The Viper opened her jaws, letting loose a loud hiss as she dodged a crackling black blade. Missing the stab, the Stun Lancer retracted to attempt an overhead swing, but Natasatch easily avoided the telegraphed move and wrapped her amber coils around her opponent. She forced him to his knees, a smug look plastered on her verpine face.

Seeing the Lancer's backup hurrying forward, Natasatch sensed her position wouldn't be ideal in the next few moments, so she needed this enemy dead, now. She turned to her closest human compatriot, calling "Assistance, please!"

"I got this!" Corporal Malcolm Silva responded. Nodding, She leaned herself back to expose the Stun Lancer's torso more, lined up a perfect shot at the immobile target and…

Trained the weapon several degrees to the side, and let loose a burst into a tree.

He audibly sighed over the comms. "Okay, I don't got this."

She blinked, the battlefield coming to a pause. With her enhanced senses, she could effortlessly track individual movements despite the chaos of the surroundings, so the alien had watched the human seemingly decide that the flora more greatly deserved his bullets than the target in her coils. Natasatch shifted her vision to his smoking rifle barrel, to the tree now missing an odd branch or two, and back and forth, until she was interrupted by the Stun Lancer's cranium exploding in an orange spray.

The German-accented voice of the team sniper crackled over the radio. "Target down! Who's the next one?"

Releasing the headless corpse and reflexively giving it a brief hiss, the Viper hurried over to the tall outcropping of rocks that Malcolm also occupied. They both paused to reload their rifles, then Natasatch gave the human a look of concern.

"Is your rifle malfunctioning, Malcolm?!" Natasatch asked, straining to project her inexperienced speech over the sounds of battle in the background.

"I don't think so!" He replied, matching her volume.

"Then why did your rifle shoot nowhere near the target?!"

"Uh… The sun was in my eyes?"

They both looked up, at the overcast grey sky, then back at each other, as Natasatch shot him an incredulous look. Malcolm, already fatigued from the fighting, grew flustered as well.

"Well, I don't think so," the alien commented.

Natasatch turned her attention back to the firefight, peeking her head out and examining the situation. She barely heard the Commander issue an order to the team's grenadier before the cover of two more enemies exploded, the Sectoid and Trooper reeling from the blast. Hearing the report of a rifle to her right, and most importantly seeing the tracer trails of the bullets whizzing over their opponent's heads, the viper already knew which human was taking the shots. She already expected Malcolm's sheepish expression even before she physically confirmed its presence.

"Okay, that was bad, but Nat, listen. Sometimes bad luck happens!"

Without even bothering to look back downrange, Natasatch fired her own weapon from the hip, the green beam cleanly severing the Sectoid's arm with a scream. She took a longer moment to line up a shot for the trooper, drilling him between the shoulders as he made a break to safety, releasing an annoyed hiss as she saw her enemy fall.

Malcolm gave a short grunt, and Natasatch tuned him out, focusing more on the enemy ahead than her inexperienced companion at her side.

One fact about her nature she could never deny was that Vipers were bred for war. From the tip of her powerful tail muscles to her long, prehensile tongue, Natasatch was an expertly-designed shock soldier, sending enemies scrambling for cover or coughing their lungs up as poison filled their systems. Rather than focus on her origins, XCOM sought to utilize her talents, sending Natasatch into the field only a week and a half after her induction. Alpha-Team's mission was surprisingly straightforward, but deceptively simple: destroy an ADVENT Communication Array hidden in a suburb, with only a few enemies in the way. Of course, being such an easy operation, something had to go wrong.

The Commander had hoped that being a Viper, ADVENT would at least hesitate before firing upon Natasatch, but as they discovered, the enemies relied solely on biochip IFFs to decide who needed shooting. As hers was removed, it stopped the ADVENT soldiers only as long as it needed to lead this faster enemy slightly more. The feeling was mutual, actually; she felt little reservation cutting down her former faction's soldiers, her new loyalty evident with the fluorescent teal sigil spraypainted on her Viper armor.

Still, Natasatch learned why the Commander was almost revered by his subordinates, as their flexible tactics allowed the XCOM operatives to scamper unhurt to cover and begin to turn the tables. The squad's greatest challenge came from the Stun Lancers ignoring the hardened soldiers in the front to strike the more vulnerable middle, but that obviously didn't succeed. The rest of the ADVENT forces fell in short order, and though the rebels weren't entirely unharmed, all of them were alive.

With the relay demolished with time to spare, the squad set about to check for any loot and aid or reassure any civilians caught up in the scuffle. Inexperienced in both activities, she sought out her nominal superior, finding Malcolm treating an XCOM operative sitting against a wall.

Despite the military rank, the young man seemed no different on duty than off it. He still wore his gray sweater, scarf, and goggles he improperly kept on his forehead, spoke in the same excitable voice, and apart from scanning his surroundings more often, he conducted himself in the same upbeat demeanor, even with bullets flying. Perhaps that was why he fared better as supporting soldier than a frontline combatant, like her. Natasatch only heard the tail end of the two humans' conversation as she approached.

Seeing Natasatch out of the corner of her eye, the wounded operative instinctively grabbed at her hip and leveled her service pistol at the alien, though she caught herself as the Viper flinched. She pulled down her skull-printed bandana, calling, "Oh, damn, sorry!"

She narrowed her eyes, but no harm, no dead birds, like how Malcolm explained. Speaking of her human, he finished the splint on the ankle of his injured compatriot, hefting the woman onto her feet in a support carry. He nodded to Natasatch, who shrugged (she really enjoyed that expression) in response, and the three of them started on their way back to the Skyranger.

"You know, you were actually pretty good out there," the human female spoke, prompting Natasatch to turn one of her red eyes to scrutinize her. "I'm Mercier. I'm sorry, I forgot your name."

"Natasatch," the Viper responded plainly.

"Natasatch. Glad you're on our side this time. You were a monster out there."

Her beige hood flexed slightly in indignation, but she supposed it must have been a compliment, if Mercier's choice in face apparel indicated anything. She preferred to err on the side of caution, at least with unknown humans.

"Better than Silva out there, at least," a german voice added, as the team sniper dropped from his vantage point to join the trek. "This one can actually aim!"

The young soldier scrunched his olive-skinned face, indignation evident, as the two other humans shared a guffaw between them. He complained, "It was an off-day for me. I'm never going to hear the end of this, am I?"

Both responded in perfect unison. "Nope."

Malcolm's brown eyes met Natasatch's red, and she witnessed the exact moment where the human decided she could save him. Her gave her some dangerously watery eyes, and asked sweetly, "Nat, back me up here. I'm normally a decent shot, right?"

His unlucky day wasn't over yet, as Natasatch chose to play with the quarry at her mercy. The Viper pulled back the corners of her mouth, and she bowed her head wickedly. Her eyes narrowed, and Malcolm knew she would not be merciful. "Yes. When the sun isn't in your eyes," Natasatch agreed.

The humans heard a series of rapid, shallow exhales as she turned back to the Skyranger ahead, realizing a few moments in this was her alien equivalent of laughing. Matheson and Mercier joined in, and even Malcolm couldn't help but crack a smile as they all stepped onto the ramp.