1.
Elena Volkova had eyes sharper than anyone else in XCOM.
She could see anything that the squad had spotted. And when she saw an alien, it meant a dead alien.
As they approached a crashed UFO, they heard hurried footsteps and squeaky shrieks, the sound that had become so familiar to them, and minutes later they saw them.
Sectoids. Small, bald aliens carrying plasma pistols . Cowards that scrambled away as their comrades fell.
"What's he doing?" Sying Li whispered, as a distant sectoid seemingly drove a wave of purple light toward its partner's head.
"Mind merging." said Zuberi Akinwande, the rocketeer who loved his rockets almost as much as he loved the sight of dead aliens. "Stupid little trick if you ask me. Kill the mind merger, and they're both dead."
"We'll see about that." Elena peered into the scope on her Sniper rifle, and a deadly bullet shot straight through the mind merging Sectoid's head. The Sectoid screeched, his pistol exploding to pieces, and barely a moment later his mind partner too fell lifeless to the ground.
"Well that was easy." Sying remarked.
"There's another one back there. Watch for it." Elena said as she reloaded her weapon.
"What, where -"
Then Sying saw it. At the edge of her vision, another bald gray head bobbled behind a small hill. If only he would move one step closer then she could shoot. And it would be nothing more than a dead Sectoid.
But he never moved. He raised his pistol.
And hit Sying squarely in the chest.
2.
"It's not your fault you know…There was nothing you could have done."
"Are you saying he deserved it?" Elena looked up, an odd fire burning in her eyes.
Chris Allen started. "No of course not, I -"
"Because he didn't."
"Of course he didn't… Nobody deserved to fall like that." Chris whispered. "But you need to stop blaming yourself for what you couldn't have changed."
"Only he and I could have hit that wall, Chris. You and Shotsy had no angle… And if you're saying it's not my fault, then you are saying that he blew up his cover by himself and that he deserved what he got!"
It had been Christian Allen's first ever mission as an XCOM operative. His and Malin Jensen's first ever mission. He had helped the squad with his swift legs, scouting ahead, hunting targets for Elena to snipe. While Malin… That girl was an alien's worst nightmare, shooting them dead left and right. She also had a knack of shooting extra holes in alien corpses. When Elena told her to cut it out, she looked into her eyes with the most innocent expression, and simply replied, "Why should I?"
Elena didn't argue with her, which was very unlike the reputation of XCOM's fierce-eyed captain. Instead she began calling Malin "Shotsy", and refused to address her by anything else.
Perhaps it was because she wasn't in the mood for bickering.
Zuberi Akinwande, who could have been an engineer had he not preferred the front line, would never fight beside her again. He who had been there with her from the very beginning, the man who had covered her when she was flanked by aliens, who had blasted the bastards to their well-deserved deaths after she had missed a shot, who had calmed her two weeks ago as Sying fell beside her. He had been their last line of defense, carrying a rocket that brought mayhem and death to the aliens who dared threaten the well-being of his comrades and friends.
That last defense had fallen.
And it was because she, team captain Elena Volkova, had blown apart his cover while trying to shoot down a scurrying Sectoid.
"It makes you feel better you know?" Malin swung a Sectoid corpse, its body a slimy mush from all the fresh rifle holes.
A devilish smile appeared on Elena's lips. "Stay clear, you two."
She walked to the sleeping Zuberi, trying not to look at the angry plasma burns on his body, and carefully picked up his dear rocket.
"See ya in hell, bastards."
Boom.
3.
Matt Wouters was a rookie.
Not a rookie in the sense that he had never held a gun, no. He had been a military veteran, a seasoned warrior, up until the day their military base was assaulted by aliens and he had barely escaped from the angry fists of some Mutons.
Then he joined XCOM, and became a rookie. No class, no specialty, no experience, a rookie.
And he was going to change that.
So as the team headed to the Skyranger to sweep an abduction site, Matt volunteered to go with them.
Team captain Elena Volkova, knowing the kid's reputation for a monstrous aim, agreed.
They touched down beside a large building with windows all the way across its sides. Some large vans were parked in the yard. Otherwise, there was little to use as cover.
"Well people," Elena said, "let's set up behind these cars shall we?"
Then they saw them.
Two Thin Men and two Floaters shrieked at the sight of them. The Thin Men fell back into the building, as the Floaters flew forward, their light plasma rifles hanging mockingly from their little mechanical fists.
The next thing Matt knew, the Floaters were dead.
"See that, rookie?" Malin "Shotsy" Jensen winked at him, "That's our captain, man!"
Elena couldn't help but smile smugly as she lowered her Sniper rifle. "With an aim like yours, rookie, you could be a Sniper." She reloaded the rifle. "And then I could finally get some rest."
Suddenly one of the Thin Men poked his head around the building. And barely a second later he exploded into a cloud of poison.
Shotsy stared at her brand new laser rifle admiringly. "This thing is a beast," she remarked, "Dr. Vahlen has outdone herself."
"Stay back people, one more Thin Man to go." reminded Heather Lewis calmly.
"Hey rook, you mind taking cover at the front of the car? the trunks are all taken!" Shotsy called as she repositioned behind a large van.
"I bet I've got better eyes than you do from up here!" Matt called back, as he nudged to a side angle.
"Watch out, it's on the roof!" Heather shouted as she poured laser towards the advancing Thin Man. Chris too fired his rifle, yet the Thin Man dodged the two shots with alarming reflexes, ducking behind the rim of the roof, and rained down a stream of plasma at the only target he could see clearly, the rookie whose side was partially exposed to the angle of the roof.
Matt was dead before he could scream.
"Ooh you are gonna pay for this one." Shotsy murmured as she toasted the Thin Man with deadly precision.
Half an hour later, after the squad cleared out a final group of Mutons and headed toward the Skyranger, Shotsy fell back, climbed onto the roof, and blasted six laser holes through the Thin Man's already distorted body.
"This one's for you, rookie."
4.
So far, so good.
It was their first time aboard a real, flying, alien battleship. The sheer size of the vehicle was intimidating. The aliens inside, not as much.
"Bah, another Thin Man." Malin Jensen, or Shotsy as everyone called her, mumbled as she reloaded her laser rifle, "You would have thought they had something other than Thin Men on an entire battleship."
"Careful down there Shotsy, I think I can hear something else behind those platforms." Heather Lewis said as she packed her rocket and sprinted past a power conduit sitting in the middle of the room.
Shotsy stopped in her tracks and peered over the edge of a huge platform. Her eyes narrowed. With no warning at all, she drew her rifle and fired at lightning speed. A familiar screech followed, and silence once more.
Shotsy turned around and made a face. "Sectoid. I'd have thought there were at least some piggy Mutons in here!"
After destroying another wave of Thin Men and a Chryssalid, the squad piled towards the right-side entrance to the hallway ahead.
"Strike-One, heads up, intel suggests there is an unknown enemy patrolling the corridors directly in from of your position. We do not know what it is, but it seems to be more powerful than anything we've previously encountered. It also seems to be hunting for you. Be careful down there."
"Now that's new." Elena Volkova, the captain and sharp-eyed Sniper of the squad, observed the opening they've blasted in the wall next to the doorway, "I've never had an impression any of the aliens liked to hunt. They were usually cowards."
"Shall we hunt then, " Shotsy bounced, "or shall we wait?"
Elena squinted at the doorway some more.
"I say we wait for it over there… There's not enough cover here for everyone to get a decent position to overwatch here. And we may be able to clear the area ahead before this…thing comes. Just in case any more Thin Bastards decide to join their big buddy."
The corridor ahead happened to lead to yet another doorway, with a bridge in the middle connecting the left side of the ship. There was much more room for a spread-out overwatch trap. On the down side, no full cover.
"Half cover will have to do. Now, two people can watch from the bridge. One can sit behind the wall of the conduit platform on the right, and another can stay behind near this ridge here. The other stay at the doorway with me. "
"On it!" Shotsy cheerily squatted over to the foremost ridge, steps away from the door ahead.
"You know, Shotsy, you really should speak to the commander about giving you a Shogun instead of that rifle." Mary Martin remarked.
"Hey yeah! Rifles are for you Supports!"
Mary shared a look with Constante Laurent, and the pair of Supports silently shook their head.
"Watch it people, finish that thing as it comes in and we -"
A huge, flying pod suddenly burst through the doorway ahead, tentacles flying between two disc-shaped wings. Constante screamed, as everyone moved on instinct, shooting at the monster with everything they've got. And yet the monster dodged the hot laser beams coming from around the doorway with the flexibility of a Sectoid, and only Elena, with her pistol in hand, managed to scratch the thing. For one fleeting moment Elena could see a hole in the middle of the beast that looked fatefully like a cannon, before it glided past the ridge Shotsy was sitting against, and turned around.
"SHOTSY, GET DOWN! NOW!" Elena screamed as she realized what would happen, a moment before it actually did.
A stream of hot yellow energy burst out of the monster's cannon, aiming straight for Shotsy's now flanked, exposed heart.
There was a roar of blistering air, a deafening bang as the bullets found their home, and - was there a scream? Or was it just the sound of melting metal, sizzling and hissing like a yowling baby?
Throwing aside her useless pistol, Elena peered through her Sniper rifle, and with slightly shaky hands, sent a beam of high energy laser straight through the beast. The beast stumbled in midair, trying to hide between the protection of its disc-like wings, but it was too late. The laser blasted that thing to bits, sending burning pieces of flesh and metal and who-knows-what falling from the air like fireworks falling from the sky.
Then there was deathly silence.
"Shotsy…" Mary whispered.
And for the first time since she joined XCOM, Mary received no reply.
Days later, Elena was taking the three newly recruited Squaddie Assaults around the HQ. All three were former special forces veterans. They had been through battle, seen life and death, and they knew what they had before was not enough to win this war.
Towards the end of the tour they arrived at the Memorial.
Elena's gaze went over all of the pictures on the wall. She had been there since the beginning. She remembered them all. Sying, who fell beside her as a Sectoid popped out of nowhere; Zuberi, who would never had fallen if she had not blasted away the wall shielding him; Matt, the fearless rookie who shielded the rest of the squad from that last Thin Man; and Shotsy… If only she had had her Sniper rifle at hand… If only one more of those damned overwatch shots hit… If only that Cyberdisc had wandered in one minute later… If only…
She turned back from the wall, and looked directly at the squaddies.
"Do you know what this war means?"
"Yes ma'am."
"Are you prepared to fight?"
"Yes ma'am!"
"Are you prepared to die?"
"Yes ma'am!"
"Are you prepared to see your friends die in from of you?"
"…Yes."
Elena sighed.
"We all though we were…Until it actually happens."
5.
Major Chris Allen would never forget the day he woke up in the infirmary at XCOM HQ.
They had been on a mission at a train station, putting in transponders on a train that would pull a huge alien battleship off course. As the fastest of the squad, Chris ran ahead with the transponders while the rest of the team covered him from behind.
Then there were Thin Men…And one of them, escaping from his team by hiding behind an ad box, ran out and shot him in the gut with steaming plasma.
Chris vaguely remembered Shotsy rushing over to him, taking the transponder from his shaking hands, telling him it would all be alright, and rushing toward the other end of the train.
Then everything went black.
When he woke up again, he found himself staring straight into the eyes of Elena Volkova.
It took him a moment to recall what had transpired.
"Did we…We did it then?"
Elena nodded.
"And?" Chris realized he must have been out for quite a while. "What's been going on?"
"We pulled down the ship. We raided it. Now the ship is ours."
There's something about Elena's tone that sounded extremely foreboding.
"Elena?"
Elena bit her lip and said nothing. Suddenly Chris realized he remembered that expression, from long ago at that pizza shop, the day that Elena's overwatch shot had blown away the wall covering Zuberi Akinwande.
Colonel Elena Volkova stood up and turned away, her figure emitting a faint glow against the setting sun.
"Shotsy's gone."
"Let me come." Chris demanded quietly, as the squad prepared to retrieve covert operative Fangyin "Hex" Zhu from an EXALT site.
He had barely been out of the infirmary for a day. The plasma burns across his torso still stung as he walked.
But he didn't care. All he cared was the sudden outburst of bloodlust that he never realized had been in him. He knew he couldn't stand sitting idly at HQ, waiting, while his squadmates went out to battle. Once he could have welcomed the break. Now he wanted no break.
He wanted to kill.
As the Skyranger dropped them down, Chris realized they were in trouble.
Hex was forced onto the roof of a building about a block away from where the squad are. And yet almost as soon as their feet touched the ground, two EXALT operatives advanced onto her roof. Hex jumped off the roof behind the building, yet she dared not move, for fear that more EXALT were lurking in the darkness.
Hex had valuable data on the EXALT base location. The team had to hurry to get her out alive.
Elena jumped onto another roof, where she could see best. Zuzana Popova and Alan Robertson, the pair of Squaddie Assaults, ran ahead toward Hex as fast as they dared.
Chris thought they were too slow.
Just as they caught sight of the building, they heard a sharp scream from behind it.
"Hex! What - "
Then he saw them.
EXALT. The men who decided that the aliens would shower them with technology and prosperity. The men who had an unspoken pact with the invaders to take out XCOM. The men who were traitors of their own humanity.
One of these bastards, a rocketeer, had snuck behind Hex, while another two advanced from the front.
Chris looked around in frustration. He realized he had already left most of the squad behind. Elena was at the corner of the roof, but she could do nothing about what was going on inside the building. Zuzana, the closest, could barely reach the building. The others were simply too damned far away.
Think, he told himself. Think what she would have done.
And he did the only thing he could have done.
And he ran to the side of the building, pinning the foremost EXALT down with rifle fire, just as Hex ran towards him into cover.
He knew the man he was suppressing would be able to do nothing. He just hoped the other two wouldn't hit Hex through her cover of heavy stacks of metal boxes. And he hoped that the others would be able to get there in time.
But then Chris saw the man from the far behind move, and to his dread, he understood there and then exactly what would happen.
The rocketeer blasted his rocket toward them, shattering the wall in front of him and sending shards of hot metal into his body. Chris stumbled, his rifle fell to the ground as he knelt to the ground, unable to support his failing body as pain seared through him. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Hex, and he saw blood splattered against the walls and boxes around her, and yet she was still alive, leaning against the wall, gasping for breath. And then he looked up, and looked straight into the barrel of an assault rifle.
"Goodbye, weakling."
His last thought was that he would be seeing Shotsy again.
Hex had a long private talk with the Commander after the mission.
The Commander proceeded to announce that Hex would no longer be responsible for any future covert operations.
"She has volunteered to undergo cybernetic surgery, and I have agreed."
Months later, at an abandoned construction site, the now monstrous figure of Fangyin "Hex" Zhu launched herself onto a towering platform, observing the bodies of EXALT splattered around the site.
"Heads up Strike One, EXALT forces heading your way."
Hex sighed. These guys never knew when to give up.
An EXALT Medic dropped down right next to her platform, followed closely by an EXALT Heavy.
Hex said nothing. She hadn't felt like saying much ever since after her surgery.
Instead, she turned and punched the two traitors headfirst into the dirt below.
And as her squadmates cheered for her ferocious metal fist, Hex silently turned her head towards the sky.