And just like that, I have begun an XCOM 2 playthrough novelization, even with everything else that's demanding my attention.
I'll be combining multiple aspects of different mods or expansions into the story, with the Resistance Weapons mod, Enemy Unknown's individual production system for armor and weapons, War of the Chosen, Tactical Legacy Pack content, and more.
Also, note that this story is kind of an ensemble cast situation, so there's not really a singular protagonist in the story, and instead, the POV switches from soldier-to-soldier. And if you want pictures of my troops, I posted a bunch of them onto Reddit.
Oh, and the cover art's a placeholder, and I'll have a proper artwork up soon.
PS: If you wanna see Alien/Human shipping, this is NOT the place to look, because I firmly believe that XCOM is a game about killing Ayylmaos, not lewding them. That being said, there's plenty of cute human waifus both among the canon characters and the OCs.
Approaching ADVENT Monument
Novgorod City Center, Sector 15 (Russia)
February, 2035
It had been 20 years since the Earth had fallen to an extraterrestrial threat.
Spanning from March 1 to April 23, 2015, the initial invasion was swift, brutal, and utterly thorough, reducing Earth's collective military might to ash over the course of a month and forcing the governments to unconditionally surrender to save their peoples, allowing the alien occupation to commence in full. However, that wasn't the end of the invaders' troubles, as one organization still stood in its way: the multinational Extraterrestrial Combat Unit, otherwise known as XCOM.
Formed by an international council of governments East and West in 1993 and staffed by the greatest minds and best-trained soldiers on Earth, the project's intention was clear-cut and simple: in the event of a hostile incursion by extraterrestrial forces, its job was to hamper their invasion as much as possible, reverse engineer their tech to turn the tables against the aliens, and ultimately kick them off the planet.
So naturally, they were on the frontlines of the war with the aliens.
However, the project would suffer two major blows that ultimately crippled it.
First of the two, was the Council's surrender following the Terror attacks on all its major cities and the militaries' cripplings, which cut off XCOM's flow of much-needed funds and resources entirely. However, they could still effectively fight the aliens even if it was more difficult to do so, and they got around the issues by scavenging from the aliens directly.
The second one, though, was a full-scale attack on XCOM's headquarters, and it utterly destroyed the organization, ruining any chance humanity had of freeing itself.
And two years later, the aliens created the ADVENT Administration: a supposedly benevolent coalition government between humanity and the aliens' leaders, their so-called "Elders," also nicknamed Ethereals by XCOM forces during the base assault where they appeared personally. It was responsible for dissolving the Earth's nations and creating massive "city centers" in their place, with the city centers being filled to the brim with highly advanced technologies as well as "gene therapy" clinics which could completely remove even the most resilient of diseases.
On the surface, that seemed rather benevolent for a group that had just previously slaughtered five billion or more people, but in reality, if you looked behind their very effective propoganda campaign, ADVENT was nothing more than a brutal dictatorship that commonly razed independent settlements to the ground simply for daring to live outside of their precious city centers, which were under extremely heavy surveillance and ungodly amounts of security even on the best of days, and there was plenty of evidence that the gene therapy clinics were fronts for an abduction operation of sorts.
But, despite how hard they tried, ADVENT couldn't squash every bit of resistance against their regime, and there were hundreds of different resistance cells and factions operating outside of the city centers, harrassing ADVENT whenever possible and helping anyone outside of the city centers survive in the harsh world they lived in.
Unfortunately, they were disorganized and isolated, unable to coordinate a proper revolution to overthrow ADVENT without a leader to guide them to victory, and the three factions strong enough to do the job all hated each other.
However, late at night on the eve of Unification Day, things would change for the better, and the revolution would truly begin.
Rk. Sophia Autumn
"Excitement continues to build, as city centers across the globe prepare for the 20th anniversary of Unification Day!"
"Thousands of citizens gather at the site of the Great Accord, celebrating the formation of the ADVENT Coalition."
"In keeping with their promise to humanity, twelve new gene therapy clinics will be opened by the end of the new year."
"Despite the attacks by fringe elements, operations at the new facility in Paris thankfully remain unaffected..."
Just by hearing these broadcasts blaring even from inside the mostly-soundproof interior of the Skyranger VTOL aircraft, the small team within its troop compartment knew they'd made it into the Novgorod city center, around what ADVENT called Sector 15 and what humankind knew as Russia.
Of course, if they just wanted to live here, they could just approach an ADVENT installation and request sanctuary, but they were here for anything but that, and typically, the last thing people who illegally infiltrate city centers armed to the teeth with formidable weapons with the intention of sending a message via targeted guerilla strike want is to try to get in through legal means that would undoubtedly lead to their arrest— especially if they're considered political opponents or undesirables.
And at this point of time, anyone who had anything to do with XCOM such as them was Undesirable #1.
"Listen up, Menace 1-5. The aliens need to know that we're serious, that we're ready to infiltrate their city centers and strike at their heart. To that effect, we're moving to take out a high-profile target that will get a lot of people's attention, especially ADVENT. Move to lock down the area and eliminate any security forces in the AO, then plant X4 charges onto the target. Firebrand will be on standby for extraction once you plant the charges, but don't take too long, we don't know how long it'll take for ADVENT to realize what we're up to." the gravelly voice of their commanding officer informed over the comms, and as a wave of affirmatives filled the interior of the Skyranger in response, a woman of 39 years decided to mull over the mission she was on, then appraise the people around her.
Operation Gatecrasher, as their mission was called, was a multi-phase operation that was to be orchestrated by an eight-man group lead by former XCOM soldiers with the ultimate goal of securing a "package" of sorts from Novgorod's primary gene therapy clinic as well as showing ADVENT that they were done running from them. The first phase was where her team, Menace 1-5, attacked the troops defending a well-known ADVENT monument and destroying it to draw the enemy's attention away from the gene therapy clinic. Afterwards, team two, Crasher 1-4, would infiltrate the clinic and secure the package before ADVENT realized they'd been played and reacted accordingly.
And with the plan out of the way, it was time to take note of her fellow Resistance operatives.
The first one, her team's leader, was a Russian woman of 45 years of age, with blonde hair pulled into a ponytail and piercing blue eyes that were narrowed in discontent, her face's sharp features evident even in the dim light of the Skyranger. Her lithe frame was clad in an EMR-patterned uniform with a specially-designed Kevlar vest over it, a sniper's netted cowl attached to the shoulders and collar of her armor and wrapped around her sleeves, the left one rolled up to reveal her forearm (with the right one bearing forearm plating) and squareish shoulder pauldrons strapped to them. She also had camoflagued trousers with black shin padding and matching boots underneath them, with a holster containing a large revolver and spare ammo on the right thigh, and black gloves covered her hands as they ran along the surface of a scoped SV-98 rifle attached to a sling.
This was Captain Olga "Stalker" Voryoroba, a former Spetsnaz sniper and a veteran of the old XCOM.
The second one was a 39-year-old Japanese woman with a somewhat ruddy complexion, her dark eyes thinner-looking than Stalker's and her black hair cut short, a red combat helmet held in her tipless-gloved hands as she looked at her reflection in its attached visor, her round face scrunched up in annoyance and making her small nose stand out. She wore red and black armor with a carbon-fiber pattern, unlike Stalker's camoflagued suit, with a chest rig attached to the Kevlar plate and additional plating on her forearms and shoulders, and her trousers and boots were the same as Stalker's. An oversized machete sat on her back, and a KSG with a choke was in her lap while a custom M1911 rode on her thigh.
This was Captain Harumi "Dice" Suzuki, an ex-JGSDF soldier and a former XCOM Assault trooper.
The third one was a German man in his twenties, with short, dark hair covered by the same type of combat helmet Dice had and sad blue eyes with a long face and a lanky frame. He wore Flecktarn-patterned fatigues with a plate carrier over his Kevlar vest, as well as similar arm/legwear as Stalker, and a G36 sat next to him, barrel up.
This was Rookie Markus Hopps, a former blue-collar office worker from the city centers who wound up here about a week ago after he was successfully converted by the anti-ADVENT Resistance.
And finally, there was herself.
She had silky red hair pulled into a semi-loose bun with warm, bright grey eyes covered by aviator glasses and a heart-shaped face with full lips and a slender frame— and although the effects of her aging had started to take hold, it did nothing to detract from her looks. She wore OCP-patterned fatigues with Kevlar armor adorned with a chest rig containing magazine pouches, the same sleeve plating and gloves as Dice, and the 2015-model ACU trousers with grey kneepads, ammo pouches and a holster on the thighs, and a pair of black boots, a kitted-out M4A1 in her hands with the safety on and an M9 in that holster.
She was Rookie Sophia Autumn, and she was a former soldier of the United States Army, who like Hopps was rather new to this group but unlike him had always opposed the aliens.
There were two others here as well, Ana Ramirez (a Mexican woman with wavy brown hair and a green uniform) and Peter Osei (a Nigerian man who was bald with a tan one,) but they weren't paying her any mind and were part of Crasher team alongside Jane Kelly and their CO John Bradford (both were already deployed in civilian disguises in preparation for the op,) so she didn't bother to pay them any mind.
"...in response to the unprovoked attack on the eve of our most beloved celebration, the Speaker reaches out to us." she heard the ADVENT newscaster say as Hopps looked through a map of the AO (with the broadcast signal being caught as he tried to monitor enemy comms,) and a moment later, a new voice was heard.
"A small number of dissidents again repeat the mistakes of the old world, striking as we celebrate a benevolent savior who time and again has only shown us friendship and compassion!" ADVENT's Speaker declared in a smooth, almost snakelike voice that wouldn't be out of place for an anime's smooth-talking villian, and the redhead had half a mind to mention the invasion.
"Yeah, right." she heard Dice mutter irritably under her breath. "Fucking Thin Man..."
"Yet these trivial actions could never break the bond between humanity... and the Elders..."
Then there was that bullshit: that the Elders who led the invasion and personally authorized the wanton devestation of human civilization were revered as gods by them now, simply because they blamed it on "the corrupt old world governments" which "attacked them first out of aggression and wasted billions of lives." It was utterly disgusting, and Sophia couldn't help but feel immensely disappointed in humanity for forgetting what the aliens did to them so easily.
"Das ist also unser Ziel..." Hopps then mused in German as he tapped on something on his datapad, prompting Stalker to click her tongue, then lean forward to address him.
"Speak English, Hopps." she ordered, her voice a low, dangerous tone that prompted the German to comply, not wanting to invoke the woman's wrath.
"I have located our objective here, in this park." he explained, turning his datapad around and pointing at an ADVENT Monument in the AO. "There appears to be about six ADVENT soldaten guarding it, but there's a large group of about 30 men at the nearby gene therapy clinic, so once we engage the soldaten guarding the monument, we can expect to be overwhelmed very quickly."
"Isn't that the point?" Ramirez asked dryly from her seat, speaking for the first time in a bit. "You guys blow up the statue and draw those soldiers away from the gene clinic, then me and Osei go in and clear out what's left so Central and Kelly can grab the package from it."
"Don't worry, we've got this Hopps." Sophia assured the man, her voice soft and melodic as she patted his shoulder. "Just do what Captain Voryoroba tells you and you'll make it out of here alive."
Before she could say anything else, the dim lights inside the Skyranger turned red, and the ramp began to lower, exposing them to the chilly night-time air as the feminine voice of their pilot shouted at them through the speakers.
"We're here, Menace, go go go!"
Getting up in unison with her teammates as they grabbed their weapons, Sophia quickly looked down at her belt to see a red and white Medikit (a device capable of spraying mists capable of closing most wounds and numbing pain) on it, then held her arm up to shield her face from the wind rushing into the troop compartment, looking to her right go see Dice pull her helmet on, its integral hearing protection/comms headset framing her face as she checked her shotgun's ammunition count and moved towards the ramp as it fully lowered and four fast ropes automatically descended to the ground from sealed compartments in the ceiling of the VTOL craft.
Stalker and Hopps moved forth next as Dice grabbed a rope and jumped to the ground, swinging forward a bit from her momentum as her boots hit the pavement below. Walking forwards, Sophia grabbed ahold of her rope alongside Hopps, only for Stalker to stop them in their tracks.
"Don't fuck this up." was all she said before she grabbed ahold of her rope and slid down to the ground, her rifle's long barrel scraping against the ground.
Watching as Hopps descended next, the redhead closed her eyes and took a deep breath before she backed up, then started to sprint towards the exit— jumping and grabbing her rope on her way out.
"Good luck out there, Menace!" she heard Osei yell faintly as she started to drop.
Although it was hard to get any detail out of the environment while she was rapidly dsscending down the rope, she could easily tell how unnaturally clean everything in the city center looked, the tall buildings and flashing lights a constant everywhere she looked, to the point where she could barely see the night sky.
Then at last, her feet hit the ground, and as she let go of the rope and pulled her rifle up, she could easily see just how false and toylike everything looked, as if it was merely an old-world nuclear weapons testing site instead of an alien-built megacity. Then again, the aliens were probably planning on wiping out the city centers once they were done milking humanity for all it was worth, anyways.
But in any case, it was a relatively straight shot to the monument, the four-armed, robed figure a solid gold color and standing rather tall. Of course, there were plenty of futuristic-looking cars, newscasting terminals, lampposts, and black, seven-foot-tall pillars on the path leading to the statue, so they'd have plenty of places to hide from the enemy while they made their way to the target, but there weren't tall buildings they had to navigate around or anything like that.
There were a sparse few civilians here too, but given how effective ADVENT's propoganda was, they were probably going to report their team to the nearest ADVENT patrol as soon as they saw them as opposed to help them,nso it was better that they stayed out of their sight.
"Dice, take Autumn and Hopps with you to the target, I'll cover you from up there." Stalker ordered them, indicating the roof of a grey two-storey building about fifty feet behind them before she started to make her way towards it.
"Understood, ma'am." the Japanese woman replied before motioning for the others to follow her. "Stay low, only move when I tell you to."
Wasting no time to hear their affirmatives or see them crouch low, she immediately started to advance, darting between a pair of cars, vaulting over another's hood, and landing behind a white newscasting terminal tall enough to cover her whole body and wide enough to hide two people simultaneously, the move putting her a good twenty-six feet away from the others yet somehow not drawing the attention of any civilians.
"Hopps, you're up, don't get too close to me." she instructed over the comms, and the German began to move ahead as well.
Being sure to follow instructions, he went a little bit to the left, avoiding the path his superior took and instead went towards an orange, T-shaped, three-wheeled automobile on the street a little bit ahead of Dice's position, but far enough that they wouldn't get caught in any grenades. Soon, he crouched down beneath it and popped off a thumbs-up.
"Autumn, your turn."
Getting back to her feet, the redheaded woman looked to either side of her to gauge the civilians' positions, then decided to go between the two other troopers, going past the same cars Dice did, then stopping at another parked car on the same street, this one a little more traditional in design and colored black with lightbars on the roof and a strange, red colored cross symbol with angular, bent "arms" supplementing the traditional ones.
This was ADVENT's logo, which was apparently meant to resemble the Elders.
"Didn't know ADVENT used police cars." she muttered to herself as she peeked through the window of the car towards the statue, still seeing no enemy soldiers but seeing a young couple near the statue itself, taking a selfie. "Thought it was just troop transports and box cars to cart the dissidents off to mass graves."
That was when a loud explosion resounded through the air from roughly two hundred feet away, followed by the unmistakable cries of a panicking crowd and the civilians onsite beginning to murmur about it— one lady in particular hurriedly running behind the statue for some reason. Concerned about the explosion, Sophia put her hand to the earpiece she was wearing and pressed on it.
"Captain, what was that?" she asked questioningly, trying to locate the source of the explosion.
"Crasher team's doing." the sniper replied calmly. "Proceed as planned, I've got you covered."
"Understood, Autumn out."
Letting go of the comms device, she looked back to Dice as she began to move again, her red-armored frame a bit too eye-catching for her liking as she crossed the street ahead of her and scrambled to get behind a lamp-post, holding her hand up to stop the others from moving and reporting the reason why.
"That stupid bitch called some ADVENT Troopers over here, about thirty meters away from my current position." she warned, her voice and grip tense.
"Stay out of their sight and get into position for an ambush." Stalker ordered calmly. "Do not open fire until I give the signal."
Complying, she began to move carefully towards the news terminal Dice had hidden behind, taking note of the far-off dark sillhouettes moving towards them as she reached the terminal, crouched behind it, and poked her rifle out to take aim at the one on the right, her eyes taking careful note of their boxy-looking body armor, large rifles, and face-concealing helmets, with only their mouths showing at all.
"I'm in position and ready to fire on your order." Hopps reported from behind that weird car he was behind, aiming at a Trooper who was talking with the civilian in the Elders' weird-sounding language.
"Same here, ready to fire on your order." the redhead replied, her ACOG's reticle firmly planted at her target's head and her finger on the trigger.
"Ready to take the shot." Dice reported, poking her shotgun out at the leading Trooper, his dark, boxy armor glinting under the streetlights as they got nearer and nearer.
One second passed.
Then two seconds passed.
And it was on the third one that the order was given.
"Fire."
The ADVENT Trooper never even saw it coming, and he paid for it with a concentrated burst of 5.56x45 to the head, punching through the material of his helmet and penetrating his brain while spraying orangeish blood from the wounds.
As he hit the ground, the civilians immediately began to scream panickedly and disperse, trying to find whatever cover they could as the ADVENT Troopers were cut down, Dice's shotgun in particular blowing an impressive hole through her target's abdomen and sending him flying about four feet away from where he was standing.
Hopps' shots, while they did hit their intended target, weren't enough to kill him, and in a mad dash to reach a piece of better cover, the wounded ADVENT Trooper raised his gun to pop off some suppressive fire at the general position of the attackers— only for a high-powered sniper round to blow a hole through his chest and finish him off.
Three of six hostiles down, with only about sixty feet between them and the target. That was very good, because ADVENT fielded magnetically-accelerated railgun-like weapons that rendered their Kevlar as useful as cardboard and if they'd missed their shots, someone was probably going to go home in a body bag.
"Target disabled."
"Who's keeping score?!"
"Hostile contact eliminated. Now that they know we're here, you need to move fast and get those charges planted before reinforcements arrive." Stalker told them from over the comms as her kill hit the ground like his buddies.
"Copy that." Dice replied, immediately getting up to make a mad dash towards the statue. "Everyone on me!"
Following suit, Sophia slipped out of her cover and began to sprint towards the objective, her armor surprisingly light compared to her old SPCS vest and allowing her to move much quicker than she used to as she crossed the street into the park and ran past the enemy bodies to reach her fellow soldier.
Remembering to avoid sticking too close to Dice or Hopps, she soon slid behind a bench next to a rather large light, unintentionally scaring a guy away and causing him to run off. Shaking her head, Sophia watched as her teammates carefully pushed past her, darting between numerous different pieces of cover and providing overwatch for the other as they moved out, scaring off more civilians in the process.
"Dumbasses, running away from the people trying to save you." Dice remarked as she crouched behind a black pillar and saw a perfect place to put the X4 charge onto the statue, which was stood upon a multi-layered stand in monochrome colors.
"Many of the people here either weren't even born or were very young when ADVENT came to power, so I would imagine that they would have been very easy to manipulate— even moreso than others." Hopps remarked sadly, hidden behind a bench (not very good cover, by the way.)
"That's gonna change pretty damn soon, Hopps." Sophia told him simply, before she started to dash towards the other black pillar, making sure to keep her eyes on her surroundings as she made her way into the park and took cover behing her desired cover with a thump as her body hit the tough material.
"Donut!" it sounded like someone yelled in a garbled sort of voice, and when she looked up, she was greeted with some more ADVENT forces coming from behind the statue, a squad of three lead by a soldier with red and black ornamental armor with a half-cape on his left shoulder and a helmet with what looked to be a pillar on its front, a white strip of light going down it as the lights pointing at the statue caught on them to illuminate their intimidating auras.
Unfortunately, before anyone could get any accurate shots off, these guys immediately ran for the nearest cover, expertly dodging both Hopps' quick reaction fire and Stalker's shot as the bullets flew harmlessly past them and crouching behind a large, raised plantbed, the statue itself, and a white pillar on the west side of the statue.
"Verdammt! Ziel anpassen!"
"Damn it, shot failed to connect!"
That was not what she was hoping to hear, and almost immediately, she heard a low hum, followed by a volley of extremely fast-moving slugs hitting her cover or lancing past it, their reddish glow illuminating her features as they flew by.
Peeking out of cover, she brought her weapon up towards the Trooper beind the flowerbed and fired, the rifle kicking against her shoulder as the rounds impacted the flowerbed or flew harmlessly past him.
"Missed the target!" she reported as she took a few more shots at the Trooper and managed to land one— but like Hopps, it wasn't fatal, and the ADVENT enforcer wasted no time in returning fire, forcing her to duck back into cover as more slugs punctured her old position.
Dice, on the other hand, saw a golden opportunity to net herself a kill, and after firing off a shotgun blast towards the Officer behind the right-side corner of the statue, she burst out of cover, dodged the other Trooper's shots when he noticed her, and when she reached her target, drew her oversized blade and swung down.
Sophia knew she scored the kill simply by the very loud scream the Trooper let out as the blade sliced through his flesh, followed by the thump of his body hitting the floor and a sheathed blade.
As for Hopps, though...
"Nein, so leicht wirst du mich nicht nehmen!"
Looking back at Hopps, she saw a few holes in his Kevlar, blood leaking through one of them as he panickedly returned fire at the second Trooper— and landed almost every shot of the six-round-burst he fired, thoroughly silencing the enemy soldier and splattering orange blood everywhere.
"Hah, take that, ADVENT!" he taunted breathlessly soon after, hunkering down to get out of the Officer's line of sight.
With two Troopers dead, that only left the Officer still standing, and that bastard was hunkered down behind the statue, and probably calling for backup.
"Dice, use your grenade to flush him out, then I'll finish him off." Stalker ordered calmly, as if she already knew that, and almost immediately, the red-armored soldier pulled her grenade and primed it, running around the statue's left side and throwing her explosive payload at it.
The Officer didn't even get any time to get out of the blast radius as the grenade violently detonated.
As the smoke from the explosion consumed that little part of the statue's stand and obscured her vision, any hopes about the grenade insta-killing the Officer were crushed as a red-and-black figure was sent flying out of it from the west side, landing a few feet away from the statue and dropping his weapon. He of course, tried to get back up, but Stalker was waiting for him to be exposed, and Dice had just given it to her.
"Do not sling that co— AARGH!" the Officer seemingly shouted before a 7.62x54R bullet was sent through his torso, his body falling to the ground instantly as orange blood spilled from the wounds caused by the XCOM veterans' weapons.
"Nailed him." the Russian sniper then quipped, and Sophia could hear the smirk she must've had.
"Yeah, yeah. Anyways, tell Central we put those suckers into the ground and are about to plamt the X4." Sophia commented with a little smile on her face as she approached the statue and withdrew a plastic explosive shielded by a, well, shield-shaped case with a blasting cap and an input pad built into it from her waist-mounted bag and approached the statue.
"Be advised, Firebrand's on standby for exfil, but you need to wrap it up down there, people, she still has to exfiltrate Crasher 1-4."
Carefully removing the cover over the bottom of the charge, she gently pushed the explosive charge onto the base of the statue and flipped the switch on the input pad, before inputting the number 3115 into it— 3/1/15 being the date of first contact with the aliens.
"And... done!" she murmured as the red light turned green and the explosive armed itself. Getting up, she quickly turned around to a crouched, injured Hopps and started to approach him, pulling the Medikit off of her belt and lowering himself in front of him.
"Hey, can I see that?" she asked softly, making sure she wouldn't startle the guy. He probably had enough to deal with after taking a mag slug to the chest.
Wincing in pain, the German nodded hastily, and the redhead's dexterous hands immediately got to work on removing the plate carrier from his torso, undoing the buckles and causing the armor to go slack, allowing her to pull it off.
Miraculously, the plate actually stopped most of the hits taken, with one hole going through the vest entirely and straight through its wearer, blood staining his Kevlar and uniform under it. Grabbing its straps and pulling that off as well, she was treated with the sight of a very clean hole through his upper chest that was burnt around the edges and barely bleeding, as if the wound was cauterized.
Then again, mag slugs got quite hot when they were fired, and it wasn't unbelievable that the one that hit Hopps could have cauterized the injury, but if they did that, then they undoubtedly came with the side effect of cooking whatever was in the immediate vicinity of the impact zone.
There was a reason this group had to bury so many people over the years.
Acting quickly, she raised the Medikit and immediately pulled the trigger, releasing a blueish mist that quickly soaked into Hopps' skin and started to foam up around the gunshot wound, closing it temporarily and seemingly help to ease the pain.
"I'm no doctor, but that should hold until we get you to Tygan." she then told him, helping him get his gear back on and turning to Dice. "What the hell are you doing?"
"Leaving a little message for them to find." she replied sincerely, her fingertip tainted with the blood of an ADVENT soldier she was crouched next to.
"We don't have time to dawdle, Dice!" Stalker urged. "Get out of there so we can blow the charges!"
Standing up and wiping her finger off, the Japanese soldier soon withdrew a blue flare, lit it, and chucked it at the ground a short distance away from them, causing it to soon burst open and disperse smaller flares in a near-perfect square and bathing the three soldiers in a blueish light.
And soon, the Skyranger returned to pick them up, casting its spotlight onto the flare marker as it dropped ropes down for them. Helping Hopps to his feet, Sophia began to carefully walk towards the ropes, entering the light as she grabbed ahold of one and wrapped an arm around Hopps so he didn't have to move around and hurt himself.
Then she started to ascend, Novgorod's skyline becoming lower and lower until she was greeted with the interior of the Skyranger, an EMR-clad sniper and a woman wearing a dark-colored flightsuit waiting for them. Stepping onto the ramp, she let go of Hopps and let the other woman help him to his seat, while moving to get her own seat. Dice followed soon after, stepping onto the ramp and quickly making her way to a seat.
"How's Crasher doing, Firebrand?" the redhead asked the pilot.
"Not good. They got the package, but Crashers 1 and 2 are down and ADVENT's hot on the others' heels." she replied before heading back to her seat through the door leading to the cockpit. "It's gonna be hot down there, so be ready to provide suppressing fire when that ramp opens again."
Nodding in understanding, Sophia watched as the ropes retracted and the ramp closed again, the Skyranger soon beginning to move again as Firebrand began to take it to the gene therapy clinic. Soon, Stalker withdrew a detonator and pressed the button without hesitation, and they could easily feel the Skyranger rumble as the statue undoubtedly came down with an impressive explosion.
It was a shame she couldn't see in person, but ADVENT would undoubtedly play it on their global news a little bit later, albeit while demonizing them in the process.
Now, it was time to bail Kelly and Central Officer Bradford out of their hole.
Firebrand wasn't kidding when she said they were coming in hot.
Even before the ramps opened, they could easily hear the hum and discharge of ADVENT mag rifles below them, and as the ramps opened and two ropes dropped down, Sophia wasted no time on getting to the beginning of the ramp to provide covering fire down below, the gene therapy clinic's rear wall blown open with an improvised explosive charge with copious amounts of rubble coating the grounds.
Seeing a Trooper and an Officer in that hole, she immediately targeted them and opened fire, downing the Trooper as his leader took cover away from the hole in the wall and another Trooper took the first one's place— only for Dice to drop him with a 12 gauge to the chest.
Immediately after, the green, white, and black figure that belonged to Central ascended onto the ramp carrying an androgynous figure in a red stasis suit of sorts, prompting Sophia to cease fire and help bring him on board, allowing him to carefully set the person into a seat, then draw an absolutely monstrous rifle with an inconceivable number of attachments on it and start providing covering fire for the next person to come up, the lithe, dark-clothed figure of the Irish woman Jane Kelly coming up the ramp and into a seat.
Then the ramp began to close again, the ropes whipping back up much quicker than the ramp itself and allowing some mag slugs to perforate the ceiling of the troop compartment before the ramp closed entirely and cast the Skyranger in relative darkness.
"Firebrand, get us the hell out of here!" Central then called out, and not even a moment later, the Skyranger began to ascend and accelerate, getting them far, far away from Novgorod and back into (semi) clear skies in about a minute, minimal.
As she was returning to her seat, Sophia noticed that just like Hopps, Central had taken a couple hits to the back, staining the white portion of his shirt red, and immediately she walked over to the Skyranger's own Medikit compartment by the door and thwacked it with the bottom of her fist, causing a panel to open up and allowing her to take the Medikit from it.
"I'm fine, Autumn, there's no need to start fretting—"
"No, you're not. You don't even have Kevlar, useless as it is!" the redhead shot back as she returned to the dark-haired central officer and raised the Medikit, spraying it onto his back and closing up the wounds there. "As soon as we get back, you're going to go see Tygan immediately."
"Not until the Commander's fine."
The comment immediately shut her up, and looking to the person in the stasis pod, she realized what the operation was all about: it was a rescue mission, and if Central used to be XCOM's de facto second in command...
Then this was the primary Commander of the XCOM project.
Which begged the question: what the hell was ADVENT doing to them that they had them in a gene therapy clinic's backrooms instead of a prison? What other shit did they do with the people that "mysteriously went missing" or were arrested for being "collaborators with dissident organizations?"
The mere thought of the rabbit hole of things ADVENT could be doing to those people made her feel sick in the stomach, and she soon resigned to sitting down in her seat again and waiting to get back home.
Her eyes never leaving the Commander's obscured form.
Okay, at first, I considered doing a GFL/XCOM crossover kind of like the DCOM stories, but with Griffin remaining a separate organization and the time being in the 2050s after GFL's WW3 happened, but soon, I decided on doing a proper XCOM story without crossover elements. Also, the game gave me a lot of cool characters (and cute waifus,) so there's that.
Plus, I beat XCOM 2 two days ago, and while it was kind of sad to let my team go after so many missions using them, I'm glad that I managed to win an XCOM game. Now, I've got a WOTC save and on an alternate account, a Commander difficulty save.
Also, glad to actually post sokething before a major holiday, but to GFL: The Recollection's readers, sorry I haven't put up a real chapter in months, but I've been writers' blocked for a while, and I wound up kind of burning out of GFL as a fandom for a bit. I'll try and make progress on the story, but I doubt I can get the new chapter out before 2024 begins, so sorry again.
But for those who actually want to read this, I appreciate it, and I'll be sure to have new chapters up semi-frequently, as well as properly make content for my other stories, so I'll see you later on.