Andrea dropped out of the Skyranger, Grandpa had dropped out first, he was the scout guy after all. Raul and Psycho dropping out after him, and her bringing up the rear. There was a small group, a couple of fighters and a few civs huddled around a car just up ahead, fighting off some Sectoids and one of those Stun Lancers.
The Lancer was put down by the before they got into range, but not before it speared one of the civs. "I thought they were supposed to be non-lethal"
"Apparently they're switching things up" Psycho shouted as she ran up and shotgunned one of the Sectoids from point blank.
Andrea brought up her pistols and fired. "Fuck!" she shouted as she dropped her pistols and held her wrist. She'd expected a normal pistol, but it fired like a damn shotgun! A very small area'd shotgun, all the pellets hit it in the face and there wasn't much left, but holy fuck that recoil.
"You alright Andrea?" Raul looked at her for a second as he fired a burst to take out the other Sectoid.
"Yeah" Andrea replied, shaking her wrist, thankfully it didn't seem to be broken or anything. She laughed "I did not expect that. Buggers got some kick" She picked her pistols back up, switching the Shadowkeeper (Shen's idea and it sounded pretty cool) to her other hand to save her poor wrist.
She looked back up and ran to catch up to the rest of the group. Catching up with them as they reached a building. She heard the sounds of combat, and double-timed it to catch up. Psycho disappeared around the building, and Raul and Grandpa moved to get a view inside. She figured that there wasn't any time, a Stun Lancer inside would cause chaos, and ran up to the window. Popping off a quick shot into a Lancer she saw in there, her aim was true, and the Lancer dropped before it could poke the civ. Before she could find another target, she heard Raul shout out "All Clear, check on the civs, then we move on"
Andrea saw a young woman a few feet to her left, curled up with wide eyes and just a look of sheer panic on her face. She holstered her pistols and slowly approached "Hey, are you alright. Are you injured? I'm Andrea, We're here to help you" She put a hand on her shoulder and the woman stopped shaking, the woman looked up at her... And smiled.
Andrea felt a sudden sense of nausea, she leaned backwards a bit, shaking her head and putting a hand over her face as she felt her eyes heat up. "Ugh, the hell-" she opened her eyes to see the woman had changed. Now standing in front of her was a massive creature, over twice her height, at least 11 or 12 feet tall, it's skin a disgusting orangy-peach color, and looked to have rolls of fat covering it's surface, it's skin seemed to flow as it stood there. Huge arms reached down past it's knees and ended in long talons that must have been a foot long each. One of the arms reared back to swing, and she reacted on instinct. Throwing herself towards the creature to make her harder to hit. She avoided most of the blow, the huge arms more accustomed to swinging over range to hit opponents at arms reach, not to hit someone right next to them. But she wasn't quite fast enough to avoid the hit completely, and one of the claws sliced her side. The talon cutting straight through the Kevlar of her armor, and cutting into her skin. She fell backwards as it hit, grabbing for one of her pistols as the other hand went to cover the wound.
The sound of gunfire almost deafened her as Raul, Grandpa, Psycho, and the resistance fighters all unloaded into it. She saw the bullets hitting it, one of its huge arms moving to cover its faces as the bullets struck it. Clearly, they were causing some damage, but it looked like a shoot a bag of custard, the bullets just, plopping into it with very little blood, and many of the holes sealing over as soon as the bullet passed through. She brought up her pistol to add to the fire, firing Shadowkeeper into its face from the low angle. Causing the creature to rear back and expose its face for a moment, and the hail of bullets finally cause it to collapse, Andrea having to roll out of the way as the creature's corpse took out a section of the wall next to her by falling on it.
She pushed herself to her feet, and walked over to it, firing a few shots into the back of its head with Shadowkeeper to make sure it was dead.
"Andrea, are you hit?" Raul put a hand on her shoulder and pulled her back from the body.
She looked down at her side, seeing her side drenched in blood and suddenly feeling woozy. She dropped on her ass onto the creature "Uh, yeah, ow"
Raul looked at the other two "There's more fighting, go and help the fighters, We'll catch up with you" Grandpa nodded and ran off, followed closely by Psycho.
"I really hope it didn't have any poison"
"The Faceless do not carry any natural poison or venom that we know of" the voice of Dr. Tygan came over the coms
"Why wasn't i told about these things?" Andrea asked as Raul helped her take off her armor so he could get at the wound properly. She made sure to not look at the wound, it tended to make it hurt more for some reason.
"We were, you just don't read the field reports" Raul replied as he brought out his field medical kit.
"Yeah, I've been meaning to get to those" she winced as he began wrapping up her wounds "Guess I'll have time to read them when I'm stuck in the med bay"
Darius ran after the sounds of combat, Psycho close behind him. The sounds of combat stopped. That was either really good or really bad. He sped up in case it was the latter.
Rounding a corner with his rifle at the ready, he expected to see one of two things: Resistance fighters, exhausted but victorious over some aliens, or some aliens getting ready to move on to the next of the Haven. But what he saw he hadn't seen in his 20 years of fighting the Aliens.
A lone figure, a woman, sitting next to some dead aliens, calmly loading shells into a shotgun. The left side of her face scarred from burns, plasma burns from Darius's quite extensive experience. Her hair unkempt, cut only by some kind of knife. Her armor and weapons were well cared for though. Clearly, someone who knows what she's doing.
He kept hold of his rifle, but lowered it, and held a hand up to Psycho to get her to do the same, and approached the woman.
"Hello. I'm Darius Green, we came here to kill these aliens, but apparently, you beat us to it"
"No need to be so formal," The woman said, her accent clearly American, though very slight, someone who hasn't been in America for a long time. She spoke completely monotone, not a hint of emotion in it. "You guys XCOM right?" She set her shotgun down on the wall she was sitting on and hopped off of it. She was a shorter woman, but extremely well muscled, and held herself like someone who knew how to fight and was used to it.
"We are. Who are you?"
"I'm Aya. Aya Haidar. I worked for XCOM back in the day. Heard XCOM was back, heard the haven was under attack, and I figured you guys would show up"
"One second," Darius put his finger to his ear, activating the Com bead in it "Bradford, could you get the Commander?"
The Commander stepped down into the control room. "What's up"
"Darius said there's someone claiming to be Aya Haidar"
The Commander pushed Bradford out of the way and grabbed the headset
"This is the Commander" he looked at the body cam, seeing the figure before them, the quality wasn't great. He could tell the figure was female, had black hair, and wore red-colored armor, similar to the Reapers's. The figure was shorter than Darius, but he couldn't tell exact height from here. It could be Aya, but the eyes stood out. Aya had green eyes. This person had, what looked like Orange eyes. "Could you get a bit closer Darius, I can't tell"
The bodycam moved forwards, the figure coming more into view.
"I.. These bodycams are shit. I'm coming down. Just get her to keep her weapons down and wait for me" he got out of the chair, and headed down, heading to the Avenger, which had returned after dropping them off (waiting around where aliens were attacking was just asking to get shot at, and they couldn't afford to constantly fix it).
He clicked his com over to Firebrand. "Perp the Avenger, I'm heading to Humanity Springs"
"Sir? Is something the matter"
"I'm not sure, just be ready to drop me off"
It could be a trap. It could very easily be the trap. But the figure looked similar enough to Aya, and he would risk it to get her back on the team. And if the Alienx though they could get him with this.. well, they'd be in for a surprise.
Aya sat on the wall, "The Commander's coming down himself, is he? Unexpected"
"Who did you say you were?" Raul asked, having caught up to them only a couple minutes ago.
"Aya. Codename Psycho back in the day"
"I'm Psycho!"
"I'll need a new codename then"
"Why are you talking like that?" Psycho asked
"Because this is how I talk. I can change it if it makes you more comfortable" saying this, her voice turned to normal, the regular infections and emotions.
"I don't know what to make of you," Andrea said, wincing as she twisted her torso and pulled at her wound.
"I am psychopath. Literally. Clinically diagnosed. And why are you wincing?"
"Got stabbed, but Raul took care of it"
"I could take a look at it for you if you wanted?"
"No thanks, I'm fine, and I don't really trust you"
"Fair enough" she moved a little on the wall, getting comfortable. "So, who are you guys?"
"You still haven't told us how you know who we are," Darius said
"Fair enough. I was an operative for XCOM 20 years ago. I managed to escape the destruction of the main base thanks to Maxim. I've spent the past 20 years surviving and messing with ADVENT where I could. A couple weeks ago, I ran into a group of you guys getting out of a Lost-infested city, I noticed the logo, realized XCOM was back, and I've been looking for a chance to get in contact with you guys again. Saw this place under attack, and figured you guys would show up to help"
"What's with your eyes?" Psycho asked
"You can't just ask someone what's with their eyes" Andrea laughed
"I'm not sure. They were green before, but have been going Orange over the last 20 years"
"That doesn't seem, healthy" Darius replied, looking concerned
She shrugged "Haven't felt anything else, just the eyes, and it was very gradual"
"Any idea what the hell made your eyes go orange!?" Raul asked
She seemed to think for a minute "Only thing I can think of is the Muton"
"What? Did one hit you in the face and turn your eye orange?" Darius questioned
"No, I think it's something to do with the meat"
"Meat!?" Andrea took a step back
"Muton meat. It's better than ADVENT Burgers"
"Ew" Psycho replied
"It's surprisingly good once you know how to prepare it"
They were saved from having to think of a reply for this, by the Commander jogging up. Aya remembered him well, and she hopped off the wall, leaving her weapons where she set them down and approaching him.
"Hey Commander, I'm back"
"What happened to your eyes"
"15 years of eating Muton meat I believe"
"How are... How did you get out of the base? I thought everyone in there either died or got capture"
"3 of us got out. I was with Maxim, and he unleashed some kind of Psionic power and teleported us away"
"Who was the third?"
"I don't know if he got away completely, but I saw Harold take some of those stims and start plowing his way out. He seemed to be making it, but I didn't see if he made it"
"Where's Maxim?"
"After the teleporting, he went unconscious, stayed in some kind of coma for a long time. After about, 8 years or so, the Templar's, who was just getting started at the time, showed up and took him in. They were in a much better position to deal with him, so I left him with them"
"Have you heard anything from Vahlen or Harold"
"No. I've been spending these years surviving, helping the Resistance where I could, and stockpiling stuff in case I found you guys again. I've got a base I can lead you to. Plenty of weapons, ammunition, armor, and just about everything else in there"
"It's great to have you back Aya"
"It's good to be back Commander" she walked back over to the wall and picked up her shotgun, before following the Commander back to the Skyranger. The rest of the Operatives following behind.
"I figured they'd hug or something, 20 years apart and they just stood there" Andrea whispered to Raul
"Aya's not the hugging type" The Commander called behind him "Going for a hug wit Aya is a good way to get punched"
Andrea looked shocked "How good are his fucking ears!?" she whispered to Raul again
"Better than you know"
"You've got an earpiece in" Raul replied
"Oh, yeah. I feel stupid"
"Let's just get you to Tygan. You're looking a touch pale"
She nodded "Yeah, probably a good idea"
Dr. Tygan looked at the screen "It appears that some parts of her DNA have been altered. The only thing that could conceivably have cause it was her ingestion of ADVENT meat"
"Any potential complications Doctor?" The Commander asked
"Unlikely. She's been doing this for a long time, any adverse effects should have appeared by now. In fact, the effects seem to only be positive that I can tell. Aside from the eyes changing color, her aging seems to be slowed, despite being 48, she's got the body of someone in their late 30's. Though I still wouldn't recommend continuing this diet until I can research it further"
The Commander shook his head with a smile "That's the main difference between you and Vahlen, Doctor. Vahlen would have immediately prescribed aya to eat even more of it to see what happens"
"And that is why I seriously doubt the authenticity of this Doctor of yours"
"Aya's good to go though right? No problems with her combat performance of note?"
"Not that I can detect, and she claims to have been fighting during the last 20 years anyway. I'd recommend giving it some time before sending her on a mission, so the other soldiers can get used to her nature, she can get used to them, and she can work on her diet, though she has done well, she's a touch undernourished"
"Good point Doctor, I'll keep that in mind"
Tania sat in the back of the truck. Her hockey mask on the top of her head, across from her sat Lancer. He was actually called Hunter, but everyone calls him Lance after a few encounters with the Stun Lancers. He was a very young man, the youngest Soldier in XCOM actually, bald, but not naturally so, he shaves his head, and his skin was heavily tanned from a lot of time outdoors
They had returned to the Avenger only a few days ago, with information about the facility Mox was being held in, and the Commander was sending a group to rescue him. But, after being back at the Avenger for 2 days, just enough time to get rested up, and then they were sent out on another Covert Operation. It could be a lot worse. Lance was a pretty nice kid, and he wasn't exactly hard on the eyes either. They were heading out now to meet up with the group that calls themselves the Templars. A psionics group. Apparently pretty intense. Crossing the ocean in a small plane, piloted by one of the Templars, one of the newer ones apparently, they said they'd just joined and hadn't begun their psionics training yet.
She didn't know if their contact was male or female, they kept themselves completely covered, and hadn't offered a name.
"Who are these Templar guys?" Lance asked
"Some kind of psionics group. Commander said they're quite intense about it. So try not to piss anyone off too much"
He smiled "I can be cordial, but I'm not going to be taking any shit"
"Well, let's hope they respect that, and don't just stab you"
He smiled "I'm quite used to being stabbed"
She laughed, she'd seen his chest and the network of scars from all his run-ins with the Stun Lancers.
"Generally people try to avoid being stabbed you know"
"But where's the fun in that?"
She shook her head "You're an idiot"
"And that's why you love me"
"I will punch you"
Lance laughed as the plane continued them on their way.
Thank you guys for sticking with this as far as you have. As you may have picked up, but I just wanted to mention to be sure people don't get confused. Each different perspective has a couple of differences, just in how they describe and notice people, Raul obviously being a bit more logical and descriptive of people as he takes more things in from his training, whereas others pay less attention to the tiny details. I hope it's not too disorientating, but it's how I feel these characters would be describing other people. Hope you enjoyed, and I'll see you next time.