Hello everyone! To those of you who are fans of my story "Worth Remembering" I've got some bad news. Writer's block has finally caught up with me. I've got all the important parts of the next chapter all planned out, but I'm having trouble connecting the dots. I talked to a friend of mine about it and he suggested writing something else for a while and come back to it later. And so here we are.
This is something I've had running around in my head for the past two weeks or so. A RWBY crossover with XCOM: Enemy Within. (I own neither of these BTW). The reason I'm not publishing this in the actual Crossover section is because it's mostly going to focus on the RWBY characters, and who would actively search for this xover anyway?
To those who don't know about XCOM, (If you do, skip this paragraph) it's a strategy game by the people who made the civilization games, and in 2012, it was declared strategy game of the year. The basic idea is that you are the commander of XCOM, a top-secret military project funded by several nations around the world, your task? defeat an alien invasion or humanity will be enslaved or killed. No pressure. Your soldiers are affected by permadeath, so if they get shot in battle, they can die from it and can't rejoin the fight later on, and if too many nations decide to stop funding XCOM, you lose.
Now, to make things a bit more interesting for you readers, you can send me a PM with a character profile, and I might use them. However, please note that chances are, they will die, or might not be used at all. (The game likes to frustrate me by giving me too many snipers, most of whom never see combat.)
And finally, as some of you may have guessed, this will all be based entirely on how my game goes. When a character dies, it's probably not because I wanted them to, but that's how the game went. So please don't be offended if your favorite character dies. I did what I could to keep them alive. So, let's just get things rolling, shall we?
Newly demoted Central officer Bradford gazed at the pictures of four of the bravest men and women he'd ever known. His first operation as commander of XCOM, Operation Devil's moon, saw these four soldiers landing in Germany in response to reports of an attack by unknown forces. After a brief firefight, three XCOM operatives and three small aliens were dead. However, the last XCOM survivor, Recruit Victor Garza, was wracked with PTSD and taken off active duty. He ate his gun last night. Making it a total of four XCOM operatives killed. after only one mission.
Now here their pictures hung, in what the rest of their operatives had begun referring to as "Memorial wall".
The council of nations that supported the XCOM project were concerned about this loss, and almost killed the program in it's infancy. But upon reviewing the footage of the battle, decided that Bradford's poor leadership was responsible for the catastrophe. Rather than allow himself to be discouraged by this, Bradford was determined to stay on with the project and do everything he could to help win this war. He owed it to those who paid the ultimate price for his failure.
"Central officer Bradford, please report to the situation room." A robotic voice called over the base's loudspeakers. The officer sighed. He knew what was going on. The council had finally decided who should take his place as commander. Turning his back to the memorial wall, he marched out of the barracks, and into the mission control room.
The barracks had all the appearance and atmosphere of a bar and gym rolled into one, but the mission control room was where you got to see XCOM's home base in all it's glory. The room was dominated by a giant holographic globe. The nations currently apart of the council were highlighted in a light blue. Right smack dab in the center of Germany, a green pentagon with an X through it showed the location of the XCOM base. Surrounding this globe was a small army of men and women working at their computers. All of them hunting for an anomaly that could be a UFO, or the start of an alien raid on a major city.
Bradford walked past them as he made his way into the situation room. It was a large room just above the barracks with three walls and a large screen that doubled as the fourth wall. The screen projected a map of the world, and highlighted each of the sixteen funding nations. At the top of the screen sat eight dots waiting to be filled. The engineers had dubbed this "The doom tracker". Whenever a nation left the council, one of those dots would fill up. Once eight nations left, the council would deem the XCOM project to be a failure, cut off the remaning funding, and return to trying to find their own individual ways of dealing with the aliens.
"Hello, Central Officer." An impossibly deep voice greeted him. Te screen flickered for a second, before revealing the council's spokesperson. His face was shrouded in shadows, preventing anyone from knowing what he looked like. But he carried an undeniable authority in his voice. The voice of a council of sixteen nations. Most of the soldiers who'd seen him commonly referred to him as "Optimus Prime in a suit" because of his voice.
"Central Officer Bradford, Reporting for duty." He saluted.
"We assume you know why you have been called here." Optimus inquired.
"Yes sir." Was Bradford's reply. "You called me here to reveal the next commander of the XCOM project."
"Correct. We have sent you the dossier on the man we have selected as your new commander. We expect you to retrieve him, and have him ready to assume command within the week. Remember, we will be watching." And with the spokesperson's usual farewell, the screen returned to its normal display.
The tablet laying on the conference table behind him beeped. Letting XCOM's new second-in-command know that he'd received a message. Picking up the device, Bradford entered in the password, and a young man's file popped up.
"Oh, you've got to be kidding me." Bradford cused under his breath. Was this some kind of sick joke the council was playing on him? Giving an ultra-secret paramilitary force to this guy? What were they thinking?
His own feeling's aside, Bradford had his orders, and he had to carry them out.
Before I go, I just want to point out one last thing. This story is an experiment in character consistency and dialogue. Both are issues that I have when writing. If your character or any of the RWBY cast starts acting out of character, call me on it. Thank you, Fanoren out.