A Grab for the Heart
Key:
Normal: Text, 'Thoughts', "Human Speech"
Bold: AN, 'Alien Thoughts', "alien Speech"
Italics: Song/Flashback Text, 'Electronics', "YELLING!"
Chapter 1: Failure?
PoV: 3rd Person
The room was dark, almost pitch black. At the front of the room, in the center of the wall, there was a screen that was turned off.
A door opened, and flooded the room with light, three figures walked in and positioned themselves in front of a table sitting in the center of the room.
The screen in front of them turned on when the door behind them shut, showering them in bright artificial light, The man standing in the middle of the two other figures pressed a blinking button in front of them.
The screen flashed and faded as a different image came up. One of a bald man shrouded in shadows, the man raised his hand and began gesturing to the people sitting at the table.
"The inability of this project to maintain the support of several critical council members has greatly reduced the effectiveness of both entities." The man on-screen said, with a slightly distorted voice. "This entire undertaking was the product of an ill-conceived plan… a series of simple… misunderstandings met with an… overzealous… response." the man said, making hand gestures to help emphasize his point. "We believe the best course of action now is to cooperate with the aliens, for the… betterment… of all mankind." The voice continued, the figures looked at each other in bewilderment. And looked back towards the screen as the man continued speaking. "We are of one mind about this. The path ahead is clear." The man said as he pressed a button not seen on screen, and the image shut down; showing a map of the world as a series of red bars on the screen slowly died out one by one.
The three figures from before were left dumbfounded as they stared at the screen that once held the face of one of their supporters. The lights in the room turned back on and showed all three figures clearly for the first time since they entered.
On the right stood an aging man that looked like he was nearing the back end of his life. He wore a dress shirt underneath a green jacket that was normally closed with a tie to help accentuate all of it. Now he had his jacket open to help himself cool off, and his tie was on in a haphazard fashion, overall giving him a disheveled look. He had on a pair of glasses, and his hair was thicker towards the side while nonexistent on the top… He's bald. His hair was a silvery gray, and his face betrayed his age, with the wrinkles and sunken eyes, he was the very image of an elderly man.
On the left was a woman of a younger age, she was wearing an emerald turtleneck with the Xcom emblem on her chest. She wore a white lab coat with emerald stripes traveling down the sleeves. Her hair was a dark amber color and was cascading down her back instead of the usual bun. Her pale skin showed how often she was indoors, and her shadowed eyes told stories of countless sleepless nights.
The man in the middle looked the most formal and composed with his green sweater overtop of his white dress shirt, and tie. His hair was a lighter brown color and was in a very plain, and easy to maintain style. He was currently holding a headset that normally went around his head, and fed him intel on x-ray activity.
The man on the left turned to the other two, and voiced the question that was on all of their minds; "What just happened?" He asked in a dumbfounded tone and shot a glance back at the screen.
"I believe…" Began the woman on the left. "That the X-COM project was just terminated," she said solemnly, turning to the other two occupants of the room.
"What do we do now?" The old man on the right questioned turning to the man in the middle looking for answers.
"We continue to try and fight back the aliens." The man in the middle said he turned towards the door.
"Bradford, without funding from the council, Vahlen and I will be hard pressed to keep our men supplied with standard equipment, much less upgrading it to effectively fight off the aliens." The old man said, naming the woman to his left.
Vahlen turned and addressed the now stationary Bradford, "Doctor Shen is, unfortunately, correct in his observations, while we may be able to make some minor improvements, it'll take much longer to make any major improvements." She said, "Thus eating up our already non-existent time frame." She continued.
Bradford whipped around and began yelling, his already thinning composure breaking under the stress. "You think I don't know that!" He began, startling the two doctors. "I know we're already on a tight schedule, and we're now on an impossible one." He continued, walking back over, and supporting himself with the table. "But we can't give up, we know what we saw down in that base, and we can't just let these aliens take away everything." He said, slamming his fist down on the table.
Vahlen gained a thoughtful look. "Perhaps it isn't the proper time for a counter attack." She said, almost a mumble, but the other occupants clearly heard her.
Bradford turned to her, and asked his thoughts, "What do you have in mind?"
Vahlen began walking towards the door, "It's more long-term, but if we pull this off; Xcom won't only survive, it'll thrive!" She said.
PoV: ?
In a completely separate area that was a stark contrast to the dark base that the three people were talking in, there was a beautiful meadow, with bright flowers, and a wonderful atmosphere that screamed peace, and happiness.
A young boy, about five years of age, was running through the field happily. The boy was giggling in delight at the wonderful scene. "Mom, Dad!" He screamed out at the top of his lungs. "Bet you can't catch me!" He yelled over his shoulder at the two laughing adults chasing after him.
"Oh yes, we will!" The father exclaimed to his son, before scooping him up in his arms, and proceeding to tickle his stomach. Zed laughed at the sensations and turned to scream at his dad to stop it. Before he could, however, a flash of green fire arched out of the trees and struck him in the face, the fire burned brightly and burned through his father's skin like a hot knife through butter. The child in his arms was showered in burnt flesh and boiling blood, but he was too shocked to feel any forms of pain.
The child looked towards his mother as he heard her scream his name, and was helpless as more green fire rained down upon her still running form. She died almost instantaneously, burning alive under the scorching substance. The kid snapped out of his stupor when he finally hit the ground, the world to him was moving in slow motion, as he scrambled to the side of his dead father.
"Dad!" He screamed out, hot tears flowing down his face, and splattering on the corpse's torso.
The child continued to stare, even as he was picked up by something, and carried away from his parents. He screamed at the scene before him, helpless as he watched the field he was previously playing in burned, though he could swear he saw a man standing among the flames, smiling morosely at the scene.
AN: This is the redone version of the first chapter, I tried my best to fix mistakes, and add more content to help describe my story. This last scene was a completely new addition that is going to play a bigger part in a later arc.
This is Spartanrex10 Signing off!