"No matter how much suffering you went through, you never want to let go of those memories."

-Haruki Murakami-

Prologue to the Epilogue: Qualms of an Old Man

Palremo, Italy, 2036

Though he was enjoying the warmth of a bright summer day, Hunter Williams was in another one of his boredom spirals. The elderly seventy-three year old had his hair, but it was now a sleek gray. His face had a small amount of wrinkles in it, though they were very fine. His skin had lost some of the original shine, but the complexion was fair, for the most part. The exception being a horizontal scar was visible that was brownish in color on his skin. He was still in his night robe as he pondered what to do next.

"Dad, I'm going out with some friends now. So don't mind me" a teen's voice said from across the hall as he bolted to reach the door.

"Hachiro! Wait just a second" Hunter called out midway with his deep, somewhat raspy voice as he turned his head towards the teen.

Hachiro is Hunter's fifteen year old son. His hair was a light dirty blond that matched well with his pair of olive eyes. His skin was how his father looked in his extreme youth. He is the only child that Hunter ever had and as such he tries to take care of him as best he can, but even so he is a bit strict on him for doing things on his own for the moment and almost like that the boy lost respect for him as time went on, which he didn't want to happen.

"What?!" Hachiro replied, while still being annoyed

"I want you to stay here for today. You haven't cleaned your room yet? Or did your laundry"

"Dad! Come on. Let me go please, my friends are going be pissed at me if I'm not there at the party."

"If they want to get mad, tell them to come to me first. My point is I don't want you going out"

"Tch* Whatever, old man." Hachiro said, before slamming the door to his room.

All Hunter could do, was look sorrowfully at his son locking himself in his room and went to an old photo of a woman.

He sighed deeply "I just wish we could have made him understand when he was younger. Right, hun?" he said with a light smile.

His reminiscing was suddenly stopped by a loud knock coming from the door. Hunter stood up as he knew exactly who was at the door. He placed to picture back and moved quickly to open the door to a familiar face. The forty-year old man had almost not aged since their last "adventure" together save for a few details such as being more muscular and his hair having a few more grey streaks in it. Other than that, he looked like the same, youthful as he was when Hunter first met him.

"Commander Gordon!" Hunter said, with a big grin on his face.

"Hey keep it down a bit," He started making a signal to be quiet with his hands and quickly entered the house "But, yes it's nice to see you again, Hunter" Gordon said as he took off his shoes and entered.

They both sat at on the floor near a small coffee table.

"How have you been, these long years?" Gordon said while doing a low horizontal circle motion with his index finger.

"I've been doing as well as any old man. With training spurts here and there." He noted the motion and made a vertical circle, "Heh, Special Op Black Coffee it is then, I'll get on it right away," He said taking out a old package of coffee with a seal on it.

Gordon looked around the small house with his eyes, and finally rested on the photo of the woman, "That must be her..." He said, his voice a bit sombre

Hunter looked at it with him. "Yeah, that was," he slightly bit his lip at the thoughts that ran through his head.

Silence befell the room as the two men were reliving their memories and Hunter was still preparing the coffee slowly and placed two cups on the table.

Hachiro slowly got out of his room get some water, but to his surprise he saw his father and a strange older looking man sitting at the other side of the small table. To Hachiro, he didn't look cool at all with his black trench-coat.

"Who's the tramp?," He said, still a bit annoyed about not being able to go.

"Hachiro! Don't be rude. This is your Uncle Gordon, He hasn't seen you in since you were a baby, now have some respect for him." Hunter said slightly disappointed of his son.

Gordon just stared at the boy and nodded. Hachiro wasn't usually worried about a man giving him a look, but this felt different. He didn't know how to explain it but the look that this "Uncle Gordon" gave him was like one of those heroes in action movies where just by one look you know he's been through hell and back. It made his spine crawl.

Hachiro stepped forward and bowed his head slightly, as he looked Gordon "I guess I am sorry..." He said as he felt a droplet of sweat trickle his head.

"He's your son alright, out of his way to insult me before talking to me, sounds familiar" He said making a face towards Hunter.

Hunter was a bit caught off guard and began clearing his throat a bit, "Ahem...em... Hachiro, I want you to get go into my room, There is a box in my closet, I want you to get it for me.

The boy as his father said this, realized that he was going for the very first time in his life. Ever since he was a kid, his father never let him enter his room for any reason. Even if he was a little bit sneaky, his father would put him back in his place. He wondered for a brief moment, if his father had forgotten that he wasn't supposed to be here. As he entered the room, he saw that the walls were a light blue with white carpeting. Hachiro headed to the closet, and heard his father called out to him.

"...Get my guitar case as well!" he said again in a higher, but softer tone.

Hachiro, rolling his eyes walked over to the closet, He grunted as he opened the sliding door and was a bit confused at what he saw. It was body armour and it looked still brand new and polished it was like something out of a sci-fi movie. It gave him a bit of a confusion but he paid no mind to it for now as he took the large box in one arm and the guitar case in the other.

"Whoa... What the hell is in here, gold bricks?!." He said picking up the case and walking in the living room, placing it on the table.

"Thank you" Hunter said as he was finished with the cups of coffee for the two and he was sitting down as he started to open the guitar case to reveal something.

"Do you think this is alright? telling him about this?" Gordon said cautiously with a serious look on his face

" He's old enough now, It's time for him to learn the truth and get a bit of hairs on his chest."

"Old enough for what? What truth " Hachiro said inquisitively as he look back and forth between the two men.

" Alright... but the consequences are on your head

Hunter chuckled and finished opening the guitar case. Hachiro walked around and took a step back as there was no musical device inside there at all. Instead, Hunter was took out and was holding a weapon with green mechanize parts with that had many silver parts on it as well. On the surface it had the appearance of the standard sniper rifle used by the army, but of course it looked heavily modified .

"Hey Dad? Did you cosplay back in your my age." Hachiro said with a bit of chuckle as he thought the idea of him just pretending to shoot a gun was a bit hilarious in his mind

"Unfortunately," Hunter said as he took out and pointed to the sliding door that was ajar and a stone pot "This is no prop" he said pressing a button as he charge the power cells.

A second later, it fired quickly fired a precise green shot of almost liquid substance, and when it hit its target, the quickly dissolved and blasted the remaining pieces around. almost hitting the glass.

Hachiro fell on his rear and back up covering his head slightly, "Bloody hell, that's real!? why would you ever have something like that on you?!"

Gordon turned to him and spoke up "You heard in school about the terrorists that made the world panic in 2015 to 2020, causing many deaths and crazed individuals?"

"Yeah, I have the terrorist group was never caught by the end of it, but they were about to unleash nuclear warfare on earth causing chaos..." Harchiro said sitting down. "What does that have to do with... that weapon?"

"What you know about that incident was actually a carefully constructed cover-up to hide the truth, that it wasn't Terrorists that bombarded it. I fought that war as solider in the special unit simply known as "XCOM" Hunter said giving a stern face

"I was the commander of the XCOM Project during that time frame." Gordon said coldly

"Hachiro, the reason I wanted you to stay home was that I would tell you about it ,but before that I want you to look in the box and pick up what's inside."

Hachiro was hesitant to say the least, XCOM. solider. Cover up. This was almost as ridiculous as game plot where plant people are actually Dragon minions... Somehow though, he wanted to know more and he nodded and opened the box to find CDs and an old helmet with battle scars and bullets ploughed into it . The tapes went up to 2016 and the helmet had a sticker that labelled "2015-2020" as he took the CDs out he saw some medals as well as a lot of dog tags"

"You have a choice, Hachiro," Hunter began slowly "I'll let you go friend's party and have fun and such however... If you ask me about this again, I will not tell you anything about it even if you beg and your questions will be lost to the annals of history. If you stay and listen though, you will fully understand why I'm so strict with you and why this entire event in history was covered with a blanket of lies"

Hachiro gave it some a brief thought and chuckled as he looked at his father, "Like you say dad, I'm not going anywhere for today so, you better get comfortable and tell me everything." He said giving a large grin on his face

Gordon laughed out loud as this was quite familiar "Your son is really a chip of the block and when I say chip I mean a chunk out of it" he said rubbing his eyes and giving the first smile he said while coming to the house

"Now, before I begin you should prepare yourself with food for the long haul because this is it's a long epic, but since it's only nine o'clock in the morning we should, finish very late and now before I start babbling I'll give you a few minutes to get ready." Hunter took a deep breath and watched his son bounce a bit as he went around the kitchen.

Gordon placed and hand on Hunter's shoulder "Welcome back to XCOM, Proudshot."

Hunter gave a chuckle and placed a hand on Gordon as well, "Thank you, commander".

Edit: This was an older story that I had started writing but after re-reading it I decided to make it longer and fix most of the original mistakes in it as well as expand on it.

Now, since some people might read this, I'll say this now you can bring OC characters by sending me a private message. I will be choosing when they die, however so don't be alarmed if it happens. The OC application format is under

Name:
Age:
Nationality:
Personality:
Class:
Perks for the class:
Battle quotes:
Personal history:
(Optional)Character quirks:

Also I'm wondering, If I should after the first episode to allow other people to create stories in the Fan fiction, to make stories by giving a whole bunch of teams some stories to make it actually, Tales of a Past War. If you want in on making a story chapter in the future then give me a PM and let's discuss about it.

Until then, we will be watching (See you at the next chapter)