Unknown date

Unknown time

Alien Base

She could only scream in her mind since the soft mouth guard they put into place kept her from chewing her tongue off. The pain had been worth trying to escape by suicide. Unfortunately, they'd been alerted before she could finish the job.

Vanessa was going to do everything she could to avoid letting the aliens have control over her.

The aliens had injected something into her, she could feel it slithering through her veins as she lay strapped down to a cold, hard surface. Though from what she could see from the little she could move her head to look around, she still looked human.

Strangely, she thought she heard Bradford in the distance. But wasn't he dead? How could she hear him? And who was it that he was yelling at?

("Dammit, Tygan. Get her out of there! It sounds like this is killing her."

"I can't. All that's keeping her from destroying the Avenger is the additional emergency shielding on the lab. It's not killing her. She's… she's caught up in some sort of memory."

There was the impression of John putting his hand on a transparent barrier. "Van, if you can hear me, angel, hold on. This won't be forever. Just stay strong.")

Even if that was just a construct of her despairing brain, his words brought her comfort. John was still her rock, even if he still had to babysit her in her mind. She clung to that thought as she mentally exhausted herself into unconsciousness.

When Vanessa came back to awareness, she was still strapped to the table. For some reason her dreaming brain had tormented her with the thought of being with XCOM, albeit in a different base and largely unfamiliar faces. Though they'd been familiar in her dream. More than familiar

For some reason they kept telling her to stay strong, that her ordeal would soon be over.

Tears trickled down the corners of her eyes despite her determination not to show any kind of weakness.

The tears dried up quickly when the thin man approached from her right. It examined something above her head, presumably readouts of some sort and gave a cold, cruel smile. There was a flash of red, then one of the members of the ruling class of the aliens drifted into view. Vanessa had mentally dubbed them ethereal since they seemed so physically delicate.

The two aliens seemed to discuss something, then the ethereal drifted off. The thin man removed a glowing green ampule from the side of her neck with a wet sucking sensation and sound, then replaced it with another.

She wondered what they wanted with her, they clearly knew who she was since the muton who had grabbed her made sure not to do any damage when its allies were killing everyone else. Yet they hadn't interrogated her. Aside from the weird sensation of whatever it was flowing through her, they hadn't performed any of their horrific experiments on her.

Not that she wanted to have anything horrible happen to her, but she feared they had something worse in mind than their "typical" experiments.

Then whatever was in the ampule caught up with her, causing darkness to well up and over her mind.

(A drone she identified as a gremlin hung over her, administering something to her. All around her was wreckage of what appeared to be a cell of some sort, but it didn't have the feel of a jail. On the other side of a barrier was a man with a hound-like face. He gave her a warm smile. "Just checking up on you, Commander and giving you something to keep hydrated. Please don't destroy this gremlin too, otherwise the Chief will have both our hides."

She nodded bemusedly and let the little drone do its thing, wondering at the improbable dream.)

Vanessa woke with a start as the table she was strapped to moved into an upright position. Three ethereals approached, two not so subtly supporting the third that gave off a sense of great age. They were accompanied by four mutons in some sort of ornate armor and wielding some sort of polearm. The heads of the weapons had the distinctive green glow of a plasma weapon. The thin man that had been "attending" her was accompanying the group.

The three ethereals floated to her despite the grunted protests of their muton guards, but the leaders seemed to ignore them, seemingly feeling secure in the fact she couldn't anything to them.

Unfortunately, they were correct with the way she was bound.

A voice laden with age spoke in her mind. So this is the warleader that had given us such trouble.

The thin man replied in English, presumably for her benefit. "Yes, Eldest."

An unpleasant sensation of being poked and prodded started in her brain. With a mental snarl she envisioned lashing out at the source. The mental voice seemed to hold some sort of approval. There is fire in it. As well as strong psionic potential. This is good. It is healthy?

"Yes, Eldest. The modifications have been implanted and the body will be everything you could hope for."

Ice slid its way down her spine. She did not like how this conversation was going.

Excellent. So all is prepared to make it my host?

The thin man nodded and Vanessa felt her bowels turn to water. Host. The thing planned taking over her? Oh no. No. That was nothappening. She was most certainly was not going to allow this monster to make her a sock puppet.

The Eldest shook of its escort and moved forward on its own. It placed its upper set of hands on her temples while the lower set gripped her shoulders for support. The restraints were too strong to let her struggle.

Then the feather light intrusion began and she visualized a bank vault locking into place around her mind with a solid thump. It ripped the doors open as if it were paper and slowly advanced on her.

The mental forcefield she threw up shattered at its approach.

It wasn't slowed much by thick castle walls.

Vanessa fled deeper into her mind, heart hammering in her chest from fear and fury, trying to throw up every possible variation of wall and shield she could think of, but the invader continued to advance. It whispered. Why do you resist? You know that in the end I will win.

"I will not let you, or anyone else, take away everything I am." She growled in response. "To resist is human. You will find that not all of humanity will just lay down and let you walk all over us."

We have the power. Your people put up a valiant defense, proving yourselves to us, but you lack the means to defeat us.

Then she realized what she was doing wrong. This was her mind they were in. And she was never one to be purely defensive. This was definitely a situation that called for a good offense to act as her defense.

With a mental twist, they were in a warehouse district, not anything specific her people had fought in, but an amalgamation of multiple of them. She clad herself in power armor that was a mix of so many different pieces of fiction that was its own unique whole and armed herself with an assault rifle that was based off the aliens own plasma weapons.

Maybe some of this didn't exist in the real world. She certainly couldn't use them there, but this was a mental construct of her making so she could use whatever she wanted. Vanessa was aware she could have used something else, but the truth was, this environment she was used to, the same with how she armed and armored herself.

She also didn't want to risk giving the thing a chance to grab her before she was ready.

This is foolishness.

Oh yes, it was definitely getting angry. A corner of her mouth curled up in a grim half smile, then it quickly faded. Stupid to get overconfident, that led to mistakes that were easily preventable.

She hastily ducked around a corner and fired at the alien then scoot back into cover behind a metal boxcar as her enemy blasted the stack she had been behind.

Why do you prolong the inevitable?

Vanessa declined to answer, hoping that by remaining silent she wouldn't let it in enough to figure out her plan. She left the cover of the boxcar just in time to avoid another blast from the Eldest, though shrapnel scored light wounds along her face.

The answering volley she sent managed to damage one of its lower arms and kept moving on. That was a lesson she'd learned early on, even in the simulations she ran for Foresight. Keep moving, don't let the enemy pin you down.

There was an eerie hiss and the ethereal thrust out three of its four arms, the one she damaged hung limply at its side. It sent various boxes, crates and shipping containers flying to deprive her of cover, but she wasn't afraid to fall back when she had to in order to reposition herself. Every chance she had, she took a shot at the creature. A lot missed, but enough hit.

How long the chase lasted she couldn't say, but eventually the alien finally lost its temper, blasting away all of the obstacles out of the way, then seizing her by a telekinetic force. She put up just enough of a struggle to convince the thing it had won, including letting the mental armor and gun fade away.

After it had her in its grip, it growled. Now it is time to finish th- The voice cut off and turned into a shriek. What are you doing?

Her lips pulled back into a feral grin. "We humans have a saying. Be careful what you wish for. You just might get it."

Throughout the firefight she'd been trying to mentally prepare herself for this moment, but she needed it pissed off and distracted for it to have a chance at working. Instead of resisting it trying to take over, she'd allowed it to come in, but not all of it. Only its energy. She'd turned herself into an energy sink, one it couldn't break free from.

Oh it tried. It struggled greatly, but the entire time she continued to drain it of its essence, being careful not to let any of its mind enter hers. That too it tried to do, but failed. She hunkered down behind the mental barricades she'd finally figured out how to erect and concentrated on draining its energy as it drummed fruitlessly against said barriers.

If it had fled, she would have let it go, but it didn't. Seemingly caught up in its own belief that it couldn't escape.

That's when she realized they didn't have much of an imagination and wondered how to use that against them.

Finally it was dead and gone, leaving behind its helmet and robes. She crushed the helmet with her foot, then incinerated the mess, making sure everything was completely gone, not even ashes left. Vanessa wasn't going to risk any kind of contamination of her mind.

Then it was time to face reality.

She was looking forward to the rude surprise that was in store for her captors.

When she opened her eyes, one of the ethereals asked, Eldest?

Vanessa tried to give them a similar feral smile that she had the now deceased Eldest, but it was ruined by the mouthguard. She concentrated very hard on projecting her defiant NO at them.

The two aliens backed away in fear and confusion, causing the mutons to grunt and stomp anxiously, but the thin man's gesture kept them in place, but they glared at her balefully. The two ethereals began to flutter away from her. One of them said, This, this is not possible.

Fuck you. She concentrated very carefully on trying to project her words, not sure if they would hear her or not, but she was going to do her damnedest. Fuck every single one of you. I will die before I submit to being your puppet.

The other alien spoke. We still have a use for it.

Know this. If you don't kill me now, I will find a way to destroy you all and tear this place down around your heads!

It disregarded her words. Prepare her for insertion into the network. We will find a way to reclaim the Eldest.

Their arrogance was breathtaking. They didn't even take into consideration that she had actually killed the thing.

After the aliens had reverentially gathered the remains of their dead leader they left, except for the thin man who had the table return to its horizontal position. A tray full of organic tools rose up from the floor. The alien picked up something that looked like some sort of underwater monstrosity. "By the time I'm done, you'll wish that you'd allowed the Eldest in."

It was wrong, so very wrong. Through the pain of the procedures there were two thoughts she clung to.

The first being that despite the pain and fear of what was being done to her, Vanessa was still herself.

And secondly, she was still alive.

Finally the pain ended as she was inserted into some sort of padded suit.

Before unconsciousness set in her final thought was that one day she would have her revenge.