Finding Humanity
Finding Humanity
Finding Humanity
Finding Humanity
by TheSnakeHeater
Summary
After the Xcom base is destroyed in the invasion, a surviving soldier fights on against
overwhelming losses to both him and his trust in humanity. As he continues his fight, he
finds compassion in the most unlikely of places.
Notes
First story I've posted so do me a favor and rip it apart. I'm looking for criticism so I can get
better as this is basically the first thing I've written in around 10 years. Please be polite but
brutal if you would.
That's pretty much it, hope ya like this story fragment of a much longer story I'm writing.
Of Ends and Beginnings
Captain Maxwell “Cupid” Jackson would never forget the day his fears were realized. He had been
assigned to dig into another Exalt cell that had taken root in the Russian state and had managed to
take care of his mission flawlessly. Anybody that would have raised the alarm had been taken care
of with a knife to the back of the skull, or a laser blast from his pistol. All he had left was to be
picked up and brought home with the information he had 'liberated' from them.
When his call for extraction got no response he began to worry that something was wrong. As the
news broke that the nations of Earth had basically rolled over and given up, his only way forward
became very clear. The captain pulled in every favor he had left to get back to the base on his own,
the whole time he was scanning any frequency for information only to find emergency orders and
warnings cycling on every remaining channel. It took him almost two months to get back to the
mainland United States after his mission and he couldn't believe his eyes as he repelled down
through the devastated launch bay.
What he found was a scene straight from a horror movie as he slowly made his way through the
halls with nothing but his pistol's mag light to show the way in the total darkness. Bodies were left
where they had fallen, plasma scoring across most of the wall surfaces, and half the main hanger
door blown off with a series of heavy charges. The massive door fragment had swung down and
crushed one of the interceptor aircraft under it before hitting the ground. As he stalked through the
halls he was met with even more bloody carnage. Both the defenders and alien corpses were piled
near choke points, the defenders having made the invaders pay for every inch they took.
As he grimaced at the staggering death toll his mind did the numbers and he didn't like what he
found, the xcom forces had been outnumbered at least four to one. They still hadn't just given up
unlike the rest of the world seemed to and he had nothing but respect for every single soldier he
found, many of whom were surrounded by deceased alien bodies. He picked through the wreckage
while collecting all the tags from the fallen, his morbid task was made worse by his anger and
sadness the whole time. He refused to move the bodies, the fond memories bidding him to leave
the fallen where they died as a testament to their struggle. After he had finished the sweep of the
upper areas to finish his necessary task, he stored the tags safety and began looking at what was left
of the tomb that had been their base.
It took him a week to clear out the elevator enough for it to move, and another week to power it
using a wrecked generator he salvaged. He mentally thanked Shen for the brush-up lessons in
electrical engineering as they were paying off in dividends now, allowing him to get to the lower
floors. As he made his way deeper into the base he had found less signs of battle, though there was
still plenty of destruction to be found.
He managed to activate one of the thermo-generators again and brute force crack one of the
armories. Inside he found some ballistic and laser weapons he could use, as well as a skeleton suit
that was intact. Packing as much as he could into a large crate, he then dragged it all to the main
lift to store up top.
He decided to check the commander's room after getting to the top, since it was locked down
earlier due to power loss. Inside he found a few reports and bureaucratic documents, nothing to
really peak his interest until he found a small box. It had a small note on it addressed about him,
and inside the box was a Major's insignia as well as a list.
He was to be promoted to Major at the conclusion of the mission he had been sent on to destroy the
Exalt cell he had infiltrated. He had been given approval for the gene mods he volunteered for by
the commander before the base fell as well as being slated for psionic testing as soon as the lab was
ready. The gene lab was mostly automated already, and it would already have had the operation
prepped if his luck held out.
With his next step now obvious, the gunslinger worked his way down to the gene lab on the third
sub-floor and began to survey the damage. Thankfully the gene lab was intact, it simply needed to
be powered up and activated. The next door psionics lab wasn't damaged either, but it also didn't
look entirely finished either. After running some fresh power cables down to the labs, he began
testing their systems. If he was going to be trusting his life to them, he needed to be as sure as he
could be that they wouldn't just fail halfway through.
He decided on the gene work first, as it was the more intrusive procedure from what he
understood. After running as many integrity checks as he could think of he locked down the
elevator. Then he set the system to start on a timer and stripped down. The last thing he
remembered was the cold of the suspension liquids filling the tube and fear creeping up his spine.
The pinch of a needle in the back of his neck suddenly caused the whole world to go black and he
fell into the chilling darkness.
------------
Down in the damaged bowels of the former base, a tone suddenly called out in the dimly lit gene-
lab. With a sudden whirring of gears and machinery, a large glass tube swung out of a cavity in the
back of the lab and began it's way down a belt assembly.
The tube slowly trundled down the path it was on, as it moved it began to empty of the liquid
contents in it, allowing the floating body within to finally rest his feet on the bottom. His eyes
suddenly opened as the machinery began to lift the tube off of it's base and he fell to one knee,
trailing tubes and wires from his arms and back.
With a smile, he stood up to his full height and pulled the offending hardware free from his arms. It
felt amazing and strange to feel a second heartbeat inside his chest, and his skin tingled like
something was tickling him. The newly-minted Major moved forward and used his forward
momentum to pull the two out of his back as well, marveling at the feeling in his skin.
He could feel the whole room even with his eyes closed. It was like if someone had put a shadowy
and glimmering shape on every surface in the room that was using energy. As he flexed his arms
he also felt a slight pulling sensation from his skin, as he looked at them he saw the hairs were
basically pulling in the direction of the electrical systems as well.
He went to the computer system and double checked the data on what changes had been put into
his body. He wanted the notes on how he would be able to use them to the best of his now
augmented abilities. The biggest surprise was the augmented bone marrow, as it was effectively
form of regeneration straight out of a fantasy story. There was also the secondary heart that had
been added as well. That was going to make him very hard to kill coupled with the marrow
augment, and that thought made him smile.
The next plan of action was the psi lab, and he hoped the system was completed enough to actually
function correctly. He ran a basic system check on the machines installed to make sure they had
enough power. Checking the notes for it made it seem pretty similar to the gene modding, it would
work on him over almost two weeks to try to activate any latent psionic abilities. Putting himself
into the strange contraption that looked like a mechanically closed cross, he used the controls he
put on his arm to activate it.
After it closed him into the equipment, some kind of purplish haze was pumped into the inside and
time seemed to twist. The world turned into a colorful blend of confusion and weird visions
causing pain to flash through parts of his mind. As reality turned inside out, he felt the urge to puke
as the world spun him around like a merry-go-round being thrown into the sun. The last thought
going through his head before he blacked out was that something had gone horribly wrong.
------------
With a loud hissing noise the psi testing machine cracked open showing the soldier within barely
holding onto consciousness. Max slumped to the floor and immediately puked onto the unfinished
ground. He simply laid there till reality no longer felt like it was trying to tear him asunder,
breathing carefully to calm himself. He looked around to get his bearings before crawling over to
his kit and sucking down water from his canteen.
The horrible feelings coming from his head made him sick again, but thankfully he was able to
keep the water he drank down. After his brain stopped feeling like it had gone through a blender,
he tried to figure out what exactly had happened. After some tinkering, the best conclusion he
could come to was that the tester hadn't been calibrated correctly. What should have been ten days
of measured exposure to whatever it used to manifest the psi ability ended up being compressed
into two.
With a scratching feeling in his head, a wave of thoughts caused a wave of pain and nausea again
as he dropped to a knee. A bit of dampness hit his lip and a hand came back from his nose with
blood. He could feel something different in himself, and he decided he would work on getting used
to this new power later. With both procedures done he shook off the effects over a quick meal, his
mind drifted to what he was going to do as he packed more gear to take to the upper areas.
He ended up spending a day or two trying to pull data from the main computers. Digging through
the intel was time consuming, large parts of it was encrypted or needed data that was encrypted. He
downloaded any new exalt information he could and then ended up pulling the hard drives from the
system to dig through them later. With that done, he took a break to study what he had found.
Plans began to form as he looked through the data he had on hand, and after finishing his
homework he moved to the hanger to take a look at the sky ranger. It was damaged but seemed
mostly intact, though he would have to find a way to open the other half of the massive hanger
door if he was going to fly it out.
Two days later he had finally fixed the damaged engine that would allow the hanger to fully open,
and had moved onto repairing the skyranger. Thankfully the damage was mostly cosmetic, though
a plasma hit to one of landing gear had necessitated a replacement. He loaded up as much gear and
spare parts as he could and took a final look around at the cold remains of xcom's base before he
took a walk to the memorial wall.
Coming to a stop in front of it, he slowly placed all the dog tags he had collected against the base
of the shrine and made sure they were all flat and able to be read. His final duty finished, he pulled
an alien alloy combat knife out and began scratching a message into the solid surface of the wall.
He reached down, placing his hand to his own set of dog-tags and whispered a short prayer for the
fallen. As he finished his words he simply sheathed his knife before he turned and walked away.
Behind him the lights gleamed off the lightly glowing dog-tags all arranged in rows at the base of
the wall, and the slightly jagged scrawling he had carved into it.
The lights flickered slightly as he left the room, the declaration he left the last bit of evidence he
would leave upon this tomb.
“What we once enjoyed and deeply loved we can never lose, for all that we love deeply becomes
part of us.”
------------
They were in serious trouble as the plasma rounds punched glowing holes in the concrete they were
using as cover. His squad was already down by two members, and the rest were pinned badly. The
mechtoid's shield had blocked their last rocket, causing the explosion to wash over it. It had at least
killed the sectoid that had erected it and caused the mechtoid itself to stumble giving him an
opening. Max took the chance and peeled to the right of it, ducking through cover as he moved
before coming to a rest with his back against a solid concrete pillar.
As he reached down to pull the last two plasma grenades he had off his combat webbing, he heard
a shrill scream that had come from one of his men. The idea of losing more caused a spike of pain
in his chest as he knew another one might not make it home. He pulled off the coverings and
primed both of the grenades at once, the tell tail beep of them having activated feeling wonderful to
his hammering hearts. He heard the amalgamation of machine and flesh move past him, as it
closed the distance a bit more to continue to pour hot plasma over his remaining people.
With a jerk of movement be broke from his cover and charged the large creature even as he yelled
into the comms headset he wore. “Attack now! Dive and Jive people!” He closed the 20 or so feet
between him and mechanical beast in a sprint to make sure even if he was spotted it would be too
late. It didn't even flinch as rifle rounds began peppering it, the shots keeping it's attention focused
on the soldiers to its front.
As it braced itself to began firing again Max finally reached it and quickly got between it's legs,
causing it to finally take notice. He slammed both grenades into the hip joints of the abomination,
their adhesive surface sticking to the metal as it tried to crush him underfoot. Having delivered his
gift, he immediately dived out of the way of the dangerous flailing and rolled as best he could into
any cover he could find.
The double explosion sounded as he rolled into a crater, and the hot fragments of alien metal
peppered the area around him. He checked himself as he stood up and once he was sure he wasn't
missing anything he took a few steps to the downed mechtoid. It was still alive, it's legs were a
ruined mass of twisted metal and one arm was half missing. It began trying to use the damaged arm
to push itself into a position to fire again with it's undamaged one just as he came up next to it, and
the small alien inside twisted around to stare into his eyes.
His heavy revolver flashed from the holster and three shots rang out, signaling the end of the threat.
After returning the pistol to his holster, he sprinted to the mauled concrete the members of his
squad had been using for cover. He caught sight of one of the remaining members and saw she was
in a panic as she clutched the lifeless body of their heavy gunner while the team medic signaled to
him with a sad shake of his head. He dug deep into himself, pulling from the pool in the back of his
mind and making it reach out like a lake.
As he spoke the words flowed from him like a calming river and his Amber eyes had a slight
purple glow behind them, “Mara, we have to go. James is gone and we need to get moving before
the reinforcements get here or we could end up like him.”
He always hated using his psi powers, they made him feel nauseous and often gave him a
migraine. But this wasn't a time to hold back, their lives depended on it. Her face had taken on a
better color by this point, and she took a moment to calm her erratic breathing before she nodded to
him. He knew she would be haunted by this day, but they would survive to fight again. The Major
reached down and took the man's dog-tags quickly before they picked up the bodies and gear, then
they fled into the darkness.
------------
Major Maxwell stared into the blue eyes of his second in command as they watched the movement
of the Advent convoy. Mara was solid as hell, but even she showed a touch of fear as the
realization set in. Advent had gotten wind of them and were spread out through the area looking for
threats. He calmly used hand signs and motioned for her to sweep to the right and stay in cover as
they moved around the edge of the ambush area. She simply nodded, her crystal clear eyes
showing none of the fear from earlier.
As they moved silently through the wreckage of the area she suddenly held up a hand and froze
like a statue. A quick motion to get down was all the warning he had before a light began to play
over the area. The heavy vehicles they had were joining the search, slowing down the motorcade
slightly. Max peeked over the edge to see where the lead vehicle was before he simply keyed his
radio twice, signaling to his forces to be ready. With a nod to Mara and another quick look, he
flashed a grim smile and pulled the switch on his detonator.
The explosion cracked the night with pale green fire as the plasma charge under the road turned the
middle vehicle into pieces. Parts of the vehicle flew high into the air, streaking green as they did so
and the thunder of machine guns erupted from his men as they began raking the formation with
heavy fire. Half the remaining Advent guards dropped like rocks as rounds tore into them, spraying
a sickly yellow blood to the ground.
The sound of a rocket sung through the air before it hammered into the lead vehicle and flipped it
onto its side with flames erupting from the front doors. As the gunfire began to die down, the
Major looked out onto the damage and began to worry a little. This had been a bit too easy, and
they had known that something was up as well. He called for his men to check in and check their
surroundings before linking up with the rest of the team.
When one of the men failed to respond to the coms check, he ordered his men to move in pairs and
check the missing member's position immediately. They found the man in a crumpled heap, his
body crushed and twisted into an impossible shape. Sounds of fire suddenly came from his second
squad, and a yell over coms called out contact. When asked what it was the soldier speaking
seemed confused, it was some kind of large snake creature that was reacting incredibly fast and
even dodging gunshots. It suddenly broke contact with them, and Max ordered them to move to
regroup at the exfiltration point.
As soon as he dropped his hand from his ear, his skin suddenly tingled and was covered in
goosebumps as he felt a surge of movement from a few feet behind him. With a startled yell he
dove to the side just as a plasma round came from behind him, narrowly missing his face and
cooking his left cheek as it passed by. He twisted mid air to see what had almost ended him, his
eyes following a trail of plasma that trailed back through the window as the round drilled into the
wall he had been in front of. His revolver was out of his holster in a flash as he landed on his back
and three rounds let loose through the window as he fanned the hammer rapidly.
He heard a startled and hissing yelp as at least one of them hopefully found it's mark before he was
on his feet again, moving backwards while facing the window with both of his sidearms drawn
now. The thing peeked its face out and he let another two rounds loose as he moved backwards and
took cover through a doorway. Mara had already taken cover on the other side and began firing her
weapon at the window as well, covering her leader while he keyed his radio again.
“Move to exfil right now! I'm pulling the plug on this mission, we have hostile unknowns in the
area. Get to the exfil location and form up a perimeter!” he said as he fired around the corner with
the laser pistol in his left hand. His last round in the revolver was a special one, and he took careful
aim at the window and waiting for the thing to stick it's face out again as he called to Mara to pull
back.
As she bound back away from the frame the creature came to the window with it's weapon glowing
and charged. Max fired his shot as the snake snap fired at her, the creature's plasma round catching
her in the side of her face. Mara's scream was drowned out as as his sodium and potassium alloy
tipped round impacted the snake's hood, an incredibly fast dodge having avoided taking it to the
face. The round glanced off the side of her snout before impacting, the small penetrator slamming
through the scales where the alloy detonated with a crack and the snake made a strangled hissing
sound as it threw itself to the ground.
He moved over to Mara who had a horrible looking burn starting at her temple and going forward
through the right eye. As he began to drag her to the exit of the building, a plasma round sailed past
his head and impacted a wall. The snake had started crawling through the window, the lithe body
showing very female features on her breastplate. The round had blown a nasty hole into her hood
and peppered her face with fragments of burning metal that had scorched the flesh around the left
eye. The left side of her mouth was also torn up a bit and she looked half blinded.
Even though she had probably been dazed to all hell from that hit, she was still was trying to push
forward to engage them and part of him was impressed by her drive. The major dragged his second
in command behind him as he pulled back, firing his laser pistol in the direction of the snake with
his left hand. While none of the shots hit the mark, a few got close and it forced the snake to dive
into cover. As she pulled her tail into cover as well, he spotted her dropped rifle laying on the
ground in the open. Seeing a chance, he fired another spray of lasers into the doorway and then
quickly picked up Mara in a fireman's carry before running out of the building in the direction of
the team.
He made it to the vehicles and gently put Mara into the back of one of them, grabbing a medical kit
from the supplies as he did so. Seeing the medic had been the one that had been crushed earlier, he
began to patch her up as best he could and vowed to make sure he trained his medical skills more
once they were done with this mission. He gave the order for them to saddle up and move out as he
finished bandaging her face. Max was quite surprised when she started to wake up part way back
to the mobile HQ vehicle as she reached up to touch her eye and he had to bat her hand away
quickly.
“Don't touch it yet Mara, you'll live to fight another day. Try to keep still alright?” he quickly said
as his words carried the same cool emotion he had been practicing. His calming psi power was
almost an aura he could switch on and off at will without strain now, though it wouldn't stop
emotional outbursts without conscious effort. It was still enough to help prevent them if used
correctly though, and had kept the team collected and cool on more than one occasion. Her face
betrayed the pain and fear she was trying to hide, but she simply nodded before laying back down.
The mission had been a success for the most part as they had taken out the target and only lost one
man to the units they had deployed against his team.
As he thought back to the new enemy, his mind pictured the snake woman he had put one of his
alloy rounds into. She was pretty tough to still be moving after taking a hit to her snake-like hood
like that, and fast enough to have made that a glancing hit rather than the head shot it would have
been. He guessed that their medic must have gotten constricted with how his body had been
described. As the Major scratched his head a bit, he wondered what other surprises they would
have in store for him when he ran into them again. He let out a drawn out breath as he thought
about how his ammo would need an upgrade again if he was going to be going up against them
while the convoy finally rolled into their headquarters.
-------------
Her head still hurt badly and the hole in her hood was slowly oozing yellow blood as she used the
medical foam injector to plug the wound. When it contacted the wound it burned and made as
sizzling sound as the powerful antiseptics and coagulants did their work to the injury. It all seemed
to hurt more than it should, and she shook her head a bit as she had a momentary flash unusual
emotion. Her mind went back to the engagement as the throbbing of her wound caused her to think
about the soldier she had faced. He had dived out of the way of a plasma weapon, which meant
that man's reaction speed was dangerous and the idea of running into him again made her shudder
a bit.
She suddenly realized something was wrong as she looked around at the carnage and bodies
thrown around the ambush site. Fear began to knot in her guts as she looked at the dead eyes of one
of her sisters that had been in the back of one of the vehicles and hadn't been able to get out before
the transport was destroyed. The lifeless eyes seemed to bore into hers as she stared at them, some
new emotions she couldn't explain welling up from inside her. Suddenly the barking of the Advent
commander snapped her out of her trance and she fell into line with the remainder of her wounded
sisters to be moved to a medical facility. Her unease got more profound as she noticed that most of
the injured sisters seemed oddly docile even though some of them are horribly wounded.
She couldn't place why that bothered her so much, but she knew what would happen if she asked.
She had seen other sisters get 'recycled' before if they acted oddly or asked questions. They were
always taken away, and if they came back at all they would be little more than robots by that point.
She shuddered again as the new and uncomfortable emotion rolled into her core again. Why does
this bother me now and why didn't it bother me before?
As the medical transport drove off she became lost in her own thoughts and didn't even notice the
feeling of a small drip of blood hitting her shoulder. Deep in the left side of her head near her hood,
the psi chip that had been overriding her emotions let off another small spark where the chunk of a
bullet had impacted it. The small psi chip struggled to keep working as the flesh around it moved
when her head turned suddenly, the copper fragment bridging another circuit and causing another
short in the hardware. As the transport rolled down the road she suddenly felt a feeling of
impending danger that kept digging at the back of her mind. If they took her back to base she
would be recycled, and the sudden fear that struck her almost made her sick.
She wouldn't become one of those sisters she saw come back from that, with everything they had
been seeming to be removed and a soulless machine left inside them. She wanted to live and if she
stayed here she wouldn't. She began moving around slightly in the vehicle, grabbing any a energy
cells from the gear that had been removed from her sisters. Checking her rifle's charge, she
discarded the cell in it and loaded a fresh one in. She then glared at the lone trooper near the back
doors of the transport.
-----------------
As the Major stalked through the brush around the edge of the Advent infantry base, he spared a
second to glance at the group behind him. The four rookies were doing as well as could be
expected but they were making far too much noise. With the green soldiers having seen less than a
single engagement each, he knew this was a risky attack but they couldn't afford to waste this
chance. As the first team bounded up to the outer walls, his team did the same a dozen yards to the
south. His calming aura was a godsend for keeping the rookies collected and engaged in a firefight,
so he would be leading Team Two which was heavy laden with new blood.
After losing three of his best to an infiltration mission gone wrong, he no longer really had any
choice left if they were going to hit this target in the only opening he had found. He motioned to
the lone Sergeant in his squad to prep his light machinegun as he keyed his communications system
on the left side of his throat and whispered into it while looking at his second in command.
“Cupid to Beholder, I'm going to take out the sentries quietly and open a hole for us. You and your
team follow in after I'm through.”
-------
With a quick hand signal, she motioned to her squad to stack up around the door she was next to
and readied her own Exalt-pattern heavy laser. It was a relic from the original Xcom base they had
finally found a reliable way to recharge again with the limited tech they had available. Even though
her accuracy hadn't dropped significantly with her missing an eye, Max had still figured she would
like the extra insurance that went with it when he offered it to her. It also cut through the Advent
armor like butter and could even kill vipers if they were caught out by it. Bullets were one thing,
but it wasn't as easy to dodge light after all.
The simple idea of more payback for her eye made her crack a half smile as they waited for the go
ahead in the dim light of the morning. She saw Cupid motion for his squad to hold position as he
slipped through a gap and disappear into the base. He had more infiltration experience than the
entire squad combined, but she still felt a mild pang of worry watching him go in alone. She kept
an eye on the watchtower to the north of her when suddenly there was a small sound that carried
from it, and an armored body suddenly fell to her side of the wall from inside the tower. As the
dead Advent trooper hit the ground she took that as her cue to move in, and she flashed the signal to
advance.
As they quietly breached the compound walls she spotted another trooper laying dead next to the
door they had used for entry, yellow blood seeping through a knife wound through the neck gap of
his helmet from behind. They fanned out and took cover inside as they began looking for any
obvious targets in the open. Cupid was suddenly next to her and handed her the spare demolitions
charge he had been carrying. He keyed the mic again and whispered for his squad to join them
inside the fence and to take up overwatch positions in the towers he had cleared.
“Team one move to your objectives and begin demolition, we will watch over you.”
With a nod her squad began moving into the vehicle yard and began attaching scavenged plasma
charges to the vehicles there. As she attached charges to the third dropship in the row, she heard a
sudden snap sound out in the morning air. The sound of Cupid's laser sniper was the only thing that
sound could have been, the weapon's shot sounding like a small lightning strike at the point of
impact when it flash boiled both armor and flesh. Another flurry of snaps sounded as a lance of
light burned through another two targets before the call came out over the radio.
“Going loud! Finish up what you are doing and pull back to exfiltration before we get overrun!”
The alarms of the base began blaring as gunfire began slicing through the air and the clock was
ticking. Any vehicles they took out here would reduce the response time of this base and would
open up more opportunities in the surrounding area. The sound of motion nearby suddenly drew
her attention, as an advent commander suddenly came around the corner with his weapon ready.
She aimed her heavy laser from the hip and fired a double length burst of weaponized light into his
chest, the beams slamming into his armor as the power cell drained. The continuous hits cut
through it like butter and began flash cooking the soft flesh inside as it burned through. Another
trooper rounded the corner right after with it's weapon leveled at her when suddenly a beam of light
came from above her, striking the trooper in the head and killing it instantly with a thunderous
crack.
Once she was sure that was the last one, she keyed her mic and whispered, “Thanks Cupid, your
arrows fly true as always”
“Put a sock in it Beholder and finish up your charges while you still can, we have multiple contacts
moving in from the west barracks so you need to finish up now!” he yelled. With a grunt she
connected the last charge to the detonator and took a quick glance to make sure it was all wired
correctly.
With a quick look around, she began moving back to the wall they had entered from, laying down
covering fire for the retreating soldiers of her team. As she paused to reload a new energy pack into
the side of her weapon, a grenade detonated over the position nearby and obliterated most of the
solid cover near her. She hunkered down in the half cover she had and called in for support as the
rounds began chewing at her cover. Another snap signaled as an advancing trooper took a shot to
the chest and simply fell over when suddenly there was a scratching sound seeming to come from
everywhere at once.
With a cry she realized what it was, the feeling of being watched from inside her own mind causing
terror to wash over her and twisting her surroundings into murky shadows. She screamed at the
thing digging into her head as darkness swirled around her obscuring direction and the identity of
those around her as she scrambled to locate the source of the attack. Seeing a pair of glowing eyes
in the dark, she took aim and fired at the thing clawing at her perception. As the hits landed and her
target fell she heard the tell tale snap of Cupid's rifle, with a sudden start the darkness fell away
from her eyes like ink as she focused on what she had been firing at. The growing pool of red
coming from behind the half wall and a fallen rifle giving her all the information she needed as she
screamed.
“God damn you pieces of shit! I'll fucking kill you!” She yelled as the rage at being used to harm a
friend boiled over and the world faded into the background. With another scream she began firing
a non-stop barrage of laser energy into the advancing enemies. Another explosion went off near
her, the dull thud sounding distant as she turned her fire on the source and shredded through the
armor of the muton that had thrown it. With deft hands she loaded a fresh cell in her weapon and
kept firing as her enemies fell before the withering fire. The muted voices in the background
suddenly became very loud as something connected with her chest, knocking the air out of her
lungs and slamming her to the dirt.
An armored hand grabbed the back of her armor and began to drag her to the wall as a heavy
revolver shot sounded off five shots in succession. Her weapon was still in her hands, the barrel
having melted through the housing a bit and still lightly glowing from the repeated firing. Cupid
grunted as a round suddenly deflected off the side of his armor and he quickly pulled her past the
wall before taking cover behind it as well. Her mind spun as she processed what had happened
when her eyes locked on Max himself. She could see two other grazing hits on his torso plating,
but that wasn't what she was worried about. It was the concerned look in his eyes as held her gaze
while he called for smoke grenades to be used.
-------
Maxwell
As he used the med-kit on Mara, he called in for more covering fire to keep the right flank from
collapsing. He double checked that she was stable before he moved to the same flank to help shore
up the line as troopers begun to push around on the sides of the outer wall. With a call to fall back
to the tree-line he wielded both his pistols and began firing at anything that pushed up too hard.
With his remaining troops falling back, he tossed two grenades in the direction of the flanking
troops and then ran to help Mara get to the exfiltration point. As rounds began landing around
them, he dug deep into his mind and focused on a solid wall to cover them from fire.
His troops in the trees began firing on the encroaching enemies, forcing them into cover as the
enemy rounds impacted the semi-solid wall that had formed a bubble around him and Mara. The
rounds deflected either up or directly down into the ground and the strain began drilling into his
head as they rushed to the trees. The heavy magnetic rounds began hammering the dirt and tree-
tops while Mara limped quickly next to him, a splintered branch falling in front of them when a
round tore it off a tree. As they reached the trees he felt the tell-tale sign of blood coming from his
nose, and the migraine was making it harder to focus as he helped Mara behind a tree. He quickly
wiped his nose before reaching for his throat mic and yelled, “Chariot, this is Cupid! Teams are
clear and moving to exfil, fire the charges!”
As the teams pulled back under the cover of another round of smoke, there was an cacophony of
noise as the explosives blew the airships and transports into high-speed molten shrapnel. The
sudden distraction being exactly what they needed as they reached Chariot in his APC and began
piling into the armored transport as he did a quick headcount. With a shuddering start, the vehicle
tore it's way through the brush as they retreated and the troops inside began tending to the
wounded as best they could in the shaking transport. He checked on the injured before settling
down in the back of the vehicle and finally taking a load off while Chariot got them out of the
zone.
-----------------
Nine Years after the fall of Xcom HQ
Mara
The resistance camp they had stopped at was looking pretty busy from what she could see. As she
idly itched at the scars around her eyepatch, she wondered if the intel they were here to get would
be useful. The last mission had been hard pressed and they had lost Chariot to a magnetic shot that
had pierced through the APC. He had gotten them it out of the zone before he had passed out at the
wheel, though they sadly didn't get him to medical in time.
At least one else had died to the damned advent aliens, but almost half the team was down with
injuries from that near disaster. They would need to lay low for a bit before they deployed for
another strike. The hard reality was that the wounded needed time, and they needed supplies as
well. While the camp wasn't big enough to find them what they needed, but they were here to find
information to get in touch with a black market contact that could. After speaking to the owner of
the local watering hole they had been directed to an armorer who had the connections they needed.
She had stayed behind to have another drink while Cupid had gone to meet the armorer, and was
currently enjoying the bootleg whiskey more than she expected. It wasn't exactly good, but far
better than the stuff the squad had rustled up the last time they had celebrated. As the glass
emptied she noticed a pair of rough looking men eyeing her from a table at the back of the room.
She decided now would be a good time to take off, since she didn't feel like getting into trouble for
knocking out a pair of idiots so soon after getting to a new camp. Whiskey and her anger didn't
exactly mix very well after all.
As she returned her glass to the bartender and made her way out of the bar, the two men made to
leave as well as the taller one with facial scars quickly paid their tab. She pretended not to notice
and walked out into the dark, enjoying the slight chill of the air during the night. “Looks like
trouble is looking for me tonight,” she muttered to herself when she noticed they were following
her at a distance. She keyed her radio three times, sending a silent warning to her commander as
she moved to a more public area. The area they had chosen was close, and she simply walked there
while keeping tabs on the two men behind her.
As Mara reached the small open plaza she took notice of the fact that it was thankfully empty of
people and she decided now would be a good time. She had almost made it through the open area
before she suddenly turned around to confront the two. “Is there a reason you gentlemen are
following me?” she quickly asked while she crossed her arms in front of her while her bright blue
eye locked on them. The two men came to a stop and glanced at each other before they began
closing the distance. The bigger guy simply pulled out a dog tag from around his neck before he
glared at her.
“You are the one that killed my brother and I plan to make you pay for that.” he said as he took an
aggressive stance. Mara quickly dropped into a defensive stance while she eyed the men, the big
one was definitely a brawler if his stance meant anything while the average looking guy seemed
almost out of place at his side. His eyes told her she would have a better chance talking down a
rabid bear and a sinking feeling ate at the back of her mind at the implications of what he said. She
quickly shook away the dark thoughts as they once again began moving closer, and she glanced
around her to make sure her flanks were clear before focusing on the two with an icy stare. He
lunged forward trying to strike her face and she let the hit glance off an arm as she went under it.
With a grunt he took a solid uppercut to the stomach with barely any effect, and she quickly pulled
back to make room as a hook grazed her face in retaliation. The smaller guy had started moving
around her to get behind her and she tried to keep aware of him as the big guy attacked again. As
she dodged yet enough strong attack by sidestepping, the smaller one made his move. With a glint
of metal in his hand he rushed up to her side as the big one again pressed the attack. She ducked
and sidestepped at the same time, barely missing a knife to the ribs as she circled around the bigger
man to give her distance from the smaller one.
The smaller one pivoted quickly and rushed her, intent on burying the blade into her before an arm
suddenly moved between the two. Cupid's left hand caught the blade in the palm, letting it go right
through and coming out of the back as the fingers quickly wrapped around the hand holding it. The
smaller one barely had a chance for a surprised squeak before he took a hard knuckle to the temple,
knocking him to the ground. The larger man locked up for a second and stared at the soldier giving
her all the opening she needed as she gave him a solid straight to the jaw as well as a viscous
uppercut to the stomach. Mara took a second to glance at her commander as the larger man
staggered back and dropped into a defensive stance.
“Sorry I was late Mara, traffic was a bitch.” He said with a smirk as he reached down and simply
pulled out the knife that was still in his left hand.
“I'm sure it was.” She sarcastically quipped while motioning to the empty paths around them while
she rubbed her chin in the spot where she had gotten hit.
“I was just going to watch to make sure you didn't kill either of them, but then the small one
decided to make it more than just a brawl.” He said while holding the bloody knife in his right
hand and flexing his wounded one while the slight glowing pulses flowed to the wound. With a
glare, he eyed the smaller one while the wound began closing in front of his eyes before he simply
shook his head and continued speaking. “Not like you needed me anyway, you still have your
sidearm. If they were an actual threat you would have simply ended them right then and there.”
Mara nodded as she glared at the two men as they slowly backed off. “I never wanted to hurt a
friendly, and your brother was no different in that regard. You wanna blame anybody, you blame
the alien fucker that used psionic shit on my head.”
“What the hell are you?” The bigger man said as he moved a bit back from the Major. As the
wound finished bleeding, and the flesh was knitting together the soldier simply frowned before
saying, “Something more than human, and less in ways as well.” The large man grimaced before
grabbing his friend and disappearing down a side street.
“You sure you wanna leave it at that Mar?” her commander asked as she adjusted her gear for
comfort. “I'm getting the feeling that will just pop up later.” he said with a frown forming on his
face.
She took a second to mull over her thoughts before she simply stated, “I said what needed to be
said, anything else will just make it worse in all likelihood. Lets get going to the main group boss,
I've had enough excitement for the night.” With a sigh, she simply started walking to where they
left the light vehicle they had driven to the camp and the commander simply followed behind her.
-----------------
???????
A shadow moved slightly keeping out of sight of the two soldiers as they moved through the camp.
With almost mechanical movements, the humanoid form followed them to the edge of camp and
made sure to listen to everything they said as they moved. As the small 4 wheeler took off with
them, the man walked from the shadows and seemed to stare off into the distance at the direction
they had gone. With a sudden and unnatural twist he moved back into the shadows of the trees as
he walked off in the direction the vehicle had gone, a strangely moist sound being made out in the
dark.
-----------------
Approximately 2:34am
As the night went on the men at in the watchtower began to fall asleep from the lack of any real
threats, and as he started dozing off a loud thumping sounded. His eyes picked up the outline of
something very large and vaguely human shaped for a second in the dark, but lost sight of it
immediately afterwords as the shadows blended in the distance. As he tried to spot whatever he
thought he had seen, another thump was heard in a different direction. The guard pulled out the
night vision goggles that had been left in the tower, and scanned the area a second time.
Metallic shapes stood out perfectly against the foliage as they slowly moved forward through the
underbrush, each of them holding a heavy looking weapon in their hands and some kind of
launcher on a shoulder. He quickly grabbed for his radio on the table and managed to knock it off
the stand in his haste. With a quick dive for it, he keyed the system as he pushed his eyes back up
over the edge of the tower.
“Emergency! Emergency! We have incoming Advent! Some kind of machines! A huge amount of
machines moving into the area around the north side of the base, Over!” He yelled into the mic as
he readied his rifle. With a burst of fire he began firing on the advancing enemies as they marched
in perfect and synchronized movements, and with the very same precision the front row all looked
up before they readied their weapons. “Oh shit!” was all he could say before a wave of magnetic
rounds tore through the tower's wooden walls like a hot knife through butter. The radio speakers
crackled a bit as someone on the other end tried to answer before several thumping sounds rang out
in the night. With a thunderous crack, the tower vanished into a explosion of fragmented wood and
fire.
The mechanical units simply marched forward as they fired with no remorse into the civilian
houses and soon the dirt roads were turned into mulched mud mixed with the blood of the fallen.
The thumping of their shoulder mounted mortars blended with the screams of the dying and the
burning destruction they left behind them as they marched forward through the settlement. Several
people were herded to an open area and carted away to waiting transports, or they were executed
on the spot once their identities were confirmed. Others were put into vehicles and carted off to
unknown fates as the few survivors that had gotten away hunkered down in their makeshift hiding
spots. The armorer was spotted being interrogated by an Advent officer before they knocked him
out with a rifle butt and through him in the back of an transport. Two men suddenly staggered out
of the underbrush almost falling into the hiding spots the rest were in.
The group jumped on them as one, dragging them to the ground and pressing weapons in their
faces. “Whoa whoa whoa, it's me.” the larger of the men said as he held his hands out. An armored
woman suddenly scoffed and shook her head while signaling the rest to release them. They quickly
checked the area again to make sure it wasn't a trap before the woman turned to the two men and
shook her head again while frowning.
“Of all the people to survive that shit show, I should have expected you two rats,” the woman said
with a sour look on her face. She looked back to the burning and blood soaked hole that used to be
a home before turning back to the two men. “Alright Jack, how exactly did you two survive? You
two were on the side of town that got hit first.” She asked to to the larger of the men with a dark
look. Before he could say anything, one of the others suddenly spoke up that the machines were
spreading out into the forest.
“Ah fuck, we gotta move then. This isn't the end of my questions Jack, make sure you have
answers when we get out of here.” She said before motioning for the group to get ready to move.
With a quick scramble the group packed up what little they had before moving out off the hill they
had been using as a lookout. The two men exchanged looks while the group moved and both men
dropped behind the group little by little before they simply disappeared into the foliage.
-----------------
A small cracking sound broke the silence in the forest as the sunlight of the morning began
warming the forest. A deer's head suddenly shot up and began looking for the source of the sound,
it's whole body going tense as it looked around. After a few seconds it calmed down and went back
to eating the greenery next to a large tree. As it slowly moved past the tree, a large shape began
moving above it as it kept going on with the foliage it was currently eating. With a flash, the large
snake woman launched herself onto it's back and biting deeply into it's neck to get a hold onto it.
Her body coiled around the animal as it thrashed around trying to get her off, but the bite had
already anchored her too well as her tail wrapped around it and began squeezing. She grabbed the
sides of it's head and with a sickening crunch she twisted, breaking the animal's neck which killed
it instantly. She held on for a bit longer to make sure it was truly dead, before letting it go and
checking if she had accidentally released venom when she bit it in the throat. Thankfully she
hadn't, and she was happy that she had been able to finally have a decent amount of control over
that reflex.
As she began skinning the deer, she idly thought about how different this was from the years of
combat and training she had gone through with the elders. She let out a chuckle as she tried to
imagine herself trying to skin and butcher creatures back when she was still part of their plan. As
her mind drifted while she worked, her face slowly fell into a frown as she thought of all the things
she had missed while under the Elders control. She had eventually found the chip they had
implanted in the side of her head while she was cleaning her wounds, and had cut it out with her
claws. She idly touched the small necklace she had made from it, her claws feeling the small piece
of copper that had punctured the offending hardware.
It was forever a reminder of her freedom from the oppressive control she and her sisters were
under. She looked out at the sunrise and thanked whatever gods were watching over her for the
chance she had been given as she carried her bounty back to her home. She began humming a song
as she slithered through the forest, with her eyes and tongue keeping tabs on everything around her.
The wonderful sunrise was finally getting high enough for the day to have officially start, the small
tendrils of light having turned into beams of lovely warmth that pierced through the treetops.
As she continued to enjoy the sights and sounds, she once again chuckled to herself as her mind
went somewhere silly. It's not everyday you suddenly are happy about having been shot in the
head after all, and she simply giggled as she finally got to her home. It was a simple cave she had
furnished with things she had scavenged or looted from Advent supply bases she had broken into.
As she hung her kill up and began thinking of how she was going to preserve this one, she once
again looked out at the forest that was her home now. With a quick check of the smoker she had
put together, she began stoking it with wood before striking a spark into the kindling to ignite it.
The books she had gotten her hands on had been worth their weight in gold, the survival guide
alone had improved so many things in her home. The hardest part had been finding a way to carry
sand back to her cave to make the water purifier she had constructed out of a scavenged barrel.
Every day simply felt wonderful as she was learning new things she could create and ways to
improve herself. Being alive had never felt better than now, and her face broke into the human-like
smile she had been practicing. As the smoker began it's work she simply laid out near the entrance
and looked out at the gentle swaying of greenery, the smile still plastered on her face as she once
again got lost in her thoughts.
Dropping into the Abyss
Chapter Notes
------------
The team moved east into the area of the supply base as they stacked up near a series of bushes
near the outer perimeter of the former town. The main building they were assaulting was a standard
Advent warehouse meant for moving material and supplies around, the surrounding area having
been equipped with fairly light security that wouldn't be hard to avoid or neutralize if they were
careful. It was mostly just light defense squads with automated turrets that they would have to deal
with. The group bypassed a series of scanning towers that had been put on the main road and began
picking paths through the ruined husks of former housing that had once been a small town. As they
came up around the building, they spotted two squads of Advent moving around the outside .
As they watched the patrols for a few minutes, they found the squads were moving in predictable
patterns and the teams were split up to hit both of them at once. Beholder was the first into
position, her readied weapon still showing the patchwork repairs around its barrel housing as she
rested it on top of her cover. The squad she was assigned to take out had a viper in command, with
two of the basic Advent grunts everybody was used to by this point as well as a turret. With a
quick snap of his wrist, he fired his grappling hook at a nearby rooftop and felt the tell-tale yank as
the hook embedded into the hard stone. A sudden feeling of flying kicked his adrenaline into gear
as he landed feet first on the side of the building and pulled himself up to safety. He suddenly
noticed movement on another roof and watched as a human in well worn clothing quickly ducked
out of sight.
He took sight on the second squad, a commander decked out in bright red with two grunts in tow. A
flash of light from a failing street lamp illuminated first grunt better and made him look again as he
noticed the difference in armors. This wasn't a normal grunt at all, it was a crowd control version
with the blacked out armor and a stun weapon. Something felt slightly off, but other than the riot
unit he couldn't put his finger on what was making him uneasy. They weren't exactly the most
common units to see, but they were still used as light defense on bases such as this to keep out
looters and riff-raff.
He braced his weapon on the side of the roof and took aim at the riot unit, then keyed his mic and
called in the information making doubly sure to let them know he had spotted civilian looters in the
area. With a sideways glance he confirmed Mara's squad was stalking her targets before for calling
for everyone to ready up to fire on his shot. He took aim at the riot control trooper and held his
breath for a second before gently exhaling completely before he pulled the trigger. The sound was
closer to an elastic band breaking rather than the crisp snap he was used to as his laser hit the plate
and deflected to partially to the side as the armor reflected some of it off it's surface. It suddenly
struck him as he focused on the smoking helmet through his scope that they had been far more
shiny than normal, and that had been what had seemed different earlier.
With a quick adjustment of his hands he simply pulled the trigger a second time, rapidly firing a
second beam of lethal light into the partially charred helmet. The laser impacted the same spot,
cracking the helmet plating like an egg even as the flesh underneath flash boiled and killing the
trooper instantly. The commander yelled something while pointing in his direction and return fire
began almost instantly as he took cover. Max quickly keyed his radio even as gunfire began from
the direction of Mara's squad, “They have reflective armor to reduce our laser weapon
performance. You'll need to hit them a few times in the same area to punch through it.”
Max quickly shifted out of cover and took a shot at the commander, striking him in the chest with a
dull snap as the beam simply blackened the plating. The Advent commander had simply continued
firing until a second shot impacted his chest plate and turned the alien alloy into melted fragments
that launched through his torso. The final burst hadn't been in vain though as a round impacted the
side of Max's helmet, knocking his head to the side as it absorbed the impact from the glancing
blow and quite literally “ringing his bell” as the metal vibrated. The surge of adrenaline boosted
his focus as he moved a few feet to the side and reloaded a fresh energy cell into his rifle. As soon
as the sound of gunfire stopped he quickly popped up and took aim at the remaining grunt that had
been firing on his former position, the poor guy currently reloading his own weapon. Through the
scope he noticed the grenade on the soldier's hip, and with a last moment adjustment of his aim a
beam of light super-heated the metal shell setting it off.
An explosion rocked the area as the grenade went off, inflicting ruinous damage through his armor
as the detonation flung his body backwards into the air. The body landed with an unceremonious
crash before he simply put a shot into it's chest to make sure it wasn't going to move ever again.
With all targets down, he quickly began doing a visual sweep of the area for more enemies. Seeing
none, he quickly moved to the side of the building he was on, and used the grappling attachment to
move to a taller building to get an overwatch position over Mara's position. Her squad was hitting
the larger enemy group and it had had obviously been more organized than the one he had
destroyed as it was faring far better. He spotted the tell-tale flashing of Mara's heavy laser turning a
muton into a pile of cooked meat and glowing slag as she fired a longer burst into him from a
flanking position.
He spotted movement beyond her and with a quick movement he braced his rifle, using his scope
to spot what it was. A slight glint of reflected light told him exactly what he had seen, as a viper
moved to her flank trying to get a good angle around her cover. His sights danced across the bush
as it shifted with her passage as he tried to find a shot, a glint of light being the only sign of her as
she managed to slither behind a tree. He quickly used his left hand to key his throat mic and spoke
into it. “Beholder, snake to your eight 'o clock behind the tree with the burn scars. I don't have a
shot, too much foliage in between us.”
With quick movement Mara twisted to the left before firing her weapon at the tree he had pointed
out as she tried suppressing the flanking action. A green beam fired out from the location but went
wide as the lasers ate away at the snake's cover before the tree started to burn. As her weapon went
empty she quickly grabbed a grenade from her waist and lobbed it in an arc at the tree before
diving into cover as the viper fired a lethal beam of plasma back at her. The explosion ripped into
the weakened tree, shredding the still burning wood causing it to toppled over and the viper ducked
behind the remains before she locked up for a second as the glowing from his rooftop pulled her
attention to him. Time seemed to stop as his rifle hummed against his cheek, her eyes locked with
his through his scope as a battery of emotions seemed to go through them.
The moment seemingly stretched on for a lifetime, her thoughts bleeding through like whispers as
she tried desperately to dodge before the lance of light bored into her left eye killing her instantly.
Her body launched to the side like a slinky that had been thrown at a wall, twisting as the muscles
fired and neurons died from the lethal shot. With the second passed, Max suddenly felt a deep
regret as he processed the flash of emotion and thought before he shook it off as a round clipped
the edge of the roof he was on. As he looked for where it had come from, an icy feeling crawled up
his back and the area fell into inky darkness as sounds distorted. A pair of purple eyes glared at
him from the darkness as emotions began slithering up his spine like cold fingers.
He quickly closed his eyes, focusing on himself and his surroundings to find the core of his mind.
Inside the inky darkness his eyes suddenly flashed purple as well, and he glared back at his
unwanted guest. “Wrong move asshole” he muttered before reaching out and simply grabbing the
shadow by the throat, pulling it close to his now snarling form. The shadow faded away revealing
the cowering form of a sectoid. “This is my playground you little fucker, so flee like the pathetic
bug you are!” he snarled before he dropped the offending creature as his face began to elongate and
fur began sprouting. It fell backward to the ground as he grew into a massive wolf and howled into
the darkness that now swirled around the cowering form of the alien.
Down by a burning car the sectoid suddenly screamed into the morning air and began running from
the nightmare creature chasing him, only to be cut down by a shotgun blast as it ran past one of the
men in the squad. With the link cut, Max felt his lungs burning as he let out a breath he didn't
know he had been holding. He quickly looked around again, finding himself still crouched on the
roof and his rifle on the ground at his feet. As he picked it up, Mara key her radio. “Beholder to
Cupid, contacts eliminated sir. Thank you for the assist with the snake.”
He confirmed her message and told her to move on toward their objective as he dropped from the
roof to the ground, then he called in their extraction to pull in closer now that they had cleared the
patrols. As he looked over the battlefield something kept nagging the back of his mind. He quickly
thumbed his throat mic, “Cupid to Beholder, keep your head on a swivel. Something is off about
this and I don't like it. The patrols had reflective armor and there were far more aliens than I would
expect at a base like this.”
A confirmation sounded over the radio as he walked over to the viper he had shot in the eye and
looked over her fallen body. Her terrified expression still plastered over her face, the remaining
lifeless eye still staring into the abyss. Small twitches in the muscles still caused her to move every
so often as he reached down to her face. He placed a hand over the eye and closed it, feeling echos
of her mind under his hand as he did so. The emotions flooded his mind as fragments of her final
moments flowed over him, the fear and shock were an expected find but the one he found next was
a surprise. A deep and profound sadness.
As he dived a bit further back into the fragments of her memories that remained, he found that the
things he could see were all a bland and colorless mess. Not only that, but another surprise was just
how young she was. An adult by their standards, but she had been born only about a eight years
before the invasion. The lack of emotion changed in a moment when a muton had accidentally hit
her in the side of the head during combat training. Colors began to slowly emerge in her memories
as the fragments got closer to the end. Yellows stood for fear, reds for anger, and purples which
seemed to be a combination. He searched for closer memories and the strongest impression he got
was from around a week ago.
His face became a frown as the emotions of arriving here crashed over him. Blue twisted with
yellows, sadness mixed and strangled by fear. She had been sad about having to fight, not really
wanting to have to kill anybody but she was terrified of being found out for being able to even feel.
She had kept her state hidden from her commander out of fear of being “Reprocessed” as she had
referred to it, and she had a deep fear of whatever that was.
With a jolt he found himself next to her body, and a hand on his shoulder gently shaking him. Mara
looked into his eyes making sure he was aware before she simply stated that her squad had secured
the area. She looked on as he turned back to the viper and put his hand on her head, turning it so
the gaping hole couldn't be seen and closing her remaining eye. “Commander, are you ok?” she
asked when she noticed dark look across his face.
“Just dealing with the consequences of reading memories from a dead body.” He said as he exhaled
to clear his mind and moved to rest his hand on the dead alien's head once again. Mara watched on
for a second before shaking her head and walking away. Max took the time to quickly glance at his
second in command and noticed he could see colors swirling around her slightly if he focused a bit,
her emotions all laced with reds. With a sigh he looked back at the snake-woman on the ground,
letting the new information wash over him again as the morning light began to stretch across the
ground.
He quickly got up and dusted off his knees as he keyed his radio and got updates from the squads
under his command. With confirmation that his troops were all following the plan he turned to look
at her one more time. He bowed his head slightly and whispered, “I'm sorry it ended this way, but
you gave me a lot to think about young one.” As he walked away his mind raced trying to process
the information he had learned from her. While the sectoids had always seemed so maliciously
happy to try to kill him whenever they tried to get in his head, this viper had been the opposite and
that meant something was different. Was it this viper in particular or the vipers in general that were
different?
If the vipers weren't as malicious as they seemed, maybe they could be turned or subverted
somehow. The idle thoughts raced through his head as he turned a corner to find Mara talking to
one of the drivers that had pulled up to extract the supplies they were going to be taking. They had
simply attached two chains to the end of the massive storage container and hooked them to the
armored transport with the intention of just ripping the doors right off it. The men quickly finished
installing the small breaching charges on the hinges before giving short count down, a snap
sounding out before the doors were torn free by the vehicle.
Inside the massive cargo container, dozens of metal bodies suddenly all lurched upwards and
weapons came up with them. Two of the men near the doors were instantly cut down under a
withering wall of heavy weapons fire, and as Max got into cover he yelled into his radio. “Contact!
Ambush from the container! We have robots inside the container!”
------------
Approximately 400 miles away in the former area of the Black hills.
The morning light streamed through the tree tops and reflected off the waters surface as she
washed herself in the stream near her home. She reached for a wood handled brush and made sure
she got to all the hard to reach scales to make sure they weren't filthy. After spending an hour
getting herself as clean as she could to reduce her scent, she began to gather the bags she would
need on her trip today. She made herself a quick and filling meal of her stored meats before she
began to ready herself for her plan. She double checked all her gear, making sure her weapon was
cleaned and loaded before she climbed onto her ATV she had found earlier in the year.
She had found it a challenge to drive once she had figured out how to operate it, her lack of feet
being a small issue once she had adapted it a bit for her to use. She had already attached the small
trailer that was needed for this trip and so with a last look back at her home she set out to the
supply base she was going to be “liberating” supplies from. She was in deep need of more ammo
for her beam rifle and she was also hoping to get a spare one as hers was showing a lot of wear.
The last thing she wanted was her rifle exploding in her hands as while she would most likely
survive it, she wouldn't be able to fix herself if both of her hands were injured and that was more
risk than she wanted. Her mind wandered a bit while she traveled along a river side, the trees with
the non-needle looking leaves had begun to change colors and she idly wondered why the needle
trees didn't change as she drove.
Two hours went by with her slowly working her way in the direction of the supply base before she
stopped to a take a short break. The rough terrain wasn't fun to go through with the vehicle as it
was never designed for her body to ride, but it was far safer than using a road and she knew that.
After a bit of stretching and a quick snack of one of the small tree climbers that always seemed to
be around, she mounted her vehicle again and got ready to continue on to her objective. It would
only take a couple of hours before she would be there, so she buckled herself down and started
moving again. As the trees began to thin out, the area went from mountainous to rolling hills with
patches of forest and she knew she was getting closer to where patrols would start showing up. She
slowed down further and took her vehicle away from the roads to make sure she wouldn't run into
any problems as she heard the sound of a drop ship taking off in the distance.
------------
Magnetic rounds tore into her cover as she reloaded, chunks of the concrete spraying outwards
even as another machine was taken down by combined fire. She stayed in cover near the vehicle
that had ripped the door off the container, it's Gatling gun still firing even as hers had to cool
down. The transport would run out of ammo soon, so they needed to cut down as many as possible
before it did. She checked her weapon before loading in a fresh energy cell before a sudden
explosion rocked the vehicle and it's gun went silent. She heard the tell-tail sound of the machines
firing their shoulder mortars and quickly bolted to new cover as almost a dozen rounds whistled
through the air towards the transport.
As the explosion consumed the armored frame of their personnel carrier, she hear the familiar
snap-crack of Cupids laser rifle sounding off as the pinpoint shot caused the mechanical enemy's
power supply explode. Soon after another “crack” sounded with another enemy suddenly
exploding as it's mortar took a laser shot and it's loaded rounds simply cooking off due to the
extreme heat. The doors of another container broke open with a crash as another wave of machines
marched out with their magnetic weapons firing. Mara pulled out her rocket launcher and sighted it
on the new wave of mechs before launching the deadly explosive round into the group. The
explosion ripped into their enemy, the container and machines alike were quickly turned into flying
shrapnel doing even more damage to the enemies that had survived.
Mara quickly dropped the empty launcher and brought back up her heavy laser to shred a few of
the surviving mechs that were trying to pick themselves back up off the ground. She heard the tell-
tail sound of Cupid's grappling hook as he moved to another rooftop, most likely to get a better
vantage point over the enemies. As the last enemy from the containers fell under sustained fire, she
paused to reload her weapon and quickly realized it had gone almost completely silent except for a
low repeated thumping noise. She heard Cupid key the radio and she felt her blood going cold as he
spoke. “Cupid to Team, I'm scrubbing this mission immediately. I count over one hundred enemies
encroaching on our perimeter, most of them appear to be the same mechanical ones with x-rays
mixed in.”
She glanced up at her commander to see him looking out into the distance as her squad finished
clearing the area of the remaining enemies from the ambush. She gave the orders to pull back to
the remaining transports that were still usable, making sure her men set charges on the remains of
the vehicles that too damaged as to deny Advent any information they could get from them. The
sound of Cupid's rifle could be heard the whole time as he took shots of opportunity at the
approaching enemy formations, buying them extra time to cover their tracks and load the wounded.
The distant sound of mechanical foot falls became louder as they finished loading the wounded
and Mara looked up to her commander as she called him over the radio. Her eyes went wide as a
human shape appeared several fet behind him and began growing several feet taller, it's flesh
seeming to almost melt into a liquid before reforming into a very large humanoid. “Behind you
Cupid!!” She screamed as sharp claws appeared out the creatures hands and it charged into him.
------------
Maxwell
The sound of liquid sloshing had alerted him right before Beholder had yelled her warning, his skin
prickling as it alerted him to the charging creature behind him. Three razor sharp claws grazed his
right shoulder and neck as he made a desperate dive roll to the side, the creature slamming it's arm
into the concrete edge of the roof as it slowed down. He brought his rifle up and snap fired into its
torso as the thing turned to him to attack again. The creature barely even noticing as a fist sized
crater was punched into it's chest and it swung it's over sized left arm downwards at his head, it's
three claws extending even further as they bared down on him. With no other option available he
quickly used his rifle to block the attack, the aliens' arm hitting with enough force to send him to
his knees as his sniper rifles lenses cracked and its frame bent from the impact.
He let go of the rifle as the creature grabbed a hold of it and flung it off the roof behind it. A flash
of movement was his only warning as it's right arm slammed into his left shoulder and chest, the
sharp claws digging through the alloy armor of his suit directly into him before holding him up
into the air. The sudden pain made him scream out into the cool morning air as his weight shifted
causing the claws to cut even deeper into his flesh. As his adrenaline flooded his body with
renewed vigor multiple weapon impacts began hammering into it's back as the squad members on
the ground fired at the monstrosity, the heavy laser causing it's flesh to snap and pop from the
impacts. The creature didn't even flinch before it just turned slightly to glance in the direction of
the gunfire and he quickly used it's lack of awareness to draw his revolver.
“Eat shit you creepy fuck” he yelled as he fired 4 shots into the creature's neck as it simply turned
slowly back to look at him again with glowing red eyes. As it raised it's free arm to strike again, he
aimed the revolver at the arm he was impaled with and pulled the trigger. The last round hit the
semi-liquid flesh like a hammer before detonating deep inside. He found himself falling as the the
clawed end of the gelatinous arm was blown completely free from the damage. With a wet thud his
back impacted the roof causing him to seize up from the pain, the clawed hand still lodged in his
flesh as the creature began making a horrible noise and grabbing at it's stump of an arm. He rolled
to his side to move before he noticed the creature was still way to close for comfort and he quickly
pulled his aching body to his feet.
Taking cover behind an old roof mounted air-conditioner he suddenly noticed the flesh of the
“hand” stuck in him was beginning to slowly turn into some kind of foul smelling liquid. Trying
not to panic from the implications the smell was trying to put in his head, he quickly pulled his
trusty alloy knife and gritted his teeth before he began sawing in the claws with a sickening sound.
He could feel every tooth on the blade as he worked away at it, the smell getting even worse as he
got through the first and second claw in a matter of seconds. With a splat, the partially melted flesh
hit the ground as he finished the task and he quickly kicked it away before his skin began tingling
again. He quickly moved to the side as a clawed hand speared through the spot he had been taking
cover behind, the claws making a screeching sound as it's arm plunged deep into the old
machinery.
It tried to pull the arm out only to find it was now stuck deep in the metal, the whole air-
conditioner coming off the roof with a sound of screaming metal as it pulled. Seeing it was once
again distracted, he quickly reached down to his leg pouch and pulled out the last plasma grenade
he had from the invasion before simply hitting the activation button as he began running toward
the creature. He quickly dodged a sideways flailing of it's still stuck arm as he got around behind it
and quickly located one of the impact sites from Mara's heavy laser. With a squelching sound he
jammed the grenade as deep into it's flesh as he dared and then began sprinting to the side of the
roof not even daring to look back. As the beeping got faster he reached the edge of the roof and
dived off as a massive explosion rocked the building's roof. Time slowed to a crawl as his body
went haywire with warnings, hot shrapnel peppering him as he spun around and fired his grappling
hook into the building to try to slow his fall.
He felt the lurch as the hook grabbed into something and he swung towards the side of the
building. He hit the side of the building feet first and pain flared into existence in his legs with the
sudden stop. Before he could even complain he felt his stomach move to his throat as the hook let
go, throwing him backwards toward the ground. With a sharp impact the world went black and he
dropped into the darkness.
------------
Mara
Mara screamed into the morning sky as the rooftop exploded in a sickly green light, the hot plasma
and shrapnel arcing high into the air. She quickly reached for her radio calling into it. “Cupid, did
you make it out of that?” The empty channel simply remained that way so she tried again. “Cupid
respond!” The world began to blur as she lost focus and she simply spoke into the radio again,
“Commander, please respond!” She looked up at the building as parts of it still burned and she
began mindlessly walking toward it.
A shape moved to her side as she tried to walk, her legs seeming to fail her as stumbled. The hazy
outline of a person grabbed her, shaking her and telling her they had to go. She couldn't respond,
and the unknown person grabbed her under an arm and began pulling her to a vehicle as she looked
out into the morning at the burning rooftop, the green flames still shrouding her vision till the back
door of the vehicle closed. She simply stared at the metal as her brain tried to process what had
happened, the tears and anger both fighting for control as gunfire began impacting the transport.
The sound of rounds deforming the plating were followed by the gunner screaming from an impact
as he dropped into the vehicle and the squad medic quickly began tending him.
The driver yelled something in her direction as the whole vehicle lurched from a heavy impact and
her helmet hit the door in front of her. The jolt snapped her out of her own head, years of training
and anger taking a front seat as she quickly pulled herself into into the vacant turret. As she
climbed into the gunner's position the transport thumped and lurched again as it simply ran over
one of the machines, her single eye shedding tears as she grabbed the controls. As the barrels began
spinning, both her and the Gatling gun screamed their fury into the red tinged sunrise.
The story continues, I'm cranking out a chapter a month give or take. I do this in my
spare time after all. Please let me know what ya think, I won't get any better if people
don't tell me if I'm doing bad, so please be honest when judging my work. Though, I
think I'm doing alright so far considering I haven't written anything in around 11 years.
Hope you all have a great 2022.
Lost and Found
Chapter Notes
------------
The darkness moved around him as he walked forward into the distance. With no landmarks in
sight, he was simply walking forward as he forced his hurting body to keep moving regardless of
the pain he felt. He finally tripped and his broken body hit the ground, pain ripping through the
wounds that covered him as he landed. He found himself sitting up suddenly, the whole of the
world shifting and twisting to allow this change of position. Max took a second and tried to focus
on his surroundings but they were made of shadows and confusion.
He blinked and suddenly he was walking again, the continued shifting of the world making him
feel nauseous. Shadowy figures moved past him like ghosts and he could hear whispers of sound
around him which added to the bewilderment he felt. He stopped near a wall, leaning on it as he
tried to catch his breath from the painful walking. A scraping sound of scales against stone echoed
off the walls around him and his body went rigid. He looked around him quickly, noticing smears
of yellow blood on the walls and ground leading toward him.
He began moving again, whispers sometimes coalescing into coherent words that always seemed to
come from behind him no matter where he was looking. He began to panic as the words became
weeping and the feeling of fear surrounded him in all directions. He looked to his right and froze
with a gasp, the sight of a viper against the wall filling his sight. She was hugging herself and
cowering against the wall before the sound he made made her look in his direction. As she turned
to face him her full face became visible, showing a horrible gaping wound where her left eye had
been.
She flinched at the sight of him, her remaining eye going wide as she cried out. She covered her
head and began crying while talking to herself over and over. “Please don't hurt me! I'm scared!”
As he backed away the world quickly shifted and she disappeared from his vision like smoke. He
heard a sound of gunfire behind him and quickly turned around to find her over the body of a
young human girl, a cleanly burned hole through the girl's chest.
The viper was crying over the body, apologizing over and over to the girl as the light left the young
girl's eyes. The alien broke down, sorrow and pain echoing from her in colorful waves as she
hugged the broken body of the dead girl. The horrible scene twisted as the the viper turned to look
at him with her single red eye and slowly began to advance toward him. She started apologizing
over and over as she got closer to him, and finally grabbed his shoulders while screaming into his
face. “I'm sorry, I'm so sorry!” She then pushed him backwards, causing the whole world to twist
and writhe as he fell. He landed hard on his back staring into a smoke-filled sky with the sounds of
fires still roaring in the background.
The smell of smoke hit him like a wave as he rocketed into awareness and his adrenaline spiked.
He sat up quickly and immediately groaned from the sudden pain, his wounds protesting as his
vision blurred. The area was still littered with bodies and battle damage, the burning roof he had
leapt off visible in the distance as he tried to understand exactly what had happened. He blinked to
clear his vision and looked around before noticing he was almost two hundred feet from the
building where he fell. The next thing he noticed was that there was a blood trail that followed his
path away from the burning building. He checked over his damaged body to try to get an idea on
how bad he was hurt and didn't like what he felt. His wounds looked pretty bad and even though
the broken flesh had already begun mending he could easily feel the bruising all over body as well
as the injuries to his shoulder.
The other problem was the burned wound along the side of his left thigh, which was probably
caused by shrapnel from the explosion. Seeing he wasn't in any immediate danger of bleeding out
he turned his attention to his surroundings. He had no idea how he had gotten to where he was or
even how long ago the explosion was, but he knew he had to move. He pulled himself to his feet
while cradling his left arm and shoulder, the stab wounds scabbed over as they tried to heal even as
his body rapidly burned through it's stored calories. The hunger was already getting to him as he
limped into an old restaurant and found it's public bathroom which had a mirror. Thankfully the
smell was mostly neutral as he opened his gear looking for two things he had created for just this
kind of situation.
The first he found quickly enough, a sealed bar that he quickly opened and began eating with no
small amount of disgust. This emergency food was basically condensed calories and protein in
shelf-stable bar which would help his body keep healing, though it left much to be desired for both
texture and flavor. It was kind of like eating a slightly metallic-tasting stick of bland butter with a
lot of protein powder in it and it wasn't pleasant. The second item he thankfully found intact in a
leg pouch, a large emergency injector he quickly put into use. He pressed the tip against his neck
and press the button on it, hearing the tell-tail hiss of the fluid inside being pushed through the skin
via pressure alone.
He held it till it clicked before moving it to the other side and doing the same process again. As he
finished with both of those he pulled his canteen to wash the taste of that foul emergency bar down
and quickly took a tally of his remaining gear. He had both his pistols with several reloads for each,
a single grenade, and his trusty alloy knife. The plating around his left shoulder was pretty mangled
from the melted fucker's claws, though the rest of the armor seemed mostly intact from the earlier
encounter. He sighed as the cocktail of painkillers and stimulants finally kicked in, taking the edge
off the pain as he checked his gear over for any damage. He moved his last grenade to his right leg
so it would be easy to grab with just his right hand since his left was currently not usable.
After making sure everything was where it was supposed to be, he limped out of the building while
trying to stay as low as possible. His mind kept straying as he crept along, the dead viper's
emotions still trying to force themselves into his thought processes. Flashes of fear and her
determination to live would skirt the edges of his brain while he kept having to dodge patrols of
mechanical soldiers. There was a reason he didn't like reading minds, since it was a two way street
and emotions tended to be anchored to memory. This was just a really bad case of that as her final
moments kept replaying the strong emotions she had felt in his head, whispers of her last thoughts
being heard on the edge of his hearing as he made his way toward the edge of town in the direction
they would have evacuated.
As he shuffled through a burned-out building, his vision began swimming again and he took a
second to lean against one of the damaged walls to wait for it to clear. He glanced around for a bit
to make sure the area was as clear as it could be before quickly took a drink from his canteen as the
sounds of an explosion sounded from the other side of town. A shooting pain dug into his temple
causing him to close his right eye quickly, when suddenly the sounds of crying began coming from
behind the wall he was resting against. He peeked around the corner quickly to double check
though he knew it would be empty. It was just her memories and emotions bleeding through, a
horrible downside of reading a dead mind was that their final moments tended to leave a very
strong imprint on his mind.
He shook his head to clear it, immediately regretting doing that as soon as the pain spiked again.
Grumbling to himself her walked carefully out of the building and limped down the street as
quietly as he could. He rounded a corner near a overgrown store, his gun already drawn and held in
front of him as the patrols had gotten thicker near the outside of town. They had a mix of riot units,
aliens, and robots hemming in the town pretty tight with revolving patterns that overlapped. He
took cover in the store, carefully moving around anything that could make noise since the area was
very quiet and sound would carry pretty far.
Max took a few minutes to watch the patrols out in the distance, trying to figure out any gaps in
their patrol patterns as they moved around. He was still watching when the sound of scales sliding
across stone was heard, the slight scratching sound easy to make out in the still morning air. He
pressed down into this cover better as he focused on the sound, trying to track where it was coming
from as it moved. It made a line straight toward the window he was near, and he jumped up with
his weapon ready to fire at anything hostile. He found nothing but air and quickly snapped to his
left, looking around the corner to try to spot the source as he listened again.
The sound of a hiss came from behind him and he twisted to aim at it only to find an empty room.
He slapped the side of his head, using the pain to try to focus the memories out before the audio
hallucinations got him killed. He turned back to the window only to see one of the riot troops
looking directly at his building. “Fuck!” he whispered as he slide out of sight, hoping the soldier
hadn't spotted the movement. He heard the unit call out something and deploy it's electrified
weapon with the tell-tail snapping sound.
He aimed toward the door as he heard the soldier sprint at the building, before he sensed it running
straight to his window. He snapped his aim to the left as the armored form smashed right through
the window, landing right next to him with a grunt as he snapped off a round from his revolver.
The round deflected off the red visor of the riot trooper with a cracking sound, and it immediately
twisted to try to stab it's weapon right into Maxwell's center mass. He moved to the side, the
jerking movement causing his injured shoulder to scream in protest as the weapon went under his
left armpit and stabbed into the wall. He whipped his right hand over to the aggressive soldier's
head, slipping the barrel of his gun under the edge of the visor and pulling the trigger. The slightly
muffled crack of the weapon caused it's head to whip back, and it crumpled to the ground like a
puppet with it's strings cut.
He twisted to bring his weapon around to aim out of the window, firing at the first trooper to notice
him as he went to move to the other side of the window frame. Rounds peppered the area around
him and he took a second before he peeked out and fired two more times, the special fifth round
detonating on the armor without penetrating it. With a flick of the wrist, he pulled the old white
phosphorus grenade off his belt and pulled the pin with his teeth before tossing it at the
unsuspecting trooper. He cussed to himself as it detonated in a wash of molten fragments while he
used the time he bought to frantically began reloading his empty weapon as he crouched on the
ground. The speed loader thankfully made it easier to do with a single hand, but before he could
close the cylinder he felt movement from behind him.
He moved to dodge, but his left leg refused to move as quickly as he wanted and the he felt
something hit him in the side. He felt the electrical current as pain lanced up his side, his weapon
and body dropping to the ground as his arms betrayed any sense of function. His consciousness
wavered as he tried to force his body to move, but before he could try he felt a hand grab him by
the armor and tried to pull him into the air. He realized the trooper was trying to pick him up
causing him to panic, adrenaline surged in his system as he yanked his trusty knife from it's leg
scabbard and he twisted in the soldier's grip as the lethal edge flashed toward his enemies neck.
With a wet crunch the blade pierced right into the soldier's throat, a sideways pull of the blade
cutting a nasty and wide U-shape into the bare flesh from one side to the other.
The hand dropped him and he hit the ground hard as the body of the trooper landed next to him
with a dull clatter of metal armor. Everything hurt as he tried to move again, he knew he had to
keep moving since the gunfire would only bring more enemies soon. It seemed they might want
him alive if they caught him and he shuddered at the thought. For whatever reason that was he
didn't know but he sure as hell wasn't going to make it easy for them. He scraped himself off the
ground, collecting his fallen weapon as he passed before finishing its reload and holstering it
quickly.
As he finally reached the edge of town the signs of battle grew more frequent and frenzied. The
still-burning wrecks of mechanical soldiers, bloody patches, and a destroyed vehicle or two were
pretty hard to miss as he moved. His eyes suddenly locked onto something next to a burning wreck
of a vehicle in middle of the road and the implications rattled him to his core. The personnel carrier
was flipped on its side and was covered with hundreds of bullet holes from nose to rear as flames
poured out of a gaping hole in the side, creating a large black cloud of smoke that obscured his
vision. Next to the troop carrier laid the shattered remains of a Exalt-pattern heavy laser, the
patched-up red and black barrel broken into three parts that were scattered beyond the vehicle.
Max froze as he looked on, his eyes locked on the weapon parts as his brain tried to focus on what
he was seeing as sound bled out of his surroundings. The crackling of the fire muffled the whispers
as he drew closer and reached out to pick up a piece that had been melted through with a plasma
hit. He simply stood there as he stared into the fire, his hand nervously rubbing the damaged barrel
fragment as his breath caught in his throat. A yell shattered the spell he was in as it rang out from
behind him and he quickly twisted toward it, dropping the fragment in his hand. His revolver was
up and firing in the blink of an eye, the riot troopers armor deflecting two rounds off the chest
plate.
He aimed and fired again, the next two rounds striking the soldier in the knee causing him to
stumble mid sprint as his momentum brought him to rest at Max's feet. As the enemy tried to flip
over his revolver leveled with the face-plate of it's helmet and the loud detonation of the liquid
alloy round sounded out as it blasted the visor's glass into the poor soldiers brain. A round struck
him in chest knocking him back and forcing him down on a knee as he sucked air trying to recover.
The sound of a stun blade was the only warning he had before it struck him in the back of the neck,
his body locking up as electrical currents overloaded his brain and blood flowed in his mouth as he
bit into his own tongue. He tried to resist it as he fell to the ground face first, his mind screaming to
fight on but his body had simply taken too much and the light faded to an inky black as the
whispering dark took him.
------------
Somewhere near the former town of Sturgis, South Dakota
Advent Base I-43
Her “shopping” trip was going quite well in her eyes, she was able to move through the base
effortlessly as long as she kept to the shadows and crates. Her old armor was the perfect disguise at
a distance if she was spotted, and as long as she didn't do anything stupid they wouldn't look twice
if she slithered by with her weapon in her hands. It had taken a few hours of carefully picking her
way around out of sight before she liberated her first two crates, one filled with energy packs for
her rifle and another with several fresh rifles ready to be imprinted on a viper. She swapped her old
rifle out for a new one quickly, and loaded it with a fresh energy cell before she carefully moved
the box of ammo out to her small vehicle she had hidden close to the base. She tasted the air as she
climbed the wall again, slithering around crates as she used her sense of smell to track down some
medical supplies she could use.
It was never a bad idea to have some on hand in case of emergencies after all, an untreated wound
could still kill her even if she did heal very quickly. She waited till a patrol went past before she
simply grabbed a whole crate of med-kits and began moving the whole damned thing out toward
the wall of the base when movement started near the air pad. She hid her box of goodies and got a
bit closer to see what was going on when an air transport suddenly skimmed in at full burn before
touching down quickly on the pad with a heavy thump. Curiosity took hold as she strained to see
what was going on, when her sharp eyes finally caught movement around the vehicle as something
was carried out of it on a stretcher and then something hit her sense of smell. Her eyes narrowed as
she recognized that smell, not only was it human but it also had something strange and almost
metallic to it.
She had smelled this before, and she followed carefully at a distance while watching two Advent
soldiers carry the stretcher to the main detention building. She watched the building a bit longer
before turning back to move her stolen supplies out to her vehicle, the strange smell tickling the
back of her mind as she couldn't quite place where she knew it from. As she loaded her trailer up
she contemplated simply leaving as she had what she came for, but something was bothering her.
Why did she feel she was not remembering this smell, a feeling like she should remember it but
simply didn't or couldn't. As she paced back and fourth next to her hidden vehicle, she argued with
herself over the risks of exploring further before she finally couldn't handle her curiosity any more.
She had to know why she recognized this smell, and why it mattered to her so much that she did.
With quick movements and a stealthy approach she made her way to the detainment building near
the center of the base, moving in the shadows and going out of her way to avoid her sisters in case
they could smell any difference from her. As she finally made it there, she made her way into the
building via a side door and slowly approached the holding cells as she followed the smell to it's
current location. She found the body that had been carried in, it was a male human that had been
injured heavily and looked barely alive at this point. He smelled of fire and death, as well as the
slightly sweet metallic-tasting smell she couldn't seem to place.
The door to his cell was locked with a security code keyed to a captain's implant, and she decided
the only way to get in would be ambush one when they came to check on him. So she set her
ambush and waited for her prey to spring the trap as she listened to the strained breathing of the
man in the room as his body kept fighting to go on. It wasn't long before a captain walked into the
hallway in his gleaming red armor and stopped in front of the door. She grinned to herself as she
looked down on him from above, her body locked tightly to a fixture on the ceiling to hold her up
there. The Captain walked to the door which opened with a hiss and she knew that was her call to
strike.
She quickly dropped down around him and wrapped around his body before he could react,
covering his mouth with a hand as she squeezed the breath out of him. The muffled sounds he
made only lasted a second before the sound of crunching could be heard from his torso as his
armor broke under the pressure of her coils. He quickly went limp in her hold, still breathing but
with the sound his body had made he most likely would no longer able to use any of his limbs
without medical intervention. She dropped him on the floor near the door to keep it open and
moved to the man on the table to get a good look at him. His dark brown hair was cut short and
many scars crossed his flesh where it wasn't still covered by the remains of the armor he was
wearing.
She noticed some of the armor plating had been removed to check his wounds which to her surprise
were mostly closed already, making her eyes go wide since the removed plates still had blood on
them that hadn't even dried yet. She jumped when he stirred slightly, his right arm twitching before
he started groaning out-loud into the room. She moved to his side, seeing as he was strapped to the
table she wasn't worried about her safety after all and her question demanded to be answered. With
a nudge she shook the man, hoping to wake him from his slumber without aggravating his wounds.
She tried again when this first one had no effect, shaking his right shoulder as she looked for signs
of him waking up while she leaned over his body.
His brown eyes snapped open and he blinked for a second before they focused directly on her face.
The room bled away as her memory flashed in front of her, those same eyes on the other end of a
gun aimed at her. Like two pools of amber as she stared into them right before a round impacted
her hood and detonated with a loud snap, pulling her back to the present as she threw herself back in
pure panic. The man simply kept looking at the ceiling and began groaning again as she breathed
in the corner, her right hand going to her chest plate as her left hand rested over the still visible scar
on her hood. She tried to say something but the long hours of practicing in front of the mirror failed
her, as her mouth simply opened and closed as she stared at him.
He simply laid there until she finally stuttered out a very shaken, “Y-y-you!”
“Whro?” he asked in a stilted tone as his eyes kept blinking as if to clear something from them as
his head rolled to the side and his breathing caught slightly. “Ugh, cann't shee.” he groaned out
through what she guessed was a injured jaw since it was sitting at a slightly strange angle.
She looked into his eyes, noticing they were unfocused and constantly moving as he tried to focus
on her movement. She knew she couldn't leave him here, if this was truly who she thought it was
she had to get him out of this place. Before she could say anything his eyes rolled upwards into his
head and he was once again unconscious, his breathing labored but steady. Looking him over she
noticed that besides the massive amount of wounds, there was also a medical device of some sort
attached to him that was feeding a green liquid into his arm. “Venom” She said to herself as the
familiar smell was found coming from the device as she looked for anything else she had missed.
She moved to pull the device out, but re-considered it after a moment. He was an enemy the last
time she had seen him, she heavily doubted he had just rolled over and let himself be captured with
as many wounds as he was carrying as well. It might be better to leave him sedated till she got him
out of here and to safety after all. She pondered her options for a short bit before deciding to pull
the device just as she took him out, in case it had some way of being tracked. Quickly fetching her
backpack she had hid inside the camp walls, she expertly packed all of the loose gear on the table
next to him into it hoping she didn't miss anything important to him.
With that taken care of, she used her claws to simply break the straps holding him to the table
before she picked him up in both arms and pulled the device on his arm out. She slithered out of
the building as fast as she could, all of her focus on the smells and sounds around her as she moved.
His body was heavy, but thankfully he didn't stir as she dodged the patrols inside the walls as they
moved toward his freedom. Her back hit the outer wall with a dull thud, her breath coming in
harder than she expected it would as she paused to breath and set him down against the wall. She
kept her head on a swivel as she checked their surroundings before she wrapped her tail around his
waist and climbed over the short wall, pulling him over once she was on top of it.
As she was lowing him down on the other side a floodlight in the nearest tower suddenly turned on
began moving in their direction. Panic flew up her tail like lightning as it came closer and fearing
what would happen if spotted she simply dropped both of them to the ground on the outside of the
wall. Her coiled body thankfully cushioned her impact on the ground, though in her panic she
hadn't dropped far enough to the side of her ward and there was a horrible sounding crunch as her
entire body weight landed on his left forearm. She quickly covered his mouth, hoping he wouldn't
scream out from what was definitely a broken arm if the angle of it was anything to go by.
Thankfully his sedation held firm and he didn't make any noise at all as she began cussing herself
out mentally for making such a simple mistake.
She carefully moved his newly injured arm into a position where she wouldn't move it anymore
and lifted him off the ground again. Her transport wasn't too far off now and once they got out of
here she could look over his many wounds to treat them. “Especially the one I just caused,” She
whispered quietly to herself as she looked down at the twisted arm. She looked around one last
time to make sure they weren't being followed before they disappeared into the bushes she had
hidden her vehicle at. After loading him into the trailer behind it, she started the electric motor and
listened to the gentle hum of power flowing through it. With a smile she carefully pushed the
engine to move them away from the base as she picked out her path through the trees.
It was time to go home and as she glanced at the man in her trailer, she idly wondered if he was
going to be alright for the whole trip. He had been the reason she was free and even if he hadn't
done it on purpose, she still owed him her life. She couldn't believe she was actually getting a
chance to pay him back, although she still felt horrible about hurting him during the “rescue”
mission. As she drove them back into the mountains a light rain started to fall as the temperature
begun to drop, so she checked on him and her idle thoughts became worried as she noticed the
amount of blood slowly seeping out from under him. After quickly pulling them into a small tunnel
she had found months ago while scouting, she went over and began checking over his body only to
find some of his wounds had re-opened. “Probably when I dropped and then immediately landed
on him.” she muttered to herself with a defeated tone.
Her face took on a dark scowl as she pulled out the small medical kit on her vehicle and began
tearing open his undershirt to get at the injuries they were partially covering. Tending to his
wounds helped ease her guilty mind, though her hand trembled slightly as she stretched her limited
medical knowledge to its breaking point. She began mumbling to herself as she worked, repeating
the the parts of the medical book she had memorized as her hands moved from one wound to
another. The silliness of her self-narration helped calm the nerves greatly, though her eyes would
always stray to his face whenever he made a noise. He would be waking up soon and in the end
would pull through, though her mind kept going to what would come after that. The last time she
had seen him they had been enemies after all, and judging by how beat up he was she was sure he
hadn't stopped fighting. “Will he even tolerate my presence, much less listen to my story?” she
mused to herself as she finished wrapping gauze around his shoulder when a hand shot up and
grabbed her left wrist.
“I guesh that will depind on your shtory than.” he muttered through a clenched jaw, his amber eyes
locked on hers as he sat up. He released her hand just as sudden as he had grabbed it, his hand
grabbing the bottom of his jaw with his fingers in his mouth as she pulled away from him. He
pulled his mouth open and pressed back toward his head, her sensitive hearing picking up a meaty
crunch sounding from the side of his head as she watched it move into place. “Fuck!” He spat out
before shifting his jaw around, no doubt making sure it was set back correctly. She simply moved
back a bit and watched as he rubbed the side of his face a bit before he once again looked into her
face. “First things first though, where the hell am I and who the hell are you?” he growled as his
eyes locked on hers.
Chapter End Notes
Alright, another chapter and I got this one out in around fifteen-ish days. I'll take it. As
always, feel free to leave a comment and tell me if anything seems screwed up. I need
to get better after all.
Making an Honest Impression
Chapter Notes
------------
“You don't know?” he grimaced at the still armored alien as she glanced down and nodded.
“Haven't you seen any signs or maybe a map of this area?” he asked as he shifted his weight
around a bit. He moved to pull himself to the edge of the trailer he was laying on and almost
started cussing as a sharp stabbing pain from his forearm shot right to the top of the pile of hurt
that was his body. With a glance he guessed it was most likely broken as it wasn't laying quite
straight. “Okay then, I guess we will figure that out later. What the hell happened to my arm?” he
asked while tracing the bones in the damaged forearm with his right hand to locate suspected
break.
“Um, that was my fault. I kind of dropped you over the wall when I rescued you.” He couldn't help
but shake his head as the snake-woman fidgeted in place as he stared at her, her clawed hands
making a soft scrapping sound as she wrung them nervously.
“From how high are we talking? I'm not exactly made of glass after all” he asked while looking
around at the concrete tunnel they were sheltering in. He simply watched as the alien killing-
machine damned near seemed to have a panic attack from being asked the probing question. She
shifted from side to side her tail moving erratically as she seemed to search for her words. After
grabbing her tail to still it's movement she took a deep breath to calm herself and tried,
unsuccessfully, to look him in the eyes.
“Only a couple of feet, but I also sort of accidentally landed on you. . . when I dropped down off
the wall.” she said with her voice trailing off at the end as she held the end of her tail like a child
would hold a teddy bear. He could hear her quick breaths in the silent space, the pattering of the
rain outside being the only sound in the small tunnel they were in. He needed to get his bearings
and the lady wasn't going to be much help it seemed. He still felt horrible and slightly sluggish in
many ways, though he pinpoint exactly why. With a groan he tried to stand up only to have his
vision blur and his legs buckle underneath him, the still partially paralyzed muscles failing to move
correctly as he tumbled toward the ground.
With a sharp intake of breath and a smear of color, he found himself laying on her tail as her lower
body coiled to the side and prevented him from landing on his broken arm. He looked up to find
her inches from his face with a look that could only be panic on her face, the colors of her emotions
betraying her intentions to him as he looked into her crimson red eyes. He could feel no hostility
from her as she attempted to carefully return him to a sitting position on the trailer as gently as she
could. She immediately began blurting out an apology, talking almost nonstop as he sat there
dumbfounded.
“I'm sorry, y-you probably shouldn't stand up just yet because when I found you in the base you
had a device on your arm that was injecting you with something made from the venom that my
species produces. They sometimes use a watered-down version of it to keep stronger creatures
paralyzed while they are being moved and I didn't bring any anti-venom with me as I'm immune
and wouldn't need it and it was a stupid oversight on my part as I wasn't expecting to find or help
anyone while I was at the base stealing supplies.”
His head stopped swimming after a few seconds, even as she babbled her apology at him. He
brought a hand up between them and tried to calm her before she got even more hysterical than she
already was. “Whoa, slow down now. You are gonna have a panic attack if you don't take a second
to breathe, you're fine.” She jerked slightly at the sound of his voice and just sat there staring at
him, having stopped mid-sentence when he spoke up. Considering her lack of hostility and his
current injuries he figured the diplomatic approach would be better until he could figure out what
the hell was going on.
“I might have issues with what you are due to the fact that you aliens have been trying to murder
me since the invasion, but you don't have to worry about me just yet. You seem to have pulled my
ass out of the fire and obviously you aren't killing me, so those are both points in your favor as far
my experience shows. After all you had plenty of time to kill me before I woke up.” he said as he
tried to project as much confidence as he could muster. Regardless of what he was saying he was
still internally screaming to some extent at his situation. Even if she was friendly, she was still a
twelve foot long snake-monster that could snap him in half like a twig if she felt like it and since he
was unarmed there wasn't a damn thing he could do if she chose that option. He sat there watching
the obvious train wreck in her eyes as her thought processes derailed off into a hole somewhere
behind her crimson eyes.
“Um. . . Okay then.” she finally said, seeming to be unable to recover from his interruption. Her
face scrunched up slightly as she got lost in her own head for a bit as she tried to process the
situation. The awkward silence stretched for a few seconds before he finally just gave a short
cough to snap her out of the lost look she had plastered over her face.
“Lets just start over then, my name is Maxwell Curtis Jackson. You can call me Max for short.” he
said while gesturing to himself. She perked up at that, her eyes once again regaining the spark he
had seen earlier as a small smile appeared on her face. “Alright then, what's your name?” he said
while looking directly into her red eyes. The bright colors of her emotions suddenly darkened as
her eyes dropped to the floor.
------------
“I don't really have one” she finally admitted while she idly rubbed her scar. Her mind quickly
sifting through everything she knew about human culture and to what a name meant to them. She
had never really had anybody to talk to since her escape, and survival had been too important for
her to really ever let her mind wander to that particular topic. She sat there looking at the floor
before she suddenly looked up at the injured man she had rescued.
“You don't have a name? What did they call you when you fought for Advent?” he asked when an
answer didn't materialize from her. Her mind went back to before she had been free, the long days
of mindless work she had done without question.
She finally spoke up after a few seconds of wallowing in her old memories, “They had an
identification number for my kind, mine was L4-6174 -SE2.” He held her gaze, seemingly not
believing her as he sat there looking into her eyes. He blinked a few times and just shook his head
before responding.
“Alright then, I'm never gonna remember that one and it's a mouthful anyway. You fine with me
just cutting it down to the the last bit?” he finally said while shaking his head slightly.
“The last bit?” she asked as she was torn out of her own mind. Try as she might, she couldn't think
of anything she liked that wasn't just a direct copy from one of the stories she had read in the few
books she had..
“The S-E in the last bit is what I meant, it sounds pretty close to the name Essie in sound. It would
be spelled E-S-S-I-E, which would keep it short and easy to say quickly.” he asked while looking
her over. His eyes suddenly widened as he noticed she was holding his stare and he unconsciously
began to rub the back of his head with his hand. “It would give me something to call you that
doesn't sound a phone number until you can figure out what you wanna be called anyway, though
it's all up to you in the end.” he quickly added with a shrug that made him flinch slightly. The pain
thankfully gave him a way out of the conversation as he quickly looked down at his wounds and
began fiddling with the bandages on his left shoulder.
She sat there thinking of what to do, as a name means a lot to humans and the name he had just
came up with wasn't bad. She simply had no references for a name that wouldn't be taken directly
from places on Earth since Advent basically just logged everything with numbers instead of a
name. Earth was the only real source she could realistically pull from since humans seemed to love
naming things.
“I know it's a bit off topic, but did they train you in medical skills? This bandage work is pretty
good.” he asked while prodding the wrappings she had done on his shoulder.
“Some yes, mainly for preservation of V.I.P. defense targets. I also found a first aid book around a
year ago, which I studied over the last winter.” she said in a matter of fact tone when it struck her.
He had just complimented her skills. As it registered in her mind,a ball of fear that was in her guts
suddenly disappeared like smoke and the tension began to leave her. She covered her face as she
began giggling to herself as the warm feeling settled deeper in her chest.
------------
Maxwell
He wondered if he had said something wrong when she suddenly covered her face and turned
away from him. A slight feeling of dread washed over him in that moment as the silence stretched
on for a long ten seconds or so. Then he started hearing a sound kind of like a light cough coming
from her which kept getting louder as it went on. “You okay ma'am? You really don't have to
choose a name now, and I meant what I said about your first aid skills.” he quickly said which
snapped her out of the fit she was in. She finally turned to look at him as he suddenly realized that
it must be something like laughter to her, the vivid colors of her emotions were radiating joy and
what he could only guess was relief.
She took a breath as she tried to calm herself, still laughing slightly as she once again covered her
face with one hand while trying to wave the other in his general direction. “No! I mean yes I'm
fine. I was just so damned nervous about talking to you and I didn't even realize how bad that
nervousness really was.” she said as she finally got control of herself again and smiled in his
general direction. “You are not only the first human I've talked to since I was freed, but you are
also the one human I had dreamed about finally meeting and the absurd coincidence of the
situation was a bit too much for me.” she said through a full smile, her emotions showing him no
deceit or falsehoods within their swirling layers.
After a few seconds of processing the flood of emotions and information, he made the mistake of
moving his left forearm to rub his temple and was rudely reminded that it was still just as broken as
when he woke up. With a slight smile he looked up to the giant snake and seeing she was still
showed no real threat to him, he figured an olive branch approach was still the best course of
action. “Alright then, you obviously have a story on why that is. How about you tell me while you
help me set bones in my arm, since you seem to have been the reason they are currently broken. It
will be a lot easier if you help me with it after all, and you can tell me why I'm so special that you
had a school girl giggle-fit over talking to me.” he said with a smile while gesturing to the medical
kit she had been using to patch him up when he had woken up.
She damned near jumped for joy at the prospect of being helpful to him before the slight jab
registered. She grabbed the first aid kit and slithered to the side of the trailer with a small frown.
She began rummaging through it as the frown stayed on her face as she looked through the kit
before she finally spoke up. “I said I was sorry about that, I panicked when the spotlight turned on
and I didn't look when I dropped down.” she said in a soft voice, a slight brush of fear coloring her
outline in his vision. He chuckled at the fact that he had been quite annoyed at times for being an
psionic empath as it had been so distracting when dealing with people, but he was quite happy for it
now that he was dealing with a very 'touch-and-go' situation with the alien killing-machine in front
of him.
“I was making a joke ma'am, so stop blaming yourself over it or I might actually have to hold you
responsible for it.” He said as he shook his head and put on the best grin he could muster in the
moment as her face suddenly took on a look of confusion. “If you keep blaming yourself for it
ma'am, I might have to have you take care of me till it's healed.” he said while looking directly in
her eyes with a full on smile showing. Her emotions flared with shame for a second before she
registered that he was joking as he began to giggle slightly, and she quickly joined in as they both
chuckled at the silliness of it all. She tried, unsuccessfully, to put a frown on her face before
smacking the tip of her tail on the ground to get his attention.
“That's not funny!” she said while still trying, and still failing, to suppress the smile on her face.
“Besides, I was planning on doing that already. I owe you that much anyway.” she said as she once
again began looking through the medical kit for splinting materials while also trying to hide the
smile on her face.
“Okay then ma'am you really gotta tell me why that is then. I'm actually quite curious as to why I
seem to matter so much to you exactly, after all I'm just a single soldier ma'am.” he said while
pointing out something in the kit for her to grab. A lull in the sound from the rain made him glance
to the entrance only to see the rain still falling just as hard as it had been the whole time. He simply
dismissed it as the grogginess messing with him and turned back to the large snake lady that had
found all the things she was looking for.
“First thing you will do is stop calling me ma'am, unless you want me to call you Mr. Jackson
from now on.” she quipped while laying out the items they would need on the trailer. His face
twisted in disgust at the thought of being called mister in any context and she glanced at him just in
time to catch the grimace plastered across his face. As they began the work on his arm she
gathered her tail under herself like a makeshift chair and took on a focused look as she glanced
down at his arm. “You came up with a name for me, so start using it then.”
A slight smile spread across his face as he focused on his arm. “Alright then Essie, you need to
help hold the bones in place after I move them. Now I'm gonna have bite down on something to
keep from yelling since this is gonna hurt like hell, so why don't you tell me that story while we do
this.” he said while grabbing for a piece of cloth she held out to him. “Hopefully it will distract me
from the pain while we work.” he said before he pushed the wad of cloth into his mouth and
grabbed the injured forearm.
As he began rearranging the arm, the pain exploded from the injured bones as she helped him
move them back into their correct places. He muttered muffled curse after muffled curse through
his clenched teeth into the rag in his mouth as the throbbing pain overtook everything for a few
seconds. His vision blurred as Essie held the arm steady and prevented it from moving until he
finally spit out the cloth, cursing loudly into the room right after. Seeing the worst of the pain was
over she began speaking, “Well? It all really started back when you shot me in the head.” she said
with a slight grin while she pointed to the wicked looking scars on her hood and around the left
side of her head.
------------
Essie
He barely reacted to her splinting his arm while she told her story about the aftermath of their first
encounter. His eyes were glued on her face as she spoke, every so often they would drift to the
scars she wore on the side of her head as the story went on. She could feel the weight of his stare as
she kept on talking, sometimes feeling small amounts of fear try to grip her as she spoke. She spoke
of the time before he had fired the shot that had freed her, and also of how she found the chip under
her own flesh when she had eventually tried to clean the wound he had inflicted on her. She had
pulled the necklace out to show him her reminder of that time, the copper fragment that was still
embedded inside the chip having taken on a green tinge by this point.
Through it all his face had dropped into the same look that she had seen on him while he focused
on fixing his arm. He finally spoke up at after a bit, conveying a mix of disgust and surprise in
equal parts. “This information changes so much, we always figured you aliens were all choosing to
fight us. We figured you were a willing army that had come to invade, but what you just told me
flips all of that on it's head.” he said with visible anger on his face. “You guys were just another
conquest target on the road to earth, taken and used as weapons. That is fifteen fucking layers of
fucked up!” he said while almost growling the last few words out.
“It's just a system of victims making more victims, a fucking cycle that just will keep going on.
Damn the alien assholes in control of this whole fucking thing!” He said as he smacked his good
arm into his thigh. She had never seen anyone this angry up close and the sudden sound caused her
to flinch away when he hit his leg. His face had softened almost immediately after and he held out
a hand, apologizing for the outburst. “I'm sorry Essie, it's just that humans really don't like the idea
of losing our freedom. I have always found anybody that enslaves others to be utterly detestable in
my personal opinion, basically someone that does that is the lowest form of filth in my book. So
don't worry, I'm not mad at you. In fact I actually sympathize with what they did to you and your
people since it's exactly what they are currently doing to mine.”
He trailed off and began to look out the mouth of the tunnel into the rain as it fell. The silence
stretched out as they both simply listened to the pattering of the rain outside. She had been so
afraid of what he would think or do that she had never even come up with a plan for after talking to
him. Her mind twisted trying to come up with something that break the tension as she glanced at
his face again to see him lost in his own mind once again. “Um. . . Max?” she finally said while
tapping on on his shoulder which caused him to flinch slightly as his attention snapped back to the
dingy tunnel they were in.
“Sorry about that Essie, what did ya need? I kinda zoned out for a bit.” he said while rubbing his
eyes with his hand. A sudden yawn escaped his lips and he looked to her with an obvious look of
weariness. He turned quickly and glanced down deeper into the tunnel with an alert look. “By the
way, is this location safe?” he asked as a feeling of uneasiness crept over her.
She glanced back out and flicked her tongue out, tasting nothing but rain, concrete, and metal. She
turned to look around the tunnel they were currently in, only noticing some slightly damp patches
away from the entrance that seemed out of place. “It should be, the tunnels are collapsed further in
so this is the only way in and out. The rain also isn't going to let up for awhile, and we both need
rest so why don't we set up in here. I don't know what you want to do now, but you are free to stay
with me at my home until you are in better health at least.” she said nervously while holding her
tail. “It's the least I could do for you after all.” she quickly added with a small smile.
He opened his mouth to speak, but quickly closed his mouth and his face did a little frown as he
looked off into the distance. As he stared off into the rain he began speaking in a low voice,
“Everybody I know is probably dead now. So fuck it, why not?” He looked down at his wounds
and his armor frame that was missing it's torso plating. “Hell, at this point I don't really have
anything else I can lose other than my life.” he said with a sigh.
------------
Maxwell
“Just wish I still at least had my knife and guns, I feel kinda naked without them.” he said with a
chuckle as he once again glanced down at the bandages on his wounded shoulder, the exudate
having already begun soaking through in a few spots as the injuries had begun closing. Something
was bothering him and he couldn't put his finger on what it was. As he quickly looked around for
the source of his unease, Essie suddenly gave out a slight gasping sound she moved to her vehicle
and began digging into the bags she had attached to the sides of it. She gave off another laugh as
she located whatever she was looking for and suddenly flexed herself backwards so that her head
was looking back at him with a smile.
“You mean these?” she quickly said while she held up something above her body while she was
still upside-down. In her hands was the silver body of his heavy revolver and the telltale red barrel
of his laser pistol. His eyes went wide and a smile crept over his face as she spun her body around
fully to look at him properly. “I found these when I grabbed you from inside the Advent base. I
figured you might want them, so I tossed them and any other gear I found near you into these
bags.”
With practiced ease she spun the revolver around and handed it to him, the feeling of the cool
metal immediately making him feel better as he holstered it. It was effectively useless without
ammo, but having it was reassuring to say the least. He looked back to her only to see her looking
at the red laser weapon with a confused look plastered over her reptilian face. “I've only ever seen
this one when you were carrying it, back when you originally shot me. What kind of weapon is this
one?” she asked while handing it over to him.
“It's a laser pistol, partially based off some of the tech we originally reverse engineered from you
guys back at the original XCOM base.” he said while watching her reaction for any sign of
hostility as his senses once again told him something was watching him, putting him on edge.
“Wait, you were from the original XCOM? I thought you were all killed, they made sure everyone
saw it when they broadcast the news that they had wiped out XCOM.” she said with a look of awe
and sadness.
His eyes dropped back down to the weapon in his hands before he thumbed the activation switch to
make sure it still worked as the feeling of being watched got worse. It gave off a slight snapping
sound and began humming slightly as a dull red glow ran down the barrel. “They damned near did,
I was on a mission at the time when they attacked.” he said in a somber tone as the faces of his
long dead friends flashed in front of his eyes.
With a deadly serious look on his face, he looked into her eyes before he responded. “They hit our
base like a tidal wave, we had been outnumbered at least seven to one from what I saw and the base
was littered with bodies that had been left to rot. Almost everyone I knew died that day.” His
thoughts became heavy as he stared off into the rain once more. “But they didn't get us all, I'm still
here after all.” His body suddenly broke out into goosebumps and his arm shot up up like lightning
as the glowing weapon illuminated her surprised face in the darkness. A startled yelp was all she
could get out as a sickly green reflected in his eyes before he pulled the trigger.
Three flashes illuminated the tunnel entrance as three muffled snaps were swallowed by the
pounding rain outside.
Sorry this took so long to get out, I caught Covid and was basically laid out for almost
three whole weeks. Still working on the story, and I will keep at it till I run out of the
pages of bullet points I have for the plot. Thanks for reading my work, I actually
already feel like my writing has improved drastically from the first chapter as I have
been knocking off the writing rust. Thanks again for those of you that have given me
feedback, I appreciate it so i can get better.
Please drop by the archive and comment to let the author know if you enjoyed their work!