May 1, 2035

18:18 Central Time

Kentucky Countryside

Van felt a smidge of embarrassment for her outburst, but it rapidly disappeared under the weight of professional disgust. It still baffled, and deeply offended her, that such ancient, knowledgeable and powerful beings acted like mages straight out of a video game. Particularly stupid ones at that.

The disgust faded into the background as the Avatar dove for cover in the room opposite Byte and she focused on the fight ahead of them. It had to be an ethereal's Avatar based off the specimen in Tygan's lab combined with the off the wall psionic energy readings. The head scientist gave voice to her thought, his voice held equal parts of horror and awe. "While we've never seen one in the field, or had reports from the Resistance on a being like this… I do believe that we're facing one of the Avatars."

Shieldmaiden muttered, "No shit, doc," as she fired her storm gun in response to the movement. The shot didn't hit the alien, but the wave of plasma did blow the shit out of the wall around the doorway and set the whole thing ablaze. Well, that was one way to redecorate the place. As well as create a larger opening to see the newest enemy.

The alien responded by blasting the ranger with a surge of raw psionic energy, slamming her through the wall behind her into the room where Byte had taken refuge. If it weren't for the system showing the ranger's vitals were still strong, Van would've worried that Shieldmaiden had gotten killed, not merely knocked out.

Byte returned fire on the Avatar, the lance of green energy pierced the armor over the creature's shoulder. It screamed in pain as it vanished in a burst of violet light. Van pursed her lips in thought, she wasn't entirely surprised that the thing could teleport, in fact it was something that had been anticipated. The real questions, among other things, were what kind of range did it have and could it bring anything else in? It was also a little disturbing to see that the plasma rifle did so little damage. Was it the armor? Or was the thing that tough?

Over the comms Cyber heaved a put upon sigh as he sent his gremlin over to the unconscious Shieldmaiden. "Initiating Revival Protocol on Shield."

"Menace 1-5, we have a teleporter, you know what to do. And thank you, Cyber."

Hot on the heels of the team's acknowledgements, Central notified her that the Skirmishers were going to provide support and she absently thanked them both. Van eyed their condition a little dubiously, but couldn't deny that they would need the numbers for this target. Which made her wonder just where did the fucker go anyway? The sensors were still scanning for it, but hadn't located it.

Prophet shouted as he fired his rifle. "It's over here!"

The room he found it in was just two doors up the hall from the first room it had taken shelter in. Van frowned a bit, it appeared that the Avatar had teleported in a straight line. There were so many questions about that particular tactic, but she had to focus on the fight her people were in.

The alien avoided the psi-operative's shot then raised a clenched fist wreathed with psionic energy so densely concentrated that normally bright violet color was almost black. It flung the ball of energy in Prophet's direction.

Even though the psi-operative reflexively ducked down, it did nothing to protect him from the ensuing blast. The area of effective was larger than the codex's psi-bomb as a swirling vortex with a void at its heart opened up to catch Defcon and Cyber besides Prophet.

The vortex caused the surrounding area of the structure to vanish as if it had never existed. The ominous groans from the rest of the building made Van wonder how long it would remain standing. Horrified gasps echoed throughout Mission Control, but she wasn't surprised.

After all, if the shielding in the psi-lab hadn't been reinforced during her activation process, the Avenger would've been wrecked. So it would only make sense for something like that to be able to do even more damage.

No, if anything the Avatar was underpowered by her expectations.

The alien voiced a hollow, mocking laugh before it teleported again. Well, that was fucking annoying. So it was toying with them then.

The squad scrambled out of the swirling mass, Cyber dramatically jumping out of a window in his escape, while the other two just hustled out of the area as quickly as possible down the hall toward the main door. The rest of the squad quietly filed out of the opening that Cyber had so conveniently left behind him.

The two Skirmishers that were still combat ready were on the roof above the main door with a smoking shell of a turret next to them. The display marked the location of their wounded compatriots for extraction once the mission was over. Kali, a normally silent woman, spoke in an unexpectedly melodious voice. "Commander, we will draw out the False God."

That was not part of the plan. "Not necessary."

"It is the most efficient method."

The Commander started to grind her teeth, then stopped after she remembered what happened the last time she did that. She didn't need to deal with the pain of shattering teeth that regrew as they got broke and the resulting mess. However, she did grit her teeth as she replied, "Very well."

Kali removed her helmet, flung it to the side then leaped down to the ground. Mutters of disbelief filled Mission Control, but everyone wisely avoided eye contact with Van when the Skirmisher flung her hands up in the air. "I know you can hear me, False One! Come get me if you dare! Coward!"

Van swallowed back her curse at the theatrics, she was going to kill Kali herself if the idiot survived this.

The Avatar teleported in front of the Skirmisher with another dramatic light display. It said something unintelligible in the aliens' language as it reached out with a hand blazing with psionic energy.

A lance of emerald energy slammed into its head and blew out the back of the skull. The lifeless body was flung backwards by the force of the shot.

"Good work, Slinger." She'd had the sniper position herself at the maximum distance of her gun in the attempt to avoid any psionic detection. The Commander had told her people to lure any teleporters out to the front of the building, but hadn't expected her people to go to the lengths that they did. Which was more than a little stupid on her part since she knew how crazy her people were.

"Of course, Boss Lady. They just needed to set it up so I could knock it down."

Kali stalked over to the body to stare down at it as Menace 1-5 regrouped nearby. She popped out her ripjack then plunged it into the heart of the corpse. A ghostly form of an ethereal emerged and hovered above the gathered soldiers. In a breathy voice it said, "We had such hopes for you."

It vanished with a soft pop.

She ran her hand over her mouth as she thought over the implications. That was some seriously fucked up shit. Not that she was entirely surprised, fucked up shit seemed to be these creatures' specialty.

The psionic storm ended with an implosion that caused that part of the mansion to fall in on itself. Additional creaks and groans hinted at the fact more of the building was likely to collapse. John sighed. "Looks like we need to evac those workers after all. With your permission, the Avenger will move in to assist."

"Of course."

Tygan was full of restless energy during the brief trip to pick up their people out of eagerness to get his hands on the dead Avatar. The head scientist was quietly mumbling to himself at his station over the readings. When Lily went over to talk in hushed tones about her findings, Van couldn't hide her surprise. While the engineer was getting better about working with her scientific counterpart, it was unusual that she'd seek him out on her own in public. It seemed like there were multiple forms of progress going on in her organization.

As that thought went through her mind, the rest of the roof of the mansion caved in on the screen.

All conversation ended abruptly as everyone goggled at the sight. Van rubbed the back of her head as she tried to work up the nerve to ask for a sitrep. It didn't help when John gave her a sideways glance and gestured to his comms in a silent offer.

Defcon's comment over the comms resolved her dilemma. "Hoo-ey! Look at that thing go! Good thing we got everyone out beforehand."

There was a collective sigh of relief as all activity resumed. "Thank you for acting so quickly."

Byte was the one who answered. "When we saw how that psionic storm was destroying that part of the mansion, we were worried that the rest would go."

"Good thinking. We'll be there in a couple of minutes." She spared a glance at her display. "So far the sensors are still clear and there doesn't appear to be any reinforcements heading in your direction."

"I should hope there aren't. I fixed the systems here right and proper to make sure nothing got out. Until we jacked that Codex."

Byte didn't say anything further, but Van knew they were both worried about what the ethereal may have told the rest of its people before it popped up due to the hacking event.

Just as a precautionary measure to satisfy that niggling itch, Van geared up after the report so that she could survey the area with her own senses. John didn't say anything when he did the same. He didn't have to.

It wasn't paranoia when most of the world was after you.

They finished gearing up just as the Avenger landed so they proceeded directly to the exit ramp rather than return to Mission Control. The support personnel were out and moving before them to collect the casualties and the all important specimen.

"So this is what they've been building towards," John commented quietly, his voice troubled.

"Yes. This one didn't seem prepared for us, but in the future…"

He frowned. "Do we even have a chance against something like this?"

"Yes! We do, because we'll be prepared for them too. Hopefully Tygan will be able to figure out more about them after he studies this one." She still wasn't sure why the scientist had chosen to keep the living blank slate as is, but there were some things Van just wasn't ready to know the answers to.

He gave her a light nudge with his elbow with a ghost of a smile. "And you wonder why you're the Commander?"

Van just shook her head at him and they were silent the rest of the short walk.

Even with the built in mindshield in her helmet, it still felt like walking into a wall of mental static as they got close to the wreckage due to the amount of raw psionic energy that had been unleashed. John shook his head. "That's one seriously uncomfortable feeling. You okay?"

"Yeah, but I don't want to hang around for too long."

"Be surprised if anyone wants to stick around for long."

She just nodded her agreement, then frowned at the Avatar's corpse as it was carried by them. A thought struck her. What she could do with that kind of power. It was a chilling idea. The ethereals were knowledgeable and powerful, but they didn't have much creativity. The destroyed mansion was an example. There were so many other ways of dealing with the situation the alien could have taken, but instead it'd gone for crude brute force.

John's gentle nudge broke into her brooding. "Penny for your thoughts, Van?"

She gave him a thin smile. "I doubt they're worth that much. Besides, do pennies even exist still?"

"Oh, I suspect there's still plenty floating around in people's collections. And don't try to sidetrack me, I can tell when you're starting to overthink something."

He chuckled quietly at the face she made.

The Avenger's AI interrupted them as it shrilled, "Intruder Alert! Intruder Alert! Incoming hostile forces!"

Athena didn't have to look up for very long to realize that the incoming hostiles could only be Valen's god damned Archon King with an escort of "normal" archons. That much mobile artillery posed a major hazard to the Avenger and the precious cargo that had just been loaded, so she did the only thing she could think of.

First she teleported Bradford back to Mission Control even as she barked out over the comms, "Avenger. Initiate sequence Golf Three Tango Foxtrot Zero Zero Hotel. Priority Alpha."

"Acknowledged, Commander. Executing emergency takeoff."

Bradford's snarl came through her earpiece loud and clear despite the thunder of the engines. "What. The. Fuck. Van?"

She regretted that she'd upset him that badly and hoped he'd let her find a way to make it up to him later, but she had to face this. Her gaze remained fixed on the flying aliens and readied her shotgun. "Not now, Central. I'll let you know it's safe to retrieve us."

Then she ran for cover, ready for one hell of a fight as she ignored the increasingly shrill demands for her to undo the lockout. By the time Shen managed to override her commands the fight would be over one way or another.