Refocusing her gaze through the scope, Thea tried to keep tabs on the unfolding mission. But with the rest of Strike One veiled by Viladia's formidable stealth Ability, visibility was virtually nil. Although she had a rough sense of their intended route, the inability to actually see her teammates kept her on edge.
'I wish I were there with them,' she thought, sweeping her scope over the compound in an attempt to quell her rising tension. Just as before, her scan revealed no anomalies; the compound remained precisely as she had last observed it. Her sights shifted to the patrols outside the walls, noting that the duplicate guards also maintained their predictable patterns. On the surface, everything seemed to be going as planned.
But that very thought filled her with mounting apprehension.
'When has a plan ever gone off without a hitch?' she mused, her gaze darting from detail to detail. She scrutinised the compound again, then the patrols, unable to shake the feeling that she was overlooking something crucial.
After completing her third increasingly frantic sweep, Thea abruptly halted her movements. "Get a grip, Thea," she chastised herself, her voice slightly distorted by the mask she wore.
'Panicking won't accomplish anything. You have a role to fulfil; don't waste time obsessing over things outside your control. Your squad is counting on you! Remember the Golden Rules.'
James's Golden Rules had always served as a steadying influence whenever Thea felt overwhelmed. One rule in particular echoed in her thoughts; Golden Rule #2: “Never presume to know everything about anything. There will always be things you do not know, no matter how much you know.”
As the old man had taught her from a young age; it didn’t matter how much you prepared, how much you studied and how much you wished you knew everything about a situation. There were always going to be unknowns. Trying to fill in every last gap and getting anxious about the missed parts was just bound to lead to failure.
Reassured by this perspective, she took a deep breath and refocused her gaze through the scope.
After a few tense moments, Thea honed in on the elusive sensation that indicated the location of her squad, concealed by Viladia's stealth ability. To her relief, they had already reached the compound's outer wall, slightly ahead of schedule.
Shifting her weapon's position, she scrutinised the next patrol's movements. They were a comfortable distance away, providing ample time for her squad to initiate the first phase of their plan.
It appeared that Einor and Morin had also recognized this opportune window. Almost as if materialising out of thin air, they suddenly became visible. Quickly, they lay flat on the ground, pulling what looked like camouflaged mats of dirt over themselves.
The opening move of their plan was as straightforward as it was perilous.
Initially, the squad would advance together toward the compound wall, veiled by Viladia's stealth bubble.
Next, Morin would employ his earth-controlling Ability to craft two small dugouts in the ground.
Finally, Einor and Morin would exit the stealth bubble and hide within these earthen hideaways, using a blend of netting, adhesive, and soil to blend into the landscape. Viladia would then employ one of her Illusion-based Abilities to obscure any remaining traces of their concealment.
The primary vulnerability of this approach was obvious. It lay in the unknown: They couldn't be certain if additional observers were watching, or if anyone had an unusually keen memory for the terrain's every minor detail.
While the plan was fraught with potential pitfalls, it was the best they could devise given their limited time and resources.
Observing the inconspicuous, tiny mounds of dirt—which could barely even be called such—from her vantage point, Thea had to commend her team's handiwork, especially given their constraints. Whether this effectiveness was due to Viladia's skill with her Illusion-type Ability or their general aptitude at creating hideouts, Thea couldn't say for certain, but the result was impressive nonetheless.
Then, she briefly saw Viladia.
For just a fraction of a second, the stealth expert had become visible, as she swapped her stealth bubble, capable of hiding the entire squad, to a personalised one. Just as quickly as she appeared, she vanished without a trace once again.
‘That Ability must be Platinum, at the very least. There’s no shot this is simply Gold-rarity. It’s way too versatile and powerful,’ Thea mused, shaking her head at the level of power inherent in Viladia’s signature Ability.
Soon after, the riskiest moment of this initial phase of their plan drew near: The arrival of the patrol.
As she focused her scope, Thea spotted the approaching patrol—two trios of duplicates sauntering in a staggered formation. Each was clad in Medium-type armour that glinted under the sparse illumination of the sun breaking through the canopy above.
They carried T1 assault rifles, slung casually but ready to be lifted and fired at a moment's notice. The patrol moved methodically, eyes scanning their surroundings but not betraying a hint of suspicion—yet.
Thea felt her heart pounding in her chest as she trained her sights on the lead duplicate. Her finger hovered over the trigger, ready to squeeze at the slightest indication that her squad had been discovered.
The failsafe plan flashed through her mind: If the squad was found out, she'd eliminate the patrol in a hail of precise sniper fire, while Einor, Morin, and Viladia would immediately initiate a high-risk, explosive breach of the compound wall.
Her eyes darted from one duplicate to another, her perception keenly honed to catch any abnormality, any sign that they were alert to something amiss. Time seemed to slow, each second stretching into an eternity as she held her breath, watching them draw closer to the two scarcely noticeable mounds of dirt hiding her teammates.
Every muscle in her body was tensed, her focus razor-sharp, yet she couldn't shake off the creeping sense of dread.
'Come on, move on, move on,’ she mentally willed them, feeling beads of sweat trickle down her forehead and pool at the edge of her mask.
Then, finally, after what felt like an eternity but was likely just a matter of seconds, the patrol moved past the hidden dugouts.
Thea exhaled sharply, a gusty sigh of relief fogging up the edge of her visor for a brief moment. Sweat dripped down her brow as she realised they had successfully cleared the most perilous hurdle of the first part of their plan.
With another sweep of her scope to ensure no other surprises, she refocused her attention on the unfolding mission, her finger still poised on the trigger, but for now, at least, not needing to be pulled.
Tracking the subtle ripple that marked Viladia's stealth bubble as it moved to the farthest corner of the wall—opposite to where Einor and Morin lay concealed—Thea found herself taken aback by the swiftness of Viladia's movements within her own cloaking sphere.
She, herself, had been inside that enigmatic bubble before, while crossing the hazardous no-man's land between the Stellar Republic and the UHF at the ambush site. From that experience, and from watching Einor and Morin earlier, she'd assumed the bubble could only obscure movements up to a brisk walking pace.
She had clearly been wrong.
Viladia was essentially sprinting along the patrol's path, albeit in the opposite direction. She was avoiding getting too close to the wall, presumably wary of any potential mines or sensors. Even without visual confirmation, Thea sensed that Viladia was moving at a speed she herself couldn't match, even with [Improved Sprint]—all while remaining completely invisible.
"Fuck me… I need to get me that Ability," Thea muttered under her breath, her tone tinged with both awe and a hint of determination as she observed the unseeable performance unfolding before her.
Just a few minutes later, Viladia arrived at the predetermined location for setting the second charge.
Although Thea couldn't visually confirm her teammate's actions, she sensed the mission transitioning to its crucial second phase: The breach.
From this point on, the meticulous planning would give way to the unpredictable reactions of the Stellar Republic’s soldiers. This was also the juncture in which Thea's role became critical—her task was to sow chaos among the defending forces.
Nervously, Thea scanned her supplies one more time, ensuring her five capacitor magazines were within easy reach.
Each magazine would fuel approximately 20 medium-power shots from her Gram, amounting to about 120 rapid-fire shots in total—this included the magazine already loaded and didn't account for the energy generated by the Gram's built-in reactor.
Looking back through her scope, she realised that the second phase was about to begin, as she saw an unmistakable breach charge attached to the wall where Viladia had been mere moments ago.
Taking a deep breath in an attempt to steady her shaking body, which was continuing to be wracked by an ever increasingly annoying, stabbing pain, Thea prepared herself as best she could.
Suddenly, without the slightest hint of a warning, the wall detonated in a ferocious explosion.
The explosion was nothing short of earth-shattering.
A maelstrom of force, fire, and debris burst forth from the wall, tearing apart the reinforced plasteel/rock-crete barriers as if they were paper. The mixture of breach charges, plastic explosives, and a well-placed plasma charge melded into an awe-inspiring spectacle.
A bluish hue tinged the explosion—a dead giveaway of the plasma's presence—as it cast an almost ethereal glow amid the chaos. The wall had been transformed into a nightmarish landscape of molten material and vaporised elements.
The intense heat of the plasma charge didn't merely break the wall—it liquefied it.
Great swaths of the surrounding area bore the hallmark appearance of a surrealist painting, the rockcrete and plasteel distorted and dripping as if melting under an invisible sun. What once stood as an indomitable fortress now lay scattered in smouldering ruins and molten puddles.
Almost instantaneously, all hell broke loose.
From within the compound, Stellar Republic soldiers, jarred from their stations by the explosion, scrambled towards the breach in frenetic urgency. Simultaneously, patrols on the outside veered sharply toward the epicentre of the devastation, converging on what they presumed was Viladia's location, blissfully unaware that she remained concealed by her stealth abilities.
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From her sniper's perch, Thea's eyes darted across the scene, counting enemy soldiers as they appeared—one, two, ten, twenty. Her exceptional perception kicked in, providing her with the clarity to rapidly assess each potential target. Scanning over the rushing soldiers, she mentally categorised them based on their armors and weaponry.
"Light armour, T1 rifles—No, DMRs. You're first," she mentally earmarked a group of soldiers whose gear denoted them as higher threats. "Heavy armour, rocket launchers... you're next," she continued her mental rundown, establishing a priority kill-list as she steadied her aim.
Time seemed to slow as she exhaled, finger hovering over the trigger, prepared to plunge the area into even greater chaos. Then, with practised ease, Thea commanded the System to activate her signature Ability.
‘Sensory Overdrive.’
Thea felt the familiar sensation of her Perception expanding and sharpening to an almost surreal level. Every micro-movement, every breath, every heartbeat in the surrounding environment became a deafening amount of sensory data. The hyper-awareness transformed her field of vision into a detailed tableau, where every soldier rushing toward the breach became an intricately painted target.
Her Gram hummed to life as she pulled the trigger; the weapon perfectly attuned to her heightened senses.
Thea's first shot was almost gentle—a whispering of energy that flickered through the air until it met the head of a Stellar Republic soldier rushing to fortify the breach. His head evaporated in a puff of searing vapour before his body had a chance to react, dropping like a marionette with its strings cut. Simultaneously, four duplicates that had been running ahead of the soldier fell over as well, their original body brutally cut down.
Her second shot was no less merciless. She had identified a soldier in medium-type armour ahead of time, carrying a menacing looking weapon. Thea didn’t want to find out what the weapon did, so she had placed him high on her kill-list. Her laser found its way to his chest, leaving a smouldering hole the size of a fist where his heart used to be. The weapon he was holding clattered to the ground, unheeded by its former bearer.
The third soldier was shouting orders, a clear leader or some sort. Whether he was a squad leader, an officer or maybe the leader of the entire compound; to the Gram’s laser, it made no difference. His words were abruptly silenced as it put a hole through his vocal cords and out the back of his neck. The decapitated body stumbled and fell, its last command forever unspoken.
For that brief span of time in which her [Sensory Overdrive] was running at full power, she was not breathing; she was not thinking.
She was merely a conduit for the Gram's deadly ballet, each pull of the trigger as effortless as a breath she wasn't taking. Every millisecond became a lifetime, every shot a symphony of devastation, her focus so complete it bordered on the transcendent.
In this momentary flow-state, Thea's world narrowed until it was just her and the Gram, dancing a waltz of death across the frenzied battlefield. Targets presented themselves in her scope only to be immediately and effortlessly cleansed of their sin of existence; nobody on her list escaped her deadly harvest.
Then, as quickly as it began, her heightened Perception waned, [Sensory Overdrive] releasing its exhilarating but exhausting grip on her senses. While the duration of her Ability was measured in less than a second, the toll it took on her, physically, whenever she tried to take full advantage of it, was brutal. She took a sharp breath, as if surfacing from underwater, suddenly aware of the sweat trickling down her brow.
As she took that sharp breath, Thea quickly scanned the area, taking in the extent of the damage she had wrought.
Over thirty bodies lay scattered across the compound, like broken toys abandoned on a playground. Nine of them were Duplicators, their lifeless forms lying alongside the shattered duplicates they had spawned. It was a grim picture, painted by the efficiency and ruthlessness of her [Sensory Overdrive].
Chaos had truly been unleashed within the compound.
Shouted orders reverberated through the air, tinged with a palpable sense of urgency and disbelief. Soldiers scrambled for cover, crouching behind anything they could find—crates, walls, even the bodies of their fallen comrades. Squads mobilised from the pre-fab buildings, their faces etched with confusion and fear, rushing to shore up the breached wall.
Despite the turmoil, some of the soldiers managed to send a volley of return fire in her general direction. But their shots were woefully off-target, veering away from her perch. Her pre-deployed nanobot swarm had done its job well, scattering the incoming light and misdirecting sensors, obfuscating her precise location.
Her focus returned just in time to identify two more Duplicators among the remaining combatants that fit her target profile: Lightly armoured and with guns she did not want levelled against her squadmates or herself.
With clinical precision, she sent two more shots from her Gram, adding them to the list of casualties. Just as she adjusted her position for a new target, a second explosion erupted from the far side of the wall—where Einor and Morin had been lying in wait.
The new explosion reverberated through the air, a potent mix of power and incandescence, underscored by the uniquely blue hue of Morin's plasma charges.
This second explosion was far removed from the breach Viladia had made, opening up an entirely new front in the compound's defences. While Viladia's breach and Thea’s sniping had already thrown the enemy into disarray, this second rupture in their defensive wall added another layer of chaos, leaving the Stellar Republic's soldiers even more disoriented and stretched thin.
The compound had descended into utter pandemonium by now, setting the stage for Einor and Morin to storm through their freshly-created breach, their weapons firing relentlessly.
For a brief, beautiful moment, Thea allowed herself the smallest of smiles.
Somehow, everything they had planned out for this mission had worked, down to the last bit.
‘I guess, sometimes, plans do work just as laid out,’ she thought, before squeezing the trigger of her Gram once more, sending another laser into the head of a soldier attempting to return fire in Einor and Morin’s direction.
Einor stayed in close proximity to Morin, using the hulking Marine’s Heavy-type armour as a mobile shield. Every so often, Einor would pop out from behind Morin's bulk to take precise shots at incoming soldiers, his aim unerring even in the frenetic atmosphere.
Morin, on the other hand, was a walking engine of destruction.
His Shard-Array gun roared to life again and again, sending a 6x6 grid of razor-sharp, rapidly-moving shards ripping through the enemy ranks. Soldiers caught in the weapon’s devastating arcs were turned into gory, unrecognisable messes of flesh and armour.
The two of them advanced like a well-oiled machine, seamlessly complementing each other's moves as they closed the distance to the artillery trucks. Thea couldn’t help but be impressed with their teamwork, especially considering that Einor was not part of Morin’s usual special squad.
The duo made a tactical pause behind one of the prefab buildings, hunkering down as they exchanged fire with several soldiers. Just as it seemed they were about to be pinned down by a small army of ever increasing numbers of duplicates, Thea squeezed the trigger of her Gram three times in quick succession and eliminated the Duplicators she figured were responsible.
Much to her elation, the duplicates in question collapsed into lifeless husks immediately, clearing the path for Morin and Einor.
They resumed their relentless advance towards the artillery trucks, but just as Thea thought they were home free, a burst of gunfire erupted from a blind spot in her field of view. Morin grunted as bullets ripped into his heavy armour. Thea felt her heart drop into her stomach at the sight—she was utterly helpless to assist her injured squadmate from her vantage point.
Seemingly ignoring the, undoubtedly, searing pain, Morin returned fire with ruthless efficiency, and the assailants were silenced. As they moved on, Einor quickly pulled a syringe-like device from his utility belt, injecting its contents into Morin's neck. Whatever it was, it seemed to stabilise him enough to keep moving at full speed.
The feeling of helplessness still gnawed at Thea as she watched the pair press on. She couldn't shake the thought that even a sniper's eye had its blind spots, and for that brief moment, her limitations had been brutally exposed.
As if the universe itself tried to add insult to injury, Thea had to watch powerlessly as another round of gunfire erupted from behind one of the prefabs.
This time the bullets found Einor, piercing through his medium armour and sending him sprawling to the ground in a painful arc.
Morin whirled around, his Shard-Array gun roaring once more as he riddled the unseen assailants with a hailstorm of lethal shards, silencing them for good. He then moved to hoist Einor back to his feet, but after Einor immediately slumped to the ground again, his legs unable to support his body any longer, he gestured urgently toward the artillery trucks and forcefully pushed Morin away. It was a clear command: "Go on without me."
Thea's scope danced frantically over the incoming wave of duplicates, her finger twitching on the trigger as she searched for the Duplicators controlling them. Her heart raced; every fibre in her being screamed to save Einor who was firing back at the approaching duplicates from his prone position. She took aim and fired, dropping duplicates where they stood again and again, unable to locate any of the original Duplicators in time.
The situation continued to deteriorate with agonising speed.
Despite Einor's valiant efforts from the ground, gunfire still found him. Rounds pierced his armour, and each impact elicited a visible wince from the fallen soldier. Thea felt a tight knot form in her stomach as she continued to provide cover fire, but it was as if fate had set its odds against them.
For every duplicate she and Einor managed to take down, another seemed to take its place, and he was hit again, and again. It was a nightmare unfolding in slow motion, and all Thea could do was watch, while desperately trying to find the Duplicators responsible.
Finally, after what seemed like an eternity but was only a matter of seconds, Einor's body stilled, having absorbed more than a dozen punishing shots.
Frustrated with the situation and herself for being unable to do anything for Einor, she mercilessly mowed down the duplicates in her sight while muttering, “Fuck! Fuck, fuck, fuck! Fucking Stellar Republic! Fucking Duplicator bullshit! Fuck!”
With a mixture of rage, helplessness, and an aching sorrow, even as her trained instincts kept her finger pulling the trigger, Thea forced herself to re-focus on the mission at hand. She was a sniper, trained to change the course of battles from a distance, yet in this moment, that distance felt like an insurmountable chasm that had prevented her from saving her squadmate.
A soft chime from her Gram signalled the emptying of her first capacitor magazine. Swiftly, she replaced it, eyes never straying from Morin through her scope.
He had successfully navigated into the pit containing the artillery trucks and eliminated the three Duplicators who had pursued him. Now, he was a mere dozen metres from his objective when a fresh swarm of duplicates began firing at him from behind the furthest truck.
In a display of surprising agility for such a large man, Morin dropped onto his back and glided across the ground to evade the gunfire. As Thea prepared to see him rise and continue, he accelerated while still in his sliding posture.
"Wait, what?" Thea momentarily lost her composure, then realised that Morin was using his signature Ability.
He had explained before that his Ability granted him control over the earth around him as long as he was in contact with it through at least one hand, but the thought of using it in such a way had never even crossed her mind.
"He's propelling himself forwards with his Ability," Thea muttered, awestruck. The sheer quick-wittedness required to utilise his power in such an innovative way, especially in a critical life-or-death moment, was nothing short of staggering.
Snapping out of her momentary astonishment, Thea resumed her hunt for any Duplicators near Morin, to try and clear his path towards the rest of the trucks.
It had become glaringly obvious to the Stellar Republic that she was targeting the originals, pinpointing them with an unsettling accuracy. Unsurprisingly, not a single Duplicator dared to reveal themselves within Morin's vicinity. Duplicates, however, continued to pour toward the artillery trucks from all directions, leaving Thea no choice but to shift her focus.
With surgical precision, she started picking off the duplicates, each shot finding its mark without fail. Despite her unerring aim and rapid rate of fire, her efforts felt futile as the torrent of duplicates showed no signs of diminishing.
Suddenly, the ground quaked beneath her, the vibration accompanied by a tremendous explosion that tore through the southwestern sector of the compound.
This time, the explosion was not caused by another breach, but rather aimed towards obliterating the Stellar Republic's communications station. It was an awe-inspiring spectacle of raw power as a massive fireball erupted into the sky, leaving nothing but a smoky crater where the vital infrastructure once stood.
For a brief moment, some of the enemy soldiers seemed to freeze, stunned by the loss of their strategic asset.
Seizing the momentary lapse in their focus, Thea picked off a cluster of duplicates with swift, deadly shots. Each pull of her Gram's trigger evaporated a head or burned a hole through a chest, reducing the threat, if only temporarily.
Down in the pit, Morin took advantage of the distraction to place his first set of charges on the artillery truck he was using for cover. His movements were swift and efficient, showing his years of experience with handling these types of explosives.
A fleeting thought of Viladia passed through Thea's mind, ‘I hope she’ll make it out alright.’
Just as she allowed herself that brief moment of concern, it was as if the universe had heard her silent plea. A line of duplicates quickly formed a human barrier at the breach points, as if to lock the compound down from the inside, weapons at the ready. Even for a stealth expert like Viladia, a full line of duplicates was likely impossible to get through without being noticed.
Frustration welled up in Thea as she glared at the Stellar Republic's tactics.
"Seriously?! That Faction Trait is straight up stupid!" She muttered, irate at the overwhelming advantage it seemed to afford them in this situation.
As if to make matters worse, just when she shifted her focus back to Morin's situation, a fresh wave of duplicates descended into the pit from the same direction Morin had come, effectively sneaking up behind him.
Unable to help both of her squadmates at the same time, Thea had to make a quick and calculating decision: To guarantee Viladia’s escape or to help Morin accomplish the mission?
The answer was as obvious as it was painful…