A searing pain, like a red hot poker, was stabbing him in his side, followed by what felt like a thin, smooth thread slipping through his flesh with taught tension, then a light tug. The pain repeated. It made his eyes open in an instant, pulling him from the deepest parts of his mind. His fingers dug into the soft earth, clenching as his knuckles went white.

"Aaaah." The pain wouldn't let up.

"Sorry about… that." A slow, stilted male voice spoke. "Don't have much… to numb the pain. Though most… of your pain receptors are inactive… shot, one could say… Or else you would be screaming."

The pain increased for a moment, several sharp pinpricks danced across his abdomen. He closed his eyes for a moment, taking deep breaths to work through the pain. I've been through worse in my life. Many lifetimes. He would have chuckled at the thought if it wasn't so true. As the pain subsided, or his nerves grew numb to it once more, a sigh of relief slipped out. Clumps of soil fell from his fingers as his death grip slowly released.

"Just a few… more stitches."

Eyes open once more, they drifted over to where the voice came from. His vision was blurry for a moment, catching a shadowed figure hover him, but once it cleared he had a better look. His brows knitted together, half out of another sharp pain stabbing his side and the other half out of confusion. The person looked to be human at a glance. But were his eyes were playing tricks on him? Human eyes didn't glow in the shadows, and there was a faint reflective glow to his savior's blue irises. And then his skin looked as gray as concrete. Faint glimmers shimmering around the man's neck caught his eyes neck. It almost looked like a puffy mane of white-furred scales. The only thing that looked remotely natural was the wavy black hair that went just past his ears.

A hiss slipped out, making him wince. The pinpricks felt worse, and then something was palpitating his stomach rather roughly. Hurts. That hurts. He wanted to yell at this man treating him. But best not to bite the hand that was treating him. Or so he hoped.

In between pain receptors calming before roaring to life again, he felt something soft, yet scaled, danced their fingers along a gash on his side; pausing so often to study the severity of the wound. Nails picked at the edge of the inflamed skin. Picking at the suture work done there earlier.

"Amazed you're still alive… mister." The man continued to speak. "Your wounds… Your age… looks so deceiving." He mumbled, studying the white-haired man he was treating. "You lost a lot of blood when we… escaped. Red blood, but with a hint of Meld. That liquid golden … orange-yellow… Meld…" A hiss slipped past their lips, but not one of irritation. Like he lost his train of thought for a moment. "We thought you'd be… dead… by the time we found… refuge. Did they experiment on you like us?"

"No…" He finally spoke, though his voice was a bit slurred like his tongue was numb. He closed his eyes again. "No…?" But he was unsure. His nose wrinkled and brows furrowed as he tried to remember. Yet, a fog clung to his pain-riddled and equally numbed mind. "Maybe…? Can't remember."

Refusing to give up, he dove into that fog. There had to be something he could recall of what caused his current predicament. It was all scattered. Only bits and pieces came forth. His name and former occupations. Need not be shared yet. Skills he had. Friends and former friends. And other miscellaneous and unimportant things. But one thing that could be helpful for the moment came forth. He remembered who the person was currently patching him up. Helios. That was his name. An odd name. He faintly recalled it in between moments of consciousness as they left somewhere and the man and others tended to him. Where was the somewhere?

Where? Where? Where? He mentioned experiments.

He dug deeper into his mind for that answer. It felt so near, almost ready to be unearthed. "Wait… ahhhh…" Something was coming to the surface before finally breaching it along with several unsavory memories that caused several piercing stings across his body. Phantom pains.

What he recalled was as clear as day. Well, as clear as his half-alive self could recall. They were escaping from an ADVENT facility. Helios was one of the many unfortunate souls experimented on in that diabolical place. But for himself, he suffered something else.

"I… I remember now. I was tortured." He gritted his teeth as those phantom pains grew in intensity for a few more seconds before giving him rest. A section of fog was cleared from his mind, and he could remember several sessions all too well. Death would have been kinder than that place.

"Ah, you remember… Your mind is still intact. Good." Helios said, his voice filled with excitement. There was a twinkle in his eye. Tireless medical work had not been wasted. "You may be suffering from a bit of…. delirium. Again… You lost a lot of blood… but you have modifications."

His scaled hand traced a scared area on the man's side, just around the lower part of his rib cage. A nail grazed past something metallic in the middle of the area, dipping down deeper for a second, gently scratching the rough and mangled metal embedded in the flesh. The man hissed in response.

"Sorry…" Helios quickly retracted the finger. "Ports… I've seen others on your body… but they are different from ours. Different from the standard… Hybrids."

"How much longer?" The man spoke abruptly. Like he didn't want to talk about the uncomfortable subject any longer. He shot Helios a glare, but it quickly softened. He looked so young, even behind all the alien "modifications". They found us humans to be a genetic melting pot and were just splicing us with just about anything they had in their arsenal. He scoffed in his mind.

"Hmm?" Helios was oblivious to the glare. His mind was more focused on his work and those mangled ports.

"My wounds. How much longer?"

"Hm…? Oh!" Helios finally picked up the slight non-pain-induced irritation in his voice. "Sorry." He sheepishly replied. "Last one… the laceration from your side to your lower abdomen." The pinpricks started back up, which led to the man hissing. "Very lucky the wall of muscle… did not tear… your intestines would have been dangling every…where."

"Lucky indeed." He scoffed. From the memories he could recall, the ones that he could tell he wasn't blocking out, lucky was an understatement.

Helios continued the delicate work, slightly picking up his pace. He made little notes, comments, and observations with each stitch and probing of his other wounds. As well as making theories about the man's age. Somehow, he could tell he was well past middle age, and it wasn't because of the white hair, but somehow looked younger. That piqued his curiosity.

"Maybe some alien tech trickery." With a faint chuckle, fluttered his free hand. Just one theory he had come up with that would be the most plausible. And he felt like the ports on the man's body may have played a hand in that. He asked, mostly rhetorically. The man never replied. Helios continued to repeat his observations several times. Seemed like he enjoyed talking out his thoughts. A lot.

"Last stitch…" Helios tugged tightly on the suture. The man hissed, but his torment was nearly over. "There…. There's still some blood flowing internally somewhere… But nothing worrisome. Should stop soon from… what medicine we… applied."

With the medical treatment finally over, the man's hand drifted up to the closed wound Helios had been methodically working on for who knew how long. His fingers studying the work. Nails lightly ran down the stitches. Everything felt neat and tight. "Surgical." He commented.

Tired of being on the ground, he slowly raised himself up. Or attempted to. "Ah!" Pain shot through his stomach and back. Several stitches were pulled. His mind was still partially in a fog, and him not paying attention to Helios comments on his poor condition, he quickly forgot his abdomen had torn open sometime much earlier.

"Easy! Easy!" Helios at first tried to push him back down, only to realize the man was determined to stay up. Reluctantly, he helped the man up. It was better he eased him up rather than risk him reopening his wounds and having all that hard work undone. "It'll be a while before I can… bandage anything… have to find those… supplies. So much was used… on the others."

The man let out a sigh of relief once he was up. He mouthed a thank you as it hurt to breathe. Looking down, his eyes widened. Besides an emaciated appearance of skin clinging to his ribs and loss of muscle mass, his chest was torn up, littered with sutured wounds, faint burns, and scars — some deep gouges and other protruding overgrowths — he did not remember. But should he have been surprised? From the memories he could recall, he should have looked a lot worse. Part of him didn't want to imagine what his back looked like or the rest of his body. His mind recalled how he once looked. He had old scars, some from enemies and others self-inflicted from recklessness, but now his body truly looked like a battlefield.

He let out a scoffed chuckle. Should have lost my hearing that day with how I handled that job, that explosive abysmally. Ah, dumb cocky youth.

Intrigued by the doctor's work — if he could even call Helios a doctor that — he scrutinized each wound, each stitch that he could see with his hands. "Surgical." He commented again. All were treated and closed with precision. It reminded him of the Triad surgeons and other back alley doctors he trusted. It was their hands or death.

He looked at his savior. "Thank you…. Helios was it?"

"Yes. It is." Helios nodded, a slight tinkling noise could be heard from that scaled mane.

"Thank you, Helios." He repeated once more with a smile.

Helios turned away from him, scratching the back of his head. "It was nothing." It wasn't hard to tell he was flustered.

"No need to be embarrassed." The man chuckled. "I would be dead without your skill."

"Mm… I didn't work alone… at first. The others…" Helios gestured around them. "They helped… until others… more critical… than you… needed them."

The man's eyes followed Helios gesture before they wandered around to get a better view of their surroundings. The outdoors.

They were somewhere in the forest. Amber leaves glistened under the rays of the sun. It must have been Fall. A good way into it, as several non-deciduous trees were missing a bulk of their leaves.

As he looked around, he noticed the ruined, crumbling, and overgrown surroundings. It seemed they found some rundown ADVENT outpost. It was better than nothing. A little shield from the elements. From those hunting them. He could recall that. Won't be surprised if they are searching for us. They don't like escapees.

As his eyes wandered, he finally noticed the others all around. Hybrids. Not too dissimilar to the standard ADVENT template of the blended Human and Sectoid base model. And then the others, he faintly figured they were another hybridization of Humans and some kind of alien or purely alien. Somewhat similar to Helios, he quickly theorized, but each of them was uniquely spliced. They were nursing their wounds, helping each other, standing guard.

"Hm." He wondered if he was the only human amongst the group, but had a feeling he wasn't. That place experimented on everyone. Human, alien, hybrid. And I faintly recall there being workers. Again, human and alien. "Tch… heh." The only human. He laughed at his thought. Well, the most human-looking one would be more correct. A faint memory of another time, another life, came to his mind. He had a touch of alien in him. Just a touch.

"I never did quite catch… your name when the chaos… died down." Helios nearly spoke in a murmur, like he was searching his thoughts to make sure. "No, I never did." He shook his head before looking at him. "What was it…? Mister?"

The man looked at him, his golden brown eyes carefully studying him. Would it hurt for him to know? Truth or a lie? "Call me… Chilong." He could know that much. An old callsign. It should be distant to all here. Only old friends and organizations would know. Most… most of them were dead now.

"Mr. Chilong? Chi...long..." Helios mused, tongue rolling the consonants and syllables like it was searching for something. Rubbing his chin before tapping at his lips, his eyes wandered all around before landing back on this Chilong. "Interesting name. It means… Hornless Dragon."

Chilong nodded, almost absentmindedly before he froze. What did he just say? As soon as his eyes connected with Helios', they shifted into a fierce glare."How do you know that?" He nearly spat. He shouldn't know that. Unless he was from his home country. But those chances were slim.

Helios tapped the side of his head, unbothered by the hostile glare. "I'm… a bit of a… living computer." His hands dropped back to his lap before he drummed his fingers together. "What they did to me… Well, one of the… many things… They did to me. "

"Ah." Chilong's glare softened. That sounded plausible. Explained the many pauses in his speech. "I see the Elders' cruelty knows no bounds." His heart went out to the young man and everyone else.

"It sadly doesn't." Helios shook his head.

A grumble slipped from Chilong's lips as he closed his eyes and let his mind wander. The fog over his memories cleared more, but he didn't need it to recall Them. The Elders. The alien invaders, now the Earth's, humanities, overlords. He wondered how long They had him imprisoned when his cover was blown. How long did They torture him? How many years had passed? A part of him was afraid to find out, to search those still obscured memories. Either he was still blocking them out or They managed to pierce part of his mind and scramble it.

As his mind continued to wander, his fingers moved along the stitches. Touching each one, his thoughts refocused on what caused them. Torture sessions. Rather, specific torture sessions. The methods ADVENT utilized. The brutal methods his personal torture technician would use for him. Hooks. A deep shudder reverberated through his body as his mind picked at a bleak memory. Hooks would be embedded deep into his flesh.

No. One hook after the other would be twisted deep into his being in a near-rhythmic fashion.

No. No. No. The shudder transitioned to shaking as his mind dug deeper into the memory despite he wanted it to stop. Don't. The hooks weren't the worst part. They were attached to chains. Mind replaying the sounds of the chains clattering against the floor before being thrown on up high to be strung to ceiling struts.

Don't. His mind still refused to listen. All he could do was close his eyes and bite his tongue as the rest played out. Searing flashes of phantom pains erupted across his body where those hooks were placed. His throat and chest tightened. He quickly clamped his hands over his mouth. He wanted to scream. Scream like he was howling in his memories as he was strung on those hooks from the ceiling, like some sort of animal ready to be butchered.

Stop, stop, STOP! The memories finally ceased. He gasped for air. Why, why, why? He knew why. All of it was done to make him talk. To reveal who he was funneling information to. To turn against his friends. Come back to the light. He mentally scoffed. But he did not break. He would not betray the Resistance or his friends. Even if XCOM was gone.

Catching his breath, he rubbed the areas those phantom pains ripped through. He didn't hear Helios asking if he was alright. His hands brushed against one of the torn-up ports. Gene modded. Heh.

In hindsight, he was thankful for volunteering for the Gene Mod project when he caught wind of Dr. Vahlen and the heads of Genetics were making their rounds again to find any soldiers that would be interested.

The increased endurance and mobility likely contributed to his ability to withstand the torture for so long. And back then, he felt like he needed an edge over the younger recruits. Something to help him keep up with them. And it did. He also knew he was quite thankful for another development. Just a year and a half into his service and almost a year or so before the fall of XCOM.

He opened his eyes and looked at his free hand. He fluttered his fingers for a moment and the next second purple psionic energy jumped between his fingertips.

"If Dr. Vahlen and others never noticed my potential. If I had volunteered much later when everything went to hell…" He mumbled as he watched the energy fade.

He also had his psionics to thank for his endurance. It helped reinforce his mind from his torturers. Mental locks and barriers he refined over the years, with the help of his fellow psions, to keep himself hidden. His torturers could never get past those barriers successfully. A little tear here and there, but they could never get deeper into his mind.

His mind finally picked up Helios saying his name. Or did he feel the doctor touching his arm and he almost reflexively pulled away? Old habit. Either way, he was about to answer him until his ears picked up something nearby. Something up above. The rustling of leaves and faint chittering. Curiosity drawing him, he looked upward.

"Hm." He saw something.

Though partially obscured by the sun, he could faintly make out the shimmering silhouette of a figure perched high up in the tree line. He raised his hand to shield his eyes from the light to let his eyes focus. It only took a few seconds for his eyes to zoom in on the figure. A faint grin appeared on his face. How he loved that one modification. Like an in-built sniper's scope for his eyes.

As his eyes locked onto the figure, his brows raised. "What the–"

High in the tree line, perched in a nest of branches, was a figure, their upper body cloaked in what he assumed was smoke that was wicking away from their body. But the strangest thing about them was their head. From the side profile of the silhouette alone, it looked like the head of a canine. An 'ear' twitched before the figure's head snapped towards him. Piercing white eyes meet his. Looked like they had noticed him.

"Hm…" He swallowed hard. He could feel a lump form in his throat. He wondered if he was hallucinating. I did just wake up and shouldn't be alive. Something about this figure made him nervous. Yet, at the same time, he felt like he had seen it before.

"Hm?" Helios wondered what else was ailing the man. He noticed where he was looking and did likewise. "Oh, it's Jackal." He sounded unbothered.

"You know this… person?" He had another word he would have used but didn't want to anger whatever it was. As soon as Helios took notice of them, the figure moved. Disappearing behind a thicket of leaves. "Secretive."

"You don't remember? Then again… blood loss and your… current state." Helios tapped at his lip. "She's one reason why we are… free. Initiated the breakout with the others… after much planning."

Chilong closed his eyes and searched his mind for those memories. Most of the breakout was still a blur to him. He was half alive at the time, in the middle of another torture session, trying his best to hold in some screams. "I don't think I —wait…" A memory was forming.

It started partway into another agonizing torture session. He was strung from the ceiling with those hooks embedded throughout his body, as usual. Suddenly, those deafening alarms went off. Red lights flooded the room. Security breach.

He remembered the several heavy thuds against the reinforced security door. The metal buckled around the edges until a large enough gap was made for fingers to slip through and get a solid grip and push. The metal twisted more, and the locked security mechanisms screamed as they were overpowered. With several jerks, causing the gears to whirr, grind, and spark, the door was slammed open. Black smoke laced with psionic energy began to flood the room.

What happened next was a blur. His torture technician had barely a second to react before this Jackal pounced on them, tearing out their throat with their teeth. But that wasn't enough to put the alien down. As the technician reeled, Jackal latched their cybernetic hands onto their head, clawing into it with a death grip. And it only became tighter and tighter as their ghoulish skull cracked. The next second, it finally caved in, causing a gooey grey and blue substance to spray out before it all exploded like a puffball added onto that choking smoke. With the technician dead, Jackal carelessly tossed them aside before moving over to him.

He then felt icy hands, clawed hands partially coated in the technician's blood, checking the worst of his wounds, and not touching the hooks, until others came in. With him supported, they broke the chains and brought him to the ground. The hooks had to come out first before they could move him any further.

He remembered her face. Jackal's face. An undulating mass of smoke with the shape of a jackal for a head. He recalled piercing white eyes all too well as they guided him and the others out of the room, cloaking them in that same smoke it was made of, to protect them from their pursuers.

"No, I remember her now." Chilong looked at Helios. "She broke me out of my cell. Killed my torturer." He had to keep himself from grinning. How he would have to thank her later.

"Yes, she and others carried you out… you were barely alive." Helios tapped his lip. "Even in your… state… you helped in the fight with your… psionics." There was a twinkle in his eye.

"I… I don't remember any of that." His eyes went wide for a second before he regained his composure. There was a large gap in his memory. Had he used his psionics so freely? That worried him. "It's all still a blur."

"You must have been running off of… instincts." Helios continued to tap his lip. "You used your psionics with such…finesse…precision and…brutality. Such… rage."

"I…did?" He didn't like that. To do so in his sorry state was such a risk. What did the others think?

"Yes. Like the rest of us… there is more to you than meets… the eye." Helios tilted his head to the side. His eyes trembled with excitement as he studied the man before him. "You seem to have some sort of… tactical training… of some sort."

"What do you mean by that?" He did his best to play dumb.

"You managed to override the minds of some… ADVENT and have them fight for us…squad tactics to keep the escape in our favor."

"Perhaps… I just worked from what I could glean from their minds?"

"A possibility." Helios trailed off as his eyes wandered, looking at all the people that were there. "That's… a possibility, but," he paused, looking over to left, "whatever you did… you overloaded their chips… so they are free… like us. Well… most joined us."

Chilong followed Helios' gaze until he saw the ADVENT soldiers of varying types. All were still in their armor. How had he missed this before when he looked around? Helmets off, they were aiding the wounded and assisting where needed. Was he truly the cause of their change? Their freedom. He just couldn't remember those fine details.

"Their chips?" His hand drifted up to the back of his neck, rubbing a small scar at the base of his skull. The mere mention of that word made it ache.

"Yes." Helios nodded. "No more voices… in their heads. No more Elders and orders. Their minds are… free."

"Interesting."

"You had one too… didn't you?" Those curious eyes looked back at him. Eyes drifting down to where his hand was.

"Yes." He answered. He figured Helios was the perceptive sort. He had probably seen the scar while treating him. No sense in hiding that fact. "Disabled and long since removed."

"Done by yourself?"

"Disabled. A mixture of me and," he paused for a moment, "dissenters to the new world order."

"Ah… a mole." Helios assumed. "Such a risk to take."

He chuckled. Perceptive. Maybe a little more truth wouldn't hurt? "It worked for several years until my cover was blown. That's when it was removed. They wanted to study how it was disabled."

"Mm hm." Helios nodded. "Sold out by someone… who lost faith in freedom?"

"Most likely." He shook his head, clenching his fist. That was far from the truth, but he wouldn't tell him that… for now. "Still surprised they did not just kill me that day."

"They wanted answers… They always want answers." Helios muttered. "And then your… psionics… Harvest your DNA as well as They… search for answers on all your contacts."

He nodded at his words. "The most probable reason." By far the most likely reason why They kept him around for so long. Just how many years had passed? What did they gain from him?

"Just… a theory. Me… musing. Musing, musing, musing." Helios rambled.

Chilong nodded and chuckled. He could tell the man liked to talk and talk a lot. A living computer. Must have handled information for that facility. Something he had to remember for the future and be careful about. He felt like he had revealed too much and there was a faint gnawing in his mind that told him Helios knew some things about him already but just wasn't voicing it. Either way, he expected the man to ask him more questions in the future. He needed to be cautious. Just because he patched him up didn't mean he could trust him. Or anyone else that escaped that wretched facility, for the matter. He felt the feeling may have been mutual. They didn't know him. A rather powerful psionic that aided them. He could be a plant for all they knew.

"Nngh…" Several pains pierced his body. His vision began to falter, blurring like mad. His head grew lighter and lighter by the second; the world started to spin as darkness encroached just at the corners of his eyes.

"Mr. Chilong?" Helios heard the grunt. "Mr. Chilong!" He noticed his paling complexion. Quickly lurching forward and barely in time, he managed to grab his arms to keep him from collapsing. He gently lowered him to the ground before going over his body. No stitches had reopened. "Blood loss… is getting to him."

Chilong rapidly blinked his eyes several times, trying to fight the darkness, but with each blink, they grew heavier. His body felt heavier as pain surged through it. "Blood loss. Adrenaline passing away." He muttered. Something all too familiar to him. He wondered how long he had been awake. How many times had he awoken just to pass out again since their escape? There were many gaps in his memory.

"Hey! Ty!" Helios called out. "Need a hand here!"

He didn't notice another figure, a large and imposing figure, come over as he tried to fight his body from drifting off.

"Let's get him inside… should be a bed open… he needs rest… lots of rest." Helios said. "Need to make a… blood substitute…or transfusion if someone is… compatible."

"Tell me how to pick him up." Cracking their knuckles, Ty spoke with a gargled voice.

With instructions from Helios, Ty carefully picked Chilong up and started to take him to the nearest dilapidated building.

He barely noticed the new set of scaly hands had picked him up as he continued to drift towards the embrace of darkness. As his eyes grew heavier, he noticed a familiar figure return to his sight. That Jackal. The ethereal being watched from her perch in the thicket of trees. But something was different.

"Strange…" There was a certain haze around her and it wasn't that smoke. It moved ever so slightly. Then he noticed something else. The haze seemed to extend beyond her. It encompassed their encampment. "Strange…" One last mutter before he finally embraced the darkness. He needed rest.

He was going to be out of commission for a while. Several days as he developed a fever shortly after passing out. But his body was stubborn and wasn't going to let him die. Not yet. He still had a fighting spirit. He still had work that needed to be done.