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"For thou art a holy people unto the Lord thy God: the Lord thy God hath Chosen thee to be a special people unto himself, above all people that are upon the face of the earth."
~Deutoronomy 7:6
Chapter Eight: Assassin
"Mox? Pratal Mox?" Outrider sounded straight-up offended - no. Insulted. "The very same Pratal Mox that slaughtered my people by the thousands in the days after the invasion?"
"He's kept good faith," Central snapped, while Carlos Mendoza and David White scanned the immediate area. The old raised rail line seemed secure, but neither operative was entirely trustful of this city, not after everything. "If it weren't for him, one of ours wouldn't have made it."
"You expect me to treat with..." Outrider's eye twitched, and Carlos wished she hadn't foregone her mask. She actually looked scarier without the damn thing.
"He's approaching now, from the west side. I know you two both have a lot of reasons to hate each other, but we have reasons to work together as well."
"The voice of reason, as always." Carlos eyed the west side. "Tell you what, David: I'll be glad to see Kelly and Liang."
"Damn straight." The Australian checked his gun, then the skies. "Don't see any alien craft up there. I think we might just be in the clear."
"Be careful saying things like that," Carlos warned. He paused. "Incoming, on the rail line."
"Team One, this is Team Two. We're approaching along the rail line from the west side - those your lights we see?"
"If those are your lights passing the station, then yeah," Carlos replied. "Move on in, Corporal."
"Roger that." In the gloom they approached: three lights for three soldiers, all doggedly maintaining their tired pace along the elevated rail. Carlos' tension eased a bit at the team's full reunion.
"You look like you had a scuffle," he observed. Liang waved absently.
"No big deal." She sat at the rail's edge, heaving a grateful sigh. "Just about sixty billion Lost coming down the main street."
"Lies. Must have been thirty billion: we had the rest." David rubbed at his neck. "Nasty little buggers."
"They bang you up?" Jane asked. David shrugged.
"I'm fine."
"Pratal Mox." Outrider's long trench coat rustled as she approached the Skirmisher, rifle still in hand. Carlos, Jane, and the other soldiers turned to watch, nervously trading glances. "The butcher himself comes to parlay."
"Well, this is it." Gallant leaned forward on the rail. "This is the moment where they put aside their differences and agree to join forces against the greater threat."
"I'm sure it is, sir."
He gave Bradford his best glower. It was a good one. "Don't you be a sarcastic piece of shit on my bridge, Mister Bradford."
"Can't help it, Commander. In the blood." Bradford eyed the holodisplay dutifully, while a few techs chuckled. Gallant resented being a joke on general principles, but he'd been to West Point before getting shoehorned out to Groom Lake and then the XCOM Project's HQ. Morale was a fickle animal, and rapport among senior officers was a good way to create the impression that everything was fine. Besides, a guerilla organization's rules on discipline and seniority were considerably more lax than a traditional military's.
"Commander?"
"What?" Gallant eyed the technician seeking his attention, who was of course seated as far as humanly possible from his (raised!)command position. "More Lost?"
"I don't think so, sir." The man adjusted his scanner for a moment. "I'm reading something in the area, but I don't know what it is. Some kind of...energy disturbance."
"Thermals?" Gallant inquired.
"We've got..." The woman at that station chewed her lip for a moment, which was something that didn't fill Gallant with cheer and confidence. "There's a thermal signature on the platform. About four hundred meters due west of Menace."
"Menace?" Bradford touched his comm. "Eyes up. There's something moving to your west."
"Are you sure, sir?" Jane Kelly examined the western approach dubiously. "Only thing I see moving is an Advent burger wrapper. God knows how it got here...this place has been abandoned since before Advent was a thing."
"Say again: you see nothing?"
"Not a damn thing." Jane glanced to her companions. "Sing if I'm wrong, boys."
"I'm with her," Mendoza grunted. "Nothing, Central."
"Nothing," David agreed. "Rail line's clear, sir."
"Must be a system glitch. Stand by and cover the meeting." He sighed. "Let's try and play nice today, people."
"So," Outrider growled. "Advent's most brutal captain comes to atone for his sins."
"I am no longer that being." Mox came to a halt with a good twenty feet of distance between him and Outrider. He spread his hands. "I am free now."
"Taking off that helmet does not change what you are." Outrider's lip curled. "Reapers have long memories." Now a nasty glint appeared in her eye. "Elder puppet."
"Whoa!" Jane cried, as Mox drew his arm back. Those twin-blades popped out, and he growled at Outrider, his whole posture screaming danger.
"Any time," the Reaper invited, leveling her rifle.
"We have to do something," Mendoza whispered. Jane shook her head.
"Do what? We shoot or attack one, the parlay's over just the same as if they kill each other-"
"She's going to shoot," Gallant predicted, clutching the rail with white knuckles. "She's going to shoot, damn it-"
"Hey!" Bradford hit his comms unit. He took a preparatory breath. "The way I see it, we have two options: join forces and kick the Elders off our world...or, if you'd prefer, kill each other here and now." He paused for a moment. "The choice is yours."
Tension. Gallant waited, swallowing. If Outrider opened fire...if Mox lunged...could he still overthrow Advent without the factions' help? They were the new Council, and their resources could mean everything to his fledgling war effort.
He waited, barely able to breathe, heart pounding.
"Mox is standing down," Jane Kelly finally reported, and Gallant nearly sagged with relief. Bradford let out a long breath.
"Outrider?"
"Her too." David White, now. "I'm not a words man, but that was a good-"
"Shots fired!" Da-Xia Liang cried, as a loud crack echoed through comms. "Outrider-"
"Damn it!" Gallant threw his cane, and it soared across the bridge and into the wall with a loud clang. "Now what?"
Elena Dragunova had been raised a Reaper. Her family had become refugees when the alien forces descended on Russia in the aftermath of XCOM's collapse, and exacted unholy vengeance for the Motherland's daring to stand alongside France and Japan as the last of the Council nations. Novosibirsk's abandonment was the tip of the iceberg; entire cities had ceased to exist, and Voronezh was one of them. Elena had been barely six.
But now she was Outrider, born in the darkness, raised in the hinterland of Old Russia by a hunter father and a hard-bitten thief of a mother, having clawed her way up the hard way to a position not so very far from Konstantine Volikov's right hand.
And when she saw something moving in the dark, it only took her a heartbeat to divine its nature and intent.
The Vektor Rifle in her hands was patterned after the old Soviet Dragunov, still available by the truckload in the former republics. Its bullets traveled at 2,800 feet per second, and with less than one percent of that distance between her and Mox' shoulder, there should have been no way for the shot to miss. If she'd wanted him dead, he would be, and long before Liang's frantic warning to her commanders had even left her lips.
Instead, it flicked just a hair shy of ruffling his fur collar. Instead, it whizzed by the Skirmisher's ear...and went directly for the eye of the blue-skinned, purple-eyed, tattooed and marked thing appearing from the air behind him. Elena got a distinct look at its eyes, wide and full of both shock and rage, in the instant before it practically winked out of sight.
"Outrider-" Liang began.
Bang! Mox's arm cannon went off, and Elena almost winced. But he had turned, and his grapple line shot down the platform, directly at the appearing figure of-
"No one has ever done that before," snarled the figure, the Figure so much like the one from Elena's nightmares. Its pointed teeth appeared as it snarled angrily, slashing Mox's grapple line from the air with a wicked sword. "No one shall ever do that again!"
"Hey!" Jane Kelly's gun came up, and David White's too. They aimed at the thing-
It vaulted the rail. The thing vaulted the rail backwards, blowing apart into purple light and shards on the way down. Elena swore.
"What the hell is that?" their Commander demanded, in the tone of a man who'd just encountered his day's share of insanity.
"Vox Prima," growled Mox, drawing his bullpup. "The Elders' Assassin. Relentless death that stalks my people: butcher of free Advent."
Elena's teeth set, as she scanned the surround through her scope. "My people face another like her. They are the undying, Advent's curse upon us." She inhaled. "I did not realize there were more of them."
"Neither did I." Mox glanced her way. "We cannot defeat her in battle."
"Not today," Elena agreed. "If there are two, there are perhaps more." She inhaled. "We must unite if we are to have any chance of victory."
Mox nodded. "Agreed."
"This is nice and all," Mendoza snapped, "but how do we kill that thing?"
"We don't." Mox eyed Elena. "I think we have discussed what needs discussing, no?"
"We have." She reached to her ear. "We need to leave. Now."
"Loud and clear," Bradford replied. "Firebrand is inbound. Just hang on."
"Unfortunately, the Elders' will is that none survive this day." That was the Assassin, and Elena spun in search of her."I cannot disappoint them."
"That sounds promising," Jane Kelly muttered, in the instant before the earth shook.
"What the hell is going on down there?" Gallant cried. He whirled away from the holodisplay, and the overlapping waves rippling out from those alien pods. "Tygan?"
"My word." The doctor set his teeth. "Commander, the sonic dispersal waves emanating from that pod are criss-crossing a massive area."
"Meaning-"
"Sir!" The thermals tech waved for attention, and her face was pale. "We've got a whole wall of heat signatures moving in on Menace's position!"
"Meaning," Gallant resumed, finding he could in fact clutch the rail a little tighter, "that thing just rang the dinner bell for every Lost in the city."
"Meance!" Bradford cried. "You've got incoming, a lot of them!"
"Firebrand, where the hell are you?" Jane swept up her shotgun as the pulsing, high-pitched whine from the alien pods was practically drowned out by a sudden onrush of shrieking howls. "Firebrand?"
"Inbound. ETA six minutes. Hang on!"
"Six fucking minutes?" Jane screamed. "Six fucking minutes? What, is she stopping for burgers?"
"Can the crap, Kelly!" David ran to the edge of the platform, sticking his machinegun over the edge. "They're going to swarm up the drain pipes and hit the station stairs. Stairs are going to be close and nasty-"
"Contact!" Liang waved for attention. "Left side, a lot of them!"
"More on the right!" An instant later, David fired. Tracers snapped out over the dilapidated streets, and Jane popped to the edge just in time to see the swarming Lost ripped apart by high-powered rounds.
"Watch the stairs!" Mendoza took a knee, taking aim at the station platform westward. "I don't see any yet, but they'll be coming!"
Crack! Crack! Outrider's rife spoke, and then the brap-brap-brap of Mox' bullpup jumped into the audio fray. Jane took aim at the swarm racing to the south side drain pipes, and she wasted a moment breathing on her frayed nerves.
Boom! Her shotgun roared, and four of them tumbled. Clickity-boom! Clickity-boom!
"Grenade!" David warned. Jane grabbed his wrist.
"Are you insane-"
"They're already coming by the thousands," he spat. "What's a grenade going to do? Draw another ten?" He deliberately pulled his hand loose. "Cover me, Corporal!"
"Stupid..." But Jane couldn't argue with his analysis, so instead she laid buckshot out over the city, working the pump as fast as she could.
Thump! David's grenade launcher spat its cargo, and the beeping pineapple flew into the Lost's ranks. Jane held her breath, ducking for cover in the instant before-
Boom!
"Coming up on the stairs!" Liang and Mendoza opened fire, and Jane swore. She turned her nearly-empty shotgun on the fresh horde coming up and recklessly disregarding the wet floor signs strewn over the station, even as two XCOM rifles sprayed green blood and pus with every wild shot.
Boom! Jane added her fire to the mix, screaming as she ripped Lost apart at the joints. Her fear became rage, and she slammed new shots into the breech as quickly as she could.
David's machinegun roared, holding down the left flank by force of will and superior firepower. Mox and Outrider stood on the right, blasting without relent at what Lost attempted to press from that side, and Jane stood against the rush from the station stairs. Mendoza's rifle put searing tracers into the mob from her right, and Liang fired from his, holding until he paused to reload before taking over.
It wasn't enough. Jane's ammunition ran out, and she knew it wasn't enough, just from the sheer might of the swarm. She didn't have that many rounds left-
"Three minutes," Firebrand chimed in, as a Lost got within two feet of Liang before Outrider turned and shot it.
"Pick up the goddamn pace!" Jane shrieked, before snapping her freshly-reloaded gun to firing position. Before she had even finished aiming, she fired, and Lost went down in a spray as pellets ripped out their knees and shattered their femurs. Dead or alive, there wasn't much anything could do with no legs.
Then it happened, and Jane felt it a second before it did.
"Holy fucking-" Then she was airborne, tumbling across the rail and losing her shotgun somewhere under Mox and Outrider's steady feet. Jane clutched her head. "Jesus Christ-"
"They fall like wheat." Then a hand seized her by the collar, and Jane screamed when she came face-to-face with that evil blue pointy-toothed-
She punched her. Unthinkingly, Jane punched the Assassin, and the thing seemed quite surprised. Surprised enough she was distracted.
Surprised enough for Jane's other hand to reach over her shoulder.
"Ah!" the thing stumbled as Jane's sword flashed out, cutting a line through its shoulder. It dropped her, and the Irishwoman fell to her knees, driving the tip of the blade into old wood and using it for a support. She panted, heart racing, before forcing herself to her feet.
"I respect your bravery," growled the Assassin, drawing from its back a long, wicked blade. It was straight and simple, unadorned but somehow intimidating: exactly what it needed to be, and not a touch more or less.
It was the most frightening weapon Jane had ever seen.
She lunged. Jane swung wide, and the Assassin took a half-step back, moving clear out of the way. Gunfire echoed and Lost screamed all around, as Jane brought her blade back for a stab that would-
Clang! Now the alien parried, and she spun too. Jane screamed as her sword went the way of her shotgun, and then the creature's elbow cracked into the side of her head and she went after it. She landed hard, rolling across ancient concrete and slamming into a refuse bin so hard it tumbled.
"Brave or not, you are unskilled." The Assassin advanced, and Jane pushed herself backward, scrambling for a weapon. "You will tell me much of XCOM's-"
"Oi!" Blam-blam-blam-blam!
Jane screamed louder than the Assassin when David's machinegun ripped into her from behind, spraying yellow-tinted blood. It drenched the Irishwoman, but worse than that, the Assassin's momentary howl of pain seemed to be the only symptom she suffered from the barrage.
"I do not take kindly to assault!" She whirled and lunged, and David's gun was empty. Her hand went around his throat, and she drove the Australian down onto his back. "I accept your self-sacrifice."
Jane's fingers hit something hard, and she prayed it was what she thought.
Fortunately, it was, and Jane snapped her shotgun up before the Assassin could do more than look her way.
Boom! One shot wasn't enough for Jane, and despite the shriek she elected to work the pump again. Clickity-boom! Clickity-boom!
The thing vanished. It vanished in a flash of purple light, and Jane yelped, scrambling to her feet. She turned in a circle, heedless of the other members of her team battling Lost with guns and wrist blades and fists, waiting for some tell-tale sign of the Assassin's presence.
"I think you drove it off!" David pushed himself up, grabbing his machinegun and setting to reloading. "I guess I owe you now."
"Save it!" Jane unloaded buckshot into a set of Lost looming behind Liang, and they collapsed in tune with her terrified shriek. "Firebrand?"
"Hang tight. I'll be right there."
"Tell me it's been six minutes!" Jane cried, as she fished for more ammunition. "I'm down to my last mag!"
"You and me both," David snapped, before headbutting an angry Lost back down the drainpipe.
"Menace! Those sonic waves are screwing the hell out of my sensors. I can't see shit on that railway - instruments are going haywire! I cannot land on the line!"
"What?" Jane's blood ran cold. "Where the fuck-"
"There's a bit of a soft spot down by the department store. I'm standing by over the parking lot. Better hurry, I don't know how long until the field picks back up again."
"Are you fucking mental?" Jane screamed. "That's where the goddamn Lost are coming from...we just nearly died holding this bloody position and you want us to go straight through a fucking army-"
"Forget it!" Outrider cried. "We've got to get to the department store before she leaves!"
"I will take point!" Mox shouted. "Kelly, Liang, on me!"
Jane screamed in protest. But she took her shotgun and her last mag, reclaimed her fallen sword, and suborned every ounce of common sense in her body.
She screamed as she charged head-on into the Lost, with an Advent Skirmisher at her flank.
Crack! Crack! Two shots meant two kills, at least for Elena. She raced in Mox and Kelly's wake, waving White and Mendoza along as they took care of anyone the Skirmisher's bullpup and the Ranger's shotgun missed. Her own Vektor added shots to the mix whenever one of her companions was close to being overwhelmed.
"Stairs?" Liang demanded, shooting two Lost and vaulting past a third before Mendoza could finish it.
"Forget them!" Mox pointed to the line's edge. "There! Vault the side there!"
"Why?" White cried. His cannon went off, and bullet casings scattered across the line. "There's Lost down there-"
"It is a straight shot down that side street for the department store." Mox' bullpup ripped through the next wave, and as he reloaded, Kelly's shotgun filled in. The Irishwoman's face was white and she trembled more than the ground under the sonic assault, but her courage didn't falter. Elena approved of that. She might have made an adequate Reaper. Mox paused to drive his ripjack into the last Lost between him and the rail, then he waved. "I will lead the way. Cover me and follow!"
"You're out of your mind-" Kelly broke off as Mox jumped. "He's insane!"
"He's right," Elena heard herself snapping. She jumped a corpse and ran to the rail, taking aim straight down as she saw the flashing of Mox' carbine.
Crack! Crack! Crack! Then she scavenged for a new clip, shoving it into place as Liang and Mendoza picked up supporting fire.
"Jump!" White urged, and he practically had to shove Kelly over the rail. She dropped, landing in a crouch and rolling to burn momentum. A moment later, the Grenadier joined her, whipping his launcher out and taking aim down the street.
"More behind us!" Liang turned, and Mendoza swore.
"Go!" he cried. "Ladies first!"
"Together!" Liang objected, before slinging herself over the ledge. Elena spun, and her rifle cracked in rapid drumbeat-succession, ripping through a half-dozen of the swarm free to race up the stairs with the team's withdrawal.
"Mendoza, go!" Elena followed her own advice without hesitation, and she actually was an instant faster than the XCOM operative in leaping for the low ground. She landed ankle-deep in Lost intestines, and the Reaper grimaced, struggling to reload on the move. She swore in her native language as she, like her companions before her, realized she was down to one last clip.
"It is not far! Keep up!" Mox' bullpup was the drum beating cadence, and Elena raced in its wake, not even bothering to shoot. Mendoza and Liang stuck with her, and she heard White's cannon and Kelly's shotgun, and ran through the aftereffects of their work in the broken streets. She rounded the next corner, and something like hope tingled in her veins when she saw the department store sign ahead.
"Avenger, this is Outrider!" She put a foot on the hood of a broken-down car, and then Elena shoulder-rolled over it to open ground. "Where the hell's our exit?"
"This is as low as I can get her!" That was paired with the sudden roar of engines. From the darkened alleyways, XCOM's dropship appeared, bay doors open. It hung overtop of a still truck, and Elena skidded to a halt in the parking lot.
"Go!" she ordered. "I'll cover you!"
"Move!" Mox agreed. He went nowhere, through, and instead stood at her shoulder as the shattered remains of the Lost force they'd ripped through surged from the street, screaming hate.
Elena fired. Mox fired. Their shots slew a dozen in mere seconds, but more came on their heels, heedless for their losses and invigorated by agony. Elena swore as she ran down her ammunition, far too fast for comfort.
Crack! Crack!
"The entire swarm converges upon us," Mox warned, bullpup barking in tune with the vektor shots. "We cannot hold this position very long."
"I only have two shots left," Elena growled. Crack! "One."
"We're aboard!" Mendoza shouted, before his rifle roared. "You're gonna get left behind!"
"Go!"
Elena paused. She shot Mox a disbelieving glance, thankful her helmet hid the shock in her eyes. The Skirmisher might have chuckled.
"I do not intend to die this day," he assured her. "I will follow."
Elena hesitated.
But then she took him at his word, and she scrambled for the truck. She slung her rifle up first, scrambling up the ladder as fast as her hands and feet could carry her. She seized her gun, and as soon as she turned to the Skyranger's drop bay, Jane Kelly and David White reached out, each one seizing one of her arms and pulling her to safety with willing hands.
"Mox!" she cried, leveling her rifle.
"Vox Tala for Ten!" he exclaimed, before turning her way. Lost converged, and his bullpup ripped through them while the XCOM soldiers provided covering fire. Jane Kelly unloaded the last round from her shotgun, then threw it carelessly aside as Firebrand drew her personal sidearm. Kelly caught it one-handed, and the Irishwoman did what she could to even the odds.
Mox raced for the ladder. He reached out for it, and his fingers tightened around metal - in the instant before one of the Lost lunged, wrapping an arm around the Skirmisher's throat-
Crack!
Mox hesitated as the Lost collapsed. Elena hesitated too, not quite believing she'd just wasted her last round on a Skirmisher's life. Their eyes met, and now she thought she wasn't the only one grateful for a helmet to hide her face.
Then Mox hauled himself upward, and he raced for the Skyranger. He reached out, and this time it was Elena who offered her hand-
Purple. Purple light enveloped Mox, and it coalesced into that face and form, and those hateful violet eyes that burned in the dark.
"Time to return home...traitor." The Assassin sounded quite sadistically please by that idea. Elena tried to shoot but, her Vektor only clicked-
She vanished. In a flash of purple light, the Assassin vanished, taking the Skirmisher with her.
Author's Note 8: RIP Gaz
Aloha!
I apologize here, but the Modern Warfare shout-out in this chapter's structure was just too appropriate to pass up, once the thought hit me.
Jane's starting to be quite a bit paranoid. I wonder if that's going to get better or worse? At least she has a team to cover her back...and an Assassin who knows her scent. My, I could do so much with this...I'm sure she'd appreciate you praying that I'll show mercy.
I really enjoyed both playing and writing this mission. I've so far only done one playthrough where I didn't have Lost and Abandoned enabled, and I think I intend to keep it turned on for most future runs. It's a highly enjoyable mission and introduction to the Chosen, and it made for an excellent climactic battle here. Now we'll take some time and lay the rest of the groundwork necessary to get XCOM fully on its feet, and give our characters a chance to breathe.
Until next time, Vigilo Confido.