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"A friend loveth at all times, and a brother is born for adversity."
~Proverbs 17:17
Chapter Two: Gatecrasher
"Advent assures all citizens that today's celebrations will continue as planned."
"Hmph." The old man adjusted his coat for a moment, glancing warily at the nearest Advent patrol. "Perfect."
He got a few odd looks, as he made his way down the street. Most people in the city centers were a lot better-kept than he tried to be. Rough stubble, gray hair, wrinkled skin and worn, haggard eyes...they painted a sorry picture of someone too proud to seek help in the gene therapy clinics. Most people whispered behind his back, wondering why he couldn't at least shave properly.
Maybe they should spend a week in the Underground, dodging vipers. John Bradford shivered. It had to be vipers.
Lights flashed on Advent security towers, and Bradford did his best to avoid them. Patrols wandered the streets, but they paid him no mind. They were preoccupied with the crowds and the growing celebrations down near the remade Eiffel Tower, now sporting an Elder in each of its four feet.
"They've definitely got their hands full today," observed his right ear. Bradford snorted.
"Of course they do. It's Christmas and July Fourth rolled into Thanksgiving, seasoned with a touch of Labor Day."
"Americans." She sounded amused.
"You're second-generation, Shen."
"And I'm sure Dad gave you just as much grief about it."
Bradford couldn't really argue, so he coughed instead. "Tell me you've checked in with-"
"She's here. Look for a ponytail and baseball cap."
"Well," Bradford observed, glancing around a sea of done-up hair and happy couples dressed for the holiday, "at least a baseball cap is a dead giveaway. She have the stuff?"
"Unless she dropped it absent-mindedly along the way."
"Unlikely. I'd fire her...literally." Bradford took his place in the nearest queue, eyeing the security scanner ahead and the Advent patrol manning it. "Prep Gatecrasher. Sixty seconds."
"All right, Gatecrasher. You're up."
Peter Osei took a breath, glancing to his partner. Ana Ramirez nodded, and even cracked a grin.
"We'll kill them," she swore, in her Mexican-tinted English. Osei smiled right back.
"All of them," he agreed, before checking his rifle. "Where's the old man?"
"Currently waiting in line at a security checkpoint." Shen sounded rather amused. "Patience is a virtue, but I don't think he's figured that out just yet."
"We're coming up on the drop," Firebrand advised. Osei clutched his harness as the Skyranger twisted in the air, relying on its cloaking shield as it hovered between the Paris skyscrapers.
He took a deep breath as the rear bay doors opened, and the rappel lines dropped.
"Go! Go!" He caught one, and Ana was right behind him. They slid through the dark morning sky, going from a hundred feet in the air to the ground in mere seconds, landing with a jolt that ran up Osei's knees and almost to his shoulders. He swept his gun from his back, checking down the sights as he hunted for anyone who had seen their insertion.
"Clear," Ana announced after a moment. "Where's the clinic?"
"Directly ahead. Get some cover and get us eyes on the defenses."
"Roger that." Osei waved, and Ana took up position at his flank.
"It's white," Ana observed, looking down at the tile pathway they followed. "It's all so clean..."
"I saw a drinking fountain back there." Osei almost wanted to turn around and visit it, just on general principles. "And their cars..."
"Cushy." Something worked over Ana's face. "Very cushy."
"Yeah." Osei spent a long moment trying to decide if he was more disdainful or envious. "Must be nice, having all the food you can eat, steady power, unlimited drinking water..."
"Must be nice," Ana echoed. "I bet raising kids is easy."
"I bet." Osei didn't have any of his own, but he'd seen how hard it was to have a family in the havens. This was...this was paradise.
If one could stomach tyranny to embrace it.
"Hold up." Ana raised her hand. "There they are."
"Shit, you're right." Osei scrambled for cover, ducking behind a plant on display. Ana crouched on the safe side of a park bench, and for a moment, neither dared to breathe.
"I see five of them," Osei muttered, touching the comms unit in his ear. "We can't take them all."
"Roger that, Gatecrasher." Shen sounded like she was rubbing her hands together. "Let's see what can be done about that."
"Stand by." Bradford surreptitiously took a breath when the Advent soldiers, seemingly satisfied with the last of the guests, waved him up to the scanner.
He made sure his earpiece was transmitting, and then approached.
Beep!
They shouted. Bradford paused, glancing left and right as the entire station's detail converged around him.
"Mor Balaten," ordered the red officer. Bradford eyed him.
And out of the corner of his eye, he saw a baseball cap and ponytail.
Pain lit up his abdomen as the officer drove the butt of his magnetic rifle in. Bradford yelped, dropping to his knees with the wind knocked out of him. He wheezed, then dared to glare at his attacker, showing all his hate for the first time in nearly twenty years.
"Mor Balaten," the officer repeated, as Bradford's partner finished her work and started off down the street.
Bradford risked a smile on the inside.
He rose, and very deliberately put a finger to his earpiece.
"Now," he ordered, glaring into the alien-lover's eyes.
Jane Kelly hit the detonator switch.
Boom!
"Damn!" Osei admired the cloud of black smoke in the distance. "That's some explosion."
"Sure is." Ana sounded quite cheerful. "That'll get some attention."
The gene therapy clinic's doors opened, and Osei supposed she was right. Out came red-armored proof, too, glaring at the corner and the pyre.
"Remind me to thank the old man," Osei mused, as the officer beckoned one of his men. The two scurried off, while the remaining four sentries traded unhappy glances.
"You and me both," Shen agreed, quite heartfelt.
"I have a shot." Osei lined it up for proof, hoping none of the Advent soldiers chanced a look his way before he was ready. "Permission to en-"
"Do it!" Shen ordered.
Osei's finger was down on the trigger before she'd finished.
"Nice shot!" Ana cried, as Osei's bullets ripped through one of the Advent soldiers. His friends screamed, and they snapped their guns up, firing a few blind shots that forced Osei down into cover. They scrambled for the lamppost and the car at the streetside, ducking low and chattering in their hateful language.
"Crasher-one is on the board!" he crowed, flushed with exultation. "There's more where that came from!"
"They know you're here now. How about you shoot first and celebrate later?" She could roll her eyes all she wanted: Osei didn't see Shen here on the front lines.
"I'm going in!" Ana dove across the street, sliding into place by the car. A soldier snapped up across from her, but she was faster on the draw, and she ventilated his eyes in a flash and a rippling crack of bullets.
"Crasher-two, look at you go!" Osei laughed, snapping back up. "I'm going for number-"
He threw himself flat as fire came in, hot and sizzling. Magnetic projectiles ate up dirt and tile, splashing through the decorative fountains lining the park pathway. Osei winced as one nearly took him in the shoulder.
"That was close!" he cried. "Crasher-two, are you-"
"I'm fine!" She reloaded, glancing over the hood. "Don't you worry-"
"Ana!" Osei barely kept himself from diving out as a pair of red shots ripped her chest open. Ana's eyes bulged, and then the next set of shots hurled her down the street. She rolled, screaming in agony for a terrible, ear-rending second.
"Tell...tell my kids...I..."
"Ana!" Osei trembled, eyes snapping to the Advent soldier who'd flanked her out, covering in the security booth just down the street. "Crasher-two is down!"
"Damn it! You can't take risks like that-"
"So that's how you wanna play?" Osei sucked in breath and mustered his courage. "Okay!"
"Butts!" screamed one of the soldiers, as Osei vaulted from cover. He fired blind, forcing the far one to keep his head down as he sprinted across the sidewalk, up to the booth, over the low wall-
"How do you like it?" He smashed the butt of his rifle into the face of Ana's murderer, and the soldier screamed. Osei kicked him, and the monster went down on his side, shrieking in the Advent language as his attacker rained more and more blows.
"I'll kill you!" Osei cried. "I'll-"
Bang!
"Ah!" He crashed on one knee, clutching the red mark in his side. The world swayed, but he clutched his gun tightly, grinding his teeth together. It hurt, and hurt and hurt, but...but...
"Asshole." Osei pressed his gun to the floored soldier's neck, and he fired. Gore burst backward in yellow, but he didn't care. Hot and disgusting, perhaps, but he knew the soldier was dead.
"Oh...oh shit..." He swallowed as he turned to stare down the barrel of a magnetic rifle, mere feet from his face. Osei tried to raise his gun, but he wasn't fast enough-
Bang!
The Advent soldier tumbled, chest ripped open by the high-powered round. He fell flat on his face, wriggling in a most satisfying way as he tried to reclaim his gun. Evidently he figured out that was a pipe dream halfway through the crawl, because he reached to his helmet.
"He's calling reinforcements!" Shen cried. "Stop that-"
Two steps. One upraised foot.
One Advent skull shattered on the curb, in one of the most satisfying experiences of John Bradford's life.
"...transmission..." Shen didn't sound entirely pleased. Bradford scoffed.
"Central, reporting in."
"You're late. What have you been doing?"
"Taking in the sights." Bradford nudged the soldier, and he grimaced when turning the man over revealed his broken helmet, and...
"What the hell are these things?" Jane Kelly demanded from over his shoulder. Bradford spat.
"Us...or, at least, they used to be. Human hybrids. Advent's reward for loyalty and service." His jaw worked. "Disgusting."
"I'd heard the rumors. I never thought they might actually be true."
"No one wanted to." Bradford glanced around at the broken bodies, sighing when he saw Ramirez. "We're one down."
"She died a hero." That was Crasher-one, hurrying over to join the group. "What are we even here for, Central?"
"You'll find out soon enough." Bradford turned for the clinic. "Come on. Let's-"
The shrieking of engines filled the air. Bradford spun, gun raised, as an Advent transport craft shot down over the park walkway, red anti-grav drives glowing in the morning light. Its doors hissed, and...
"Damn it!" Bradford waved, and he heard Kelly on his heels as he bolted for the clinic. "Let's move, people!"
"I'm going for the door!" Then the Irishwoman was ahead of him, and Bradford waited as she pulled out her datapad, connecting to the security computer in seconds, manipulating the technology with the ease of a lifetime's practice. The old central officer kept his eyes on the park, stewing a little more with every minute.
"Advent, incoming!" Crasher-one warned. "Three of them-" Any further report was drowned out by the blaring of his rifle, and Bradford had to fight the temptation to add a few shots of his own to the mix. If the Advent soldiers hadn't realized he and Kelly were inside yet...
"Got it!" She slipped her pad back into her pocket, and Bradford ripped the door open. He entered the gene clinic's back room, scanning for hostiles on all sides...
Then he paused.
"This is it. That's what Outrider described." He confronted the Advent pod, with its unusual Elder symbol and the array of network hookups scattered around.
"Are you sure?"
Bradford grabbed the switch. He opened the pod with one pull, waiting as the shield doors opened. Tension curled and coiled in his gut, and he trembled where he stood.
"This...this is it," he whispered, finally daring to believe as he beheld the glass tube and the preserving solution inside, enveloping the stasis suit. "That's him."
"I'm seeing a control panel. If you can connect, maybe I can-"
Bradford slammed the butt of his rifle into the glass. It shattered, and fluid drained onto the floor in a miniature cascade. Bradford dropped his gun carelessly, catching the astronaut-like figure as he tumbled for the ground.
"Next time," he promised Shen, as he laid the package down gently. "All right. We've got what we came for. Let's go!"
"Just go!" Peter Osei stepped in Ana Ramirez' blood as he shifted positions, and he fired on the move, clipping the Advent officer's chest. "I'll try and stall them here!"
"Crasher-one-"
"Go!" Osei fired again, and the Advent soldier trying to edge his way into the clinic ducked for cover. He shouted, too, and Osei turned-
Bang! Bang!
It hurt. It hurt a lot, as the red slugs ripped into his chest. It was pain, and then he choked, lungs shattered and deflating, blood seeping into his windpipe. He couldn't...he couldn't breathe...
"Crasher-one is down!" Jane Kelly called, as she ducked behind the doorway into the back room. "Sir, there's no other exit-"
"Make one!" Bradford ordered, hoisting their new friend onto his shoulders. Old friend? New enough for Jane, at least. She growled.
"Right!" The Irishwoman reached for her belt, and she pulled out her grenade. "Breaching charge, out!" She ripped the pin free, wishing she was half the demolitions specialist Obsidian had been. "Heads down!"
It clattered up against the wall, beeping with red light. Jane covered her eyes, and Bradford ducked into the doorjamb from the hidden room. For an instant, nothing happened.
Then-
Boom!
"All right!" Bradford shouted, as rubble blew outward and smoke rose into the sky. Jane hefted her gun, watching the door as the old man stumbled past, snarling as he carried the heavy-looking suit without complaint. "Move, Kelly!"
"Don't have to tell me twice!" She backed up, firing on the move as the Advent soldiers pressed at the door. Red magnetic bolts shot around her, and she quaked in her entirely-too-expensive shoes as she wondered if one would lance into the base of her throat any second-
"Damn it!"
"Central?" Kelly demanded, as he stumbled. The tough bastard clutched his leg.
"Flesh wound!" he insisted, as Jane ducked a volley of incoming fire. "Where the hell is our evac?"
"Right here!" Firebrand called, and Jane spun as terrestrial engines roared. She gasped as she saw the Skyranger lowering itself down over their position...
"Come on, soldier!" Bradford seized one of the lines Firebrand dropped, and Jane backed up at double pace, firing from the hip and getting about the results she'd expected to show for it. At least it kept Advent back for a moment...long enough for the old man to get pulled up.
Long enough for Jane to run out of bullets.
"Come on!" Firebrand and Shen cried at the same time. Jane swore, slinging her gun onto her back and turning for evac.
Red flashed around her. Shots ripped up the ground and tugged at her hair in passing. One might have nicked her ponytail, and she nearly tripped over a pine cone, of all stupid things. One misstep, one mistake...
Firebrand was lifting off. She had to, under this kind of fire. If she stayed, and a shot went into her engine...but the lines were going up, and Jane made a wordless sound in the back of her throat.
"Jump for it!" Bradford screamed, and Jane did, grabbing frantically at the air as more shots tugged at her trousers and burnt holes in her baggy sleeves-
Rope!
She caught rope with both hands, and Jane cried out as more shots whizzed around her. She tucked her chin and pulled her legs up, squeezing her eyes shut as Firebrand rocketed into the sky, the line retracting in slowly, far out of pace with the Skyranger's wild acrobatics. Her stomach twisted and churned, and if it suddenly decided to empty, that would be the jolt that would shake her grip loose-
"Gotcha!" And then a hand caught the back of her shirt, and Jane yelped as she was yanked unceremoniously up and through the bay doors. She scrambled until her hands and knees were under her, and practically flopped on her back, gasping for the recycled and purified air in the troop bay.
"What the hell..." She sat up, glaring at Bradford where the old man sat nursing his leg, working with one of the Skyranger's onboard medical kits. "What the hell did we pull out of there?"
We sense it.
We can feel it, ripped away from us.
Our Codex has confirmed its loss.
No...no, no, this isn't right. This isn't right at all! Without the Commander...without his mind and his essence, without all that he is...
This isn't right. We are incomplete. It is coming, and we cannot stop it without him.
We must return him to us. Whatever the cost.
We must not fail.
Something was wrong. Something was very wrong. The world felt heavy and everything was moving so fast and...and...
Penny! Edward Gallant tried to cry. But he couldn't see, and he could barely move with the heavy anchors that were wrapped around him. His mouth only made jumbling noises when he tried to work it.
Dark. Dark, and motion, and confusion all at once. He trembled, and his heart raced, and his chest heaved and pounded, and he sweated too.
Voices. People were talking. They sounded urgent, and Gallant screamed. He didn't know if any of his noise left the suit, but whoever was up there...
I have to get back. The aliens are attacking Moscow. I can't let them wipe out another city, not after Brussels!
Shapes. Someone was...that was a visor, and someone was wiping at it. Gallant's eyes widened as he took in a dark face bereft of hair, quiet eyes behind half-framed glasses...
Who the hell are you? was his next attempted demand. Again, his mouth slurred and his jaw worked uselessly, and words were hard to come by. He was weak, so weak...his chest pounded and his head was splitting...he was cut off, incomplete...but what was it he needed to be connected to?
Edward Gallant didn't have a clue what was happening, and he struggled not to break down as the dark and the confusion alike brought his demons to the surface.
The visor came off, abruptly. Gallant gasped, only realizing how awful and putrid the air he'd been breathing was when fresh, cold, machine-and-oil stained oxygen flowed into his world. The slightest kiss of it made him tremble.
"Remarkable." That was the black man, the...the doctor, he looked like. Gallant flinched, glancing the other way as the world spun in and out-
No...
"J...J..."
"Just like twenty years ago," muttered the gruff, stubble-coated man who had to be...but couldn't be... "They were still calling it a war back then."
Gallant twisted his head. He couldn't form Bradford's name, because his head burst with agony. His skull split, and he screamed voicelessly.
Elders. Elders appeared behind his eyes, waving their arms over him with clouds of purple light about every twitch of their fingers.
"Response from the cerebral cortex. Good." Yes, this was a doctor. He had a similar businesslike manner to...to...
Moira!
"Prepping for cranial intrusion." That was not a sentence Gallant wanted to hear on his best day, and this was not...he stared at the device in this man's hand, and his eyes would have widened if not for the pain.
Pain. Pain, and light...
One of the ugliest faces of his life leered before him, smirking as it pressed a device into his mouth. Gallant shrieked and squirmed as whatever he was putting in drilled into the roof of his mouth, pressing upward with gusto that made the one-time Commander want to die on the spot.
Then it was over. The aching misery lingered, but Gallant could only choke as the thin man smirked, making sure to give him a little slap before it turned away...
"I've managed to identify the connection. Preparing to make final incision."
Gallant screamed again, as this doctor added a new tool to his work. He could barely move the slightest muscle, and was utterly helpless as the torturer tore into him, cutting and pulling and taking and...and...
Why won't you just kill me? he wanted to demand. Do it!
"These readings are getting really erratic," observed a worried voice. Gallant did his best to flail and look, but even when the device came out, he couldn't. Who were these people?
"Of course they are. These implants were never designed to be removed. We are risking-"
"No Plan B here, people," Bradford snapped. It couldn't be Bradford. He was too old, too musty...no. This had to be his secret older brother, or even his father. It had to be. "Do it."
Gallant waited as the doctor traded glances with the woman at his side. His assistant, maybe? Neither looked happy, but they seemed determined in spite of it.
Gallant's eyes widened when the doctor produced his next tool, all pincers and tongs-
"Ahhhh!" He couldn't help but scream as it went into his mouth. Steel tendrils dug into his flesh, and then they seized something else buried deep inside. His fists clenched inside his suit as the doctor started tugging...
In one eye, he saw the doctor. In another, he saw the thin man, both shoving and pulling and torturing...which one was real? Which one was the dream?
"Got it!" the doctor cried, and Gallant howled as he ripped something solid from the roof of his mouth. Pain and...haze shot through his brain, and everything went white-
The base shuddered as the aliens pressed their assault. Gallant ducked behind a control console, grabbing for his laser pistol. He heard medics shouting and Strike-one's weapons blazing, but there was little they could do against a swarm of mutons and mechtoids.
"Doctor!" cried Penny Ferguson, and Gallant's blood ran cold. He popped up, taking a potshot at the first thin man he saw.
"Vahlen?" he cried, insides turning to paste. Penny was down with Shen by the hologlobe, and Gallant eased a little inside when he saw Bradford with them, blazing away with a pistol in one hand and their lone captured alien grenade in the other.
He heard it. Before the lumbering muton brute could reach Gallant, he heard it, and he turned with pistol upraised. He managed to get a shot off, but it was low, and the creature stormed on without regard.
"Commander!" Bradford cried, as the butt of the muton's rifle cracked Gallant's skull. His world went dark in an instant, but he still heard Penny's next announcement.
"No pulse..."
White. White was everywhere. Gallant flinched, taking shuddering breaths.
"Pupillary response normal. Vitals stabilizing." A flashlight. That was a flashlight, shining down into his eyes, and Gallant sighed in relief when the doctor flicked it off. He turned to Bradford, very formally. "Procedure complete."
"I told 'em it would take more than that to keep you down." The old XO loomed, and a smile split his craggy features. "Welcome back, Commander."
Author's Note 2: On Canon
I know that in the actual cutscene, it's Jane who gives Bradford her opinion on Advent having their hands full, not Shen. I've made this change deliberately, along with a host of others throughout this chapter and the following ones: I do not intend to lose sleep attempting to exactly transcribe every cutscene and line of dialogue, so even when I believe I can do so, I'm going to actively make a few changes on general principles. "Broad Strokes" is the philosophy guiding this story, and so long as I maintain that, I'm going to be perfectly satisfied.
That's just a warning for later, because several later cutscenes are going to be more markedly different, with entire lines of dialogue cut, given to different characters, or re-ordered compared to events happening in the background.
I've always felt that the Commander's extraction happened in Paris. I don't know why, but I feel very strongly about that, so it was the logical place to set this chapter. And yes, the X4 charge Jane used on the patrol is one of the collection she recovered from the facility in Shrouds. I always wondered how she got it - if she obtained it from XCOM, I wanted to know how a guerilla organization somehow invents a plastic explosive that can take down an entire alien complex with one charge. X4 being rebranded alien tech seemed likely, so I invented a way for XCOM to get it.
Until next time, Vigilo Confido.