(Captain Skinner 00:22, EST, 12/26/2034, Location: Germany)
"Taking heavy fire!" Justin muttered into the comms. I grimaced at the thought of him getting hit again. Justin was always the first to get wounded in a mission. It was as if he was a bright neon sign that screamed "shoot me".
"Reloading!" I muttered into the comms for the commander to hear, as I soon heard the orders to take out that Purifier. I raised my gun, took aim and fired. It did me little good, as the shot went wide. "It went wide."
"That's not good." I heard to my left, as Sergeant Scope, had fired and missed, but not before his shot connecting with one of the vehicles in the area. I was about to suggest to commander we make a slow retreat when I heard three distinctive shots, I watched as the purifier exploded, taking out two advent troopers with it. Then I watched as two officer's fell, from the unseen shots fired.
"What the hell!?" I asked, through the comms as I searched for the source of fire. "Firebrand, where's the extraction!"
I heard no reply, until Bradford's voice echoed through the comms. "Status confirmed all hostiles are down and the area is secure."
(Justin Lucky 13:22, EST, 01/1/2035, Location Unknown)
I opened my eyes, or at least I thought I did, I could hear voices, Tygan's and Bradford, especially Bradford's, dropping an explicit over something, I couldn't see them, just the wall, and then i noticed I could see the left side of my nose, but not my right. Had my right eye been damaged? God, I couldn't feel anything, my whole body felt numb. I tried to recollect my thoughts, trying to piece together what had happened.
The mission, the muton suppressing me, the Flame Viper, whose tank was about to breach, the muton striking me… It was a blur at that point. Vaguely piecing together a teammate with a fused grenade, remembering ripping it off of them, dropping his gun, feeling the heat of the blast, blindly grabbing the nearest weapon, firing three shots, and then blackness.
I turned my head, trying desperately to see only for Tygan, to immediately say to me. "No, don't turn your head, you're liable to cause more damage to the tissue restoration I am using, to try to give you some of your face back."
I tried to speak, and was shocked to hear its ungodly rasp, "What…. Happened?"
Bradfords voice was the one to reply. "You just proved to be our Ace in a hole Justin, even if you mistook a flame viper for a squad mate, I have never seen such expert instinctive shooting since before the invasion. Your promoted Captain, enjoy your new rank, when you're recovered. Tygan can fill you in on the details."
I really would have preferred it to have been Bradford. Because Tygan explained it very medically and not in preferred English. Following my disorientation with muton, I had mistake a Flame Viper for a squad mate, and ripped her ruptured flame tank off of her before it had exploded, the tank took out the muton, and also had knocked my gun out of my hands, the muton's weapon which had miraculously survived the explosion i had grabbed and shot three times taking out at 40 meter a purifier whose death ensured the death of two troopers and my other to shots connected with two advent officers. The Results however had been costly, I had caught fire in the explosion with the flame viper tank, and the resulting inferno had burned the right side of my face and had caused enough damage to my eye, that it had to be removed.
As Tygan pressed a sleeping agent into my system, I wondered to myself, what had become of the viper, that was the only thing that wasn't adding up. What had happened to the viper?
(Viper Unit 29324768, 09:53, EST, 12/26/2035, Location: West Europe City Center)
The floor looked exceedingly pleasant as I stood before my Matriarch. It had been a very underappreciated hour of interrogation. I was the sole survivor of the patrol I had been assigned to. This didn't bode well in the eyes of my Matriarch especially since if we engage the enemy we fight to the last. To add insult to injury this had been my first tour of active duty on the field, something I had yearned for as a hatchling rather they be cooped up in a lab somewhere working on Elder's knows what.
Plus if this weren't already just a normal injury to any pride I might have had, the very nature of being a Flame Viper, react violently when your pride was stripped away, or if you were simply shot at. Steeling whatever nerve I had in front of my Matriarch, I let her words travel through one side of my head and out the other. While making an extended death stare at the sectoid behind the console, when I raised my head.
"You're clearly not capable of active duty, but because there are too few clones of Vipers of your kind yet, you will be resupplied and refitted for active duty, in New Brazil," my Matriarch said.
I would have hissed in protest if I hadn't swallowed my own tongue purposely to prevent any exhale. I hated having to put up with the matriarch and her venomous words in regards to my kind, as she spoke of. Having worked as a scientist for most of my life, I had had inside knowledge to learn that our variants, namely flame vipers, the so called elite vipers, and rumored pythons, all actually hailed from the same homeworld as the rest of the vipers, the difference being that the Elder's had been selective in their choosing of whom dominated in the politics of advent, and it just happened to be that the flame vipers were seen as too volatile, too passionate to be a reliable force. I boiled with anger as the matriarch belittled me in front of the sectoid and also in front of her 'sisters'.
"Dismissed." The matriarch said, and I turned to leave, slithering out the door. As soon as I was out of the building, I seethed, intent on spilling out my anger before I would overheat. Fire erupted from my back scales from my hood down to my lower back. As I slithered I let it burn, I let my seething rage burn bright, before it soon dwindled down.
As I slithered towards my room, and shut the door, I turned on the shower with my tail, and stripped off my armour casting it aside, and stepped into the cold waters feeling it erupt into steam upon contact with my scales. How good it felt against them, to cool down, to try to recollect all that had happened.
Yes XCOM killed my squad, so be it, there were no lost tears for them, they were just puppets, and the muton was a bully so be it. But why did that one save me? He must have been confused, that's it, yes he was confused, that had to be it. In the confusion he saved me thinking I was a teammate. I punched the side of the shower, even as the idea had emerged in my head to make him pay for saving me, the truth was I owed him, a life for a life, confusion or no confusion. I owed him. It made me mad, but that dissipated quickly, benefits from being under the cold water of the shower. When i finally slipped out, and slithered into bed, I couldn't help but wonder, was he thinking about me?