Title: XCOM: The Pawn
Crossover universes: XCOM: Enemy Within and High School DxD
Main character cast:
XCOM: Christopher Redmond (OC)
High School DxD: Rias Gremory and her peerage before episode 1.
Short summary:
Christopher Redmond was dying after a botched mission... Nothing unusual, deaths were a common thing in XCOM. But he wanted to live... Luckily, a Devil grants him his wish. Too bad he couldn't stay human as well...
The explosion was heard for miles, or at least that's what Chris thought for a moment before his body hit the ground, sending waves of agony directly to his brain.
It started as a simple mission... Go to Japan, clear out the landed Abductor-class UFO, return home in time for dinner. Nothing new for Strike-3.
Only, things had gone wrong minutes after reaching the UFO...
The Skyranger's pilot had been the first one to die as a Heavy Floaters swarmed the dropship. Then the squad itself was pinned inside the UFO by Cyberdisks, Drones and three Sectopods, not to mention the Mutons and Sectoids that literally crawled out of the woods.
Oh, and the Floaters that had destroyed the Skyranger joined the party as well.
To their credit, the XCOM soldiers lasted for nearly ten minutes before they were whittled down to just two members - the MEC trooper, nicknamed Rusty, and the youngest member of the whole organisation, Chris himself. Both of them were on their last legs, injured, with their armor bearing the scars from the aliens' Plasma weapons.
The situation appeared hopeless and Chris had been ready to make a final stand before dying. But Rusty and Command had other plans... They had ordered him to use his Ghost armor to cause some confusion before slipping through the enemy lines. In the meantime, Rusty would follow Vahlen and Chen's directions and turn the alien craft's generator in one giant bomb, going out with one big bang.
At first Chris had protested. He didn't want to leave one of his friends. However, Rusty had managed to convince him.
And that led him to here and now. A broken and bleeding body that dragged itself away from the crater that was left after the explosion.
"Command... This... is Kiddo..." He rasped in the mic and waited for response. Only static responded to his call...
"Command... Do you copy? Over..." He tried again, to no avail. The explosion must have damaged his radio.
With a growl Chris activated the emergency XCOM beacon. He didn't know how long was it going to be before the reinforcements arrived, but he had the feeling that it wouldn't be before he bled out.
At least they would recover his body...
Turning on his back (and ignoring the spikes of pain that shot through his body) he pressed his hands against the wound on his abdomen where a Floater's claws had scored a hit.
It wasn't a bad way to die... And he lived a good life, if you could call fourteen years of normality followed by an alien abduction followed by an year and a bit fighting against said aliens as a good life...
Still, it would be better if he could live... If he could continue fighting against the remaining aliens and the traitorous EXALT... But it would take a miracle for that to happen.
Suddenly Chris heard a shout in Japanese. Weakly he turned his head in that direction, trying to see what was going on. Perhaps the local SDF found him?
A few blurry figures dashed through the woods, hurrying to his side. It took him a few blinks before he could focus on them... And when he did, his spirits faded.
It was a bunch of kids at around his age, wearing what looked like school uniforms.
Great... Civilians... At least it wasn't EXALT...
It took him a few seconds to comprehend that one of the students, a red-haired girl with European features, was bent over his body and asking him something in Japanese. Weakly he raised his blood-stained hand up and she grasped it.
"You have... Beautiful hair..." He croaked out. The girl's face flushed for a moment before she shook her head.
"Hold on, you need help." She said in English.
"Don't... bother..." Chris shook his head. The only thing he needed was a body bag.
The girl hesitated before squeezing his hand.
"Do... Do you have a wish?" She asked. If Chris wasn't in pain he would have laughed. A wish... What could a dying man wish for? Especially one that wasn't even seventeen years old?
"Yes... I do..." Chris said weakly. He could feel the last reserves from his strength seep away, his vision fading to black. "I want... to... live..."
Darkness took him...
Muffled voices... The words, sounding foreign and yet familiar... The voices, they were new... Except one...
"...odd..."
"...sure?"
"...physiology is..."
"...remarkable..."
"What did you... ...name is?"
"...Christopher Redmond..."
The boy's eyes fluttered open at the sound of his name. A groan escaped his lips as the light assaulted them, bringing a spike of pain in his brain.
"Easy there, Christopher." A pleasant female voice said as a soft hand took his own. Chris stiffened at the words and the contact as the haze around his brain was banished from the sense of urgency and slight panic. Where was he? What happened? Who was addressing him?
The last thing he remembered was the botched mission... The explosion... The pain... The girl...
The girl...
Okay, he needed answers to those questions from earlier. He could immediately rule out HQ as location, since everybody there knew to call him Chris or Kiddo. Only Vahlen, Bradford and the Commander addressed him by his full name.
He could also rule out EXALT capture. The collaborators wouldn't be so gentle with him... If he was captured by them he would have woken up chained in a cell somewhere, not on a... comfortable couch? At least that's how it felt to his back, which was mostly bare, only some bandages covering him.
Okay, it was time to open his eyes and finally see what was going on.
This time he went at it slowly. At first he saw an indistinct brown spot framed by red on a dark background. A couple of blinks later and his vision focused on a slightly familiar face.
"Wh-?" He croaked in confusion as he saw the girl from before before his body was wracked by a series of coughs. The red-haired girl quickly reached to the side, bringing a cup of water with a straw in it.
She guided the straw to Chris' mouth and he sucked a mouthful, cringing slightly as the cool liquid washed over his parched throat. Leaning back down he let out a sigh of relief.
"Ah, that's better..." He looked up at the girl and smiled. "Thank you." He said sincerely before the smile faded from his face. "Now, what's going on? Where am I? Who are you, and how do you know my name?" Chris shot the questions one after another.
The girl seemed to have expected that, if the lack of surprise was any indication. Clearing her throat she moved back, sitting in a small chair that had been placed next to the couch he was lying on.
"We found you bleeding near a forest fire caused by an explosion." She started explaining. "We saved you and took you to our building in Kuoh Academy." Chris frowned slightly. He had no idea where was this school, apart from the fact that it was in Japan, if the name was any indication.
"My name is Rias Gremory, and I know your name from your... Tags, I think you call them." She waved her hand towards the small table on to the side. On top of it, right next to the pitcher of water, was a metal ball chain holding two sets of dog tags. His, and the ones of someone who was a stranger to him, yet died to save Chris' life...
Reaching out he grabbed the chain and slipped it around his neck. The familiar contact of the cool metal against his bare chest made him more at ease, something that Rias probably noticed if her smile was any indication.
"Where's the rest of my stuff?" Chris asked, looking around. He didn't see neither his armor nor his weapons, a fact that worried him slightly. If they had found and deactivated the emergency beacon then XCOM would have no way of knowing his location unless he revealed it somehow. Not to mention that the technology they carried was so far beyond top secret and classified that it wasn't even funny...
"Don't worry, your gear is safe in the other room." The only other boy in the room said. "We had to remove them in order to treat your wounds."
"Did you tamper with anything?"
"No." The blond boy shook his head and Chris sighed in relief. If he was telling the truth then the beacon was up and running, which meant that XCOM was probably on their way to retrieve him.
Though it was odd that they hadn't arrived yet... After all, Chris remembered being quite torn up by the aliens... It would have taken him quite a while to recover to his current condition...
"How long was I out?" He asked, preparing himself for the unpleasant answer. He was sure the time would be measured in weeks, if not months...
"Ten hours." Rias replied. Chris blinked at that before letting out a confused noise.
"Yes." The redhead nodded in confirmation. "You healed surprisingly fast once night fell, and your body responded to our magic beyond my expectations.
"Okay..." Chris raised a finger in the air. "I'm officially confused."
"You were pretty torn up." The boy said, taking the lead now. "Buchou and Akeno had to use a lot of their magic in order to heal you."
"I believe that proper introductions are in order." Rias said, leaning back in her chair. "I already told you my name. This is Kiba-kun..." She motioned towards the boy, who nodded at Chris.
"Koneko-chan." The small girl that hadn't said anything until now stared mutely at him.
"And Akeno." The final person in the room smiled at him in a manner that was even more unnerving than he mute girl's staring.
"And we are all Devils, Christopher." Rias finished. Chris blinked before he let out a snort, trying to keep the laughter from bursting out.
"Right, and I sold my soul to you in order to live." He joked.
"Well... Not exactly..." Rias' tone was devoid of any human. Chris' chuckles subdued and he shot her a quizzical look.
"The price for your life was to be reincarnated as a Devil in my peerage." She said. Now the boy burst in laughter, and the glares that everybody in the room sent him did nothing to subdue it.
"Oh, I needed that." Chris said after a few minutes of laughing, wiping his eyes. "Sorry hun, I don't know what kind of cult you're in, but I need to tell you something." He looked up and chuckled again.
"I'm a full Atheist. I don't believe in God..." He hissed as a spike of pain shot through his skull, but he ignored it. Things like that weren't uncommon to Psionics like him. "...the Devil or anything like that."
It was hard to stay religious in XCOM... Not after witnessing the atrocities the aliens committed.
And it wasn't as if Chris was that religious before he was abducted.
Rias scowled at him, crossing her arms under her chest.
"I guess that you will require proof before you're convinced. Very well." Chris raised an eyebrow at that. This was going to be good, he thought. And probably hilarious as well.
Suddenly he felt a spike of energy coming from the redhead... Not like the Psionics he was familiar with... But not unlike it either... His eyes widened in surprise as bat-like wings sprouted from the backs of the four teenagers.
That surprise turned to horror as he felt something burst from his own back... No, two somethings, right next to the shoulder blades... His breathing quickened as he reached over his shoulder, praying that he wouldn't feel what his mind was telling him was there...
His fingertips brushed over a leathery surface, a strange sensation coming from the new pair of limbs.
From his... Wings...
"What... What did you do to me?" Chris asked, his voice betraying the mind-numbling fear he felt as his body shook.
"I reincarnated you as a Devil." Rias said matter-of-factly.
Devil...
That word spun through Chris' mind.
Devil...
For some reason the word morphed, stretched until it became something else...
Non-human.
Devil.
Non-human.
"Turn..." He was breathing heavily. "Turn me back... Turn me back into a human..."
"I can't..." Rias sighed. "The process works only one way. I'm sorry..."
"No!" Chris roared as he lunged from the couch at the Devil, his body's pain forgotten under the rage and adrenaline. Rias was so surprised that she didn't even defend herself before she was tackled to the ground, a pair of hands squeezing her throat.
"Turn me back!" Chris roared before he was pulled off Rias by Kiba. The Knight's speed ensured that he got to the two first, but Chris had received training on what to do in such situations. An elbow to the guts had Kiba release him before a swinging blow to the temple sent the blond boy to the ground.
That was as far as Chris got to before a pair of small arms wrapped around him and he suddenly found himself lifted in the air by the much-smaller than him Koneko.
"Fu fu fu..." Akeno giggled. "Attacking your King... I guess you will have to be punished, Christopher-kun." With that the girl raised her hand, lightning arcing between her fingers as she pointed them at Chris, who was trying to break Koneko's hold.
"Wait." Rias' shout stopped her Queen from attacking. "Stop... He's just confused..."
"Confused?" Chris growled, glaring at the redhead. "Make that fucking pissed off! Who gave you the right to change me? Huh? Who allowed you to deny me one of the things I was most proud of?"
"It was the only way!" Rias snapped. "There was no other way to save your life, and I barely managed to do it!"
"Well, you should have let me die then!" Chris snarled back. "You should have left me to die as a human being, not... This!"
"I wasted eight Pawns to ressurect you!" Rias jabbed a finger in Chris' chest. "Eight Pawns! That's all I had!"
"Oh, pawns?" The boy seemed ready to spit in her face... He just needed a good moment. "So that's what I am to you, eh? A fucking piece?"
"Gah!" Rias threw her hands in the air. "Akeno, bind him. I can't reason with him before he calms down."
"Calm down?" Chris asked as Akeno prepared her spell. "I'll fucking calm down when I'm human again, or I'm dead!"
"Why you..." Kiba growled as he got in Chris' face, blocking Akeno's shot. "Do you not realize the gift that Rias-sama bestowed upon you? A second chance at life! A chance to be part of the peerage of the most benevolent Devil! A chance to..."
Kiba's words were cut off by a scream of pain as Chris' eyes flashed purple.
"Kiba!" Rias shouted with concern before zeroing on Chris. "What did you do to him?"
"Wouldn't you like to know?" Chris spat out as his eyes shone purple again, a halo of the same color enveloping his head. The other Devils in the room could feel fear grip at their hearts, their bodies shaking as they fought their fight-or-flight reflex.
"S-stop..." Rias clenched her fist as she batted her fear down, using the anger she felt right now as a weapon. "Stop it..." Her voice trailed off as she took notice of a sound that was steadily increasing in volume.
A sound that was familiar to their newest member...
Chris let his Psionics fade, his lips parted in a grin as he heard the familiar whine of a VTOL's jet engines. The rest of the teenagers looked around in confusion before the windows exploded inwards, courtesy of the reinforced boots of XCOM soldiers rappelling down from the Skyranger that hung overhead.
Chris took advantage of the situation and Koneko's surprise to get out of her grasp before he turned around, grabbing the small girl in a chokehold. A squeeze of his arm blocked the blood flow to her brain for a second, rendering her unconscious even as the familiar sound of Arc Thrower discharges was heard and the other devils' bodies hit the floor.
Rias let out a groan as she woke up. For a few seconds she stood still, her eyes taking in the gray concrete walls and the heavy-looking metal door of the unfamiliar room.
No, not a room... It was a cell...
Rias' eyes widened and she shot up from the cot she was lying on. She absentmindedly noted that somebody had changed her into a drab gray clothing that was a few sizes too large.
That didn't matter... What mattered was that she was captured and that she was missing her peerage... She had to find them and escape...
Thankfully, Rias had the perfect tool for that. Raising her hand she gathered her destructive power, preparing to destroy the door and probably most of the door.
"I wouldn't do that if I was you." The accented voice echoed around her. Rias looked around, finally spotting a speaker and a camera in one of the corners.
"Give me one reason not to do that." She growled.
"First, the door is reinforced against energy attacks." The voice stated. "Second, I have my finger on a button that will deploy an agent that is commonly known as nerve gas in the cells of you and your peerage. Right next to it is a button that will deploy a substance not unlike napalm in your cells. Finally, you are under tons of rock that might collapse onto you if you try this." There was a small pause before the voice finished: "Those are four reasons."
Rias grit her teeth before willing the destructive energy to subside. The woman was had the upper hand here... And she wasn't just risking her own life, but that of her peerage as well.
"Who are you? Where am I?" She asked, glaring at the camera.
"I'm glad you asked." The woman said with glee in her voice. "I am Doctor Vahlen. Welcome to XCOM."
Author's Note:
This little piece was born after I re-read Gabriel Blessing's SAO/Highschool DxD fanfiction Highschool SAO. I just wondered how would my favorite Gene-Modded, Psionic human react if he replaced Issei. How would he cope with becoming a Devil and having to fight other Devils, Fallen Angels and the like, as well as having to act as a high-schooler.
If he and the others manage to evade Vahlen's scalpel somehow...
You can see where that led me to...
Unlike XCOM:EM and Dust and Psionics, I still have no idea what the plot twists for this fanfic would be... But I know one thing.
The supernatural world won't know what hit it.