Ethereal Agents

by SCBM

As the battle for Earth draws to its end, the Resistance, backed by XCOM, have turned the tide against ADVENT. Now the war has come to City 31, and with it, comes the hard truth to an unlikely pair of Agents. (F!Viper x M!Human)

9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

1

Daniel collapsed, leaving a trail of blood on the wall as the lift doors closed, and began to descend. Phlegm built up inside his throat after every breath. He lifted his hand from his gut wound and chanced a glimpse at it. If that pinkish, white stuff down there was his intestines poking out, he didn't exactly have a lot of hope of living to see tomorrow.

"Keep the pressure on it, Daniel." Zima lowered herself down, wrapping her tail around them protectively. She ripped off a part of his sleeve without so much as a word of warning, and tied it around his torso to staunch the bleeding. It helped, but not by much. When she was done, she replaced his hand back on his stomach, adding her own firm strength to try and clot the blood pouring out of him. Crimson liquid seeped between both their fingers and dripped quietly to the ground.

"What about you? You took a few hits back there." He rubbed his free hand across her hide, tracing over the many marks Carter had given her lower body. She failed to suppress a shiver from his touch, coiled closer to him.

"It's nothing. Don't worry about me."

"I always worry about you, girl."

"'Girl'?" She snorted. "That's a new one."

"Well I was thinking about hot mamba, but I thought it was a bit much."

Her body wriggled as she chuckled. "You're the only person who could joke around now, of all times."

"Do they make you hiss-terical?"

"Letting you talk is becoming a big missss-take."

"Maybe we could hiss and make up later."

"Why wait?" She leaned down and brought her mouth to his. Zima's hood stretched to full-mast as she delved into his warmth and lapped at his saliva – primal needs stirring up inside her belly. She was a little too eager, however, pushing down on his wound in her anticipation for more. He muffled a grunt into her mouth, and she quickly backed away, a stream of saliva connecting their mouths for a moment. "S-Sorry," she mumbled.

He smiled, a little out of breath. "Not your fault. Remind me to pay you back later."

They smiled at each other, but soon their expressions faltered, as both the former Agents mulled over the subject of later, and not quite sure how to approach it. In the end it was Zima who decided to ask it.

"What do we do now?"

Daniel leaned back, stared at the ceiling, then at the floor counter slowly ticking down from 54, at the moment. "I don't know," he said. (He felt like he was saying that a lot recently). "I had been considering surrendering to the resistance, but after we wiped out half that XCOM squad, I'm guessing they'll probably execute us if we turned ourselves in. Not to mention all the shit we've done to them over the years. It's either that, or we could surrender to Advent, and definitely get executed. Those are our options."

It was bleak, Daniel admitted, but he only had himself to blame for walking down this path to the truth. At least this relationship between him and Zima had bloomed. It was the only thing keeping him going at this point.

"… Maybe there is a third way."

Daniel blinked up at her. "Really? What?"

"Conner's hideout. He told me he uses it when he needs to lay low. It's outside of town. We can go there and figure out what we're going to do next."

Daniel's expression hardened. "You want to follow that assholes advice? The guy who helped start all this? How do you know he wasn't lying when he told you about this hideout of his?"

"If you've got any better ideas, speak them. But it's better than probably or definitely dying."

Daniel didn't like this new alternative one bit. He had never left the city, and even if they could find this place, what then? He was an Agent trained in urban subterfuge – he didn't know the first thing about living off the land, especially in the winter of all times. And making an enemy of not one but two armies would only add to the difficulty, and that was putting it lightly.

But the other option was to be executed for war crimes, or tortured for information, or both. Seeing the mental image of Zima shackled by the hands, collar locked around her throat, muzzle over her snout – made him clench his hands to fists. She was right of course. It was worth a shot.

"… Okay," he said. "Okay. Let's do it." He paused. "… Where is this place?"

"Let's just get you some medicine first."

"So you don't know." Daniel's shoulders sagged. He'd expected Conner to be vague, but it still annoyed him. He tried to remember how much fuel was in the car, but couldn't quite place it. It wouldn't matter anyway if they couldn't even find a way out of the city in the first place. 31' was a fortress, impenetrable – at least that was what he grew up knowing.

The lift came to a halt, and the familiar ground level welcomed the pair as they hobbled out of the lift and navigated through the rooms, moving in a southward direction through the building. The populace from earlier had vacated, making the floor appear abandoned. This decollate façade was countered by the tremendous amount of plasma fire coming from all directions, muffled by the thick protective walls of the Advent Tower.

As soon as they returned to the front lobby, a ballistic round punctured through the front doors and chipped away one of the floor tiles in front of them. Zima shot out an arm and brought the two of them back around the corner. She was clumsy in her efforts to support him and keep his wound covered up.

He batted her supporting hand away, and drew one of his guns. "I'm fine, Zee. Don't let me weigh you down."

"Daniel…" She looked back at him from around her hood. "You can't fight like that."

"Last I checked, my trigger-finger's still working." Hunched, he motioned with his pistol for her to go. "Time to step up and lead the way, girl."

Zima blinked. In fine print, technically Daniel was her boss, taking lead on their tasks in the city. She'd expected Daniel to try and take point, men were proud, but he took his situation with a grain of salt and waited for her to move first. "Not the way I was expecting to get promoted," she said, checking her SMG's magazine with a glance, then sliding it back in. "Stay behind me."

"You got it."

She slipped on her helmet, and peeked around the corner. The lobby was void, the clerk was gone too, and there were footprints leading through the entrance in a mesh of tracked dirt and snow. Said entrance was partly made of glass, and through it she could see sandbags and improvised barriers had been set up along the descending staircase. Agents and troopers and aliens were ducking in and out of cover, firing down at the street. Left and right Advent forces were taking a pounding from a large enemy force. It looked like hell out there.

She glued to the wall and crept forwards, Daniel on her flank, keeping as far away out of the sniper's line of sight as they could. She couldn't resist freezing up every time a round smashed a little too close the doors they were currently heading for. She was so used to being the one covering the rear, not the front. Not to mention they were no longer on anyone's side anymore. On the third sudden stop Daniel hissed up at her.

"If we could cross this one room before I bleed out, I'd appreciate it."

"Sorry."

She slithered a little faster. They made it to the right-hand edge of the automatic doors, which parted for them, but they didn't exit just yet. Zima leaned low and peeked out. The nearest piece of cover was a sandbag running parallel to the wall they were currently behind. The bags connected to the upraised platforms built alongside the staircases border, where the one remaining automatic turret was discharging magnetic rounds in short controlled bursts. Someone familiar was hiding behind its cylindrical body.

Zima hushed to Daniel to stay close once more, and after counting down from three, she zipped out the Tower doors and dashed behind the sandbags. Daniel's wound spluttered a little more at all the movement, but as he set down on Zima's flank and she asked him if he was okay, he waved her away.

Sharing cover with them was Terry, just finishing up his reload of a magnetic rifle he'd probably scavenged off the dead trooper behind him. The Agent blinked twice at Zima and Daniel, respectively, before asking: "The fuck happened to you two?"

"XCOM," Daniel answered, peering around Zima's elbow at him. "You?"

"XCOM," Terry echoed. He looked over the cover and frowned. "A whole kill squad came charging in as soon as the dropships arrived. We killed one of them before resistance assault teams covered their retreat. You can still see them way back there."

Daniel stole a glance. Sure enough, beyond the staircase and up the opposing T-intersection, was a trio of operatives, similarly equipped to the squad he and Zima had fought. They were waving their hands and commanding the tens of resistance soldiers scattered all around the street. A rifle shot punched into the sandbag right in front of his head. He wheeled away, started but unharmed.

"-And there's that sniper they've got, too. He's not half a bad shot. He's up on the roof of that clinic across the road. Took out a pair of troopers when they tried to make a break for it."

"A break for what?" Zima asked.

"Dropship's are waiting for us down the street to the west. We tried to coordinate a retreat to them, but as you can see its just this turret, a couple of troopers, and me left."

"We have to get out of here," Daniel said, flinching as bullets sailed over their position.

"Evidently," Terry replied, raising his voice so he could be heard. "But before that I've got to ask – what happened with Dispatch? Must have said something big, because you two look like totally different people, and not just physically speaking."

Zima and Daniel shared a look, and a wordless exchange passed between them. The human turned back to Terry. "He… told us that Advent's finished."

"Not one to mince words, is he?" Terry paused to let the info sink in. "Alright, but something tells me that wasn't all. Anything else?"

"No," Daniel said. "XCOM killed him before we got the chance."

"… Shame." Terry sensed something was being held back, but once again, decided to drop it. "Well, we can share tales once we're in the air. Maybe with you two here we can get out of this shitshow."

"Any ideas how we can do that?" Daniel asked. Somewhere up ahead he heard a trooper fall to the ground with a clatter of armour.

Zima saw behind Agent Terry, a drainage grate with an ancient logo across its colourless surface. It was a logo she recognised. One of her most earlist missions in the city she had to infiltrate a certain office building without being seen. She'd used an old-world pipe system to make great distance all the while being concealed. Said pipe system ran on for miles, and she had no doubt this grate was a part of it. "I've got one," she announced to the humans. "That grate over there leads into the old aqueducts. I could probably slip in there and flank them from the next street over."

"Not while that sniper's still alive," Daniel said, risking another glance once more. There was a heavy weapon sat atop an unfolded tripod a short run ahead of them, its gunner and loader both lying dead behind it. "We can use that thing to bring his whole perch down, then you can make a run for the grate, Zee."

He could see her helmet tilt down, to his damnable wound, which refused to stop bleeding. However, the adrenaline coursing through Daniel from both the prior and coming fight was keeping him from passing out, and they both knew there wouldn't be a chance they could win if he sat back and did nothing, so she didn't voice any refusal.

"Sounds like a plan." Terry switched to kneeling on his other knee and held his rifle up. "So, 'Zee', eh? Don't worry, I'll keep him covered."

"You better." The Viper rolled her shoulders in anticipation. She turned to face her human and squeezed his hand. Daniel smirked at her and checked his ammo.

Terry started tapping on a small panel on the base of the turret. "I'll set the gun to full-blast, then we'll go – cover to cover. Ready?"

"Ready," Daniel said.

"Ready," Zima said.

The Advent turret raised its barrel to the sky, the barrel making a piston-like motion as it sunk into its structure and retracted back out, the motion coupled with a chk-chk sound of thousands of rounds chambering and reloading through hidden mechanisms. The machine reoriented, and discharged forth an intimidating splash of rounds down at the resistance fighters dotted around the street. The very air itself soared in temperature at the amount of energy being expended into the atmosphere.

"Now!" Terry yelled. "Go!"

Daniel vaulted over the sandbags, and charged forwards. Rounds whipped through the air in front of him as he pumped his legs as hard as he could. Zima stayed put and covered him with suppressing fire. A lucky shot found its mark on his shoulder, just before he managed to reach the next layer of cover and duck behind it. He checked his pauldron. The bullet had grazed off the armour, stinging like hell and would leave a nasty bruise, but otherwise he was unharmed.

Terry crashed back-first a few meters to his side, turned out of cover, and killed a soldier that had just been charging up the stairs in an attempt to rush them. Daniel leaned out and found himself a target, spotting two soldiers on this side of the street, hiding behind the Chaser's front bumper.

Seeing his lifelong enemy using his car as cover just pissed him off. He fired a pair of bolts in quick succession. He watched the green comets sail and find their marks in the chest of one of the aforementioned soldiers. She fell face-first into the snow, curling up around the front tire. Daniel ducked just as his position was peppered.

Zima was providing her own support from behind, working with the robotic turret's covering fire. She scored a pair of kills herself, her SMG barking in short, deadly bursts. The Advent turret reared up again, sounded off the tell-tale reloading and chambering, paused, then let loose one more hellish barrage, sweeping the street from left to right and mowing down anyone unlucky enough to have not broken line of sight from its automated sensors.

Terry bounded forward, Daniel following close behind. Keeping low, they dashed for the gun emplacement. It was set up in the shadow of the sculpture of the vandalised Sectoid, snow caking and falling off its long metallic limbs. Without a word, Terry took up position behind the oversized gun, peeking over the front blast shield as he grabbed the two vertical handholds on the rear of the weapon.

Daniel holstered his weapon and ripped the ammo belt from the former ammo bearer. The dead hybrids fingers gave off a stiff little resistance before releasing. He stuffed one end of the belt into the heavy weapons opened midsection. He punched the cover down once it was ready. Terry yanked back the big bolt, let it snap back into place, then compressed the triggers.

The weapon fired three times per second, launching projectiles the size of his hand out and over the resistance ranks. The booming reports of the pulse munitions dwarfed the Advent turret, so much so that Daniel could feel his hearing quake. Terry swept the weapon across the street, blowing open huge cracks in the road, then angled it upwards.

The projectiles punched chunks of metalwork the size of boulders from the walls of the opposing gene therapy clinic. Daniel took a moment to consider how many people inside the clinic had been in stasis when the resistance attacked, then shoved the thought away. Terry traced his fire line across large window panes, his body arching back as he angled the gun up for the sniper's hiding spot.

Daniel saw the glint of a scope peek out from the intended window sill, and he panicked. Just before the massive gun chewed through the square-shaped vantage point, the rifle discharged. For a moment Daniel could just about register the golden bullet sailing toward him right after the muzzle flash. The shot was aimed for Terry, in some sick sense of fortune, and punctured clean through Terry's arm, blowing a whole dead through the elbow. The Agent spun like a top and collapsed on his side, writhing but somehow completely silent.

Daniel went to help the man, then considered operating the gun, and decided on the latter for now. He matched Terry's posture, the grips warm under his fingers, and just before he pressed the triggers, something made him freeze. That operative he'd shoved out the window, eighty floors up, was laying right in the middle of the rubble-strewn street. It looked like someone had tossed red paint from a right angle from the Corporal's head. Said head was popped like a pink balloon. A bullet snapping off the blast shield protecting his face made him forget all about the operative's distant scream.

"Go, Zee! Sniper's down!"

Zima darted away on Daniel's cry. She moved over, ripped off the grating and tossed it, where it rolled away and settled against a wall, and slipped into the underground ducts like she was made of water. A final flick of the end of her tail, and she disappeared.

Landing with a wet splat, Zima's coiled tail submerged into a thick layer of colourless slop. Bits of hardened sludge kicked up in a little wave in all directions. She took one look down into the muck and deduced this duct had once housed all manner of bodily fluids at some point in the past.

She mumbled something about not signing up for this, then kicked into action when the firefight above ground reminded her to hurry. To her left the duct stretched on into pitch black darkness, her eyes seeing a little further with the help of her night-vision filters. A beam of light streamed down maybe a hundred meters that way. To the right the duct turned and rose into another, opened grate. She guessed that led back into the Tower.

She whirled down the left passage and waded through the sewage, reloading as she went. She cursed in native tongue, English, maybe in French a few times too as the muck splattered up at her as she moved as fast as her tail could take her.

Her imperceptible sensors, hidden just below her snout, flared as the human/alien crap emitted a stench tenfold worse than anything she'd ever smelt. She couldn't help but get angry at everything now that she was covered in shit.

The nightmare came to an end as she came upon a ladder leading up to another surface hatch, its once chromed surface now caked with rust. She holstered her weapon, climbed two rungs, and dislodged the cover. The metal lid tumbled out of place. Twisting her tail around a rung, she used it as leverage to hoist herself up and back to the surface world.

She found herself on the opposing side of the clinic, flicking her tail to rid herself of some residue clinging to her scales. The bullets from the heavy weapon had torn right through this side of the building, making miniature craters in the pavement at the end of their destructive journeys.

Huffing, she brought her SMG to bear, and made her way back to the south, winding through an abandoned restaurant, keeping low. Collapsed chairs and tables were everywhere, and here and there were still plates of warm food. There were no bodies that she could see, nor any signs of a gunfight. Maybe the resistance terrorists cared about avoiding collateral.

No wonder Daniel respects them.

She flowed over the bar without a sound and ducked behind a support pillar once she'd come close to the battlefield. Peeking out and flicking her tongue, she was now looking on the backs of the twelve or so resistance soldiers hiding behind rubble, cars, or the big overturned truck running down the central lain to her right. Each fighter was clad in green combat plating, with matching bandanas and/or old-world army helmets. They were blind firing up at Daniel's position on the heavy gun emplacement, and it looked like he was the last one standing. She couldn't see Terry, and the Advent turret was either offline or had run out of ammunition. A dead Muton here, a curled up Sectoid there, dozens of fallen troopers scattered about, mixed in with more dead rebels beyond the Tower's perimeter.

She turned out of cover, lined up her scope with the head of a rebel, and pulled the trigger.

She mowed down six resistance fighters before they even knew what was happening. The men and women scattered, only to be caught in the crossfire she'd created with Daniel. Only the three XCOM soldiers reacted quick enough, yelling and pointing at her position as they ducked for cover.

Plasma beams chipped away at the pillar she hid behind, splattering her helmet with dust and pebbles. She relocated behind a table and flipped it over, crouching down and aiming around it. One XCOM operative was attempting to flank her. She shot him as he moved, and with a face full of bullets, he collapsed in the middle of the street.

Daniel mopped up the rest of the resistance fighters with the final belt of ammo he was feeding in manually. The ammo ran dry just as he started suppressing one of the two remaining operatives. Zima saw out of the corner of her eye, him ducking away to retrieve his pistol, but it was a vain attempt. One of the remaining XCOM soldiers yelled for his subordinate to fall back, and the pair made a hasty retreat through a side alley.

She managed to hit one in the back before they escaped. She grinned when the soldier staggered, but then her snout drooped when her target got to his feet, wounded but alive. Zima reckoned they would come back with reinforcements, and didn't want to linger around to find out.

She doubled back to Daniel's position, making sure she avoided touching any of the corpses, put her hand on his shoulder as she asked him if he was unharmed.

"Besides the hole in my gut? I'm good. Here, help me with Terry."

Terry's lower arm was dangling literally by a thread of flesh. Even the slightest disturbance and it would probably snap away. She thought to say to just leave him, but the Agent was still alive, blood gushing out of his arm like a miniature geyser. Even more human blood got all over her as she and Daniel hoisted him up and carried him down to the sidewalk.

"Zee, get the solvent. Glove box."

"I know where it is." She let Daniel take the man's weight as she tugged on the passenger side door and dove in for the glove compartment. She flicked away a few bits of paper and other meaningless objects in her search. She turned up a handheld device that looked vaguely like a gun, only with a medical cross painted across its handle. In the back of the glove box she noticed something glinting, but didn't waste time examining what it was.

She came back to the men, and went to apply the medicine to her human. Daniel pushed the medkit away. "No. Do him first."

She felt herself flare at his words, but supressed any sign of it showing. She leaned over Terry, aimed the device at the wounded limb. White biofoam bubbled out of the medkit's muzzle and pooled around the tendons holding the arm in place. The massive bullet hole was now completely filled in with a bubble of white. The skin would form and heal over the next few minutes, but she didn't doubt the limb would be gone for good. She pitied the Agent, even if he hadn't warned her about the shit in the duct.

"Th-Thank you." Terry's eyes lidded, aimed in her direction. Zima noticed he was trying hard to not look at his crippling wound. "You two work pretty good together."

"You mean us three," Daniel corrected, but he did share a momentary smile with the Viper. Zima turned to Daniel and lifted up her improvised bandage without asking, exposing his own wound. She sprayed the rest of the foam over his skin and watched it slowly regenerate before her eyes. It would take a while to fully scab over, but Daniel's muscles relaxed as his death was postponed.

Terry made to stand. "Come on, dropships are just around the corner. Hopefully." Daniel and Zima gave him a hand (pun intended), and pulled him to his feet. He directed them the east side of the Tower, and down the ruinous street in the distance, there were three dropships arranged in the next intersection. Troopers and civilians alike piling into the empty compartments. There was an Archon waving his staff as he gave commands to his subordinates, hovering over the ground on one thruster where his waist ended. Despite the upper half of his face being concealed by a golden plate, the floating humanoid noticed the trio of Agents and motioned for them to hurry over.

"Home free, Agents," Terry said, starting forward. He frowned as his new companions let their hands fall away, and remain where they stood. He turned around and blinked at them. "… What are you two waiting for? Let's get out of here."

"… We're not going," Daniel replied. Terry saw one of Zima's hands link around her partners own.

"You're not planning on staying here, are you? Dispatch said so – we're finished."

"We'll find our own way out."

"But…" Terry trailed off, looking back at the dropships. He couldn't quite figure out just what was up with these two. But time was running out, and they had saved him from bleeding out, so he supposed he shouldn't question them further. "Alright then. I hope you two know what you're doing."

"So do we," Daniel replied.

"Good luck out there. Glory to the Elders."

"… Yeah." Terry blinked at Daniel's unenthusiastic response to the war chant. They turned their backs on him and made their way back to the car. Terry hoped he'd see them again one day, found out just exactly what was bothering them. He'd learn about it the hard way in the end, unbeknownst to any of them.

Terry turned ran for the dropships without another look back. Running the other way, Daniel dashed for the driver's side door, Zima the opposite. Looking for any excuse to touch him now, she brushed over his shoulder with her tail as she piled her lower half into the backseat. Just as Daniel turned the ignition on and the engine purred to life, he thought he could hear a voice from inside the central compartment. Frowning, he opened it up and a bodiless sounded off.

"-please come in. It's Colonel Kelly. Advent? Are you there?"

They looked at each other, then at the resistance radio grow silent, waiting for a response. A bit of surprise came and went at finally having heard the Colonel's name. Daniel went to pick it up, thought about throwing it away, then decided to hear what the Colonel had to say.

"What do you want?" he said into the receiver, an edge in his voice. He'd honestly had enough of war leaders to last a lifetime.

"Finally. I just received word from one of my officers. He'd been sent to the Advent headquarters to eliminate an enemy Commander, but found that the target was already dead."

"A shame for our side, then." Daniel eyed Zima, who huffed humourlessly.

"Don't play dumb. The target's killers were Advent, and despite killing two of his operatives, they let my officer live. You contacting me recently is too big to be a coincidence. It was you, wasn't it? You killed the Commander. You are Omega?"

"I'm not following, Colonel. What's Omega?"

"When we first came to this sector, we sent in several infiltration teams to your city. Almost all of our operations failed, and we got intel it was because of a particular pair of Advent counter-agents. We got a few images of a Viper and a human, and we nicknamed them target Omega. My Captain described his target's killers, and we've confirmed they're one in the same."

Daniel released the transmit button. "You hear that, Zee? We're Omega. Sort of fits us, doesn't it?"

Zima agreed with a sad smile. Daniel replied into the radio. "Yeah, that was us. We had some… disagreements."

"So you've seen what Advent truly is?" Daniel went to say something, but the Colonel continued. "I'll be honest with you, if I'd known you were Omega when we first started talking, things would have been much different. My superiors have a sizeable bounty on both your heads, dead or alive. You've been causing us problem's all the way up to the Chancellor. Not to mention all the years before him."

"… Chancellor Ramos?" Daniel asked. "What was he doing in here exactly, out of curiosity?"

"Gather intel on powerful locals, potential recruiting screens, things like that. He wanted to take a more diplomatic approach rather than what we got. Doesn't matter now. You two got rid of him before he could put any of that to use."

"… I'm sorry," Daniel said, and he might have meant that. Ramos, who'd they'd thought of at the time as just any other target, had been the turning point for all this.

"I'm not angry with you for taking him out," Colonel Kelly said. "Maybe a little, but look at it this way; You, Omega, just killed the city's Commander. Omega, one of the most dangerous Advent forces in the whole region, helped me avoid unnecessary casualties and summarily cut off the head of Advent in the city. If you two can see the real side of Advent and turn your back on them, that means there is still hope that others can as well."

"So I'm offering you a deal. Pick a place, anywhere. I'll send my most trusted operatives to pick you up. You will surrender to them, you will be taken into my custody, not XCOM's, not the resistance's, mine. You have my word that once this war is over, you will be forgiven."

"Forgiven?" Daniel echoed. "You might know about half the things we've done to your cause, but if you knew the rest… We're way past the point of forgiveness."

"I understand why you don't believe me, but this might be your only chance. There are other groups fighting against Advent all across the world, working outside XCOM's influence. One day they're going to get lucky, and they're not going to show you the same courtesy as I have. You've been telling me what it's like to live with the aliens, Omega. I believe I can convince my Commander to help give ex-Advent a place in our coming victory. But it all starts with you. You are living proof that even the most loyal to Advent can still be reasonable."

Daniel opened his mouth to reply, but nothing came out. He was torn, considering the opportunity. That image of the both of them in chains came and went. He looked up at Zima. "… What do you think?"

She studied him for a long moment, held his hand and said, "We've been fighting XCOM for most of our lives. They'll take you away from me, and I would die before I let that happen. We can't trust anyone but ourselves, Daniel."

That gave him pause, and he found himself weighing the options once more. For a few long minutes he simply sat there, city burning around him, but at last he made up his mind, and pressed the transmit button. "… It's a tempting offer, Kelly, but we're done with this war. We'll find our own way out."

"Omega, listen to me. XCOM, Reapers, Templars, even Advent remnants – everyone will be hunting for you, and one day you're going to get caught. You won't survive."

"… I know." Daniel squeezed Zima's hand for reassurance. "I hope you can protect this planet better than the Elder's did. For all our sakes."

Then he wound down the window, and tossed the radio out, where it landed upright on a blanket of snow. He put the car into drive and made a U-turn. They could still hear the Colonel calling after them until they turned off the street.

2

Conner had told Zima that his hideaway was south of town. There was one exit leading out of the city in that direction, so at least that part was easy to follow. They would have to head through Highland Square, loop around the warzone that was the Stack's, and then it was a straight shot to the city limit checkpoint.

"Simple enough," Daniel had said, but as they delved through the crumbling blocks of the city, bypassing soldiers that occasionally fired a pot shot or two at their speeding vehicle, Zima could see headlights in the rear-view mirror. The city had been evacuated to the point she didn't think those were just random people out for a drive.

"We're being followed," she told Daniel, checking her ammo count out of habit. She'd done that five times now, nervous as all hell.

"I see them." He made a right turn down an obscure side passage, knocking away stray scraps of garbage and a few rubbish bins littering their path. Right before he peeled the Chaser back out into the opposing street, she spied the following vehicles speeding up and closing in on them. One was a sedan, the other a pickup truck. She could see a few resistance soldiers garbed in old-world army gear in the tray of the latter, holding rifles.

Daniel swerved the car around piles of rubble, burned-out car wrecks, and collapsed telephone poles, his arms a blur as he rotated the wheel to full lock, then spun it back in the other direction, hitting the brakes and the accelerator with expert precision. The pursuing pickup truck simply drove over what Daniel could not, its suspension more tuned to uneven terrain.

Said truck crashed into the Chaser's left taillight, smashing the red and yellow glass covering the blinker. Zima lurched forwards by the impact and, as she'd done a hundred times before, huffed in annoyance. She hit the button by the door handle, and her window rolled down. "Keep her steady," she said, and orbited her tail around her leather chair, hooking the end of the limb around her waist to lock herself in place, and leaned her upper half out of the car.

Wind rushed by her head in an angry frenzy, making her hood flap like two joined flags. She hooked the butt of her SMG into the crook of her shoulder, and sprayed down the pickup's front screen. Dozens of bullets penetrated the glass, squiggling in an upward pattern as she aimed for one of the green-cladded soldiers in the rear tray. She found her mark, and the man screamed as a chunk of his neck evaporated in a red mist, and he flipped head over heels out the rear of the truck and flopped onto the road. The sedan, flanking the truck, swerved out of the way just in time to avoid hitting the corpse.

Intent on knocking out the driver, she reoriented, and emptied the rest of her clip. The pickup jolted to the right of her vision as Daniel swerved around a part of a building that had imploded across the road. Her spray went wild and she huffed. "I said keep her steady!" she yelled as she reloaded.

"I'd like to see you do better!"

The second man in the tray held onto the roof of the cabin, and retaliated with his carbine rifle. She ducked back into the Chaser and lowered her head as far as she could into the floor space. A bullet travelled through the window and smashed into the lower half of the front screen. Another round tore through her seats head rest, sending white cotton in all directions like a fluffy cloud. Daniel yelled an obscenity as his vision was impaired by glass cracks, but managed to avoid hitting any debris in their path. Zima admitted she couldn't do better.

A break in the gunfire, she pulled herself back out to the exterior, and fired her weapon, full-auto. This time her aim was true. The driver slumped back, his chest riddled with holes, and the pickup swerved into the gutter, knocked over a stop sign, and crashed into a dumpster.

Zima let loose a victorious snarl at the scene of the wrecked pickup. The crash disappeared as they manoeuvred through a roundabout, driving straight over the circular island rather than around it. The remaining vehicle was hot on their tail. An automatic handgun leaned out of the driver's side door. Another one appeared on the passenger's side as well. A flurry of bullets scattered across the backside of the Chaser. She took a round right in the centre of her faceplate just before she snapped inside to reload once more.

She traded fire with their attackers, popping in and out to spray the sedan down with as much firepower as she could give, ejecting spent magazines out onto the blurry, ever-changing street, and slipping fresh ones in. At one point in the pursuit they passed right through the middle of a firefight. Twenty troopers against six XCOM operatives. The speeding vehicles stunned both sides in their wake for one short moment as they zipped through, each side watching the cars fly by like surprised meerkats, before the fight resumed like nothing had happened.

Zima heard the sedan's engine roar, gain ground on the Chaser, and swerve into the car's flank. A brief image of that old-world police show she'd watched once flashed through her mind, and she determined this was called a 'pit-manoeuvre. Daniel fought against the force, but the Chaser spun out of his control, doing a one-eighty spin before colliding into a brick wall. Zima tried to balance herself but failed. Just before the impact she was sent tumbling straight out of the Chaser. She landed hard on her side, gun falling away, tail throbbing with pain as some of her wounds reopened.

She snarled, hands finding purchase on the road. When her eyes opened, she was confronted with the front of the sedan speeding in her direction. She hissed, and using her tail like a spring, launched herself out of the vehicles path. The front tire grazed her tail with a scrape of rubber on scales. Hissing in even more pain, but thankful that she hadn't been completely turned to roadkill, she coiled herself upright, hearing the driver of the sedan slam on the brakes.

She lunged like an airborne eel and slipped her upper half into the sedan's window. The driver didn't even have time to aim his weapon when she grabbed his head and smashed it against the steering wheel. There was a fleshy crunch, but the man was still alive, nose broken and blood pooling around his lips. She repeated the motion once more to correct that, digging her nails into the scalp enough to paint her clawed hands red. The horn blared as the man slumped against the wheel, still.

She made to move on the next soldier, pushing aside her latest kill and piling more of her body into the car to reach across the cabin. But she found herself staring down the barrel of a gun, and she froze up. She forced herself to move but could not. She just laid there, across the dead man's back, a look of horror on her features. The man began to compress the trigger.

A bolt shot sang out, and she closed her eyes in fear. Then she noticed the sound was wet and electric, not ballistic. She peeked an eye open and saw the soldier had a green scorch mark across his chest, glass shards littered over the dash and seats.

She looked out the broken window. Daniel, still in the driver's seat of the Chaser, curled his hand back, plasma pistol trailing a little plume of smoke. He smirked at her, then slowly pulled the car away from where it had impacted.

Wincing, she uncoiled herself out of the sedan, retrieving her SMG from where'd she dropped it. When she returned to her full height, she used this brief moment of respite to examine the scene in front of her.

They had crashed on the height of a short incline, and down there, running in a straight line from her viewpoint, was the bridge they'd planted bombs on, but chosen not to detonate them. She mentally corrected herself. It was Daniel who'd chosen to sabotage the bombs. She'd have detonated the bridge without hesitation if he hadn't been there, and things might have turned out differently if she'd had her way.

All across the bridge, Advent and XCOM alike fought in small pockets of violence. Husks of cars were abandoned along its length, scattered about most of the lanes. At its far end was a no man's land of chaos. She couldn't tell who was fighting who at this distance, and there were so many tracer rounds ricocheting in all directions it was a wonder anyone was still alive out there. The thing after that, however, gave her great pause.

The wall surrounding City 31 was a thick, concrete surface, raising up six, maybe seven storeys tall. Living within its confines long enough by this point, she could almost block out its presence, but not anymore. Where there had once been a squat tunnel leading through the wall, there was now a giant, gaping breach in the slate-grey barrier, in line with the bridge, about the same width as a stadium. Vaguely v-shaped, hundreds of chunks of concrete lay strewn before and after the breach. Half-ruined internal support columns jutted out of the rubble like crooked fingers. How or where enough explosives could be attained to achieve such a feat, she didn't even bother questioning.

The Chaser pulled up behind her, and Daniel leaned out the window to meet her gaze. "… A literal straight shot to the end," he murmured, watching his home getting torn apart. Beyond the wall it looked almost peaceful in comparison to what was laying between them and the outside world.

Zima turned to him, and her shoulders sagged. She'd never felt so tired in her life. And even with freedom in sight, her mood still soured. She looked at all the chaos they'd have to sift through in order to get to the wall. "We're too late," she said. "It looks like the whole fucking resistance is down there. We'll never make it."

"Sure we will. I've got a plan." He motioned for her to get in. She popped around the bonnet and shuffled inside. She could taste his fear in the air, and yet how he could still sound so optimistic was so endearing to her.

"What plan?" she asked.

"Put your seat belt on."

She did, and asked again: "What plan, Daniel?"

"I'm going to fang it."

"'Fang' it? Is this something to do with my- oh!"

All at once, he pulled the car out of park, flicked a switch that she vaguely remembered activated something called a ter-bow, and slammed on the accelerator. The engine screamed, and her sentence was cut off as gravity pushed against her chest and forced her deep into the cushions of the seat.

The Chaser sailed downhill, gathering speed. Her eyes widened as she saw the little needle go over the 80, then 90, and settled on 100. Daniel's last little joy-ride had been ages ago, and although she didn't like it one bit, all the motion caused her veins to fill with adrenaline, and the risk of a high-speed crash only made her feel more alive than she had in years.

The car rattled as they drove down the steepest part of the incline, and actually flew for a few meters when the terrain evened out like a shallow trench between two hills. Zima's eyes bugged in their sockets as they drove right across the bridge, not slowing down but speeding up.

"Daniel!" she cried out, digging her nails into the seat to try and ground herself from the flying feeling in her stomach. There was a car wreck right ahead of them that she would indicate to if her hands could work.

"I know!" He swerved out of the way just in time. A few bullets flew into his door, further drawing Zima into the depths of fearful excitement. Up ahead two cars angled together left a slim opening between them. The Chaser just barely managed to squeeze through, actually scraping against the abandoned vehicles, creating an ear-splitting scream of metal scratching metal. "-Talk about a tight scrape! Woo!"

'Woo'? She looked at him, and in complete contrast to her, Daniel was actually grinning as he narrowly avoided fatal crash after fatal crash. She opened her mouth to ask him how he could be happy now of all times, but all that came out was a fearful little squeak unlike her at all. She was glad Daniel was too preoccupied to hear it.

Daniel navigated the bridge with careful precision. Swerving by obstacles with only millimetres to spare. Each hard weave made her body lean either right into the door or into her humans' shoulder. Smoke and snow lifted up in waves behind them, and through those clouds, bullets chased after their car. A few shots hit the trunk, one managed to impact right on one of the rear-view mirrors, sending shards everywhere. Zima was too afraid she'd fly right out the car again if she tried shooting back, so she resorted to sitting there, murmuring prayers that Daniel not fuck it up now when they were on the home straight.

Daniel expertly lowered and raised the car's speed, zipping around and, occasionally, smashing straight through cars to continue their journey across the bridge. "Good thing we didn't destroy this thing, huh?" he asked her right after colliding with a vehicle to knock it out of the way, sending them both forward and then back like they were making over-exaggerated nods.

Zima didn't bother correcting him and just stayed silent, holding her breath.

Against all her better judgement, they zoomed by the pathetic excuse for a security checkpoint on the other side of the bridge, battered but alive. Zima looked up at the wall, towering into the misty-red sky, and saw an Advent gunship strafing across the no-mans-land with an automatic canon. The XCOM positions were its intended targets, blowing apart bodies and sending up waves of dirt and rubble.

Bullets flying from the left and right, from both sides of the war, scattered across the Chaser's doors, wheels, windows, everything, as Daniel drove right down the middle of the assault. She sank as low in her seat as she could, feeling the air sizzling away as bullets and plasma bolts pierced through the backseat windows. She scrunched her face up in fear and anger as one such bullet skimmed across the back of Daniel's seat and punched into his elbow plating. But Daniel showed no signs of recognising such a wound, just kept the car aimed for the broken wall.

The gunship whirled back around for another strafe, and Zima choked on her words to warn Daniel that the car was right in its firing path. The explosions of its shells were coming up to meet them, just as they passed into the shadow of the wall. Zima watched helplessly as the car slowly intersected with the trail of coming destruction.

And at the last moment, Daniel swerved the car left then right. Combined with the force of a dangerously close shell landing, the car tipped up onto two wheels for a heart-lifting moment. Then they slammed back down onto the busted pavement, and entered the walls threshold.

She half expected the gunship to come around again and target the car, but when she looked back, it had seemingly forgotten about them, instead soaring off to the north to make another pass at the resistance forces within the wall.

Within, the wall?

She turned around in her seat and saw… emptiness. Distant, rolling hills out there across a vast field of what was once farmland, now covered in a thick layer of white flakes. Pine woods stretched away all across the far horizon, there leaves capped with snow. There was no sense of urbanity, save for a few makeshift tents and scrap metal structures set up to the left of the road, all of it aflame, and utterly annihilated. A support camp, probably destroyed by that gunship, she reckoned.

… We're out? she asked herself. Then with a bit more clarity; We're out! She pulled a fresh batch of air into her lungs, heaving like she'd just run a marathon, even though she'd been sitting down all this time.

Daniel slowed down just a tad, but still kept the car racing, each passing second putting the city further and further behind them. That flame in Daniel's eyes was gone now, replaced by a curious, almost fearful gaze as he examined mother nature after so long living within a world of stone and metal. She smiled at him. Maybe now it was her turn to explain some things to him. After all, she was an expert when it came to rural environments.

The highway stretched on ever southward, eventually snaking up the side of a mountain, winding left and right all the way up towards its summit. The Chaser was battered with bullets and scorches, but still purred along as they drove up the twisting road. Gunshots slowly lowered in volume as they rose in altitude.

Ten minutes of driving took them to the peak of the mountain. There was an old-world sign signalling a small nearby peninsula as a lookout point. With a few crumples of gravel, Daniel pulled over, and switched off the engine. Spread out before them, City 31, the place the two of them both loathed and despised in some weird amalgamation that they'd come to know as home over the past few years, stretched out in the middle of a snow-white desert. A smoking stain on an otherwise featureless landscape.

Daniel got out, and walked over to the front of the car, where he leaned against the hood with his arms in his pockets. Zima blinked at him before tossing her helmet into the back and getting out herself, not bothering to shut the door as she slithered to his side.

Sighing, she copied his stance, and the two simply stared out at '31 for a long time, mixed emotions running through them both. Neither of them imagined '31 coming to an end, at all. Least of all this way. It was hard trying to remember what it had been like before XCOM. Those days seemed so long ago now.

"… Quite a view, huh?" Daniel said after a while. He reached into his vest – the knackered armour covered in marks, snow, and dried blood – and retrieved his cigarette pack. He struck up a smoke and took a long, long drag, shaking his head as his breath wafted into the air. What he was shaking his head at, she had no idea.

Zima glanced from him, to the view. It was all fire and smoke, and the stench of death was heavy in the air, even from up here. She supposed it did hold some semblance of a 'view', but she'd rather be looking anywhere else than down there.

"… Give me one of those," she said, eyes on the smoke in his hand. Daniel blinked at her, shrugged, and handed one over. She pinched it between two fingers as he leaned over and flicked on his lighter. She bent down and held the smoke over the flame, just like she'd watched him do a hundred times before.

Daniel watched her take a big enough puff to even put him to shame. She held the smudgy air in her lungs for a second, before spluttering it all out, plumes of smoke releasing from her mouth and nostrils. Daniel chuckled at her, and she cuffed him on the arm with a snort. She didn't release the cigarette, however.

"I fucking hate that place," she admitted after a few silent moments, taking another drag, already getting used to its foggy discharge. "The next time I have to look at it, it'll be too soon." Daniel looked at her. And seeing the cigarette jutting out of the corner of her mouth as she turned to him, combined with the realisation hitting him full-on that they were out, and the brutal honesty of what she'd just said, caused him to burst out laughing. Hard enough to make him heave.

She slowly joined in his hysterics (not quite understanding what was funny), her inhuman mouth letting forth a strange hiss/huff/laugh combo. She scooted closer to him, draping her tail over his feet. Eventually they grew silent, and Daniel looked her up and down, seeing her vest absolutely mangled to hell with bullet holes, sword slices, scorch marks and, most prominently, drying crimson blood that had once belonged to him, and all the people she'd killed today. She was absolutely covered in the stuff it was almost like a sheet of paint.

"… Is it a bad time to say that you look horrible in red, Zee?"

Zima's eyes blazed with an emotion he couldn't quite decipher. She turned to face him, and he simply got lost in those bombardier-blue orbs of hers. She plucked her barely used smoke and threw it over her shoulder. Then she grabbed him by the cheeks and said, "Fucking goof." -and dragged him into a sloppy, wet, but not at all unpleasant, kiss.

Half their faces illuminated by the distant inferno, Zima and Daniel closed their eyes and let their tongues fight for control. Zima won by a long shot, having being pent up for so long and having no way to vent it until now. Like a rowdy bear she pushed him back against the bonnet and towered over him, her tail going crazy on the ground behind her.

She would have gone to town on him then and there, if not for his annoyingly low breath capacity, the new cuts and bruises they'd both gained during their escape, and not to mention the new gunshot wound on his arm, making his moans into her mouth edged with pain as she put her weight on him.

Reluctantly, she parted their mouths, basking in the warm taste of his saliva, licking her lips as she doted on him. "… It's over, Daniel," she breathed. "It's… It's finally over."

Daniel felt a flare of fear at her words. In truth, he thought that this was just the beginning of a new set of problems that they would struggle to deal with. On the run in a modern world in the middle of winter. He didn't think it was over, but suppressed any physical show of this. He wouldn't be the one to kill the mood.

"Yeah," he said, rubbing his knuckles along the inside of her hood. "Yeah, it is."

Zima trembled, closing her eyes and slipping her forked tongue out and lapping at his lips playfully. He held her close and looked over her shoulder at the city, a sad smile on his face.

3

After disabling the Chaser's tracker and ceremoniously chucking it over the cliff, followed shortly by Daniel's phone, they cleaned up their wounds as best they could with what medicine they had, then continued along the southbound road in search of Conner's cabin, which almost became a mythical place after twenty minutes of driving and seeing nothing.

Nothing but the cold, dead forest running endlessly along both sides of the black pavement of the empty road. A thick mist of snowfall obscured anything further than fifty meters in any direction. Not even the beams of the Chaser's powerful headlights could pierce the veil, so Daniel was forced to take it slow.

The ice-licked road had frozen over in some places, large pools of dark blue that made the wheels spin for a second as they drove over them. The heater was on full blast, keeping them warm, but if the blizzard got any worse – and it most certainly would – there'd be a lot of cold nights ahead of them. Daniel didn't like how the temperature warning light was winking at him from the dash.

He also didn't like how low the fuel gauge handle was. They'd spent a lot of fuel during their escapade, and now they were running at a little less than half capacity. He was staring at those little red handles more than the road itself.

"What if there isn't a cabin?" he asked at one point, a thought turned to words. He didn't want to sound so pessimistic, because he had in fact, been enchanted by all the rural landscape they'd seen so far. It was almost tranquil compared to '31, even before the resistance had coming knocking down its walls. It was why he'd kept his doubts to himself up to this point. But when it came to Conner, all Daniel could think of was how the Sectoid had lied about this hideaway just to screw them over for his own personal gain.

"Why would he make it up?" Zima asked back. He glanced at her, then back to the road, weaving around a toppled trunk. He wondered if the road was maintained by machines or humans, if at all. The place was cold and quiet.

"I don't know. Maybe he-"

"It'll be here. Somewhere." She cut him off, giving him a narrowed glare. Daniel dropped the topic.

They cruised along for thirty more minutes. The scenery didn't change. Just rows and rows of ice-blue pines leaning over either side of the road, swaying back and forth in the wind.

"Maybe he lied thinking we would freeze to death out here," Daniel said, finishing his prior sentence. "He did tell us that he had his own angle in this war. We're loose ends to him. Probably wanted to get rid of us the easy way."

"Just stop it Daniel. It's around here. It has to be."

"Just like Advent has to be the ones to win the war? I've had that train of thought before."

The Viper huffed, not giving him a response. An hour later, and the fuel handle was lowering ever closer to the illuminated E. More pines slid by on the left and right, the road decaying into a state of disrepair the longer they drove, making the drive riddled with bumps the further they went. The snowy mist was getting heavier. He'd almost crashed right into a big pile of snow that would have without a doubt bogged the whole front half of the car if he'd hit it.

"… Who'd even build a cabin out here? It doesn't make sense."

"I told you to drop it," Zima snapped. Daniel's eye twitched at her comment and he sharply turned to her.

"We need to turn around. There's nothing out here."

"Yes there is."

"Look, there's another city centre east of '31. I can't remember its name." He glanced at the fuel-meter. "We go back now and we might be able to make it."

"And what if it's the same situation there? More war? I thought you said you were done with all of that."

"I am, but at least I know something's over there. Conner lied, Zee, don't you see that? We need to go back."

"No." She managed to narrow her pupils even further. "Don't you dare turn this thing around."

"So you're taking some fucking Sectoid's word over mine? Is that it?"

"That's not what I'm… Just keep driving."

Although he was in full control of the vehicle, he did not turn around. The reason why was because of what he saw in her slitted eyes before she stopped meeting his gaze. He's seen that look before – had it, at one point. Holding onto one singular thing, or in her case idea, that was keeping her from simply laying down right now and waiting for death. This mythical cabin was her last hope. There last hope. And if he kept pushing the idea away, he'd be even more of a fool than he already was.

Zima deserved better than that, so he shut his mouth and kept on driving. He heard the engine chug unhealthily for a moment before stabilising. He began to lose – what little there was – hope that there would be nothing at the end of the limitless road. A perceptive observer would have seen Zima's eyes filled with similar paranoia.

Then, after an hour and half, something glinted in the wintery night. "There!" Zima cried, pointing. It was an old-world stop sign, the red paint gone brown after all these years. Its chrome pole was slanted off to the side. The letters were faded and barely discernible. "I told you, Daniel! We just had to keep going!"

Daniel didn't even have the energy to retaliate. He let out a long sigh as a heavy weight lifted from his shoulders. The car pulled up parallel to the sign and he put it into park. Zima was already out the door before they'd even stopped, letting the terribly chilly air mingle with the heated interior of the Chaser. He watched her as she snaked around the pole and lean over to examine some particular shrubs. Nothing out of the ordinary about them, but Daniel wasn't looking at the vegetation.

Zima didn't' have 'buttocks' like humans did, but she had the curves of a… well, a snake, and a very feminine one at that. The black patterns of her scales caught his eye's attention. He suddenly felt angry at himself for not paying attention to her sooner. He'd been too busy helping the Colonel cripple Advent, or helping Advent keep their cold, cold order in place. Nothing but a tool to both sides of the conflict.

He dropped the thought. That part of his life was over, and now a page had been turned, so to say. He would try to forget about all the unforgivable things he'd done in the name of his dead Elders, even though they would haunt his dreams until the end. Make a fresh start, much as that was too good for the likes of him.

Zima plucked one of the bushes like it was an oversized pillow. No roots came up, no effort was needed. Decoys. She pushed first one aside, then another, creating an opening leading into a snow trail wide enough to drive through. Zima came back to the car and shut the door, grinning all the while. "Come on, Daniel! Fang it!"

He switched into drive and rolled onto the trail, kicking up waves of flakes that obscured the dirt path hidden beneath the thick layer of snow. Once they were off the road, Zima got out once more to replace the decoys and obscured the path. Not that this road looked used in forever, but for peace of mind.

Viper back on board, the car cruised slowly up the trail. It led deep into the woods for a few hundred meters. Daniel, city-boy at heart, absolutely adored the wooden cabin sat snug in the middle of the clearing at the trails end, surrounded on all sides by tall pine trees. It was like something out of a fairy tale. Dark oak boards erected a small but modest structure. A brick chimney jutted out of the corner of the roof. Said roof was covered in a white slate of snow. The little wooden porch out front was decorated with a small table and rocking chair almost demanding to be sat in. A thin coat of ice flakes lay on the window sills, red curtains behind each glass pane.

Pulling up and switching off the engine, Daniel and Zima got out of the car and stood together, shoulder-to-shoulder, looking up at the structure. The only sound being the biting wind sweeping in from the north. Daniel put an arm around her waist and led her up the steps to the porch. They were shivering by the time they got under the porch's roof.

The door was unlocked. It creaked open on ancient hinges as Daniel pushed on its wood. Inside, the breeze screamed through the eaves in the boards, travelling from one end of the cabin to the other. The interior was pitch black, and the oak floorboards groaned as he took a tentative step inside. He would have been a little scared of the place if he hadn't had one of the most dangerous aliens by his side. At some point she'd slipped her hand into his, and he looked over his shoulder at her.

"You okay?"

She shivered. "Just cold," she said.

He moved in, and looked around the doorframe for a light switch, his breath pluming in the frosty air. Instead of a switch he found a pull string, and tugged it. A lightbulb flickered to life above him, illuminating the front lobby with its dim light. To the right was a living room/kitchen combo, but there was a complete lack of furniture in the former. White spaces on the floor indicated where a sofa had once been. The kitchen was small and simple, tucked into the corner, with tens of cupboards, all closed, there handles a dim gold colour. A little beside that were an unusually high amount of more storage containers.

Tucked into the left side was an aluminium desk with wires and other electronics scattered across its top. A large station radio dominated its space, run down but not inoperable. Beside that was a fireplace, surrounded by brickwork and a safety grate. Daniel's eyes adjusted to the darkness as they explored the cabin further. He smiled when hot water ran out of the bathroom's faucet. He guessed there was a tank out back he had not seen. He snuck a peak out one of the rear windows and sure enough, inside a small shed attached to the rear of the cabin, the outline of a large water tank could be seen, right next to a small generator, humming away quietly. Judging by its colour and design, plus the fact that it had been running all this time, he guessed it was elerium-powered. At least they wouldn't have to worry about electricity for a while. Beyond these he could just make out the end of a tool rack.

Zima called his name from the kitchen. A few seconds of walking took him to her. She had one arm on a cupboard handle, and was gesturing inside it with the other. He peeked in and saw a few neatly stacked rows of canned goods and bottles of water. Maybe two dozen or so of each.

She opened another one – more preserved food and water. Two more had the same story. At first glance it appeared to be quite a lot, but Daniel took a quick guess as to how long it would last the two of them, and frowned at his estimation. One month, give or take, and even then, he was being generous.

Then he caught Zima staring out the window, regally posed, and he pushed his worries aside. He came up beside her, stroking the backside of her hood, making it flutter under his fingers. She held his hands, leaning down into the crook between his neck and shoulder, basking in his body heat. For a long time they watched the snow drift in smooth, lazy sheets.

"… If it wasn't so cold, I'd love this place," Zima said, flicking her tongue out. The forked tip tickled Daniel's chin as it retracted.

"I think I know how we can fix that." Daniel pulled away from her, making her huff in annoyance. "See if you can find some blankets or something. A few cups, too. I've got a surprise for you."

He moved back to the door, a little bit of a skip in his step, and went outside. Her tail angled after him like he was magnetically pulling it. Zima shrugged at the door before turning to explore more of the drawers and cupboards. A bit more food here and there, but one find was most interesting. A little cabinet filled with books. She flicked through a few of the tomes, smiling as Conner's taste in literature was similar to her own. She hadn't had a chance to read in forever, and now that they were out, maybe she could finally catch up on some of her English.

… Out, she thought. Daniel zipped past one of the windows and moved into the utility shed where he proceeded to move piles of metal around noisily. She smiled. They were out, at last. No more early mornings, late night kidnappings, no more anything. Just them and this quaint little abode they could hide in from the world. The cabin was a little strange in general to her, but it was intriguing. But humans were strange, intriguing things. She wouldn't be so fascinated with Daniel if that wasn't a good thing.

He came out of the shed, wielding a hand axe. He began hacking at some low-hanging branches, his tool thunking against the wood, loud in the silence of the woods. Zima got an idea of what he was thinking, and resumed her search through the house. Instead of blankets she found a few sets of sleeping bags. She set two down and then continued rummaging through Conner's storage – drawers and containers filled with all manner of things necessary for living far from civilisation. Camping gear and winter clothing being the worthiest of note. At last she came upon some drinking glasses. Why Daniel would want these she hadn't the faintest clue.

She rolled the sleeping bags out in front of the fireplace just as Daniel came back, carrying a big bundle of chopped wood in his arms.

"Good find," he said. She helped him load up the fireplace. On the second trip Daniel seemed satisfied, and lit the wood with his lighter. A blaze of red flame was soon born, lighting up a large semicircle of the cabin's dark floor. Zima coiled down and pressed her tummy against one of the sleeping bags, humming in delight as the fire warmed her up. She'd arranged the bags side by side, and motioned for him to join her.

"Just one more thing." She watched him trot once more outside. She heard the car door open, then close. Daniel came back, hands behind his back like he was concealing something. She grinned at him as he sat down next to her. "It's an early year, but I thought you wouldn't mind."

She went to ask him what he was talking about, but he interrupted her by revealing his prior mentioned surprise. And surprise her it did. He presented to her a dark red bottle, and printed in cursive writing on the label was the word: Chardonnay.

Zima let out a hiss/squeak sound she'd only ever allow Daniel to hear, her eyes blazing with excitement, tail thrashing underneath her. "W-When did you get that?"

"Just a few weeks ago, a few days after the Ramos Incident. I hid it in the glove box until we had cause for celebration." He shrugged. "Now's as good a time as any, right?"

"… Give it to me."

Her arm shot forward, and he snatched the bottle just out of her reach, laughing. "Zee we're not drinking straight from the bottle! Hand me those cups."

Grumbling, she did as he asked, setting them on the floor between them. Daniel used his blunt little nails to try and peel away the cork, and Zima chuckled when he couldn't do it. Now he didn't refuse when she asked for the bottle again.

She took it, ran her eyes over the label once more as if to make sure this was her favourite drink. She slipped her index finger into the rim of the bottle, sliding her long thin nail in a full circle. After that she aimed the bottle up and popped the cork. There was a loud bang of escaping air, and the wooden stub flew in an arch, bouncing off the wall and hitting Daniel square in the forehead with a little slap of flesh she found most hilarious.

She watched Daniel pour her a glass, eyes zeroing in on the red liquid slipping out of the bottle's lip, her body fidgeting and antsy, and not just because of the wine. This close to the fireplace made a thin layer of sweat release from Daniel's pores, filling the cabin with his intoxicating scent. This smell was only amplified tenfold by her alien senses.

Zima's gradually lightening face suddenly darkened when Daniel stopped pouring her drink. "You didn't even give me half a cup," she pouted.

"Wine is supposed to be sipped, and savoured and…" He looked up, saw her staring daggers at him, and paused. "… Full glass it is, then."

He filled it to half capacity. She nodded for him to continue. Two thirds and he paused again. She lifted the back of the bottle with a claw, and wine poured out until it was practically hovering over the rim of the glass, defying gravity.

Daniel, a bit more in control, took a half glass and was satisfied. He raised his drink in the air. "To our new lives as troglodytes, Zee."

"To us." They clinked, and with alcoholic dexterity Zima brought the precarious drink to her lips and gulped it down without spilling a single drop. Flavour exploded all over her taste buds as she chugged the whole thing down in two seconds flat. She smacked her lips and sighed, already feeling a tingle in her fingers.

"So…" Daniel said, looking into the fire licking up the chimney. "Now that we've got some heat, you actually like this place?"

She refilled her drink and sipped at it. "It's cramped, maybe a little run down, but it's… cute."

"Cute, huh?" Daniel grinned. "What do Viper's like to live in? Your buildings any different from ours?"

"We like to build our nests in more isolated areas, away from the cities. But each nest is filled with hundreds of my kind, so it gets a little crowded sometimes. They're mostly made up of tight tunnels running underground, to keep the heat bottled inside."

"Would you rather be hiding out in one of these 'nests', then this place?"

"No. I couldn't get two seconds privacy when I was growing up. One time I crushed a few support columns and collapsed the tunnel leading to my room just to get a moment of peace. It only brought me more attention as all the workers went day and night trying to dig me out. Oh, the ranting my Mother gave me afterwards… That's when I first learned all my curse words."

Daniel smiled. "I had no idea you were such a little troublemaker."

"I hated every moment there. I left the nest as soon as I was old enough, joined Advent, met you, and now… Now I'm here. And I've got you all to myself. So no, I wouldn't go back to one of those cesspits."

Daniel took a swig and let out a refreshing –"Ahh."– sound. "You hate a lot of things, Zee. I ever mention that?"

"… I don't hate everything." She shimmied closer to him. Close enough to feel his breath on her scales. Daniel blinked as he locked eyes with her.

"… No, not everything. You love alcohol."

"-And you," she added. Then her mood soured. "Daniel, I… This must be hard for you, going from a city life to… this. Would you rather be someplace else?"

"I'll get used to it," he said, stroking the sensitive tendons lining her hood. Zima let out an uncontrolled exhale and wriggled under his fingers, ignoring his slight dodge of the question. Her tail curled around his ankles. She was getting lively.

"You keep doing that and I'll have to ravage you," she warned, leaning into his warm hand.

"That's the plan," he said, and after a moment's hesitation, pushed his lips against hers. Zima's hands moved to his chest and started undoing the straps of his battered armour. She huffed into his mouth in frustration as his vest proved too clumsy for her to handle. She couldn't quite slip her nails under the straps and find a grip.

She parted from his mouth, a strand of saliva connecting them for a moment. "Help me with thissss." Her tail orbited his legs, squeezing his calves through his pants.

Daniel obliged, drinking Chardonnay with one hand and removing his armour with the other. He tossed the vest away and slipped his shirt over his head. As soon as his athletic pecs were revealed she ran her hands over them jealously, tracing the sinewy flesh with both eyes and claws.

She barely heard the little gasp he voiced as she traced around his nipples, and a feeling of power overcame her. She liked that sensation very much. Once he'd tossed his shirt over his shoulder, her slid his hands up and down her lithe arms, chuckling as he watched her run her long fingers through his chest hair, examining the blemishes running down his torso, scars that proved Daniel's strength to her.

"What?" she asked, tickling him with her tongue as she closed in on him. "My kind don't have hair. It's… unusual."

"Some would say fucking an alien is 'unusual'."

"… Do you think so?"

"Hell no."

That was all he needed to say. As soon as the last word left his mouth, she chose that moment to strike, burying his face in her gums, shoving her tongue as far down his throat as she could. It was her most invasive kiss to date, and soon he was gasping against the back of her throat. Daniel's body slacked as she navigated across his glands and lips and tongue with her eely organ. He tasted like wine and it was driving her crazy.

When she decided to part from him again, she laughed at how lidded Daniel's eyes were. It was like she'd stunned him into bliss. She pushed him down by the shoulders, forcing him to kneel before her as she uncurled to her full height.

Slowly, eyes locked on his, she navigated her vest by touch and unsealed the holding clamps. Panting, she popped the shoulder straps and let the combat plating fall. She pulled an unseen lever and the scale underplating covering her chest and abdomen slid away, exposing her cleavage and supple breasts to the cold winter's night.

Unlike the rest of her dark body, the scales on her front were coloured a creamy grey, each scale like a small shield, with not a single bump or crease on her smooth chest. Her orbs of flesh looked so soft and inviting, swaying with her slight movements, and Daniel had to take another moment to recover from the kiss she'd stunned him with.

Now fully nude, Zima leaned down and picked up the wine, not even bothering with the glasses as she drank it straight form the bottle. She noted Daniel's impassive reaction to her stripping, and she shyly lowered the bottle to her lip and fiddled with its top. "Do I… Do I look… nice?" she asked awkwardly.

Daniel looked up at Zima in all her tall, deadly, serpentine glory, and snickered. "You are adorable," he replied. He wrapped his arms around her back and smothered himself in one of her breasts. A hard nipple had poked out of the scaly orb, and he rubbed it between his lips, chewed on it with his teeth. Zima bared her fangs in surprise, running her hands through his hair and pressing down on his scalp as she writhed against him.

He moved to the other bag of flesh almost as big as his head, and while working on it with his mouth, he moved his hands up and stroked the lip of her hood just the way she liked. Zima squirmed violently and collapsed on her own tail, falling over so that Daniel was leaning over her. Her tail spread out lazily around them in a squiggly pool of flesh. Daniel muffled a chuckle into her cleavage but kept on going.

Soon he moved away from her chest. Zima looked down at him and huffed angrily. She watched him plant kisses across the undersides of her black boobs, working his way down her stomach, then to her vaginal opening that had creeped out of her scales during all the foreplay.

He took a lungful of her scent and stared at her genital slit, winking at him from her waist, lactating all her alien fluids in violent pulsed, pooling out and across her scales, each scale smaller the closer they were to her opening. Again, that sense of prior frustration washed over him. She was so open about her desires for him back in the city, and looking back at it all with hindsight, he could have been in this position much earlier if he'd just paid attention.

"… Does my snatch make you angry?" Zima breathed, noting his expression. Daniel sputtered an answer but she cut him off. "I didn't know humans could get pissed off by-oh!"

He stabbed his tongue right past her nether-lips and as far down her entrance as he could. Zima cried out and squirmed, her tail going crazy as she writhed over the floor. She knocked against the wall and sent a nearby crate across the room, but somehow managing to not damage or spill any of the Chardonnay. Daniel would have been thrown off if he hadn't grabbed a handful of her 'butt' to keep himself in place. There discarded armour was sent flying all directions as Zima whipped about like a panicked worm.

Her walls clenched down on his tongue almost painfully, her inner flesh made from the same toned muscle making up the rest of her curvaceous body. Daniel felt lightheaded again as his tongue was hugged by the thousands of soft bristles lining her alien tunnel. He added in a finger and found what he thought was her clitoris. He rubbed it gently and lapped up her fluids.

"By the… Elder's!" Zima gasped, getting a bit of control over her thrashing. He cored her out, sending up bolts of pleasure through her stomach, up her chest, and out her mouth where they turned to shouts and moans. Daniel guessed they wouldn't have to worry about this place being quiet.

Zima, finally living through all of her late-night fantasies, let her tongue roll out of her mouth and flop lazily against one of her breasts. He pulled away to fill his lungs with air, looking up at her from her cleavage. Her reptilian cunt irradiated so much heat that he was sweating rivers down his temples. He couldn't voice one word before she grinded her hips against him and shoved him back into her groin, securing him in place with her hands.

He lapped up her salty juices, and after a while she eventually released his head. His hair was a ruffled mess and he looked almost sleepy, but she wasn't done with him. Daniel took a drunken swig from the bottle and wiped his lips, noticing with a frown that her tail was constricting in all directions, winding up the back of his legs.

"My turn," Zima hissed. She crawled over her tail and encroached on him, an animalistic gleam in her eyes. Daniel couldn't help but feel small as she flexed her hood and pushed him onto his back. Her tail wound around him and propped him in a laying position.

She licked him on the cheek and then moved down to his waist, undoing his belt and flicking off his boots. He went to help her but her tail struck out and wrapped over his wrists, pining them on the floor above his head. Soon he was covered from the chest down in snake coils, exerting almost uncomfortable pressure but the layer of fat from her tail cushioned it.

His erect blade popped free, and Zima tossed the rest of his clothes carelessly away, almost straight into the fireplace. He groaned as she used the end of her tail to coil around his shaft and engulf his manhood, pumping a few times to make sure he was at full-mast.

She navigated past her long body so that their genitals were lined up. She teased herself, rubbing her entrance lightly over his organ, making it jolt, and making him groan. "Danielllll," she hissed, picking up the wine and taking a long drink. Her lips were red like blood. She slurred her speech, drunk off both his euphoria and the alcohol. "I want you inssssiiiiide. Daniellllll…"

Then she lowered herself onto his shaft, so quickly Daniel had to grit his teeth to not release on penetration alone. His eyes rolled into the back of his head as she exerted unbearable pressure, her bristles stroking his rod like delicate fins. Zima hilted his girth and kept him there, tongue flicking out and lapping across his face. He tried to pull back but Zima was way too heavy. She'd secured all his limbs, and now he was the one writhing beneath her.

She lifted up her waist from his, exposing his shaft to the blistering cold. She went all the way to the head, teetering on the brink of releasing him, before shoving herself all the way back down to the base.

"-Ah!"

She sang out her moans as he penetrated deep inside her alien vagina. For the first few movements she did all the work, slowly pulling him out, torturing him with the cold air, only to be shoved back into the hot and gooey tunnel leading to her womb with enough force that both their vision's blurred. Then, man and Viper settled into a rhythm, thrusting against one another with rising intensity. Zima's tail thumped against the floor like some sort of background sex-drum.

Covered in their combined sweat, Daniel slipped one of his hands free and rubbed his knuckles against the soft lining on the inside of her hood. Her vaginal muscles flexed and moved over the head of his dick, driving him further to the edge. He stabbed upwards over and over, Zima pounding down on him with equal force to make everything below his waist go numb.

He looked down at their conjoined waists, her abdominal muscles pumping away and rippling with each violent pump. He fondled one of Zima's foamy tits and pressed his forehead against hers, living off each other's breaths as they mated.

She could tell by his embarrassing sounds that he was close, and summarily tightened her tail around him to force him as deep inside her as he could reach, clamping down on every part of him like a fleshy vice. She squashed her breasts flat against his chest, eyes glazed over with primal desire. Her soft, bristle-lined walls drove him to climax. It felt like he was unloading all his body's strength into her. Her cunt lapped up his semen greedily, pulsing and clenching in a milking motion to squeeze him dry.

He filled up the alien vent so much that his fluids spilled out and pooled over their waists, dripping onto the sleeping bag they were laying on. With a sharp hiss Zima also reached her limit, more fluids streaming out and combining into Daniel's own spunk, creating a bodily mess on their stomachs that neither of them could care about in that moment.

There mingled sex filled the air, and the two of them hummed to each other intimately. Zima collapsed on top of him, wrapping his vision with her fluttering hood. A bit of drool landed in his hair as she let her tongue flop out and dangle there. She rolled her hips into his, massaging his dick for every last drop.

They embraced in their own fleshy ball of warmth, panting for the longest time. Wind brushed against the eaves around the cabin, a serenity returning now that there joining had been completed. Daniel moved Zima so he could see her face, and smiled when he saw that she was cross-eyed. She let out a long hiss/sigh, and gave him a peck on his wine-covered lips.

"… Again." It sounded like she was giving an order.

Daniel blinked up at her and smirked. "A-Again? You look like you need a rest, girl."

Zima huffed. She wriggled her body, with him still inside her, causing him to groan. Her blazing, electric-blue eyes locked onto his and told him otherwise.

"Goofball," she said.

"Goof-ball, huh? That's a new one."

She stroked him, breathing in his scent and licking his perspiring cheeks. "My goofball. Finally."

Then she revealed her wicked fangs, and bit him on the neck. Not hard enough to hurt, but still making Daniel flinch. She retracted her finger-length teeth. He could feel the poison coursing through his veins, and his squirms only excited Zima more. "Just a bit of venom to keep little Daniel in shape." She kissed the love-bite wound, his chest, all the while tightening her coils around him. "… Again," she repeated.

The End