had guessed from his crying when she first met the young boy, Eldric lost his mother during the chaos. They had gone to the Colosseum together to watch the finals, and she rushed him to the docks as soon as the chaos began. The platforms were jam packed by the time Eldric and his mother reached the outer ring, and it was impossible for them to push towards the shuttles together. Eldric's mother convinced him to use his small size to weave through the legs of the panicking crowd and get on one of the first shuttles to leave. She promised Eldric that she would catch the earliest flight she could and join him in the city as soon as possible. Obviously, that plan had dramatically changed, and Lily didn't really know how she would reunite her newfound charge with his guardian. In any case, the first step was "stay alive," which was something she could focus on at least.

The man who had taken charge, a tall, muscular faunus named Bocephus, moved from survivor to survivor to perform one last physical check of everyone. He stopped in front of Lily and squatted down so he could be eye-level with Eldric.

"You two holding up okay?" He asked, voice low.

Eldric nodded wordlessly, and Lily gave a thumbs-up. "We're fine. A little shaken from… all of this, but I guess we all are."

"I've seen some pretty terrible stuff in the past, but nothing as bad as this." Bocephus agreed with a sigh, "But we'll be alright if we stick together and don't panic, alright? We can do this."

"Yeah."

Lily waited until Bocephus moved on to the next person before slipping a hand into her bag. She felt the shape of the small flare gun among the rest of her effects and let herself relax a little. Should she have given it to the group's new leader when everyone was taking stock of the available survival tools? Probably. But if she found herself in a situation where that gun meant the difference between life and death… disarming herself sounded like a really bad idea.

After all seven of the survivors had been personally checked by Bocephus, everyone gathered to determine their next move.

"We should stay here." One woman proposed, "The Grimm have left us alone so far, so why take the risk?"

Another man shook his head. "But if they change their minds, we have very little in the way of defense. We need to find the Atlas security and have them take us to safety."

"But where do we go?"

"There's a lot of gunfire coming from the city. Might be a good place to start." Bocephus said.

"You want us to head towards the fighting?!" The woman cried.

"Towards the people with guns." Bocephus countered, "I've never seen a Grimm shoot before, so that gunfire has to be friendly."

Lily agreed with Bocephus, but she didn't have the energy to get involved in the discussion. In addition to hoping that the group would find Atlas soldiers trying to secure the city, Lily wanted to believe that she'd find XCOM operatives as well. She trusted them more than the Atlas soldiers, honestly, and it would be utterly relieving to see a familiar face. Furthermore, she could try to scavenge in the city while they were searching for help. Her father always said she had a knack for making something out of nothing, and Lily couldn't think of a better time to prove him right.

After one final gear check (with what little gear the group had scrounged up from the wreck), Bocephus signaled for the group to begin the long journey to the city. Under any other circumstances, the walk would have felt fairly short. With pandemonium erupting all across the city and the possibility Grimm lurking at every corner, however, it felt like Vale was miles and miles away.

Before Weiss had a chance to come up with a way to stop the gorilla (Beringel, right? Port's classes felt like a distant dream) charge, Qrow jumped in to save the day. He zipped forward faster than what should be possible for a man his age and tore up the earth with an arcing slice of his sword. The force of his attack sent a wave of projectiles flying at the Grimm, who slowed down just enough for Weiss to unleash a salvo of Aura bolts at the lead charger. This however, seemed to only enrage the Grimm, who reared back with a mighty roar, and sent Qrow skidding backwards with shockwaves that rippled through the ground.

"Yeah, you don't want to tickle these guys." The huntsman muttered, his eyes locked on the Grimm, "You have to hit them hard, or don't bother. Pokes will only get them angry."

"And we won't like it when they're angry." Desperado said with an eyeroll.

"Uh… no shit?"

Desperado decided it would be best to let the joke lie, and instead radioed orders to the rest of the squad, "All operatives, do not engage the gorillas. Snipers, you are clear to open fire, but precision shots only. Target their vitals, or don't bother at all."

"Strike Six, this is Van Doorn. You've got a MEC drop on its way."

"Well that's damn good timing, Commander," Fonseca answered, "Since we're about to be caught in the middle of a two-on-none slugfest. These newcomers are a class above anything we've ever dealt with."

"Strike Six, this is Talos. If you could put down a flare to mark where you'd like us to- yep, that'll do nicely. Much appreciated, Elsa."

A large, rotating glyph spun lazily over the forest clearing, almost directly on top of the raging Beringels.

"Snipers." Desperado called, popping off a shot at each of the three Grimm, "It's now or never. Targets are painted."

"Nevermores!"

"Gunners, take them down."

"Ground teams, this is Bradford. Be advised that the Colosseum is on a crash course for the fields outside of Vale."

"Here come the 'bots!"

Like the rest of Strike Six and Icarus, Weiss didn't have the luxury of appreciating the implications of Bradford's warning. A multitude of more immediate issues climaxed in rapid succession. Four Gauss Long Rifles discharged with a sharp crack as the squad's marksmen scored direct hits on their monstrous targets. The cries of the Nevermore echoed overhead, only for XCOM's heavy weapon crew to answer with a monsoon of bullets. As the raven quills rained down upon the fairgrounds, many of them seemingly broke off, curved before striking the ground, and flung themselves back at the fliers. Rockets exploded on the far side of the fairgrounds, and the radio chatter lit up with reports of first contact with the Atlas mechs. Qrow dashed off to assist with the Atlas fight, leaving Weiss and Desperado to watch the Beringels.

Just as the gorillas seemed to regain their bearings from the gauss headshots, the explosive blast of a MEC Particle Cannon knocked the lead Grimm off its feet before the two MECs made their thunderous entrance. Like mythical giants, with the lights of the firefight gleaming off of their armor, they rose from their rocket-boosted landing and prepared for battle. Weapons of power hummed in their hands, and servos whirred silently throughout their heavy frames to mobilize the awe-inspiring angels of death..

"Engaging Juggernaut defenses." Talos announced. To his left, the modified Jetboots on Gizmo's frame remained hot, ready to fire and reposition the agility-focused suit at a moment's notice.

The Beringels weren't keen on waiting for long, however, and the one closest to Talos darted forward with impressive speed and delivered a punch to its newest threat. The MEC's enhanced plating emitted a loud clang as its pilot deflected the impact and followed up with a quick counterstrike. The Beringel roared in frustration and delivered a headbutt straight to Talos's chest, causing the heavy MEC to skid backwards several feet. Before the other Grimm even had a chance to do the same to Gizmo, she jetted backwards out of critical range.

"Holy shit." An operative next to Weiss muttered, "These fuckers ain't screwing around."

"Gizmo," Otter hailed over comms, "See if you can lead our guests on a chase towards the other end of the fairgrounds. Maybe they'll throw a punch or two at these Paladins and make our lives a little easier."

Gizmo immediately tagged one of the Beringels with her cannon. "Understood. I will prioritize keeping the contacts away from our infantry."

"I can help with that." Weiss reported, watching as the enraged Beringel sideswiped a sprinting Beowolf that got in its way, "Between my ice and a few other combat tricks, I should be able to keep their focus on the MEC's."

Gizmo shot the alpha gorilla engaged with Talos, drawing its attention for a split second. The heavier MEC fired up its Kinetic Strike Module and delivered a blow to the monster's chest and tossed it towards Gizmo. A low-powered particle tap allowed Gizmo to have the alpha's undivided (and angry) attention. With its two companions chasing after the running MEC, the third gorilla followed suit. The heavier MEC retracted its defensive plating and dashed into the fairgrounds to meet up with Gizmo on the far side.

Weiss weaved in and out among the other operatives still gunning down the lesser Grimm. Icarus fliers took to the skies to assess the battlefield and pick their targets while Riflemen and Gunners continued to spray death from below. Anytime the Beringel posse seemed to shift their interest away from Gizmo and towards the fairground defenses, Weiss jumped in. She would lead off with a frozen wall to push the Grimm back on course before vaulting over the makeshift fortification at the wayward monster to attack it in melee and draw its attention back towards Gizmo. The MEC would pop off several shots at the Grimm, regain its attention, and Weiss would zip back to the fairground frontline.

"Captain, we've got more huntsmen joining the fight."

"Yeah, and some of them are really kicking ass!"

This worked well the first two times Weiss needed to intervene. Her natural speed and ability to rapidly reverse directions with glyphs meant that she had little trouble staying out of harm's way. On the third time, however, the Beringel seemed to have wizened to her antics. As she leapt over the ice and prepared to deliver a punishing slash to her target, Weiss saw the Beringel look up at her out of the corner of its eye and wind up a backhand.

"Shi-"

Weiss managed to twist herself just enough so that the gorilla only struck her shoulder, but she felt the blow ripple through her Aura all the same. Once the Beringel realized that its attack has sent the pesky huntress reeling, the monster completely broke off from its chase and bounded towards the dazed Weiss.

"Weiss is in trouble!" One of the operatives cried, and he emptied his rifle into the gorilla has it closed in on Weiss. One of the rounds got lucky and hit a soft spot on the monster, causing it to snap its head up, identify its new target, and make a near-instantaneous course correction to close into melee with the squishy operative. Weiss, still slightly weakened from the Beringel's glancing blow, had enough of her wits to realize that the operative had put himself in mortal danger.

"Gizmo!" Even as she said it, Weiss's body was already working to react to the new threat. She drilled Myrtenaster into the ground, and two glyphs appeared behind the horrified operative. The Beringel slammed its fist into the soldier like a freight train, launching his crumpled body through several festival stalls and past a gaggle of screaming civilians. The full-auto rifle chatter of the operative's panicking partner rang in Weiss's ears as her brain still worked to shake off the effects of the Beringel's power strike.

Amid the yells of nearby operatives preparing to fight back against the rampaging monster, brilliant lights flashed and a pair of spectral Berserkers leapt out of Weiss's summoning glyphs. They loosed an alien roar before charging at the enraged Grimm, with one delivering a shoulder check to the crouched monster while the other plunged its clawed gauntlets into the Beringel's exposed flank. The gorilla loosed a pained roar and tossed the spectral warrior back towards Weiss, and the trio readied their weapons to re-engage the Grimm in melee combat.

Before Weiss could give the order to attack, she heard a familiar voice from behind.

"… Sister?"

Lily's had reached the city outskirts when one of the survivors spotted the Colosseum. Everyone stood, immobilized in horror, as the station passed overhead like a comet, small pieces of Dust breaking off of the main crystal as it went, before the whole thing crashed beyond the hills and trees in the largest earthquake Lily had ever felt. She remembered the one that rippled through her hometown at the end of the alien war (courtesy of the Temple Ship, according to her father), and that quake paled in comparison to Amity's crash. For a brief moment, all sounds of gunfire stopped as soldiers and huntsmen of every faction took a moment to try and assess what had just happened.

The first thing to break the silence was a distant rumble in the far opposite direction of Amity's fall, followed by a screech that was unmistakably Grimm.

"Oh Dust…" one of the survivors whimpered, as another shrieking roar echoed in the distance "Oh Dust, oh Dust. We're not going to make it, are we? There's just… too many of them."

The source of the noise finally flew into view on its third roar, chilling Lily to the bone. "What… is that?"

"Something that should have remained sleeping." Bocephus answered, awestruck.

The dragon roared for a fourth time, and it sounded like all of the Grimm on Remnant had roared back in response. Lily shuddered at the cacophonous sound, and felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up as if she'd been electrified. Blood pounded in her ears while her legs suddenly felt like lead and her throat grew tight. After trying so hard to keep it together since the start of this whole catastrophe the sight of that… that thing had finally cracked Lily's armor.

She felt a small tug on her hand, and she looked down to see Eldric pointing into the sky. "Lily… Lily look."

Expecting to see even more horrors of this world rear their ugly heads, Lily followed the small child's finger and looked up to see two objects hurtling towards the city. As they grew close, the other members of the survivor party noticed them as well. Fires lit up beneath them a few seconds before they disappeared among Vale's skyline, and the sounds of rocket propulsion soon followed. In the split second that their descent had slowed down before they vanished entirely, Lily caught a glimpse that made her heart swell.

Those had to be MECs.

"Is that another danger we have to worry about?" One of the survivors asked.

Lily shook her head. "No. That was hope." Now that she had proof that XCOM was out there (and committing MECs to the fight!), Lily felt life returning to her limbs, "We need to reach where those things landed, because I guarantee we'll be okay once we find them. Come on."

The dragon roared again, but it didn't phase Lily this time. That monster was far away, and the MECs were closer. They could bring it down, if worse came to worst. After touring XCOM's Engineering Bay with her father, Lily had no doubt about that. She picked up her feet and resumed her march towards the city with more confidence and certainty than she had five minutes ago.

"No."

Lily looked back to see almost half of the other survivors casting glares at her. "No, you're fucking crazy if you expect us to follow you into a warzone with that thing flying around. We might as well just lay down now and give the Grimm an easy meal." The survivor turned his attention to Bocephus, "It was a mistake leaving the shuttle, and it was a mistake following you."

Bocephus stepped towards the insurgent, "Now hold on-"

"No." The man interrupted, his voice more confident as he backed away from the rest of the survivors, "No, I don't have a death wish. And none of you should be following him if you don't, either."

"Think this through-"

One of the others shook his head and laughed, "No, man. Fuck this shit. I'm out."

The splinter group turned around and hightailed back towards the shuttle. The remaining survivors looked to both Bocephus and Lily, who could see fear creeping more and more into their expressions. The anger Lily felt at the other survivors for pulling a stunt like that, for slashing their odds of survival and sowing doubt among those remaining, only served to fuel her drive to prove them wrong. She spoke before Bocephus had the chance to think of something to say.

"We'll be fine." She said, "Do you know how I know? Because have a plan. I know where we need to go, who we'll find when we get there, and I know that the fact that you're still here means that you have at least some confidence that I know what I'm doing. I promise that I won't let you down. But first, we need to find tools for survival. Since we have an entire city ahead of us, it shouldn't be difficult. And if we can't find them, we'll make them. If you find anything that you think might be useful, we'll check it out and see what we can do with it. C'mon."

Bocephus caught on to Lily's surety and waved the rest of the group forward. They walked in silence through the outskirts of Vale as the sounds of monsters and war rattled in the distance. Lily kept one hand on Eldric's back and the other in her bag, the feel of the flare gun providing her with a small boost of confidence. A shadow would skitter in the darkness now and again, causing the group to freeze up for a few terrified seconds. Every time, Bocephus would stand tall and move to put himself between his people and whatever had decided to go bump in the night. Lily had to admire his courage: despite the fact that the man was likely scared deep down, he put on a show of strength to keep the group's fear in check. Without him, Lily didn't want to think about how quickly the Grimm would descend upon the survivors like a pack of vultures.

The outskirts had been overrun and abandoned long before Lily's group arrived. They moved through broken doorways, ravaged windows, and a few burned out buildings to scavenge anything they could find. The group quickly realized that Lily had a way with hardware. As survivors pooled their resources from one house, Lily noticed they had the materials necessary to make a small handheld explosive. In another building, she stripped down some gardening tools to craft a makeshift spear. A whipcord here, a noisemaker there, and Lily slowly continued to outfit the rest of the survivors with tools that could help them hold off a wandering Grimm. It might only be precious seconds… but who knew if that's all they would need?

Tall buildings loomed overhead in a matter of minutes, and Bocephus took a moment to let the survivors catch their breath and collect themselves before proceeding into the heart of the city. The fighting grew louder now, with the rattle of gunfire and the cries of soulless monsters echoing through the streets and alleyways. Lily's heart pounded against her chest, though she tried her hardest to remain calm.

"Alright everyone." Bocephus said quietly, "Let's go."

They crept further into the city, sticking close to the shadows to try and stay out of sight. Beowolves and Ursa ran in and out of view as they dashed between buildings on the hunt for their next victim. Bocephus continued to whisper words of encouragement to the group. Progress slowed considerably as the survivors grew much more cautious now that the Grimm posed a very real, very immediate threat. And yet, something was acting like a lightning rod for them, as all of the monsters seemed to flow in the same direction. Lily guessed that the MEC's were deployed for a reason, and that reason probably involved defending a large group of terrified civilians. How else was her group able to move basically undetected in a city overrun with the Grimm?

"Hey Lily." One of the men called out from within a small liquor store, "Over here."

Lily told Eldric to stay with Bocephus before she slipped into the store to examine what the man had found. She saw him crouched over a dead Atlesian soldier. While the sight initially reminded Lily that she still hadn't grown used to the sight of dead people, she quickly zeroed in on what had caught the man's eye. Or ear, actually.

"A radio…" She breathed. The muted noises were all garbled and drenched in white noise, but the radio inside the soldier's helmet was definitely on.

The survivor nodded, "Badly damaged, but I figured…"

"It's worth a shot." Lily agreed, "Get everyone inside while I have a crack at this."

Lily carefully pried the helmet off of the unfortunate soul, once again fighting back the urge to retch, and examined the inside. She would have to disassemble the helmet itself so she could get at the radio, which might be a bit difficult with the sleek design of the system. And if there was damage to the actual circuit board, how would she repair it?

"One step at a time, Lily." She reminded herself.

The group joined her in the building and hunkered down while Lily got to work. The damage to the board was minimal: not enough to completely destroy the radio, but enough to keep it from working properly. She located the break point on the signal path, but how was she going to fix it without solder and an iron? One of the survivors had found a lighter earlier, she reminded herself, so perhaps she could reflow the solder already on the board and carefully realign the chip that got knocked loose.

"Bocephus, could you toss me the lighter?"

A few tense minutes later, and Lily held up the finished board to the dim lighting in their room.

"It's as good as it's going to get… Let's hope this works."

She carefully reconnected the cables linking the board to the rest of the system, examined the wiring for any further breaks, and took a steady breath. If it didn't work, it didn't work. But at least the group had a chance to rest. She checked to make sure the volume dial was turned down, then tapped the power button. Nothing lit up, but that was because Lily had disconnected the non-essential components to conserve power. Lily picked up the gutted helmet and carefully held the speaker to her ear, and her heart soared at the faint sound of comm chatter.

"-rimm are everywhere, Sergeant!"

"Yeah, and our mechs are going nuts, too. What the hell is going on?"

"Man, I didn't sign up for this shit, sir."

Sounded like Atlas comms. Made sense. Lily needed to figure out how to manually switch so that she could pick up XCOM's signals. Unfortunately, she wasn't familiar enough with the Atlesian circuit board architecture to know how to switch bandwidths the physical way, and she didn't have any equipment to measure what frequency she was on, anyway. She'd have to use the tuning dial and hope that it wasn't just dialed in to a few select frequencies.

"-eaking news, as Vale is over-"

Nope.

"-can anybody hear me? We're trapped on-"

Tragic, but nothing Lily could do. At least it confirmed that this radio wasn't just for official Atlas comms.

"Got some nice shops up ahead, easy targ-"

Looters? Seriously?

"-I loooove you baaaaaaby. Yeah, I've-"

Nope.

"Is it working?" Eldric whispered, "Are people coming to help us?"

"I'm working on it, Eldric. Just sit tight for now." Lily answered.

"-need more air support, Captain. The cruiser took down most of our fighters, and that dragon-"

More help from Atlas would be welcome, but not really Lily's concern at the moment.

"-entral, this is Three-Actual. We're maintaining the perimeter with the help of the new MECs. Vulcan's crew is setting up to start hammering away at the new contact, but it'll be a minute before the MACs are online."

There. Her dad only let her watch a few videos from the mission archives, but she knew enough of those words to recognize XCOM chatter. With trembling hands, she pressed the transmit button on the radio and spoke into the mic.

"H-hello? Can you… can you hear me?"

Silence. Then, "This channel is for priority comms, ma'am. Identify yourself."

Oh. Right. "My name is Lily Shen. I… I'm in the city with some survivors, and we're trying to find your, uh… perimeter."

Almost immediately, Lily heard Bradford's voice, and she almost cried at the sound of someone she finally recognized, "Lily, this is Bradford. We have Strike Teams available for extraction. We need to know your location, however. Are you able to get to a high rise, or do you have a means of making a signal?"

"Yes, sir." She said, her voice a little more confident now, "I have a flare gun that I can use. Will that work?"

"That's perfect, Lily. Throw that up, and we'll send a squad ASAP."

"Boss, we'll need to be quick with the rescue op. Mothra is coming around for another pass, which means we're going to be swimming in Grimm shortly."

The dragon? What did that have to do with more Grimm? Were they drawn to it or something? No matter, the soldier seemed to know what he was talking about, so Lily had to take his word for it.

"We'll shoot the flare, and then hunker down, sir. If the Grimm show up, we'll be able to hold them off for a little bit..."

"... But not for long. Understood, Lily. Extraction team is prepped and ready to move once you light the candle. Get to it."

Lily put down the radio and looked up at her group. "Help is on the way, but we need to hold out until they arrive. Apparently more Grimm are coming into the city soon."

Bocephus hefted his spear, "Well, it's a good thing you gave us some toys to play with, then. As long as your help is indeed coming, we'll make sure we're here to take advantage of it."

"Agreed. And if what we have isn't enough…" Lily gestured at the shelves around them, "That's a lot of alcohol we can put to good use."

"K-kaiju! They've got a fucking kaiju!"

"Yeah, and we've got Jaegers, so what's got you so rattled?"

Weiss was too occupied with both the Beringel problem and the surprise appearance of her sister to be concerned with the dragon rearing its ugly head.

"I've never seen any Grimm like that before." Winter said, gesturing at the Berserkers as they continued to trade blows with the Beringel. Not to be outdone by her little sister, Winter had summoned a pair of ghostly Beowolves to join the fray. Between the four of them and the two huntresses adding in strikes of their own, the beast struggled to figure out who to lash out at first.

"They're not Grimm." Weiss answered, cutting deep into the Beringel's flank while Winter drew the monster's attention. Before it had a chance to turn around and retaliate, four summons slammed into the gorilla and forced it to ignore Weiss.

"But our family's ability to summon only works on foes we have slain ourselves." Winter pressed. She darted between her pets and stabbed the Beringel in the arm. The monster roared in pain and swung its wounded limb in a wide backhand, instantly disintegrating one Beowolf and knocking the other to the ground. The Berserkers, Weiss noted with no small amount of satisfaction, remained fully formed and lusting for blood despite the Grimm's heavy smash.

Weiss rolled her eyes. "I've killed plenty of these things, believe me." She summoned a series of platform glyphs, and Winter wasted no time in bouncing from one to the next and delivering a razor-sharp strike to the Beringel's back with every pass. When the Grimm reached up to grab Winter, the Berserkers charged forward and stabbed the monster in the chest with their clawed gauntlets.

Winter leapt high into the air from the final glyph, split her sword into two, and drove both blades into the gaping mouth of the enraged gorilla. "Well it's good to see that your schooling at Beacon hasn't failed you."

"You didn't learn that from the tournament?" Weiss asked, incredulously.

Winter shrugged as they dashed towards the Paladin vs. Beringel vs. MEC slugfest. "Tournaments are a controlled setting." Before Weiss could come up with a proper retort, her sister added, "You and your friends have a lot of explaining to do when this is all over."

"Same could be said for you." Weiss countered, "What are you doing here?"

"General Ironwood suspected that he would need to send some resources to support the Valean Recon Division. Or should I say, Excom?" She practically spat the last word, before waving an arm at the chaos around them, "It appears that he suspected right."

With venom on the tip of her tongue, Weiss eventually decided it was best not to take her sister's bait on that one. Gunfire still lit up the night behind them as the XCOM operatives continued to fend off the Grimm incursion. To their front, more operatives hunkered down behind cover and traded shots with the Atlesian Knights while Qrow, Glynda, and a handful of other huntsmen occupied the trio of Paladins. Rounding the outskirts of the fairground tents on her high-powered Titanium servos, came Gizmo with the remaining Beringel pursuers.

"Stand clear of the Paladin," the MEC warned. Her weapon discharged a second later, cratering the shoulder of one of the rogue mechs and diverting its attention from the huntsmen. The robot raised one of its arm cannons and took aim at Gizmo. The MEC's jetboot array pulled the suit's out from beneath the chassis and Gizmo dropped into a power slide. The Paladin's shot soared overhead and crash into the pursuing Beringel while Gizmo slid past the mech. The Grimm, its attention completely on the new assailant, plowed into the Paladin's midsection and set to work rending metal.

"Hah, even I have to admit that was clever." Qrow said with a grin, brandishing his weapon with an eye on the other Paladin. Unlike the tin soldiers Ironwood had unveiled several weeks ago, these mechs sported some clear upgrades. Rather than look at the catastrophe with Torchwick's stolen mech and realize that these things could be dangerous in the wrong hands, the General had clearly viewed the event as a shakedown run of his pet project and sought to shore up the weaknesses exhibited by the rogue mech in its fight against Team RWBY. Superior armor, superior weapons, improved targeting systems… and as the icing on a shit cake, some egghead decided that it would be a great idea to make an elite variant that took all those upgrades and pushed them further. Like some kind of stupid mechanical equivalent of an experienced sergeant at the forefront of its squad.

While Qrow knew he could hold his own in combat against Ironwood's machines, the added challenge of keeping the civilians (and to a lesser extent, the XCOM operatives) safe made things complicated. An unspoken understanding quickly formed between the huntsmen and the operatives that the former would deal with the big 'bots while the latter handled their swarming entourage of smaller walkers. To their credit, the soldiers proved to be competent marksmen, and Qrow would be the first to admit that the fight became ten times easier thanks to their supporting firepower.

Unfortunately, they didn't possess the ability to shoot a barrage of micro missiles out of the sky. Good thing Qrow could outrun the dumb robot's lock-on system-

"Oh hell…"

It looked like the ubermech finally figured out that it was wasting its time with the agile huntsmen and decided to instead set its sights on the less mobile soldiers in the back. Unless those Rocketeers were hiding chaff rockets up their asses, Qrow was about to have a lot of casualties on his hands. The student huntsmen tried to take advantage of the mech's immobile state by slipping in some of their harder-hitting attacks. However, its armored plating combined with the defensive fire from the other Paladin (who didn't have to worry about a pair of Beringels pounding its face in) meant that none of them succeeded in critically damaging the damn thing.

Even though Qrow knew he couldn't take down all of the missiles, he still had to try. He crouched low and made a calculated guess where the robot chose to aim its the ubermech achieved lockon, the explosive payload flew out of its pods like a swarm of agitated Rapier Wasps. Qrow leapt into the air, blade spinning like a dust devil. He felt his sword slice through one missile, and he swung it around to split two more. As the barrage soared past him, Qrow twisted in midair to shoot a fourth and fifth with a blast from his shotgun.

The rest of the salvo continued arcing towards its targets, and Qrow watched the second XCOM MEC break clear of the fairgrounds and sprint towards the oncoming explosives. Its pilot deployed an arm-mounted blast shield before firing its jet boots to meet the missile strike head-on. The MEC disappeared in a cloud of flame as the explosives struck its shield and detonated in rapid succession. Like a phoenix rising from the ashes, the armored warrior burst forth from the inferno and landed with earth-trembling force to face the awaiting Paladin.

"You'll have to do better than that." The pilot taunted as the rest of its armored reinforcement slid into place. The blast shield stayed open and the thrusters on its left arm powered up, and Qrow deduced that this one was more melee-oriented than its agile, trickshotting partner.

"My kind of dude." Qrow said with a grin. The huntsman form-shifted his weapon into a scythe as he darted forward past his armored ally. He ran under the ubermech and hooked his weapon on the underside of the its chassis, using his momentum to flip up and land on the robot's shoulder. The Paladin started to fire shells from its main cannons at the heavy MEC, and Qrow watched the pilot hunker down and tank the hits, its shaped armor deflecting the worst of each hit and leaving the MEC only moderately damaged. Small arms fire continued to pour from both sides as the XCOM operatives kept the Knights' focus off of the high priority targets. Qrow identified a gap in the mech's armored exterior and swung his scythe around to bury it deep into the weak point. The mech jerked back, identified the source of the problem and spun around in an effort to unseat its attacker.

A roar from the right turned the attention of the battlefield to Gizmo, who dashed towards the unbalanced Paladin. She grabbed onto its leg as she passed to swing herself into a hard left turn and evade another salvo from the other Paladin.

"Talos." She called.

"Of course." Her teammate answered. The heavy MEC stood firm and stared down the gorilla giving chase to Gizmo. Talos twisted his frame at the last second to redirect the monster's momentum and send it tumbling past the two warriors, leaving the Beringel exposed to a backshot from Gizmo and a grenade from Talos.

CRUNCH.

Talos jerked forward as the Beringel's partner struck him from behind. The MEC drove his elbow back into the Grimm's face to drive off his attacker, only for the two of them to be engulfed in explosive fire from the lesser Paladin.

"Huntsmen, advance. We need to keep the pressure off our 'bots." Qrow ordered. A MEC shot from across the field drew the Beringel's attention off of Talos, who took the opportunity to reassess the battlefield and return his focus to the Paladin.

"Operatives, cover the huntsmen," He instructed, blast shield deployed once more, "And take cover behind me."

A squad of operatives dashed to Talos's position while several Gunners stayed back to lay down suppressive fire against the remaining Knights. Gauss Long Rifles rang out in the night as Snipers put down the critically wounded Beringel before turning their attention to the main Paladin. Medics tossed Smoke Grenades out to provide cover for the huntsmen out in the open. Assaults in Titan armor dashed forward with ablative shields at the ready to mop up the man-sized walkers.

Walls of ice rose up to provide makeshift barricades for the members of the forward rush as Weiss and Winter moved to assist. Their summons had served a worthy role in bringing down the first Beringel, and the sisters opted to conserve their remaining energy by raising defenses on an as-needed basis. Gizmo continued to perform a careful dance that balanced attention between the final Beringel and the lesser Paladin. Every time the Paladin tried to help its larger brother, Gizmo would capitalize on its lack of focus with a shot from her cannon before repositioning to stay out of range of the Grimm. Her fortune did not last forever, however, and the Beringel caught up just enough to hook Gizmo's leg and trip the MEC frame.

XCOM's operatives reacted immediately. Jump troopers redeployed to Gizmo's position and laid into the gorilla while a team of Engineers threw down covering smoke before pulling out Arc Throwers to assess and repair damage. Snipers picked off the few remaining Knights so that all focus could turn to the major threats.

"Fucker's finally down!"

Cannon fire erupted from the ubermech, followed by Talos's mechanical statement, "Armor is holding, but I require assistance."

"Repairs completed." Gizmo reported, "I'm on my way."

Qrow leapt off of the lesser Paladin and charged its brother alongside the now-back-in-action Gizmo. The two of them weaved around the battered Talos before Qrow jumped up and took hold of Gizmo's grab bar. The MEC crouched into a jet-boosted jump, allowing her huntsman passenger to vault high above his target. A blast from his shotgun sent Qrow plummeting on a crash course with the Paladin as Gizmo landed a kinetic punch to its midsection. Talos took a shot at the robotic behemoth with his particle cannon right before Qrow slammed into it with his sword.

The trio continued the high intensity of their assault, each striking in turn to keep the Paladin confused as to who it should focus on. The robot did score counterhits against its mechanized adversaries, but Talos and Gizmo pushed through the damage in a gamble that their foe would fall before they did. The mech's ally was in no position to offer aid: blossoms of fire and ice erupted around the Paladin, marking Weiss and Winter's assault backed by a detachment of XCOM forces.

When the ubermech took an uneasy step backwards, Gizmo found her opportunity to strike hard. She leaned forward and boosted herself into the unbalanced mech, clipping its shoulder and sending the robot into a frantic effort to stay upright. Talos stomped forward with his kinetic fist primed, and pulled the Paladin into a heavy uppercut. The sound of rending metal echoed across the fairgrounds, and the combatants watched in awe as the giant robot tumbled backwards and fell.

As Qrow ran forward to perform the coup de grace, he heard the soft sound of rapid footfalls not far behind. A quick glance back identified Winter as his companion, and Qrow smirked when he realized that she probably couldn't stand the idea of him taking the 'glory' of landing the killing blow. He slowed down just enough to let the elder Schnee catch up to him before folding his scythe into its sword configuration. The two shared a pointed look that indicated their mutual understanding that, for once, it was in their best interest to cooperate. They leapt in unison, raised their weapons, and drove them deep into the cracked and battered faceplate of the fallen Paladin. The robot sparked and shook in its death throes before finally falling into its eternal rest.

Though the sounds of warfare still echoed across the sky, Qrow's small corner of the war fell silent, if only for a brief moment.

"Not bad for a drunk." Winter remarked, eyebrow raised.

Qrow threw his arms out in a mock gesture of grandeur, "What can I say? It's not easy being this great." He yanked his sword out of the dead monstrosity, pulling a tangled mess of wires and scrap metal with it, "Maybe it's the lack of alcohol ruining my judgment, but I'm almost tempted suggest that we could make a good team."

Winter sheathed her weapon in one smooth motion and walked back to the fairgrounds, "Don't get ahead of yourself."

As Qrow watched his rival rejoin his sister, Talos whispered, "I think we make a better one."

"Probably." Qrow agreed, "Let's get you patched up so we can go work on that teamwork a bit and find more shit to kill."

The unholy scream of the Grimm dragon soaring overhead marked the arrival of trouble for Lily's squad. She fired the flare gun about a minute prior before returning to the liquor store to hunker down with the rest of the survivors and prepare a defense. Lily had asked Bocephus to bring her the strongest alcohol he could find, and she stuffed ripped segments of her shirt sleeves down the bottlenecks. She briefly explained to Gerald, the survivor in charge of their lighter, how to use a Molotov cocktail before she looked for other ways to repel the impending Grimm.

Any alcohol that she deemed too weak for a Molotov was chucked out the broken front window where the shattered bottles might surprise the barefooted Beowolves and the pooling liquid could serve as a good target for the team's fire master. Two of the other survivors, Killeen and Jyl, emptied beer cans and strung the tabs together to make a few more crude noisemakers. They probably wouldn't distract the Grimm for long, but Lily was ready to take whatever advantage she could get.

"We've got company." Bocephus announced at the window, "Everybody lay low: They haven't seen us yet."

No more time for Arts and Crafts, it seemed. Lily crouched next to Eldric, her hand resting on his back to give him encouragement. The group could hear the Beowolves across the street, snorting and growling as they roamed the city streets. Just as Bocephus said, it looked like the wolves hadn't noticed them. Everyone waited in tense silence until they watched the Grimm disappear around the corner of a building further down the street. Lily sat back and breathed a sigh of relief.

Clink. Rattle. Shatter.

Killeen yelped as the shelf she leaned against turned out to be less stable than she originally thought. Her eyes grew wide as the rest of the group snapped around to stare at her in shock.

"I'm… I'm sorry." She whispered. A chorus of howls punctuated her apology.

Bocephus turned to Gerald. "Give Lily a quick light, then get to the roof. Eldric, carry some of these bottles and go with him. Killeen, Jyl… take the whip and pipe and protect the stairs to the roof. Lily, you're with me."

Lily held up her makeshift torch (a soaked strip of cloth tied to the end of a broken piece of rebar) so that Gerald could ignite it with his lighter. She grabbed her bag that held the makeshift grenade as well as a supply of aerosol cans she found abandoned at a small construction site and moved towards the front door with Bocephus.

"I hope your friends are on their way," Bocephus muttered, "Because there's no way we're holding out forever against all of these Grimm."

Lily nodded, "They're the best there is. We won't have to wait long."

The Beowolves came barrelling towards the holdout from around the corner. Bocephus and Lily watched as the demons charged, closing the gap to one hundred yards… fifty yards… thirty yards…

Fire soared overhead as Gerald hurled the first Molotov. It broke as the Grimm crossed the alcohol line, and liquid flame bloomed to life around the liquor store. Bocephus let out a low whistle.

"Gotta say, kid, that's a beautiful sight right there."

Of course, the Beowolves barging across the fiery barrier looked more terrifying than beautiful. The fire and broken glass served its purpose, though: Lily watched as the monsters stumbled forward on legs crippled by burn marks and lacerations.

More cocktails soared from the roof as Gerald continued to pelt the Grimm with firebombs, but the remnants of the first wave managed to still reach the storefront. Bocephus let the first wolf jump through the broken window before he jammed his spear through its neck. The moment it dropped, Lily popped up with her torch and an aerosol can to push back the rest of the Grimm with a pressurized gout of fire.

"These things do not like getting burned." She said with amusement as the Beowolves yelped and stumbled back from the heat, "I bet this is info that Bradford could use."

"Who?" Bocephus asked while he drove his spear through the chest of another monster. He hissed in pain as the Beowolf slashed his bicep before it fell to the floor.

"Bocephus!" Lily cried. She incinerated the last of the wave before dropping to the man's side, "Are you alright?"

Bocephus moved his arm and winced. "Critter got me good. Gonna be a lot harder to stab these guys, that's for sure."

Lily peeked over the windowsill and assessed their situation. Gerald had done a great job setting fire to the Grimm's path towards the holdout. Even so, more Grimm poured into the street and towards the sounds of conflict, and not just Beowolves.

"Hey Bo… how good is your throwing arm?"

"It's not the one that got all torn up." The man answered. He glanced into the street and figured out why Lily had asked, "Prime your bomb for me, and I'll give it a toss."

"You'll have about ten seconds before it blows." She said as she broke the barrier between the two active reagents in the chamber, "Don't cook it in case I'm wrong, though."

Bocephus chucked the grenade, and the duo watched the wave of Ursa loping towards it.

"C'mon…"

"Bo, throw the firecracker."

Lily lit her noisemaker, and Bocephus tossed it into the street. The device detonated with a harmless bang, but it surprised the Ursa enough for them to slow down and glance at the source of the noise...

CRUMP.

… Long enough for the grenade to go off. The Beowolves running past were blasted off their feet, but the bomb seemed to only piss off the Ursa.

"Uhhh…" Bocephus intoned, "That bomb might have been a mistake."

"Yeah…"

Lily readied another aerosol can and threw fire at the oncoming bears, but they seemed to shrug it off more easily than the wolves. She spun out of the way with a shriek as the monsters crashed through the storefront. Shelves upon shelves of alcohol crashed through the floor and quickly ignited from Lily's dropped torch.

"EVERYBODY CLEAR OUT." Bocephus yelled. Lily saw Jyl and Killeen bolt through a side door towards the back of the store while her partner tried to distract the Ursa focused on Lily with a spear to its rump. The monster spun around and backhanded Bocephus through the window and into the street.

"Bo!"

Lily instantly regretted crying out, as it brought the Grimm's attention back to her. She fell to the floor as it took a swipe with its wicked claws. Drywall and wood chips bounced off of her prone form, and Lily watched the monster rise up on its hind legs as it prepared to pulverize her into dust.

The tattered wall exploded, the air shuddered and an acrid smell of ozone penetrated Lily's nostrils. It took her a moment to register the fact that the Ursa standing above her had been completely obliterated. By the time dawning realization hit her brain, the explosive sound of thrusters echoed up the street, and a massive warrior of servo and steel planted itself between Lily and the Grimm approaching from the street.

"Killing it with fire." The ironclad soldier announced. Gouts of flame spewed from its wrist and washed over the demonic foe. The air grew electrified once more as the first MEC's rifle punched a hole clean through one of the wolves closing in on Bocephus, followed by the crack of multiple rifles striking targets of their own.

"H-holy…" The faunus stammered, his eyes glued to the MEC.

A flash of red streaked up the street and dissected a pair of wolves running at the MEC standing over Lily. A young huntress, her eyes aflame with anger and determination, brandished her scythe as she dared any more of the monsters to come forth and taste cold steel.

Her crimson cloak flapped in the heat of the battlefield, with the words Vigilo Confido printed above the most beautiful battle standard Lily had ever laid eyes on. Ruby glanced back at Lily, and the murderous look flipped instantly into cheerful encouragement as the huntress gave a thumbs up before keying her comm.

"Shen is secured." Ruby reported, "Repeat, we have recovered Lily Shen."

What a mess.

Even with all of Bradford's preparations, the plans he made with the headmaster and the drills his commanding officers orchestrated, this entire operation had become one giant clusterfuck. Even so, if Timmons knew anything about the theater of war, it was that proper communication saved lives.

And Timmons was determined to save lives.

"Strike Six, be advised that sensors are picking up new Grimm activity in your vicinity." Timmons warned.

Fonseca groaned loudly in response, "Dios mio. Still more?"

"Large ones, too."

"Strike Six. It might be a good idea to abandon Drop Point Foxtrot and relocate somewhere more defensible."

"Any ideas, Central?"

Timmons checked his array of motion sensor data feeds while Bradford continued to give instructions.

"Not Beacon Academy. We don't want to draw undue attention towards Ozpin."

Made sense. Besides, Timmons didn't need his motion sensors to tell them that Beacon would be a bad idea. One peek out the window, and he could see the swarm of birds flocking around the tower. What was drawing them all over there, anyway?

"Start working towards the city. That should make it easier for us to regroup once this is all over."

"Understood, sir. Progress will be slow on account of the civilians we're trying to protect. At least we have huntsmen!"

"I think I can help, Actual." Timmons added, as he made a handful of keystrokes on his terminal, "I've collated all of my motion sensor information into a data packet that I'm sending to your HUD now. It should help you plot out the path of least resistance to the city."

"Muchas gracias, señor!"

With one problem solved, Timmons continued to cycle through his radio feeds to see where else he could be of assistance.

"Hoooooly fuck, that dragon is big."

"MECs are having a hard time lining up a good shot at it from this distance. I don't think we want to risk drawing that thing into a direct fight with only a few glancing blows to show for it."

Yeah, that dragon needed to be dealt with. It hadn't done much to directly join the fight yet, but the fact that it was literally precipitating Grimm from its wings was creating more than enough problems for XCOM. He continued working through the channels.

"Fours, this is Comms." Timmons hailed, "You have a distress signal originating in your area. Recommend you investigate-"

Timmons froze at the sound of a knock on the door. The radio chatter continued in the background, and the engineer waited to see if he was imagining things.

… Nope. There it was again. Protocol was very clear that scheduled shift changes are suspended indefinitely during live fire situations until the danger is dealt with. And yet, the person on the other side of the door provided the correct knocking pattern to identify himself as a friendly. Then again, nobody reported over comms that they were headed for the dormitory outpost. Timmons of all people would have been advised of the rendezvous.

So who the fuck was standing out there?

Timmons quietly unclipped the Gauss Pistol from its holster and dialed his comm in to Bradford's private emergency channel.

"This is Lance Corporal Hlaine 'Combo' Timmons." The radio tech said at the door, weapon raised, "I need an identifying name, callsign, and strike team, and I need it now."

"Timmons, what are you doing on this channel?"

"You have three seconds to identify yourself before I employ lethal force."

"… Timmons? What's going on?"

"Three…"

Safety off.

"Two…"

Heartbeat raised.

"One."

Fwip.

"Gukh?!"

Timmons looked down to see a sword, sleek and crimson like a blood moon, embedded in his abdomen. The door shattered a second later, kicked in by a masked intruder in red and black.

"Timmons! Report!"

The operator cried out as the masked man ripped the sword out of his gut and kicked him to the floor.

"Destroy it all." The man said, his voice deep and angry, "Leave them lost and in the dark."

As other masked soldiers moved past the two and started ripping up XCOM's communication equipment, Timmons could only stare at the man in frozen horror. "Who… are you?"

The intruder glanced down at his victim, and a cruel smile grew on his lips. He raised his sword's sheath, which Timmons now noticed to be a rifle, and leveled it at the radio operator's face.