After a few hours of walking and several miles of empty desert, Plastique checked her computer. It was about four hours until sunrise and they were about halfway to the safehouse. At the pace they were making, they'd be there with plenty of time to spare. Reaching the advance base would mean shelter, food, and new equipment and intel to help them on their objective. Now she just needed to make sure they reached the safe house intact. Deadshot took the lead, zooming in with his visor every so often to make sure they were alone. The desert was clear around them, no life bigger than a lizard for leagues. Part of him itched for some action, a pretty large part. Deadshot only felt really alive when he was close to death. To most, feeling that way would have been troubling, to Floyd Lawton it was just a fact of life. Deadshot checked their surroundings again and found nothing. But there was that familiar feeling. A sinking in his gut that told him that things were about to get messy, and fast. It was very rarely wrong. 

Deadshot scanned the desert again looking for any traces of movement or heat. He didn't find anything out of the ordinary. He swept the area around them again and then he saw it. The desert was cold at this hour and there were no heat signs showing anything living beyond the members of the squad. Deadshot looked at Freeze and noted that in thermal vision, the metahuman had an extremely low temperature. But it was still higher than the cold sand. And when he noticed that he then noticed that there were several cold spots that were both too cold to be normal life signs but too warm to be nothing. And there were dozens of them all around them. 

Deadshot opened his mouth to shout a warning when suddenly the cold spots flared into warmth and the ground exploded around them. Dozens of black clad figures jumped in the air, wielding melee weapons of every conceivable variety. Deadshot raised his rifle and immediately put a round through one of the ninjas and the man jerked to the ground, his rifle fired in several single shots that sounded like automatic fire. More and more ninjas were knocked out of the air and lay still. But more kept coming on all sides. Plastique raised her shotgun and blew two away at the same time, sending their flaming corpses flying. Cavalier drew a dagger and it flew into a man's throat. His swords came out and he skewered another ninja before four fell on him at the same time, and the swordsman fought them all off with his blades. 

Amygdala roared and began charging through the dark clad ninjas while Luftballon stood still and raised his hands. Several of the assassins clutched their heads and screamed as Luftballon's microwave emissions melted their insides. Javelin created an energy spear and threw it, managing to impale three of the assassins before he created another spear and began holding off several attackers with his gleaming staff. One Checkmate soldier cried out as he was run through with a sword but his killer was blown away by another trooper and the survivors began laying down automatic fire. Though they must have killed more than a dozen of them in the first moments of the fight, more and more kept coming.  Another Checkmate soldier was riddled with throwing knives and crumpled to the ground. Plastique blew a hole through one man's stomach and the stock of the shotgun against another man's head, hitting him with enough force to snap his neck. Cavalier chopped the head off of one of his attackers but the rest pressed their assault and it was all he could do to keep from getting stabbed or slashed. Deadshot's arm guns fired and several men dropped but the rest managed to close into melee distance. 

Lawton dodged a swipe and blew the man's head off at close range. He grabbed the body and blocked the next attack, killing the next man by shooting through his meat shield. The situation was bad. There were outnumbered five to one and surrounded on all sides. It was a classic ambush and some part of his mind wondered how the hell these assassins knew they would be here. But he knew it didn't matter right now, they just needed to survive. Seven ninjas jumped forward at Freeze from all sides with swords raised while five charged Beast at the same time. Four ninjas came at Ambush Bug, three with swords while one hung back to fling a dagger at him. Another dozen came at Kommand'r and the Bug-eyed Bandit all of them with knives and swords ready to kill them.