Per Light and Lucifer's plans, they had successfully knocked down the communication lines at the wall. This would slow the response that the government had to their break in. It was the perfect situation where City M's walls were being attacked on both sides.
Aida grabbed Xiao Ai and hopped onto the nearest vehicle, hitching a ride towards the main gate. Everyone was very excited about giving the middle finger to the government and could barely restrain their glee.
In the 5 minutes of time it took for the guards to realize they were approaching and get reinforcements, Aida and the troops had closed the 20 km gap to less than 1 km. The hundreds of vehicles parked near the wall. The guards who still remained at the wall were intimidated by the great number of vehicles. Because it was the dead of the night, they couldn't see the expanse of the vehicles that came with the attack but the sound made them recognize the sheer number of attackers.
Hopping off the vehicle, Aida rubbed her hands together eagerly. The real battle was about to begin.
Gesturing to the others, the troops quickly hopped off their vehicles and cautiously walked closer to the wall. Aida took the lead again which gave everyone the confidence to follow. With Artie's help, they found the thinnest part of the wall.
She directed the troops to begin their operations. Aida's troops didn't have battering rams, but there were many abilities that could be utilized. Per Lucifer's arrangements, the fire elementals would first attack the area, then the water elementals would follow up and immediately cool it. After that, the physical Variants would take turns hitting the wall with their greatest strength. With the elementals weakening the wall and the physical Variants hitting it, it was only a matter of time before they successfully created a hole.
There were still a number of other Variants present. They would all be in charge of guarding and protecting the people drilling the wall. Realizing there were only small gaps in the wall where the soldiers would peek out and shoot at them, Aida directed the remaining elementals to systematically cover the gaps. Wind and flying type abilities helped the others get into position as they directly knocked out the soldiers and created barriers to cover the openings.
The guards behind the wall were not sitting there doing nothing, they had attempted to fire suppressive shots into the crowd only to receive gunshot wounds in return. Not daring to send out any more shots, the elementals continued to create barriers around each of the openings.
Typically such a flimsy tactic wouldn't be nearly as effective. However, there were a number of pre-planned factors that made it possible
The first and most important aspect was that Aida was present. She instilled a huge sense of confidence in everyone, which allowed them to remain orderly even when shots were fired towards them.
The second aspect was the element of surprise. They had managed to remain undetected for most of their approach. The guards had become heavily reliant on technology and believed the drones would alert them the moment anything approached. So when the communication systems break down, they remain completely unprepared.
The third and final aspect were the abilities. While most soldiers had heard about the outbreak and people gaining abilities, very few of them actually experienced any of it. They had never fought people with abilities before and were immediately intimidated. Most people fear the unknown, so their overall morale and ability to think and fight had been lowered significantly.
All these factors came together to create this fortuitously successful attack. The morale among Aida's troops were extremely high as they continued to enthusiastically work at the wall.
Aida, however, maintained a serious look. The trickiest part wasn't the approach, but instead the retreat. She had to plan everything carefully so everyone here would make it back safely.
***
Meanwhile, Lucifer and Ace secretly took a different route with Little White's shielding and Light's illusions. After Xiao Ai knocked down all the cameras in the area, they drove as near as they could to the walls without being spotted in the dark and sneaked into the walls through one of the gaps. With their abilities, preventing themselves from being spotted was a piece of cake. All the attention was placed on Aida and the troops, so even if there were a few anomalies, no one would have noticed a few invisible people climbing over the wall and sneaking into the base.
Inside, they found the entire wall base in chaos. The layout was much more primitive than they had expected. Aside from the giant and sturdy wall, there were only tents with signs labelling where and what everything was. Since they lacked information, they would just have to wander around until they found the right place.
Their main objective was to bring Ace into a place where he could hack into the network. Since there were backup generators and a missile defense system stationed at this wall, Ace was sent in ahead of time to prevent any weapons from being deployed and to take down the system for a second time. Ace and the others had stayed out of range from the EMP, so he still had a fully functional laptop to work with.
While they could continue to stay invisible with Little White's help, it wasn't as convenient since people would notice every time the dust on the floor got kicked up, mysterious footprints showed up in the sand or if the tent flapped open on it's own. Instead, Lucifer and Light took the initiative to knock out some guards before stuffing them into a few trash cans nearby. Light also injected them with sedatives so they would stay passed out for the next 5-8 hours.
There were no closets to stuff them in, so they just stuffed all the bodies into garbage cans. With the chaotic situation, no one would worry about taking out the trash for some time. Putting on the new clothes, they all stepped out of the tent and began to walk around the wall base, trying to get their bearings. The clock was ticking. The longer they took, the more dangerous it would be for Aida and the others.