I have a plan to add Alien Hunters DLC into the plot and Dr. Cahlen to appear in the story much later.


As he promised Lily, on the day he graduated on becoming a rookie he would help her out on her projects, mostly concerning programming while she handled the hardware.

Horus was at the workbench creating an OS for the drone to achieve endless flight time from its aerodynamically instable design, Lily installed repulsers she had salvaged from an unknown source in the blackmarket. She had initially tried to create a program for stable flight but had failed horribly.

The drone that she so proudly named ROV-R slammed against the wall on its first test flight.

"At this rate we should call him DUMB-E."

"It's nothing to do with his OS, it's his curious nature of things!"

"Bumping walls is curious? We should hook up explosives to him so he can be of some use as a suicide drone." Horus grinned at the thought of the drone exploding amidst a group of ADVENT troops.

"NO! ROV-R is a loyal companion! And that will just be a waste of precious resources!" Lily hugged her robotic assistant afraid Horus might secretly plant a bomb inside it.

Horus returned to building code for his latest project.

"Watcha doing?" Lily craned over Horus.

"Building a man-machine interface, allowing a soldier to command the drone to perform tasks like combat, defense and if I finish building a program for it a network intrusion function into the drones. This way any soldier can go into the battlefield as a specialist, he really isn't required to do anything but command the drone to perform the task for him." Horus wished he had the drone during his first sortie, a lot of time could have been saved.

"That's genius! Why didn't I think of that in the first place? Then all their required to do is learn to maintain the drones." Lily imagined the field dominated by the drone assisted specialist performing first aid, network intrusion or pure combat with the drones.

"If the power source were a lot better we could have put more functions on it but unfortunately we don't so the specialists deployed into the field will have to pick the modules they want on their mission carefully."

"You've had this all figured out haven't you."

"I just don't want anyone else to suffer the same mistakes as me!" Horus said in a cold tone while planting the new micro-processor into the drone.

"Hey, ah-...I'm sorry about what happened with Menace 1-2."

"There's no point feeling sorry for myself, I just need to do my best to prevent it from happening again...besides, one fire team for the location of the Commander is a fair trade, right?" He asked in a solemn tone.

Lily was speechless she really could find a comforting answer for Horus so there was an awkward silence between them as they returned to their work.

"I have to say, Horus. I was wrong about you, when you fixed the holo-globe it wasn't because I left it for other tasks, it had been bogging me down for too long, I tried various programs but got the same result. And then one day I entered the Control room to find the holo-globe all done. I didn't want to admit it because this job means everything to me, something my father left for me and I wasn't about to give it up to anybody."

"Like I said before, it was on of Central's nasty jokes. That guy ready needs to cut down on it I tell you!"

Lily chuckled at his remark on Bradford that she also despised.

"At any rate, he should be replaced by the Commander in no time."

"Lily."

"Hmm?"

"I wonder what will the Commander feel, after waking up from his 20 year long dream state? To find himself in a completely ruined world and that he was responsible for the mass genocide of a billion people, insurgent and innocent people."

Lily understood what Horus was getting at, the dilemma of waking up into new and changed world might affect the ability of the Commander to lead them.

"My father once told me, the Commander was a legendary figure. When Central failed horribly during the first days of the invasion, the council sent a mysterious Commander. He solved the high casualty issues, encouraged my father and his rival to work in harmony, commanded the combatants of XCOM. There was really nothing he couldn't do, he was also incredibly shrewd."

"That makes him sound more like an automaton."

"It does doesn't it! But I guess that's just because he is the very best of humanity. So I think these issues aren't too hard for him to handle, at best he will put them aside for the greater good of mankind."

"I hope so, he had been rigged to that conduit for 20 years, processing information non-stop, I wonder if he would suffer from brain cancer."

"I'm sure if he did, ADVENT would have the best medical treatments available to him, after all he is too important to let die slowly."

"Chief!" An engineer walked in.

"Ah Robert! Is it done?"

"Just, here you go." He passed her a box. And Lily handed it to Horus.

"What is it?"

"Open it."

He opened the cardboard covers, inside was a vest and a few boxes with rounds in it.

"Perks of working with the Engineering team, Horus. Robert, explain to our cold-blooded assassin what are the gadgets we have arranged for him today." She said in a posh English accent.

"Yes, ma'am. The vest you see before you what the team dubs the nanoscale vest, due to the level of precision involved in the designing of it. Supposed to be a lighter armor protection under your standard Kevlar to provide additional assurance against ADVENTs ferromagnetic slugs. While not able to stop a slug directly, should it graze you the effects would be reduce to nothing, small caliber weapons can't do a thing to it as well. As for the 'Tracer' rounds, these are self-propelled smart rounds that capture the image of their surroundings, replay back and allow you to have a better image of the target behind walls."

"We can't afford to have someone as valuable as you die in the field, Horus. Would you consider taking an engineering position instead?"

"Not if it isn't yours, Lily!" Horus smiled.

"You know that's never going to happen, if you kill me for this position a hidden protocol will activate and flag you as the number one target to my drones." Lily joked.

"What is a trivial protocol to a programmer of my standards!" Horus played along.

The engineering is filled with treacherous laughter from both of them.

Robert returns to his work leaving the two idiots to themselves.


Horus was down to meet the team Menace 1-5 at the mess hall for lunch to be introduced as the new specialist of their team.

"... So after these circumstances I'll be part of Menace 1-5 from now on. Look forward to getting to know you all better and fell free to ask me on any matter concerning hacking, drone maintenance or counseling on anxieties caused by Lieutenant Hunor." Horus gave his intro.

"Hey! What kind of an intro was that?!"

"I'd like to book a 2hr session."

"A 1hr session for me."

"Do you accept on credit?"

One after another the members of the fire team were consulting him on appointments

"What is this, a physiatrist clinic?!" Alicia was alarmed at the betrayal of her teammates.

"What the hell are all you grunts doing in the presence of your leader?" A loud voice came from the deceivingly small Sergeant. "Boss..."

"Heather..." Alicia had restored hope through Heather's influence.

"If you want to make an appointment you should be lining up, first come first serve! I happen to have already booked an appointment with Horus beforehand!" The small Heather fought with the combatants to get therapy.

"Everybody..." Alicia fell on her feet feeling betrayed by her comrades.

"Right, jokes aside I will be you eye and ears through the ADVENT network supporting you in every way I can."

"Mhmm! That was really mean of you guys!" Alicia pouted.

"Just give it to them this once, Alicia. You know we've all been working hard for you and the team!" Heather comforted her.

"(Sigh) So with that said Horus will be our new specialist. He doesn't require training from guerilla tactics because no one is better than him in hacking." Alicia informed them of his circumstance for jumping from rookie to squaddie in an instant, it usually required a 2-week training course in the appropriate craft to the class they picked.

"I heard from a friend in engineering you turned ADVENTs robot troops against them once!"

"I think that was trivial to him compared to locating the Commander, Rocket." A member told him.

Horus had become an instant celebrity within XCOM due to his survival on his first sortie but more importantly finding the most important find of the decade, he found the supreme Commander of XCOM who went missing 20 years ago. People could only hear stories from the old veterans but now they got a chance to see him in person.

Central had departed that morning to oversee the operation of retrieving the Commander from stasis. Shen and Tygan were preparing the recovery equipment with the chief medical officer.

"So have we thought up a name for him, ma'am?" Someone asked.

"That has already been determined by Lieutenant Class for him, he called him Cheshire." Heather told them.

"Cheshire?...Oh! Like the Cheshire cat from Wonderland!"

"Is it just a coincidence that we have two characters from the story? Alice and the Cheshire."

"No, it was as intended. Because right now I am the Cheshire of Alice." Horus said to them.

Alicia turned a little red with embarrassment that he boldly said that to them.

"A-Anyway, the next operation has been determined for us. It will involve us responding to a distress beacon."

Horus's ears perked up, the last time he encountered a distress signal it was from the pylon so he had his suspicions.

"Isn't this from the sensory web that ADVENT lay out to monitor our movement?"

"No. This is an old frequency channel they used during the invasion. Meaning there are veteran combatants in need of help. But for now the AVENGER needs to secure the power converter in order to reach that distance approximately 1800km in Argentine."

"What in the world is this AVENGER I keep hearing about?" Was it some sort of fast travel craft he was not indulged on yet because he was still a recruit?

The Fire team began to laugh at him for his ignorance. But he still didn't understand.

Heather walked up to him. "The AVENGER is what your standing on." She said with a smile.

Then it hit Horus hard, there entire base he had been standing on was the ship!

"But how-..." To lift something of that size requires an extremely powerful propulsion and the power source needed to be above the power of several nuclear plants to keep in the air.

"Perhaps you have already noticed the strange structure in some places and the weird composition of its alloy. This entire ship is a repurposed alien supply ship that the old XCOM interceptors shot down 20 years ago but went missing or rather they couldn't pin point the crash till a few years ago."

"The ship doesn't just require a huge power source if that's the case, but a power converter." Horus estimated the likeliness of lifting the base with the resources at hand.

"That's already been settled I'm told. Central dispatched Lieutenant-...Hiram to raid an enemy supply convoy who had one in their manifest." Horus noticed her discomfort at mentioning that Commander's name making him curious of the relation they had that would cause her to feel that way.

"I'm going to check the logs on the weapons and ammo, Heather. Help a girl out, will you?"

"Anything for you, Alicia." Heather responded, Alicia left the bunks to deal with the armskort on their weapon loadouts.

"Curious?" Heather asked Horus.

"About the power converter?"

"You know what I mean you sly fox you!" Heather chuckled away.

"You mean why Alicia reacted like she was mentioning a stalker when she said this Lieutenant Hiram's name?"

"Mooohh! Your no fun at teasing, but your half right on your assumption though at least from Alicia's perspective. I'm heading to the armskort to help her out now." Heather went after Alicia and left him to spend time with the team which he was unconsciously trying to avoid due to trauma.

"Hey, Horus! We didn't have the chance to ask you where you learnt how to do all those things we keep hearing about!" The one nicknamed 'Rocket' was the one who asked him this.

"I was taught this in an ADVENT academy in New Syracuse, in the Mediterranean. Although it's an Italian speaking place, everyone there uses English as their first language to make things easier."

"All the way from there? How did you end up in Adelaide where we found you?"

"It was a job I was tasked to build a report on the number of insurgent activities taking place in that area."

"What was your official job title?" Rocket continued to ask inquisitively.

"You sure ask a lot of questions squirt!" Horus said smiling.

"My name is not squirt!"

"Then give me your full name so I can call you by it."

"It's Dash Gunther, in the field call me Rocket."

"Nice to meet you Dash."

"And I'm Simon Korth or just Luger."

Horus shook his outstretched hand.

"Camille Van Damme, you can call me Broker"

"We would introduce you to more but unfortunately with the passing of Gunman and Spiral there anyone else to show." Simon told him.

"I remember there being more of you than that."

"That was just some guys our leader loaned from the other Fire Teams. Because of the lack of ordnance, we were given that day also because there wasn't any intel on the troop numbers or the layout of the place."

"Wachu have in the box?" Dash being the curious George of the group.

"Just some things engineering loaned me." Horus took them out for Dash to have a look at.

"Woah! It's some kind of bulletproof vest and some special ammo!"

"Your right on both accounts, who's the sharpshooter in the group?"

"That would be me." Camille raised her hand. He handed her the box of smart rounds.

"For me...?"

"These 'tracer' rounds have a playback function so in the event you miss the follow up shot won't, not that that's likely to happen. It also maps out the area from the shot so other targets near the shot will be lit up for you to see easily."

Camille took hold of the box. "I'll make sure they count."

"You can use the vest, Rocket."

"Really? Thanks, Horus!" The young ranger already began to try on his new vest."

"Sorry, Luger. I'm afraid I don't have anything in the box for you. Maybe next time." Horus wryly smiled.

"That's all good, but I except better than these two next time." He said chuckling away.


Alicia discussed her sortie with Madam Lee on her weapons and ammo procurement, as Heather helped catalog the crates.

"How is your tryst with the young-un?" Madam Lee asked her child.

"T-Tryst?!"

"Are you even trying?!" Hye Gi scolded her charge.

"I-I'm not trying anything!" Feeling flustered at her guardian's push for her to take up a relationship.

"Child, I merely want you not to suffer the same mistake as I did. During my time I was too focused with achieving my goal that I forgot about the people that meant most to me. Your mother having your father was the biggest regret that I suffered in my youth but it was still alright because it was her. Do you want to go through the same instance as me? Could you stand it if perhaps it was Heather who won his heart in the end?"

"Hey!" Shouted Heather from the storage racks.

"Calm down, girl. I'm only using you as an example because you're the only one cute enough to compete with her."

"Oh!...Ok!" A complete change in attitude, satisfied after hearing the explanation.

"I just don't see him that way, Nanna." Alicia tried to get her to stop pushing her.

"There you go again with that defensive attitude, if it's not him that gets taken it will be you!"

"Huh?"

"You know how Laura's child feels about you, he is also a dashing Officer like you, that Hiram boy."

"... We're just childhood friends that's all, I don't feel the same as him and I hope it stays that way."

Madam Lee read her mood and attitude change when Hiram was mentioned and knew something had happened between them before.

"I'm just thinking what's best for you dear, no need to rush." She waved to her.

"First you were telling me not to be too late, then you tell me not to rush! Which is it, Nanna?" She asked frustrated with her hypocrisy.

"That's for you to decide, my dear."

"Then let me decide!"

"You know from what I've heard, that child Horus had been through quite a rough train for a first sortie. He must be blaming himself for being the only survivor to the mission, that poor kid!"

"I was honestly quite scared when he started laughing in the Skyranger! I thought he truly lost it!" Heather jumped in on the conversation.

"That sounds terrible, perhaps I should pay him a visit to see how he's doing." Madam Lee decided.

"He's alright, Nanna. If anything he's furious that he let the man responsible get away."

"Man?"

"I don't think there's a need to hide it, Horus encountered a man leading the ADVENT forces. He called himself a Prism knight, whatever it is."

"Prism Knight? This is the first I've heard of such a delusional character."

"Everyone is keeps saying that, some find it hard to believe the elders have so much trust in a human to run their forces. I feel like something is really wrong with these people on the inside."

"..."

Both Alicia and Madam Lee understood the point Heather was trying to convey. It was like the traitors had given up their humanity.


The day the Commander had been extracted safely by Bradford personally was a major victory for XCOM. That day, Dr Tygan and Lily performed a reckless removal of the Commander's neural chip and by some miracle he survived the surgery.

The chip that was removed from the Commander was placed in a gel filled beaker within Tygan's workplace next to the alien power conduit of the AVENGER.

"A pleasure to finally meet the brilliant young man responsible for locating the Commander, Dr. Richard Tygan at your service. I've been leading the genetics research field for a number of years until my defection."

"Horus, post-graduate in Computer programming, 1st honours. I fixed the holo-globe under 5 minutes."

The two of them shared a hearty laugh at their friendly competition of achievements.

Horus was called in when a scientist had heard of his programming skills and outstanding ability at decrypting data to solve their problems in unraveling the encryption on the ADVENT datapads and Alien data caches recovered from dead ADVENT officers and aliens.

"I believe you're just the line of expertise I have been looking for to assist me in removing the encryption to these intel datapads the combatants have recovered so far and more to come."

"After the number of times I've decrypted data in the field in brief seconds this hardly feels difficult for me, although some of them may take time."

"Regards, your work helps us greatly at reducing the time we need to spent on decryption and finally focus purely on autopsies and the study of the alien and ADVENT technologies. Of course, your help won't go unrewarded!"

"I wasn't really expecting any reward when I took up this job, Doctor."

"Please, call me Richard."

"Right, Richard. The fact that you can quickly research on the ADVENT and Alien tech allows Lily to build newer weapons and equipment thereby helping me and my friends. Everybody wins, see!"

"..."

"If you say it like that then I have no means of refusing your generosity." Tygan scratched his head awkwardly.

"With the Commander back in action, things are gonna get hectic so you'll need all the help you can get, Richard."

"I appreciate your efforts, Horus. I'm sure the rest of the science team does too."

"...And, done!" He finished his decryption, before Tygan could believe his eyes.

"I...don't believe it, I've never in my 15 years of intense research or study have seen anything quite like what you've done today, Horus!" Tygan had difficulty believing what he saw, he only knew the preson in front of him was either a genius or an alien.

"Eh? I'm only doing what I always do."

"Always do?!" Tygan had heard why Horus had run from ADVENT, now he knew his unique abilities were one of the reasons that he had gotten into trouble the first place. Horus had casually decrypted massive amounts of encryption on the file he downloaded concerning Avatar, even for a genius like him to only decode to that point was telling him the importance of the Avatar project to the Elders.

What was it, he did not know but he knew only time would tell. But the question was, how much time was left?


The noise in the Skyranger was akin to a group of students going on a class outing. Perhaps it had to do with the new addition to Menace 1-5 in the form of Stephanie in her Rookie status. She had an open personality so it was easy to make friends with her and was an instant sensation to the team except for Heather. She had been manhandled by Steph since the beginning and had hid behind Horus for protection, this only served to excite her further at her cuteness even though Heather was actually the oldest member.

Horus had not spoken on the trip and was adjusting his drone with a screwdriver trying to optimize the repulsor thrust. He had completed the flight and hacking software in time for the deployment and was making the last minute adjustments. Central had dispatched them to answer a distress signal to retrieve a VIP from the area. They could not proceed with the next mission to respond to the old frequency distress call because the Power converter had not been captured and still needed time to install.

"Hey." Alicia patted him on the shoulder to say hi.

"Hey, I'm almost done."

"I'll just speak while you're working, ok?"

"Mmm."

"What do you feel about me?" Horus jutted the screwdriver into his drone and nearly damaged the circuits.

"What a time to ask this."

Alicia gazed at him still awaiting his answer.

"(Sigh)... You're a real handful sometimes, you leave me and Heather to work on your job while you go doing something else. You recklessly jump into things without thinking through or asking first. But if anything, you were there in my most troubled period where I couldn't live with myself another second. And so everything else seems quite trivial. Thank you for saving me again."

Alicia did not know how to answer him after being given such a heartfelt thank you for everything. She was expecting a simple yes I like you or no I don't, because she questioned her own feelings about him. Her heart thumped erratically, she was glad he wasn't looking at her expression right now and on his work because she felt like she could explode at any minute.

After tightening the knobs sufficiently, the drone bobbed off his lap and into the air, hovering about the cabin. The others noticed and couldn't keep their hands to themselves, probing the new hovering assistant of his. He whistled once and the drone returned to his side and went into standby.

"S-So awesome! When are we going to get our own, Cheshire?" Rocket asked excitedly.

"There is no when Rocket, these drones only get issued to specialists. In the future they'll have to pass a drone maintenance course I'll post in guerilla tactics school."

"Man, I wonder if I should switch classes- Ouch!"

"Don't get hyped up about every small excitement! We still need a ranger in our team." Luger hit his head with a light tap.

"Ehhehehe!" He rubbed his head ashamed.

"That's quite the solution you had to our specialist problem, I wonder if you have any more tricks up your sleeve!" Broker questioned him.

"Enough to keep Central happy he won't question my lack of respect for authority, if that's what you're asking."

"Why did you choose to join the combatants in the first place? Couldn't you have done all these things in the safety of the ship?" Broker asked good questions so he felt like he should reward her with an answer at least.

"Have you ever heard of the state of Israel?"

Most of them nodded while the younger ones were baffled.

"The state of Israel at its peak consisted of a mere five million people, surrounding it were hostile Arab states bent on depriving Israel of its sovereignty. So Israel built a defense industry to support their ongoing wars with their Arab neighbors, there had never been a time throughout its sovereignty that there was peace. The only break they had was through ceasefires or truces, but they fought every single day and year. Curiously their arms development was revolved around the military experience of their reservist forces, hence it always fit the build of their troops. Unlike a standard development team which receives a requirement to build a device with certain limitations to its specifications. But because of their method they had successfully maintained their standing amongst their aggressive neighbors. That's what I'm trying to achieve, building weapons and equipment based on the soldiers needs instead of the organizations requirements."

They now had a better understanding of why Horus was risking his life out in the field.

"That sounds incredibly dangerous still, what if you really die?" Luger informed him.

"As long as I have Alice next to me as a good luck charm, I should live to see another day!"

Alicia begun to feel embarrassed every time he mentioned her in some way. What did that mean to her?

The Skyranger reached its destination and dropped the cables from the rear for the Fire Team to rappel down of.

-Firebrand to Alice, I'll sit tight in a safe place until you've linked up with the contact, how copy?-

"Thanks for waiting Firebrand, we'll be quick about it. Alice out."

The time was 10 at night in the outskirts of the City of Dubai, the skyscraper shone like a jeweled star in the night sky.

"Five blocks till the contacts location." Heather read her tracking beacon. "That'll take at least half an hour to avoid patrols."

"Hey! Where's Cheshire?" Steph asked which sent them into a search frenzy.

"What the hell are you looking for?" They looked up to see Horus at the end of the alley to the streets ahead of them.

"I've uplinked to the patrol and comms traffic, this should make it easier to traverse through the streets undetected." He had gone off ahead to hack into the local network without them knowing.

"Why did you go ahead without my say so?" Alicia demanded.

"To save us the time trudging through the streets, the less time we spend here the least likely ADVENT finds out its us and not a small resistance movement."

"Don't go anywhere without me!" She ordered of him.

"Yes, ma'am." He responded bluntly. Alicia didn't know what to think of him at this time, what was he trying to do, playing a maverick of all people.

"Patrol 10 o' clock!" He instantly responded as he watched vigilantly for patrols, before checking his magazine and racking the charging handle.

They crouched behind a dumpster to wait out the patrols. Alicia observed his behavior, she had never seen him like this. It was like he was anticipating something to arrive. Was he watching out for the Prism knight?

She placed her hands on cheeks, catching him by surprise as she looked deep into his purple irises. "Calm down and trust in us, Horus. Remember, you're not alone on this mission. We'll all make it back safely and it will be no small part because of you. Believe in us!" His darting eyes instantly calmed down, it was as she deduced. He was afraid losing them, that's why he went ahead of them to recce. The reason why he even handed over the special items Lily and engineering had prepared for him over to Rocket and Broker. She could help but worry for his wellbeing in the future, would he really throw away his life just for a slightly better outcome in XCOMs favor? She didn't want to imagine a life without Horus, this kindred soul was the only one that had made the days once bitter truly feel worth moving on.

"...Ok..." He closed his eyes as he took her hands of his face.

"Alright. Firefox take point, we'll use Cheshire's coordinated path."

Horus tapped his datapad to transfer the data to Heather's wrist display and she led them through the streets. He still kept an overwatch on the team but was a lot tone down from previously.

"So who are we meeting today, boss?" Rocket posed the query to Firefox.

"Some VIP who has some details to a location concerning the Avatar Project." The ambigious Avatar project the speaker had informed them about further was a global effort supervised by the elders leaving a clue to its importance to them and to humanity.

The movement through the blocks were unhindered just as the route Horus had planned out for them, this really save precious time to escort the VIP out of the area while still under cloak and dagger.

They reached the coordinates at the door of an apartment complex. The rest hid while Alicia and Heather walked up unarmed to reduce suspicion to themselves.

Knocking on the door to their contacts apartment. "Who is it?!" He asked paranoid.

"Menace 1-5, XCOM. Passcode wilbur." Alicia replied.

A sigh of relief was heard on the other side of the door and the latches came undone, the door opened revealing a pale middle aged man.

"I've been waiting for you for over an hour where were you?"

"We were in the UK when we responded to your signal so that should give you an idea of how quick we've been."

"Fine, I've already packed my things and am ready to go!"

"Ok, come on."

The escorted him down the apartment, but at that moment they heard an explosion just across the block, then return fire and mag discharges. They raced down the apartment to where the rest had been positioned.

"Status!" Alicia called out to Luger for answers.

"They just appeared out of nowhere! Probably waiting for us! A-And-..."

She already didn't like the sound of it.

"Cheshire had run off to draw their fire, so that we'd stay incognito!"

"And you let him go by himself?!" Heather shouted angrily at him.

"But he-..."

"Who cares! If we can get to safety unnoticed then why are we still here?" The VIP had no decency about him and only cared for his own safety.

"You! Shut up! You're the last person I want to hear suggestions from!" Alicia growled at the VIP.

"Orders, ma'am!" Luger asked.

"Rocket, take the VIP and head to these coordinates through this route. We are going to get Cheshire!"

They separated into two groups, one heading back to the extraction point, the other headed to rescue their comrade once again.

They reached the point where they found a patrol of ADVENT troops dead at the pavement.

Heather went to touch their skin. "Warm, fire fight only just recently."

"If I were Horus, where would I go?"

"Maybe to some surveillance lamp or place with sentry turrets! He can use them to his advantage after all, right?" Steph had made an excellent point.

"Steph, remind me to reward you when we head back!" She tapped her shoulder before pulling out the datapad to scroll through the map legend Horus had provided to them. She looked for the nearest Sentry checkpoint or surveillance lamp.

"Follow me!"


Horus was fighting hard with the ADVENT quick reaction forces who were attempting to take back their stolen checkpoint that he had commandeered from the checkpoint guards, assisting him were the sentry turrets and his trusty newly battle proven drone that had just been baptized in battle. Using the drone's surveillance abilities to map and mark targets for the sentry turrets increased their effectiveness through indirect fire.

The sentry turret guns were needless to say efficient in their ability to stop a heavily armed ADVENT trooper and had penetrating power to still hit them behind cover provided they knew where the target was hiding.

His intrusion into the network had also been done remotely by his drone, the software he designed did all the work for him. And the turrets turned on the unsuspecting guards of the checkpoint and obliterated them.

He had the luxury to think about what had happened back at the apartment complex. He found it weird that there was a small patrol heading directly towards the apartment, his map also had also lit up targets converging to their location. It was clear the VIP had been monitored by ADVENT and his removal was flagged.

He thought up all the possible alternatives, if he were to reveal himself alone. They would think it was only him and the rest would have the opportunity to rescue the VIP while he made his way back to the evac point. There wasn't telling how many ADVENT soldiers would be waiting for them back to the extraction point so keeping this group away from them was the best option.

The mag discharges in his direction died down and echoed into another further direction, he lifted his head over the cover to see Menace 1-5 had done the most idiotic thing instead.

He got out of cover and begun a walking fire at the ADVENT troops who turned their back on him to face off with Alicia, they returned fire to him although the drone stayed close to him and used the secondary function of the repulsors to deflect the incoming fire instead.

The ADVENT troops died pitifully from a pincer. Horus rejoined the group.

"What the hell did you think you were doing?! Do you know how worried I was?!"

"You should be escorting the VIP instead of worrying about me! I can escape at any time, but that's not the reason I left the group. There's no telling how many silent Ambushes are waiting to get the VIP. They've had him in their scopes since the beginning, only waiting for us to make the first move!"

"That doesn't mean you can do what you like when you're in my Fire Team, damnit! Are you really trying to end your life that bad?!" Alicia said in an almost crying tone, which made Horus feel more helpless.

"Don't...Just please, don't do it again!" She said in pain before turning around to lead the rest back to the extraction point.

"...I'm sorry." He came over to her side and said.

"I keep forgetting this is a team game, because I felt that I was the only one left from my team." Horus was referring to Bismarck's Fire Team, in his mind he was the last remaining member of Menace 1-2.

Alicia leaned against his shoulder while walking back. "Well you're not in Harold's Fire Team anymore, you're in mine. And you'll do as I say."

"Yes."

The rest of the team were watching their interaction from behind and gossiped on the way back.

"Something's brewing between them I tell you." Luger pointed out the obvious.

"She's just watching out for him that's all." Clarified Heather.

"No. I think something is slowly happening." Broker told them.

Steph was unhappy about the interaction and ran up to them and separated Alicia from Horus by slinging her arms around them.

"That's the exfill, where's Rocket?"

They reached the extraction point but Rocket and the VIP were out of site. Horus moved ahead and found Rocket on the floor next to some ADVENT corpses. The VIP was standing next to him with his shotgun in his hands.

"Ah! Thank god! You're all here! We were surrounded and then he finished them off before taking serious wounds! I- I didn't know how to stop him from bleeding so I took up his weapon and waited for you to arrive!" The VIP informed them.

He ran to check on Rocket. Blood was flowing from his mouth as he looked at Horus then he grabbed his hand to get his attention and looked hard at the VIP. Horus knew something was up, he took out Rockets under shirt and checked the damage done to him and understood what he meant. But unfortunately Rocket was on his last breath and died the very next instant.

"Dash...Dash!" Horus called out. Heather checked his pulse on last time. "He's gone. But at least he protected the VIP."

"It wasn't the ADVENT troops that did this to him." He stood up and walked towards the VIP, noticing Horus was about to do something he turned the shotgun towards him but was too slow as Horus caught the barrel and turned it up in the air. He drew his knife and gutted the VIP down.

"It was you." The group was too shocked to respond, Alicia was stunned by his action and shouted.

"What are you doing?!"

"Urrrrgghhh…You…. damnable…. terrorists….." The VIP mouthed his last words. Horus pulled out the knife after the VIP stopped jittering about and had also died.

"This whole thing was a set up."

"What?!"

"The VIP is an infiltrator."

"How do you-."

"Check Rocket's wounds, you'll find that his ribcage and torso suffer concussive force and internal bleeding. The vest I gave him could prevent penetration from small arms except Mag slugs. If it were ADVENT that wounded him as this asshole said they did, Rocket would be riddled with holes instead. Those wounds are caused by buckshot hitting him at point blank, and the one who delivered it was of course our friendly neighborhood VIP." He pointed at the shotgun that had ended up in the VIP's hands.

"Sonovabitch... right under our noses!" Luger commented.

"Then this whole trip was wasted, it cost us the life of Dash as well!"

"It wasn't wasted and nor was his life." Horus told them as he crouched next to the VIP's body.

"What do you mean?" Alicia did not understand.

Horus began filleting the VIP's head with his knife at the back of his skull. The rest were appalled by the scene.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm removing his neural implant at the back of his head, that should have all the data we originally wanted to retrieve as well as the intentions ADVENT had when they deployed this sympathizer."

"T-Then-..."

"Yes, Dash died to save us from this unforeseen danger." They were all indebted to Dash's sacrifice.

The signal code was given to Firebrand and the Skyranger arrived not a moment too soon to pick them up.

-Where's the VIP?- Firebrand called from the cockpit.

"It's a long story. But for now, report to Central and tell him package has been secure. One casualty."

-I read you, sit tight and enjoy the ride back.-

Alicia sat next to Horus who was cleaning the neural implant with a canteen of water and inspecting the hardware.

Had she been wrong about him all this time? Mistaking his aggressive movements for a suicidal tendency, he had gotten them out of the heat more than once today. Away from the ambush at the apartment, the incoming patrols at the checkpoint, the spy who might have caused serious damage if they brought back with them.

"Was I wrong?..." She asked herself.

"You're our leader, your action can never be wrong. These is just cause and effect, ever action a consequence or a benefit. I need to tone down my independent thinking for a bit. Maybe I should get an implant like this to send you my thoughts on screen every second one comes to mind." He answered her with a logical answer then waved the VIP's stolen implant at her spoiling the serious mood.

She laughed at the idea.

"Don't! Then we'll be forced to see every dirty though you have of the ladies!" She replied still laughing.

"I thought ladies always liked to be in control of men, isn't this a solution?" He continued to wave the implant at her.

There behavior had transitioned into a playful spat. But she was grateful for what he had done for her, she may not fully understand his actions or intentions but she trusted in him to watch over her.


Alicia and Horus stood before Central, he leaned to the side to see if anyone was behind them. He had been expecting to see the VIP and perhaps collect information regarding the blacksite.

"Did the VIP go to the restroom or something?" He asked them.

"Nope. He's right here." Horus dropped a device with wires sticking out of it, which Bradford realized was a neural implant.

"What did you do to him?!"

"The guy was an agent of ADVENT, through some fortunate circumstance we were able to determine it."

"What?!" Bradford was nervous at the mention of the attempted, this obviously meant he had no countermeasures against this sort of intrusion.

"Relax Central."

"Relax? Do you even understand the meaning of this? They could have already infiltrated XCOM through other means!"

"Unlikely."

"Really?" He said unconvinced.

"Really, this 'spy' is only a sympathizer not a professional spy. The Commander can confirm with you if you're afraid XCOM has embedded agents, he was after all the one who managed these tasks."

Central thought about it for a moment, and calmed himself.

"Would you like to meet him, Horus?"

"No need. He doesn't need to see me to know that I'm doing my part."

"On the contrary, I'd like to meet all my employees that I work with." A voice came from behind them.

"Commander..."

"John." He waved to him to remain seated.

""Sir!"" Horus and Alicia saluted.

"At ease. I haven't personally thanked you yet for pulling me out of stasis...uh?" He walked around to where they were facing Central and noticed something.

"Horus, just Horus, sir." The commander gazed into his eyes to read him, the vets weren't kidding about his shrewd eyes.

"….Have we met?..."

"I don't think we have, unless you saw me when I was intruding into your brain activity to draw out your name and location."

"Mmm... perhaps that might be it! I probably had an unconscious dream about you. Hahaha!" The commander laughed it off.

Alicia was temporarily loss of words when the Commander had thought he had seen him before.

"So, what can I do for you to repay you for your actions?"

"You can start by financially supporting and providing protection to the families of Menace 1-2 that gave their lives to bring you back."

"..."

"Horus that's en-." Central was about to stop him from speaking further but the Commander stopped him.

"Anything else?"

"I'll need funding to support the training of the new type of specialists that can perform network intrusions and technical support for the combatants." He could finally give the specialist class a meaningful new existence.

"I'll sort it out with Lee. Will that be all?"

"I don't need anything else."

"Very well, your demands are quite reasonable. I'll see that it gets done immediately, now if you'll excuse me I'd like to have a moment with Central." He asked them to leave politely.

""Sir!"" They saluted and left. Bradford was alone with the Commander at last.

"Sir-.."

"So that's why you were able to find me like you did! Who would have thought that he would come back to us at a time like this! Now the aliens will truly have to watch their backs!"

"Sir?" Something even he did not have disclosure to.

"A small precaution me and Vahlen prepared in the event the invasion succeeded and we were pushed into maintaining a resistance. Our friend is the very key to that plan."

"What in the world did you and Vahlen do?!"

The Commander turned to him and said.

"What was necessary."


That's right folks, the Commander talks. He needs to in order to develop character because in the main game he plays a significant role in ending the game.