It only took my squad of ten half an hour to get ready.
I was only taking ten as it was a reasonable number of people to help facilitate that amount of people while also being low profile.
It took us even less time to get to downtown Montreal.
My squad has grown accustomed to being more stealthy as their duties shifted from rescue and retrieval to scouting and strategizing.
Should we alert any Omnic of our presence, we could be sure to be fighting an entire army.
We took a stratoscopther outside the city to avoid detection.
The entrance to the tunnel was a river that dried out long ago.
The team carefully navigated the tunnels even though it was basically a straight shot to the center of the mall.
I was ahead with my secondary officer who would take over in case something happened to me.
Trailing a few meters behind was a group of three who made sure we weren't being followed.
Anxiousness was clear among the team for good reason.
Should we mess up, we were guaranteed dead.
After ten minutes of walking, the secondary holds up his fist, signalling for us to pause.
I peek over his shoulder and see a metal fence leading to a room with a locked metal door.
We file into the room allowing our third member to take the lead as he begins to quietly pick the lock.
As the door softly clicks open and he falls back behind me as the secondary opens the door and begins to clear the room.
It's where the garbage disposal is which has a pungent smell due to neglect.
Ignoring the smell, we continued cautiously as we had no idea we were too late.
The mall is huge, so to cover more ground, I was going to separate us into groups.
As I open my mouth to relay these orders, a noise is heard not too far from the garbage room where we just exited snapping all our guns towards it.
The secondary and third positions advance slowly aiming towards the noise anxiously.
Just as they get close, a man walks around the corner, pulling up his pants.
Seeing the two guns aimed at him, he gasps in surprise throwing his hands up and his hands drop to the ground.
"I was only peeing I swear." He exclaims.
Rolling his eyes the secondary responds, "We're to evacuate you guys to safety you dolt. Where are the others?"
His eyes grow wide as he becomes more erratic, "Oh my god. Oh my god, you guys actually came to help. I'll take you to everyone."
He takes us to the center of the mall where a mass of people are gathered.
One of our squad leaders approaches me and explains that they found a shelter where most of these people were originally hiding.
They were immediately spotted by omnics and were chased until somehow they lost them by hiding in the mall.
Here they remained for three days surviving off of the food leftover before the war but things were looking grim as they were running low on water and other supplies.
"We have men posted on all entrances and exits but there have been no sightings of any omnics within the three days we've been here, Captain."
My mind processed what he just said.
Omnics before the war were independent thinkers and dumb would not be a word I could use to describe a single one.
I lacked information to know how omnics worked in this war, but it was really suspicious that there wasn't any that came to investigate the most obvious place a group of this size would hide.
Over my radio I hear, "Captain Chase comes in."
Touching my ear I respond, "Go ahead."
In a slightly panicked voice I hear, "We got movement all around the mall. It seems we've been found out."
My breath catches as I hear the one thing I don't want to hear.
Major Campbell's words echo through my mind of getting blood on my hands if something goes wrong.
Regaining my composure, I turn to my secondary and start issuing orders.
"There's about 100 people here with multiple tunnels leading to different safe spots among the city.
You. Go with him and take a group of 25 to the east tunnel."
I split the team up into groups and sent them to separate tunnels to increase their chances of escaping.
WIth the remaining soldiers we head to the entrance to give everyone as much time as possible.
Preparing to face an onslaught on Bastion units, I'm surprised when a lone omnic stands in our way.
It's a new type of omnic, a tall orange quadruped with a huge gun on its right arm and two guns on each side of its head with four eyes.
A soldier next to me steps past, opening fire on the new threat.
He stops after seeing the bullets deflect off the metal of the Omnic.
I looked at his weapon and saw that he was using the standard 5.56mm which would have no effect on even the Bastion units.
The new Omnic raises its gun and opens fire on us in retaliation.
We dive out of the way, but the guy who fired on the Omnic isn't fast enough.
His body is riddled with holes that look like there's lava around the edges as he slowly falls to the ground with a painful expression frozen on his face.
Seeing his face, I snap into action, pulling out my railgun and begin to charge it.
The Omnic notices me and begins firing in my direction but thanks to my cybernetics I can manage to outmaneuver it's slow concentrated fire.
It stops momentarily as it readjusts it's aim to where I'm about to be.
I slide, letting the bullets pass over me as I level the railgun at its body.
Pulling the trigger, I can feel the recoil of the railgun that would normally snap the arms of any one else.
My cybernetic arms keep the rail gun in place as the charged shot tears through the Omnic, launching it towards the wall.
It crashes, landing in a heap as the light fades from its eyes.
Standing to my feet, I could hear the silent cheers from the squad as the moral rose with how easily the new threat was dispatched.
Our victory was shortlived as the main doors to the mall were shattered and a wave of Bastion units and several more of that new Omnic push through.
We begin to trade fire as we head to the nearest tunnel on the left.
We have little choice but to use anything we have near us as cover as we each dart out as fast as we can to the next cover.
While making our way there, I don't fail to notice the occasional yelp as someone gets shot.
Lucky for us, the door leading to the tunnel was around a corner, allowing us to hold the position.
Unfortunately, it needed to be unlocked.
No one has the expertise to try to quickly pick the lock so I get near the door, raising my leg.
Kicking the door clear off its hinges, I usher my other squad members to go in while providing covering fire.
As my squad files into the tunnel, I hear over my headset, "Captain Chase, they're all over the tunnels. Were being pushed back to you! We're surrounded!"
I immediately turn to some of my squad who entered the tunnel to tell them to retreat.
Four glowing eyes appear from the darkness of the tunnel as a row of the new Omnic step forward opening fire.
The flaming bullets tear through four of my men who never stood a chance as they continue towards the one guy frozen at the door.
Without hesitation, I push him out the way as one of the bullets tears through my side, causing me to fall to the ground in pain.
When I fall the right side of my head hits a rock which makes me see stars.
I blink as pain permeates throughout my body and I notice my vision on my right side is static as I realize I broke the cybernetic in that eye.
The tunnels were supposed to be our means of escape, but it allowed the omnics to flank us.
If this keeps up, we'll all be led back to the center where we have no choice but to hold.
We could probably hold for at least 15 minutes but it wouldn't matter.
The sounds of gunfire and shouts for help can be heard all across the mall as I stand to my feet painfully while raising my railgun.
Our only hope was to focus all our attention on a tunnel and push.
The first person would no doubt be a sacrifice as we had no idea when we would encounter any Omnics, which is why I would take the lead.
The picture of Bonnie on a hospital bed and a respirator flashes through my mind as I raise a hand to my ear.
Suddenly I notice all the Omnics turn to the left as they stop firing on us.
Confused I dare a peek to see what attracted their attention and deadpan.
A wave of walking turrets come through the front door of the mall that rain continuous fire on the Omnics.
The Bastion units return fire but are easily overcome by the onslaught of bullets from the walking turrets.
As the turrets continue forward clearing out the Bastions, a small figure emerges from the front of the mall.
It's a small man with yellow mutton chops in a blue uniform.
Behind him is a taller blonde man carrying a rifle over his shoulder in the same blue uniform.
Followed by a shorter figure in a back suit and a horned mask also carries an assault rifle and a larger man with the same suit wearing a cat mask.
I don't recognize them as CANSOFCOM operatives so I approached them.
"Thanks for the save, but I need you guys to identify yourselves."
The tall blonde man speaks up.
"I'm Jack Morrison and this is Chief Engineer Torbjorn Lindholm and these two are..."
The shorter one in the suit presses the side of his mask to reveal a young dark skinned face with white hair.
"Bioshock, but you can call me Shawn Rose."
He extends a hand which I shake as the taller one in the cat mask speaks.
"My name is S3bastian, but you can call me Supreme Overlord, meat."
I don't shake his extended hand.
"We're members of an organization formed end this war. Overwatch."
"Not those two though." Torbjorn says pointing at the two in suits.
"Not those two right now." Shawn says as he puts back on his mask and the horns reappear.
"Whatever, let's get these people to safety and then we'll deal with you after." Jack says.
I agree completely with his statement as I sigh in relief at the backup from a situation that could have been way worse.
With the arrival of this new group and how easily they dealt with the Bastions, I was starting to feel something I never thought I would again.
Hope.