Chapter 37: Operation Love Amongst the Wilderness
"You have to go" David told her.
"You know I can't do that" Bella replied.
"Ugh" David strained against the growing pain as he sat propped up against the charred remains of the burnt-out tree in the alien tainted wilderness on the edge of some long-forgotten highway leading nowhere. All the while, the ceaseless rain continued to pour down upon them. "But they'll find you"
"Maybe they won't" Bella assured him, even as the hint of despair in her voice revealed the true measure of her fear.
"I don't want to lose you" David pleaded.
"If I leave now that leg keeps bleeding and I lose you, how is that any better?" Bella asked.
"I'm dead anyway" David cursed beneath his breath. They both knew it was truth. The shot had struck a major artery in his leg. The moment she let go… neither of them wanted to think about it.
"No, you're not" Bella continued to reassure him as she tightened her hold around his injured leg, tensing the muscles in her tail to stem the lingering flow of blood from plasma burn to his thigh. All the while she kept her hands grasped tight around his shoulders, as if willing for her strength to become his.
All around them they could hear the beating footsteps of feet squelching in the deep the mud, Resistance fighters searching the brush for any lingering signs of ADVENT.
"Please, I know this is hard" Fighting through the searing agony David reached out to grasp her hand tightly in his. "But this is the only way. No matter what happens, we'll be bound to eachother. Forever"
"No" Bella protested weakly, the tell-tale quiver of her forked tongue revealing just how much the mere thought of it pained her. "You don't get to make that choice for me. In ADVENT, the Elders always told us where to go, what to do, what to think"
"I see it, over there!"
The sound of the boots grew louder at their approach. The skies above cracked with a flash of lightning as though the gods themselves raged at her despair.
"But this time" Bella hugged herself tighter around him, losing herself in the warm press of his body against her scales.
"It's a Viper, it's got someone! Shoot it"
"This time" she leant in closer, whispering in his ear so that only he may hear it. "The choice is mine"
"Bit of a downer don't you think?"
Corporal James Culbert glanced up from his tablet to face Corporal Fina Sage sitting beside him at the AVENGER bar. "What do you mean?"
"I mean, the hero struggles through the entire story to free her from ADVENTs control" Sage explained. "They then spend the next several chapters sneaking across the Midwest to safety all while he learns to love again. And to top it all off they arrive to find the settlement already under attack by ADVENT and get killed by the very same resistance group they were hoping would protect them"
"Exactly" Culbert exclaimed. "It's your classic tragic romance ending"
"But he gets killed by humans" Sage argued. "It's hardly going to go down well if your main character falls in love with a Viper and the Resistance are the bad guys"
"That's the point though" Culbert insisted. "It shows that there are no true heroes and villains, it's all a moral grey area. That's what makes this story unique"
"I still don't think Central's going to let you publish that thing" Sage remained sceptical.
"He will when he sees the proof draft I have prepared" Culbert took another deep swig of his drink. "I'm telling you; this is going to be the biggest thing since-"
"Amateurs"
Culbert and Sage glanced across the bar together. They saw two of the other strike team members sitting in a booth across the bar, two women in their early forties. Culbert recognised them both as veterans of the original XCOM which explained why they always appeared at eachothers side. Neither of them looked up to face them.
"Excuse me?" Culbert asked.
"She called you a pair of amateurs" the other woman spoke.
Both of the women raised from their seats to approach the bar. The first one to speak reached into their belt pouch, drawing out a well-worn book and laying it on the bar between them. The cover was emblazoned with a woman with brunette hair and a lab coat caressing the face of a gaunt man with piercing yellow eyes.
"This is how you do it" Captain Felicity Chambers insisted.
XCOM Rule 697e: This ban has been reinstated and has been extended to include members of ADVENT (We assumed that this wouldn't need to be specified).
