03/03/2035
It seems plasma weapons are really more powerful…
"Come on people move!"A voice shouter, but I could barely hear it over my ringing ears.
And it is not a good idea to store elerium close to them either…
"Hey you alright?"A voice asked me.
"I AM OKAY, GO LOOK FOR THE OTHERS."I said in a moderate tone of voice.
I hope the others are alright.
04/03/2035
"Three deaths and four injured…"I said as I looked towards the ceiling in my room in the medical ward.
"Well you are okay; I mean I thought you were dead when I heard the bang."Alessandra said; she is a good roommate, I learned her name after she visited me for the first time, this was her second visit, she had to get lunch.
"I blame the guy that piled elerium batteries close to it."I had been hit by shrapnel and nothing else, I was mostly fine.
"You are not going to turn into an alien because of the things that they pulled out of you are you?"She asked as she ate he lunch.
"No, exposition to elerium doesn't do that and besides they removed all of it, you know I have books you could read to know those things."She believes in strange things.
"You can't teach old dog new tricks Will."She said looking away.
"You are not old enough to say that."I told her.
"When will I be then?"She asked; I had to measure my words carefully.
"When your brain no longer retains information, otherwise it is whining."I believed that; if you have a working brain you can learn; it doesn't matter if you call yourself dumb, I should follow what I preach…
"Maybe, but tell me how long until the mags?"She changed the subject.
"I don't know; the people from the Avenger took over the research, as far as we know they have them already."They said it was safer for us not to have them for a while; ADVENT was targeting any human that had them.
"I hope they pick me soon, I have been waiting for a long time."She looked at the void; she wanted to join the original X-COM years ago, but they weren't being helped by the governments at the time so she had no way of getting called.
"You will be called soon, they were laying low for a while; ADVENT has been more active recently, from what we could get from their data they are employing better troops on the field, and the causalities on our side are increasing as their efficiency increases."Knowing their language made me a jack of all trades on the base, they called me to translate reports they got from hacking and things like that, and I was also learning a bit more about hacking myself.
"Things are getting bad then."She was sad now…
"Things get bad before they get better, or so they say, we adapt to whatever they throw at us don't worry."We adapted before, we can adapt again.
She smiled and nodded.
06/03/2035
I got out of the place and when I got to my room Alessandra was leaving, she was 'donated' along some supplies to the Avenger for rescuing a VIP.
"Told you, you would get there soon."I said as I saw her packing from the doorway.
"Yes you did, I will try to write."She said as she smiled.
I was surprised when she hugged me, when she let go she said.
"I hope to see you there soon."And with that she left.
Things moved quickly after that, training, studying, reading, translating, coffee, sleep, things like that.
10/03/2035
Most scientists gave up on the magnetic guns, I had a few parks I tinkered with for curiosity's sake; I didn't expect to discover how to make it.
"We will relay this information to the Avenger soon, congratulations William; you did us a great service."The base commander said she was old; she was a general in the times of the war.
"I heard you will start production as soon as the people in the avenger give us a green light."I said.
"Yes, you discovered the principles necessary to make them but they will make the design, we believe they will call you soon."She said.
"I hope I can help."Was all I could say.
When I left I saw Oliver there waiting for me with a big smile on his face.
"So what do we have for today?"I asked expecting heavy training.
At the end of said training I could only say.
"I hate you."I stared at the ground I was laying on.
The muscles in my body wanted to curl up and die but since that wasn't possible they just flared painfully.
14/03/2035
There is an attack close; the X-COM is on the other side of the American Continent right now so we are going in, me and some of the more experienced soldiers, I am a rookie to their eyes we all are but I have a magnetic magnum so I am amazing.
When we arrived by helicopter we could see the settlement burning, griping my machinegun I waited of the captain to order us, we walked forward. I noticed the captain wasn't very reliable, he ran when the civilian he approached became a two and a half meters tall pale behemoth; I on the other hand just screamed in a very manly fashion and shot it.
It was not enough it seems, the albino thing that used to be a beautiful dark skinned woman threw me in a house, where I hit a nearly dead sectoid, I punched it and grabbed my magnum since I had dropped the rifle and shot it after I struggled to rest the purple mist that attacked me, the thing is strong even when wounded.
"Crap where is everyone else?"I asked as I looked around; dead body's o civilians and aliens were around but the people I came here with were nowhere to be seen.
I leveled the gun as I walked toward my busted rifle, I looked around and I heard gun fire, when I arrived there I found the white thing lifting one of the soldiers up and I shot it in the head, it fell down and didn't get up this time.
"You alright?"I asked the women.
She was shaking and crying, panic; I looked around and saw no one else so I just hugged her to make her feel safe, they say it helps.
"Where are the others?"She asked.
"I don't know; I was cut off because of that thing."I pointed at the thing.
"I think they are hiding."She said as she looked around; it was likely, they were rookies and that thing was disturbing.
"Let's see if there is anyone left here."I told her and we soon walked into the small village.
When we saw the ADVENT airship we searched for cover, I told her to go after me, I searched the ship and it had one pilot and a few prisoners, I shot the pilot in the head and then I poked around the transport, I disable the communication it had and the locks I could find, and then I stumbled into a useful thing, a locator for their forces, there were several lights out so they lost some soldiers, there were a few coming here right now…
"Give me your grenade now."I told her as I left the aircraft, using a string I made a trap; the patrol of five was without the Officer, they didn't feel a thing when they activated the two grenades, I looked back in the ship and there were, still about ten alive, no nine one of them died, I could hear the gunfire.
"Let's go, people I will close the door so you are safe, they can't activate it remotely so you are in a armored vehicle, best place to be."I called the other soldier and told the people inside, I pressed the button and the door closed.
We found three others fighting two white giants, an Officer and four troopers, I took the shot at the Officer and told the other one to do the same, it was already wounded so it went down. The giants charged towards us and the troopers shared fire between us and the other three, focusing fire on the giants we were able to take them down, a grenade killed the troopers that thought they could hide too close to each other.
"So where is our captain?"I asked.
"Wait you are not the captain?"One of them asked.
"No he ran away, I just screamed as I was thrown in a house."I understood his decision.
The five of us walked back to the aircraft, there were the five other enemies trying to open it, five troopers.
"Did they lock themselves outside that thing?"One of them snickered.
"No I locked it, just shoot them."They looked at me and then they shot the remaining soldiers, without any causalities we were able to clear the area, I freed the civilians and I started messing with the transport, I looked for tracking devices and found two after I broke them and continued to disconnect it from the ADVENT network, they put a lot of things there to make sure no one stole it.
"Is it safe to use that, one of the helicopters was shot during the firefight."One of the soldiers asked me.
"Yes it is, I unlocked the system and removed everything they could use to track us, so we can use it."I told him."Did we find the precious captain?"
"Unfortunately yes, he was hiding in a house, panic attack."He let out a sigh.
"Why was he in charge?"I asked the same thing the others also thought.
"Apparently he used to be a gang leader so they thought he could lead us."The guy was obviously a veteran, he knew it wouldn't work."They brought a punk to lead us; I guess I should have volunteered to command this mission."
"Alright, you can ask them to get in, we don't have many seats but we could lift a loaded truck with this."I told him.
15/03/2035
The day after we had lost half a squad and the captain was now back in basic training.
"You never cease to amaze us do you?"The HQ commander said.
"I do my best sir."I said in the front of everyone, I was getting promoted, so were the other three that helped me.
"Well we then grant you the rank of Squaddie and the class you are assigned is Specialist."She gave me a ceremonial medal and moved on to the other soldier. The medal I had was the one they had for Specialists, it was a metal gremlin, and the others were assigned as two snipers and two rangers.
I returned to my quarters and Oliver was there on the way to give me a high five, he is very old.
21/03/2035
The training was interesting, my knowledge of the alien language paid off, like English it was the base of their programming.
The transport was being studied to improve what we could on our own vehicles and X-COM was going forward, Alessandra wrote a letter, she was in the medical bay she had taken down seven troopers, I had taken my own share of them, and she had heard about me discovering how to make the mag weapons they were now using.
"Hey William."Oliver said as he arrived."You did it."
I immediately understood what happened, they called me.
"Shen's daughter called you in, she wants someone helping around, they had only three other engineers there, and two scientists."He said smiling; and he also gave me something."This is a thing her father gave me, give it to her okay."He handed me a watch.
"I will anything else?"I asked him as I tried not to think how awkward that talk would be.
"Don't die in your fist mission."He said.
"I already survived my first mission, see this I am very capable."I pointed towards my gremlin.
"Alright, alright but still, I want you to live long enough to see this world be free."He smiled as he pat me on the back, I began packing that day, I had a lot of things to do.
It's a holiday today on Brazil, on this day (21) about 225 years ago Tiradentes, a dentist was killed by the Portuguese crown, he was part of a separatist conspiracy in one of the states of Brazil against the crown, he was hanged, and then his body was torn apart, his head was put on a pole, the rest of his body was distributed around the areas where he would have gatherings and his house was destroyed and the soil in which it stood was salted so nothing would grow there ever again…yeah…so I decided to post this chapter, enjoy.
Oh and I finally was able to finish a campaign in X-COM2, the chills in the final scene.
