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"For auld lang syne, my dear, for auld lang syne,

We'll take a cup of kindness yet, for days of auld lang syne..."

~Auld Lang Syne

Chapter Sixty-four: The War of the Chosen

"Commander."

Edward Gallant, former US Army, glanced up over his desk. "Central. Come in."

"Sir." Bradford snapped to harsh salute at his office door. "Doctor Shen has his report on the Outsider Crystal."

"Right." Gallant massaged his chest. Those twinging pains through his chest and his arms...maybe they were nothing, but they served to make him plenty animated. "What kind of alien sex toy are we dealing with?"

"It's an antenna, sir." Bradford paused as he entered. "Oh. Ma'am."

"I'm furniture, Central." Penny Ferguson glanced up over her papers, giving him a wan smile. "I'm collecting some data, that's all. Go ahead like I'm not here."

"Ah. Yes." Bradford rocked on his heels, and Gallant's eyes narrowed.

"Ask her out later, Air Force." He steeped his fingers, lips thin. "Is there a reason you came in here, John, or are you just taking a piss?"

"I'm not..." Of all the things Prim and Proper John C. Bradford was not equipped to deal with, his mismatch of an inabled Commander was high on the list. Odd that the Top Gun-style hotshot Raptor pilot was more of a stickler for Punctillo with the capital P than the West Point graduate, wasn't it? Still, Bradford drew himself up. "Shen's decrypted its algorithm, and has a proposal for a device to hook it into our global satellite network."

"Global fucking network." Gallant's eye twitched. "Call it like it is, John: it's our rich-and-wealthy-country satellite network, and screw everyone else. Fucking Google can put a satellite over Sudan, but we can't be assed. They won't fork over a truck of bullion, so they deserve to get raped by sectoids. Shows you how much the Council cares."

"Commander." Bradford bit his lip. "Commander, you can't talk like that. Remember what happened in the White House?"

"Bite me, Central. I'm tired of us pretending we deserve to win this war when we're half the bad guys the aliens are to start with. If the President doesn't want to hear it, he can damn well cut my funding."

"What if he does, sir?"

Gallant's eye twitched. "I know some guys in the Middle East who'd pay through the nose for laser rifles. Fuck the politicians: I can run this shindig off of arms dealing if I have to."

"Sir." That wasn't Bradford. Penny raised one ebony eyebrow, and Gallant had to glare at his desk for a minute. Wisely, his XO bit his tongue.

"Point taken, John." Gallant couldn't bring himself to say anything else. "Is that all you had to report?"

"Actually, no, sir." Bradford looked as if he wished that had been it. "There's been some kind of hullaballoo somewhere around Marseilles. Some kind of dam...EXALT and alien forces, both going after some kind of weapon."

"Right. The Parisian." Gallant turned that over for a minute. "Prep a squad. Larsen. Chilong." He shuffled files for a minute, pursing his lips in thought. "Send those two Assaults, and tack Lieutenant Ye in for sniper support. Is Else out of the medbay yet?"

"Yes, sir. Shen thinks this version of the MEC prototype will have fewer bugs."

"Fucking words of comfort." Gallant waved dismissively. "I'll be down to the Globe in ten, John. Deploy the team."

"Sir." He saluted, and his eyes went back to Penny. She smiled, and if it wasn't at least a little inviting than Gallant didn't know shit about women.

"Loyal, you are." Gallant thought he was very diplomatic for waiting until the door shut.

"Central is right, Edward." She never called him that outside of these private moments. Gallant didn't give a shit about his image, but Penny did, and that was probably for the best. "You can't piss off everyone all the time."

"Bunch of freewheeling assholes. They don't care about winning this war, Penny, or they'd have put Van Doorn in charge of this mess." Gallant stewed. "Fucking Van Doorn. Why's there always got to be a prick who's better?"

"If they really thought he would be a better pick, they'd have chosen him." Penny shuffled her papers, leaning back in her chair. She didn't give Gallant the chance to shoot back. "You need to go easier on John, too."

"Easier on him? He's a stiff: a cardboard cutout someone did a Pinocchio on. I bet he was the jackass who wouldn't get me air support in time back in Iraq."

"This is what I'm talking about, Edward. You need him, so you need not to assume the worst of him."

"Need him? Did you even read the after-action report from Munich?" Gallant scoffed. "I'll never need someone of his caliber."

"No man is an island. Don't start thinking you're one." Penny flicked her bangs out to the sides. "Everyone needs allies."

"Hm." Gallant rapped his fingers on the desk. "There's always you, if I get desperate."

"Always." Penny rose, tucking her folder under her arm. "I'm going to check in with Doctor Vahlen. I'll see you in Command."

"Oh. Tell her I said..." Gallant cleared his throat. "Never mind."

"Just ask her out, dummy."

"Bad form." He shook his head stubbornly. "Later. After the war."

"After the war could mean a lot of things, Edward." Penny paused before the door. "Take advantage of the time you have. Of all people, you should recognize how quickly someone's fate can change in a war."

"Later." Gallant reached for his cane. "There will be time later. There always is."

The wind came gently off the Irish Sea. It teased the thin coastal grass, flicking it up in little sprays like the handfuls of sand caught in its teasing fingers. The odd grain came in with the breeze to tease Edward Gallant's hair and temple, and somehow that combined with the smell of the water served only to remind him of days even longer lost than the First War.

"It's a lovely place, John." He leaned on his cane, its end buried in scraggly sand and grass. "Mariah would love it here."

"I hope." He stood by the little cairn, and his eyes were very downcast. "She deserved more than this."

"She died a hero."

"She died choking on her own blood, put out of her misery from miles distant while chryssalids used her broken body as a chew toy." Bradford rubbed at his eyes, and Gallant pretended not to notice. "Thrown in a grave we couldn't mark for fear Advent would pull her back out to desecrate her some more."

Gallant sighed. "I'm sorry, John."

"No parent should have to bury their..." His chest heaved, and Gallant hesitantly reached out to brush his shoulder. "No parent should..."

"Théoden. The Two Towers. The movie version." Gallant let out a low breath. "What was it Gandalf said?"

"'He was strong in life. His spirit will find its way to the halls of your forefathers.'" Bradford covered his eyes. "She was strong. Far stronger than I ever gave her credit for. And now..."

The wind teased the shore, flicking light sprays of salty water up over their backs.

"If you don't mind, Edward..." Bradford knelt in the sand. "I think I'd like to be alone."

Gallant pursed his lips...but he nodded. "Good-bye, John."

When he turned, he didn't make for Avenger, looming half-in the Irish Sea a ways down the beach. Gallant dug his cane into the sand, heading north along the coast.

His hand went to his empty breast pocket. Mariah hadn't been the only one interred here.

"Sometimes, being in command just means..." Gallant started up a sloping rise, eyes down. The setting sun was bright, and the gulls sang well and loud: if there was perfect thematic weather for a funeral, this certainly wasn't it. "I suppose you knew what you were talking about, Dad."

Of course he had. Vietnam had been even worse than Iraq, hadn't it? Not only had Michael Gallant seen his friends fall all around him, not only had he been shot down and captured and forced to escape, he'd ended the trek knowing he'd lost the war anyway.

Much like Gallant's own results defending the planet.

He paused. Slowly, Gallant adjusted his trajectory, warily skirting anything he'd have to climb, keeping to the flat and level wherever possible. The damn sand kept trying to take his cane, but he held on with an iron grip despite the chips in the handle.

"What's got you out here?" She looked up from under the brim of her ballcap, hands in her pockets. Gallant shrugged.

"Small island. Only so many places you can brood about how shit your life has become without bumping noses with someone else."

"Ah." Jane tugged on her cap when the wind picked up. "Stupid thing..."

The sunset was fire on the horizon. It seared it orange and red, turning the water into a potion of multicolored paints. It lit up the clouds like an explosion, and its golden rays painted Jane's tanned cheeks with wild streaks. It reflected in her eyes, too: a bright kernel of light, slowly fading.

"Lovely place." She was the one to break the silence, still admiring the art in the distance. "Beautiful. Peaceful. Far away from Advent."

"Yeah." Gallant reached to his breast pocket again.

She really was gone.

"Moira would hate it here."

"Pardon?" Jane gave him a sidelong glance. Gallant shrugged.

"There's nothing to do. No science to be about, no aliens to torture...just a lovely bleeding sunset, all laid out over toward Britain, and all she can do is watch the damn thing. Up in the morning, down in the evening...the ancient Greeks worked that shit out, to say nothing of Galileo and Copernicus. There's nothing for her to study or learn. Just a great big ball of burning gas. Up, down, up, down, up, down..." Gallant chuckled under his breath. "She'd go mad. She's going to haunt me forever for leaving her here."

"Oh." Jane's lips twitched. A moment later, she chuckled too, even lower. "God, David would pitch a fit too. Beaches are only good for lying on and drinking, and we didn't bury him with any booze."

"Probably good fishing." Gallant eyed the waters critically. "Did he fish?"

"I..." Jane's eyes dimmed. "...I don't know." She kicked at the sand. "Moira?"

"...fuck." Gallant bit his lip. "I guess it's scientific, sort of? She wasn't a marine biologist though." He turned it over in his head. "I don't know either."

"Funny, isn't it?" She could suggest anything she wanted, but that wasn't mirth in her expression. "How you can feel so much for someone...they can mean so much to you, and yet you don't know much when it counts."

"I..." Gallant swallowed. Something pricked at his eyes; probably loose sand flying on the wind. "Yeah. But..." He inhaled. "You and David knew each other well."

"Did we?" Jane's eyes didn't brighten. "We met all of three months before the end."

"That's more than..." Gallant frowned. He turned numbers over in his head. "I took over the Project in March of '15. They hit the base and stuffed me in the pickle jar in..." He whistled. "Four for me and Moira."

Jane laughed again, almost sickly. "Someone you haven't known for long at all, and yet..."

"Yeah." Gallant glanced at the sunset again: bright and clear and lovely. "Hell. I had high school girlfriends for longer than I even knew Moira existed."

Silence. The wind tousled his hair.

"I miss him." Jane removed her black cap, and she pulled the band from her brown ponytail. "I have dreams. I wake up, and..."

"God. Yes." Gallant's eyes stung harder. "I keep thinking...I can pop down to the labs and check on her. Only..."

More quiet. The sand blew around their ankles.

"I miss her too." Gallant's next breath came in husky and ragged. He leaned hard on his cane, even as his eyes seared. He reached up to clutch at them. "I just...I just..."

"I know." She put a hand on his shoulder. "Trust me. I know."

Whether it was the touch or the tone, that was the end of it. Gallant could stay strong for Bradford, but something about that moment in time, under that sunset by the sea...

"Hush." When Gallant broke and yielded with a wail, Jane pulled him in close. Seemingly heedless of his tears soaking into her shirt, she let him crumple into her. She set her chin overtop of his head. "I know, Edward. I know."

Her own tears trickled into his hair a moment later.

"By the Elders. By the spirits."

General Din Dourde stepped over the mangled body of a soldier in much the same golden uniform as the one she wore herself. Her stomach twisted: twisted and turned, shifted and surged. The stench! So much death in one place...

And that was just here, in the Sanctum. Advancing through the base with her detail, following her master closely in case there were more hostiles lurking in the shadows, had been a heart-pounding endeavor. All the fallen...the remnants of the chryssalid paddock...

Now this. This Sanctum where once Din Dourde had given service before her promotion, and the wreckage and rubble it had been reduced to. The Sarcophagus shattered and broken, left in wreckage at the end of the room that still hissed and sparked with psionic flames trying to boil off the energy of other worlds poured into it.

She had seen the aftermath of the Battle of the Avenger. She had been there to help pick up the pieces. She had even seen the remnants of the facility in Switzerland.

This was different. This was different on a whole new level.

"This was personal."

"Sir?" Dourde turned.

"This was personal, General." The Hunter knelt over the shattered body of the Berserker Queen, poking her with the Darkclaw. "This wasn't self-defense, like the battle last month. This wasn't a raid gone wrong, like Switzerland." He couldn't pluck thoughts from her head. That could only mean that they'd had the same ones at the same times, and that spoke volumes of his influence on her. "This was personal. This was done for vengeance. This is a message."

"What message?" Dourde gulped, looking away from the sea of carnage.

"You can probably guess."

Unfortunately, he was right. "I would say–"

Boom! Purple light exploded from the Ascension Pad, and Dourde reflexively took a step back, even as all the soldiers and priests of her detail knelt. Some stared at her when she didn't, but they didn't enjoy the favor she did.

"...oh." The Assassin's eyes fixed on the Hunter almost before she'd finished taking in the devastation. "If the Elders have sent you, my presence must not be needed as I presumed. I take my leave."

"I wouldn't do that." The Hunter rose, holstering his pistol. The Assassin regarded him for a minute.

"Why?"

"This." The Hunter waved, as if a gesture could encapsulate the barbarity of what had happened. "Our brother."

"Recovering under Angelis' personal care, is he?" Her lip curled. "Does he expect us to carry his–"

"He's dead."

Were the subject matter not so serious, Dourde might have laughed: the Assassin stopped midsentence, mouth hanging open. For a moment, it was as if she simply couldn't process what she'd heard.

"...what?"

"He's dead. Killed by XCOM, right here in this sanctum. His Sarcophagus is destroyed." Whether the Hunter had intended his pause to be for effect or not, it certainly did the job. "He's dead, and he won't be coming back again. I don't think that leaves you as empty as you'd like to claim."

"Nor you as satisfied." She got over her freeze, clearing her throat in a surprisingly human way. "This is troubling. I will leave it to Angelis and her forces to investigate."

She turned back for the Ascension Pad. Dourde breathed a silent sigh of relief. The faster she moved on, the less likely she would be to–

"Sister."

The Assassin froze. For that matter, so did Dourde. There was something entirely different about the Hunter's tone.

There was something an awful lot like...care in it.

"We've had our differences. I don't pretend I loved our brother." The Hunter glanced over his shoulder, though, at the remnants of what had been the Eldest of the Chosen. "But XCOM certainly won't be planning on whacking him and leaving us to run in the weeds. They'll come for us next."

"Let them try." She tapped the hilt of her sword. "I am not intimidated by Edward Gallant and his renegades."

"Neither was our brother." That seemed to penetrate her world. "The world has changed. The rivalries of peacetime must be put aside."

Did he sound...afraid?

"What are you suggesting?" The Assassin glanced over her shoulder.

The Hunter's lips twitched. "Loyalty among thieves." He extended a hand, slowly. "What you learn, pass it to me. What I learn, I pass to you. It matters not which of us brings this quarry in first, little sister, not when XCOM has shown the ability to do...this." Something hard worked over his expression. "This wasn't done for military necessity. This wasn't a backup plan. This was an assassination, sister: an assassination and a message. It's a statement that they intend to take this conflict to another level.

"It's a statement that they're coming for us next."

She studied his outstretched hand. Dourde thanked the Elders for her helmet: neither of them could see her eyes stretched to twice their normal size. What was she witnessing? This was unprecedented!

"I will consider it." The Assassin left him hanging, turning back to the pad. "Perhaps this is a moment where change is necessary."

"Of course it is. The war has changed." The Hunter's eyes darkened. "Angelis' wrath will be terrible, and her retribution swift. She won't take this lying down. Gallant's little war of resistance is over.

"The War of the Chosen has begun."

Author's Note 64: Title Drop, Bitches

Killing a Chosen is exactly the kind of thing that raises eyebrows. No one with an ounce of sense wouldn't take serious note of that and adjust their tactics.

I know in the game, it plays a totally different cutscene when your first Chosen is killed. That scene may or may not be coming up in the next chapter or two–as of the time of writing this, I haven't decided–but either way, I prefer this for the sake of our narrative, as it helps to show the stakes being upped. A cycle of escalation has begun. XCOM kills the Warlock, the Chosen band together to do more damage to XCOM, which only makes it more critical to kill the two of them...who knows where it goes from there? Who knows if XCOM will succeed? You know me.

Some of my favorite scenes to write are grief scenes. The quiet moments where people contemplate what they are, what they've done, what's come before, and all that kind of thing...I live for that. This won't be the last, I'm pleased to say. Doesn't that make you happy?

Until next time, Vigilo Confido.