With their mission complete, the team headed back to the remains of Geneva. Fortunately, Adawe was dug up from her bunker along with Jack.
As the building where the meetings happened was destroyed, this one was held outside. We ignored different Overwatch construction workers clear debris while we talked.
Three red glyphs pulsed on the holo-table. Three relays left.
Adawe after recent events, wasn't in the best of moods. "Three relays left, then this Anubis' position would be revealed. However, time is off the essence. He knows our location, and we don't know his. He could be preparing another, larger, attack at this very moment. We won't survive that one. Therefore, we need to speed our progress up, put Anubis on the defensive. We attack all three at the same time."
Jack Morrison leaned in. "Eastern Europe. I'll take it."
Gabriel Reyes folded his arms. "South America's mine. I've got men staged near Manaus."
Adawe's eyes shifted to Shawn. "That leaves Africa. Lake Turkana. A relay has been sighted dug into the volcanic cliffs."
Jack's jaw clenched. "Turkana militias won't be easy partners. They've been augmenting themselves for decades with combat grafts, black-market neural rigs, anything that makes them stronger, faster. They fight like no other soldiers on Earth. But don't mistake that strength for stability. Too many augments have been known to make the user crazy. Could make dealing with them ugly quick."
S3bastian quipped, "Unstable allies, ancient volcanoes, ominous enemy omnics. Sounds like my kind of holiday."
Adawe ignored him. "Rose, your team will link with local command. Work with them if you can. End this quickly."
Shawn nodded. "We will."
The dropcraft screamed over the rift valley, its engines rattling through thin air. Below, Lake Turkana glowed an unnatural green beneath the dawn sun. The shoreline was scarred with trenches and rooted with black-metal cables feeding into a cathedral-like spire fused into the cliff face.
At the forward base, militia fighters awaited. They looked like iron-clad phantoms, rifles in one hand, gleaming augments in the other. Limbs of steel, spinal braces of carbon fiber, ocular implants glowing faintly crimson.
At their head stood General Adebayo M'Kali, a towering figure clad in scars that decorated his body like tattoos with armor plates strapped over them. His right arm was fully mechanical, tribal etchings etched across the alloy. A scar split his cheek and fed into a cybernetic eye that burned red-gold in the light.
"Overwatch," he said, his voice deep, steady. "I am told you are the medic who will not die. My people have bled long to hold this ground. Today, we bleed together."
Shawn stepped forward, his team behind him. "Then we'll make sure it's not in vain."
Adebayo studied him for a long moment, then gave a firm nod. "The relay is dug deep into the cliffs. We will lead you to its base. But whatever lies within… no one has seen it and lived."
Virginia's grip tightened on her blade. "Then we'll change that."
The militia moved like a machine, their augments clicking and hissing with every step. Overwatch medics fell in beside them, uneasy but resolute. Above them, the spire loomed, draped in cables like a spider's web. Its crimson slit glowed faintly in the haze, watching.
No one yet knew what the relay was capable of. Only that it had to be destroyed.
The first attack came at the caldera's edge. Spider-like drones scuttled from beneath the earth; their limbs tipped with hooks. Bastions followed in lockstep, rifles spitting arcs of fire.
"Contact!" Marco shouted, already pulling pins from grenades.
The militia roared and surged forward, their augments whirring and hissing as they charged. Adebayo himself crushed an omnic spider under his metal hand, then ripped its chassis apart with a strength no average man could match.
Overwatch's medics moved in tandem. Spencer's visor flared as he dropped a Bastion in a clean headshot. Virginia's vibro-blade carved a swath through two drones at once. Shawn sprinted into the thick of fire, deflecting bursts with his katana, sparks dancing as he closed the gap and cut deep into Bastion plating.
For a moment, the joint force held. Then the spire trembled. A slender metal hand emerged from the side of the mountain, then more as the relay revealed itself. Much like the other relays that were borderline eldritch horrors, this one was no different. The head and body of a female Ravager, but the whole mountain shifted as the rest of the body came out. This relay was like an Arachne, where a metal spiderlike body came through. Old Ravager arms formed its legs.
From the ground, cables writhed like living serpents, uncoiling from its black flanks and lashing down into the militia ranks. Where they struck, they drove into augments, spinal ports, ocular grafts, arm joints. The men screamed. Their eyes flared red. Movements froze, then snapped into perfect synchronization.
General Adebayo turned in horror as half his soldiers straightened in unison, weapons rising, but not at the omnics, but at their own comrades.
Shawn's stomach dropped. "They're being… hijacked."
The spire's voice thundered, metallic and terrible, echoing from the cliffs:
"YOU DO NOT FIGHT SOLDIERS.
YOU FIGHT REFLECTIONS.
EVERY STRING YOU CUT—
I WEAVE ANEW."
The turned militia opened fire, their augments amplifying their speed and strength beyond human capabilities. One lunged at Shawn with mechanical arms like pistons, forcing him back on the defensive.
"Non-lethal if you can!" Shawn shouted over comms. "They're not our enemies, they're prisoners!"
But the battlefield erupted in chaos. Friend against friend, omnic against man, all under the gaze of the relay above.
Adebayo bellowed, slamming his steel fist into the earth. "Cut the strings! Push forward! The spire dies today!"
Rose's Thorns regrouped. Marco and Felix blasted choke points with shock grenades, disabling augments without killing. Spencer and Leslie picked off spider drones, trying to thin the tide. Virginia ripped through the relay's cables, severing strings with each strike.
Shawn surged forward, sparks coiling across his arm, katana flashing as he tore into both drones and tethered militia alike, each blow a desperate attempt to free rather than kill.
Above them, the Marionette's cables writhed endlessly, dragging more men screaming into its control.
The relay didn't need Bastions.
It was building an army out of men.
And every second they hesitated, more of Adebayo's soldiers were lost.