XCOM: The Advent Directive

by Xabiar

Australia has been annexed, the United Nations is in chaos, the world is under siege and the Ethereals have taken the field. Facing the full might of the Ethereal Collective, the Commander must rally XCOM, the newly formed ADVENT, and several other allies and rivals to unite the divided nations by any means necessary, for failure now will mean the fall of humanity once and for all.

23. Research and Engineering VIII

Research and Engineering VIII

---

The Praesidium, Tactical Research and Demonstration Room 9

The influx of soldiers was a welcome sight after several months of continually suffering losses. It had taken some time for Jackson to put together a comprehensive list of elite soldiers and pilots, in addition to the recent additions from the PRIEST Program which had initially thrown a wrench into the selection process. But now that was done, and their numbers were higher than ever.

The Commander stood before a group of twenty of the best men and women the world currently had to offer, all of them now in standard black XCOM fatigues and standing expectantly as he prepared to give them a proper introduction to XCOM and the strange aspects that came with it. This wouldn't be his only orientation; there were three other groups scheduled, and although Shen was doing his own one for the new MEC soldiers, he would handle everyone else.

It was going to be interesting to see their reactions. He anticipated there was a lot they were going to need to get used to.

"Welcome," he began. "You are all aware of who I am, so I won't repeat myself. You were selected because you display some measure of intelligence, so I expect you to use it here. This is a relatively small organization compared to most, so I tend to take a more active role, and in XCOM, the most vital people are soldiers. Our science and engineering teams can create weapons and technology beyond what you can likely imagine, but you will be the ones using it. No one else can fulfill your role."

He had the attention of each one. Good. "Each of you will have access to the best weapons and armor currently developed by the Human race, and will be provided with options as how to outfit yourselves. Each of you have different backgrounds, which we have taken into account when assigning your specializations, but you know your own strengths and weaknesses best. You are expected to know how to use the equipment you have, and if you don't know right now, learn. Ignorance will get you killed."

There were a few nods at that, along with some side whispers of agreement. "Now for the reason we're all here: the Aliens. How many of you have fought them before?"

Roughly half of them raised their hands. "Good, several of you." The Commander nodded, tapping a button on his prosthetic, and bringing up a hologram of a Muton from the holoprojector beside him. "However, I suspect the majority of your experience has been limited to only a few alien types, and some have none aside from what they've investigated for themselves. That isn't going to cut it here. Name an alien, and we've killed it."

He gestured at the hologram. "Mutons? The regular soldiers are little more than cannon fodder to us. They aren't the ones we worry about. We fight the Elites and Berserkers," the hologram shifted at his tap and an Elite replaced it. All of the holograms were scaled correctly, and he saw the eyes of some of them blink as they saw just how big an Elite was.

"These are the kinds of aliens we fight and kill," the Commander continued. "And yes, that is their actual size. You need to learn how to kill it, and the secret to that is working as a squad; who that squad entails doesn't matter, all that does is that you leverage your abilities to work together. I expect all of you know this, but I'm going to repeat it so you understand that you aren't going to kill this-" he nodded towards the hologram. "On your own."

Another round of nods. "Floaters, Cyberdisks, Sectopods, Lurainian, Chryssalids, there are aliens you likely won't have heard of before today. This is expected, and to an extent that is intentional. You are some of the privileged few who know more about the extent of the alien threat than most." He paused. "There is a lot that we have not told ADVENT, about the aliens themselves and our own projects for stopping them."

There were a few moments of silence, before one soldier slowly raised his hand. Cole, he believed the name was. "Respectfully, Commander, why not? Doesn't that hurt our chances?"

Well, here was where it was going to get interesting. "No, it doesn't," he answered bluntly. "What ADVENT does or does not know has very little impact on our victory or not. ADVENT needs to bring the world to order, and we can focus on how to actually kill the aliens. But you do have a valid question, and the short answer is that I do not fully trust Chancellor Vyandar, nor certain people in ADVENT."

That got some furrowed eyebrows and murmurs. "Why?" Rebecca Carr asked skeptically.

The Commander smiled slightly. "Because I'm the one who put her where she is today, and warned that if she ever tried abusing her power I would kill her." Ah, now there were the sharp intakes of breath. "Chancellor Vyandar is a useful ally," the Commander continued unabated. "But people are right to be suspicious of her past. Prior to her appointment, she was the Director of an organization called EXALT, a conspiracy devoted to influencing world events. For a time they fought against us, but I convinced her that our interests were best aligned than opposed. If you want the longer version, there are plenty who are familiar with the situation. One of the family heads of EXALT is here now, in fact."

Well, he had successfully managed to render the majority speechless. Funny how that whole incident seemed so much smaller in the grand scheme of the war. He had practically just admitted that there had been a world conspiracy that XCOM had fought, beaten, and now had turned to their side. "So…" one of the soldiers said hesitantly. "XCOM is actually controlling ADVENT?"

"No." The Commander shook his head. "I intend to keep XCOM apolitical in regards to world affairs. Chancellor Vyandar has done great things for humanity already, and I expect she will continue to. However, should her goals change, or she attempt to remove us, we will not allow that to happen."

There were a decent number of soldiers that now looked rather uncomfortable as to how much was really going on behind the scenes. They would get used to it. "If you're concerned about the possibility of us ever fighting ADVENT, that is minimal at best," the Commander reassured them. "But our job is the preservation of Humanity from the alien threat at any cost, and Humans can pose just as large of a threat to our species as any alien. Is that understood?"

"Yes, Commander!" They shouted.

"Good," he said neutrally. "Before we continue onto several other topics ADVENT is not aware of, there is something that needs to be addressed. You are aware of it, as you signed the papers, but I doubt it is clear to you what is meant by genetic modification. It's a word on paper, and without context it might not sound like something to be fully concerned about. In truth, it isn't, but it's important to understand why I've made certain genetic modifications mandatory."

This had been a decision he'd come to with less reluctance than he'd thought he'd have. Originally he'd preferred to give soldiers the choice of genetic modification, since some did have personal or other issues with it, but that was a luxury that couldn't be afforded now. They had the MELD stockpiles, and the baseline Human wasn't going to cut it much longer. They needed to push every advantage they had on the aliens, and having both a small army of unmodified Humans and excess MELD was not something they could waste.

While he expected some objections at first, he felt the complaints would die once they saw just how improved they actually became. With that in mind, he continued speaking. "My job is to keep you alive. The aliens are more advanced than us, more numerous, and often more powerful. We have ways of mitigating this through weapons and armor, but that isn't good enough anymore."

He let his gaze sweep the room. "Dead soldiers are a reality of war, but that doesn't mean I will ever write any off as simply expendable. I want you kept alive, if for no other reason than that there is another soldier to fight the aliens. You need to be better than you already are, and that is where genetic modification comes into play. How many of you actually read that section about genetic modification?"

A few raised hands, more than he'd expected to be honest. "It's what would be considered an invasive procedure. It's not without its changes, some more extreme than others." He pointed to his own golden-rimmed eyes. "However, the tradeoffs are significant. A fear of genetic modification is baseless and that has been proven without a doubt. I don't want my soldiers falling ill, so you will be modified to be immune to diseases. I don't want you missing shots, so your eyes will be enhanced so that you can hit a Muton in the head five hundred feet away with a rifle. I don't want you bleeding out or keeling over from exhaustion, so you will have another heart inserted. Those are mandatory, and if you want to go further, you can."

There was some apprehension in the room, but also quite a bit of awe. He could sense that they felt what he was telling them was too good to be true. "If you want your skin to heal from wounds in minutes, or leap buildings in a single bound, that is also possible." He smirked. "You don't have to believe me, and no, it isn't something too good to be true. The stories you heard about XCOM soldiers jumping impossible lengths and surviving attacks that would kill anyone else are mostly true. But XCOM soldiers can and do die, and this is a step to prevent that. Questions?"

No one spoke up, so he continued, and motioned the Vitakarian from the side of the room into the light. "One thing ADVENT is unaware of is that we currently have several alien assistants working for XCOM and applying their knowledge against the Collective." There were several whispers and clear expressions of surprise. Completely expected, and Sci'traloa'vitiary just observed the group stoically like he did for everything else.

"This is Sci'traloa'vitiary," the Commander continued. "Currently working with Dr. Vahlen on elerium-armor integration."

"Greetings, Humans," Traloa said, inclining his head. "I will assure you that I currently have no plans to violently assault your species, and it is likely you will not interact with me on a regular basis, so the possibility of my sudden betrayal is significantly lower than it would be otherwise. But do remember I am making the equipment you use," he finished with a smile.

The Commander openly smirked at that. The soldiers were trying to figure out if he was telling a joke, or was being completely serious, and he knew Traloa was enjoying this more than he should. Of all the Vitakara here, he'd adapted the best, to the point of knowing how to crack jokes, which was made funnier by how he delivered them so deadpan.

"Yes, that was a joke," the Commander clarified, because several were looking at the alien with clear suspicion. "But that aside, we have very effective means of ensuring that the Vitakara here cooperate."

"Quite," Traloa agreed dryly. "It is of explosive effectiveness. Please do not stand too close if I ever turn on you."

"Quiet," the Commander warned good-naturedly, raising an eyebrow. "Joking aside, Traloa is an exception to the Vitakara here. Most of them are perfectly normal, and are unlikely to cause you any trouble. That being said, I would not be surprised if at least some of you had reservations about aliens being here, and a personal dislike of the aliens is understandable."

He let his tone turn more serious. "However, you will not take that out on the aliens that are helping us. Save that for the ones trying to kill you. There are some very basic rules that you need to follow in regards to them here. You do not assault, insult, or otherwise degrade the alien residents here, I don't care if you think it's justified, it's not allowed. If you actually have a concern, let me know but I will also not tolerate false accusations. I will have one of our telepaths read your mind, so be very careful if going that direction."

He raised another finger. "Second: You do not interfere with whatever the aliens are doing. As they are experienced with much alien tech, their projects are sensitive and important. So don't intentionally interrupt, sabotage, or otherwise make life difficult. This will not be tolerated. This does not mean you can't interact with them, but do it when they're not working."

He sighed as he reached the third point. "Now this is a point I shouldn't have to make, but unfortunately it is needed. Whatever devious thoughts are going through your head, you do not flirt with the aliens."

"Unless you are fully prepared for the consequences," Traloa added blandly. The Commander resisted the urge to give him a look of disbelief. He'd thought bringing the most 'human' alien might put the soldiers a little more at ease. However, this was backfiring more than he liked. Now this was going to raise a lot of idiotic questions all because of one idiotic incident.

Vitakara did not handle certain Human foods well. That had been made abundantly clear.

"Please ignore what he said," the Commander said neutrally. "Now, with all those rules out of the way, all of which you are expected to follow completely, there is one more thing you should be aware of."

At least this would make them forget about the previous topic. For now. "We have been able to make fairly accurate predictions about the aliens and their plans. This is not due to our own operatives, although we do have them. The Ethereals are, ultimately, the greatest threat to our species. You have all seen the Battlemaster and Caelior, and unfortunately, those are far from the only ones, and not even the most dangerous."

He let that settle in briefly. "We know who they are, and what they can do. We have been able to develop technology far beyond what ADVENT possesses, some of which you will become very familiar with soon. These events we would not have been able to accomplish on our own, and the reason for this is because we have another defector from the aliens."

Right on cue, Aegis walked out. Patricia was shielding everyone in the room from his aura, so their reactions were a mix of surprise, amazement, horror, and a lot of swearing. "This is Aegis," the Commander said over the mix of voices. "Formerly of the Ethereal Collective, and now ally to XCOM. He is one of the largest reasons we're able to put up a reasonable fight. Right now we have kept this a secret for a multitude of reasons, but make no mistake, when the time comes, he will fight against the aliens."

"Correct," Aegis added. "I did not agree with the handling of your species, and I will not perpetuate the Imperator's ignorant vision any longer. I will work with your species until the Collective leaves, or we die."

"You have all been assigned barracks and duties," the Commander said. "Whatever questions you have can either be answered with our archives we have compiled, or by speaking to other soldiers. There will not be much time until we launch a counterattack in America, so I would suggest you prepare as best you can. Dismissed!"

All the soldiers saluted, and walked out of the room in various stages of shock.

A good start to the day, if he did say so himself.

---

The Praesidium, Barracks

The good news for Sierra was that she wasn't going to have to go back into the tank anytime soon. She'd gotten the more unpleasant gene mods out of the way a while ago, since she'd had some suspicions it would go this way eventually. However, it wasn't quite the same for the majority of soldiers who were going to have the modifications administered to them over the next few days.

Sierra was somewhat torn on the new mandate for specific genetic modifications. On one hand, she felt that this should be a decision each soldier made for themselves and forcing it was both immoral and unnecessary. But on the other, they needed every advantage they had, and having been extensively genetically modified herself, Sierra could see literally zero reasons to not become modified.

Seriously, the ability to laugh at bullets and jump from buildings wasn't really something that could be matched. Being able to read the lettering of a poster from the opposite end of the room was also pretty neat. All in all, she wasn't at all surprised the Commander had decided to mandate at least some.

Still, there were some nervous about the procedure itself, like the Egyptian Gamil Sultan, who she'd been chatting with the past half hour. "It's not dangerous," she shrugged. "I think anyone who's undergone it is proof of that."

"I know that," Gamil sighed, furrowing his eyebrows and scowling. "But I do not like the idea of being in a tank, much less having MELD pumped into me. How does that even work?"

Sierra thought back. "Depends on what kind of modifications you get. The more you have, the longer it is. Each one has to be done separately, and for most of them you are sedated."

"Most of them!"

"Technically I think it's all of them," Sierra quickly clarified. "Although the eyesight one is a bit iffy. I kinda remember that. Sort of. Have you ever had eye surgery?"

"No!"

"I think it's sort of like that," Sierra continued. "They place a little machine on your eyes, strap it to you, and flood your eyes with MELD. Or something like that."

His blue eyes were wide in horror now, the air around him was slightly distorted as he clearly became more nervous. What was-ah, right, he was one of the new psions who'd been cleared to be awakened. "I thought you wanted to make it seem safe? That," he paused dramatically. "Is not reassuring."

Hm, yes, she was bad at this. "It's not as bad as it sounds," she clarified. "Really. You don't really feel a thing. What's a good comparison?" She paused, looking up for no reason. "Have you ever had a small mildly irritating itch in your eye? It's sort of like that, but less so because you're not really aware of it to the same intensity."

"Oh," he said, now visibly relieved. "Well, I can live with that."

"You're definitely one-hundred percent sedated for pretty much every other one," she said, shifting in her seat. "They explain it before you go in. Whatever part of the body is being modified has to be exposed to MELD." She held up her hand, the faint octagons on her skin becoming more visible in the light. "For the Iron Skin mod, they pretty much submerged me in MELD. For the Disease Immunization one, I think they pump MELD into your organs in small doses."

"That can't be done quickly," Gamil noted. "Especially if there are multiple ones."

"Nope, the entire procedure can take several days," Sierra agreed. "But it is worth it, at least I think so."

"I still don't like the idea of infecting my body with millions of nanomachines," Gamil admitted, resting his head on a hand. "It's not some drug, its actual machines in your body. That's just unsettling."

Sierra shrugged. In all honesty, she hadn't been overly concerned with that piece of information. The nanites weren't dangerous once they were in her body, and she had been assured that they couldn't be hacked or modified once their purpose was fulfilled. It was entirely possible that she'd been lied to, but she didn't think so. The Commander wouldn't have modified himself if that was a risk.

"You got some new ones, right?" Gamil suddenly asked. "I thought you only had the Iron Skin mod."

"At one point, I did," Sierra confirmed with a nod. "Well, and the eyesight one. But I needed a few more because of what I've been training for." She smiled. "You'll probably see it very soon, in fact."

"This the Archangel program?" Gamil asked. "I've heard that was something recently created. Some kind of special operations group?"

Sierra chuckled. "Sort of. Can't really say exactly what since the engineers are still working out some of the kinks, but it could be considered our own answer to the Floaters."

"Really?" He perked up. "Huh. Well, that sounds good. Meanwhile I've been learning how to maintain a half-dozen stasis fields."

"And how is it working with our resident Ethereal?" Sierra asked, leaning back.

"Aegis? He's a good teacher, actually," Gamil answered brightly. "I never would have figured some of this out on my own, or even with Patricia. He doesn't talk as much as you'd think, but he's alright for an alien."

Sierra snorted as she realized that they were getting a batch of new soldiers today. "The rookies are going to be shocked at everything here." Her tone imitated a much lighter inflection. "'Oh by the way, we fought the Illuminati, put their leader in charge of the world, have a bunch of alien captives, and oh right, we have an Ethereal here. Welcome to XCOM!'"

Gamil laughed along with her. "Hopefully they take it well."

"Probably," Sierra guessed. "You know how the Commander is. He's probably got psyche profiles on everyone here. I doubt he's going to choose someone that's going to have problems."

"Not sure about that," Gamil mused. "I really think he doesn't care what you think as long as you do your job." He gave her a sidelong look. "Otherwise, I doubt you'd be here. You don't know when to shut up sometimes."

"Ha ha, very funny," Sierra rolled her eyes. "Maybe, but I can tell you we aren't getting any anti-ADVENT people in here."

"You might as well say anti-Human," Gamil said. "Anyone who goes against ADVENT at this point is a traitor to humanity. Fuck them."

Sierra rubbed her eyes. "There is a difference between anti-ADVENT, and realizing that ADVENT is not the most perfect thing to ever exist. Really, what do you think? Egypt isn't even part of ADVENT right?"

"Unfortunately not," he admitted with a sigh. "I don't see why either. I don't think we'd do much worse with them in charge."

"Maybe because they want to keep their independence?" Sierra suggested. "I can see why they wouldn't join, but I agree there isn't any excuse for not working with ADVENT. That is just bad."

"So why do you have so many issues with ADVENT?" Gamil asked. "I'd say they're doing a lot of good."

"For now," Sierra emphasized. "Key word. I don't care who is in charge, I'm never trusting a government that openly spies on its citizens, attacks other countries unprovoked, keeps how its government works secret, chooses which people are up for election, and has a police force that is pretty much another branch of the military."

"And when exactly has ADVENT abused this?" Gamil folded his arms. "They've been justified."

"For now," Sierra repeated. "If you can't see just how much this could be abused, then sorry, you're an idiot. They are justified now, but really, even that's questionable. ADVENT goes out of their way to make the most public and visceral statement possible, and they act like dictators when they don't need to be. Saudia turned the Canada annexation into a damn publicity stunt to say 'Look! We can invade another country with no consequences whatsoever!' Isn't that a little concerning? ADVENT is basically daring the world to actually do something against them." She paused for breath. "Sorry, that just rubs me the wrong way. If you have to do it, just do it, don't make it into some stunt to show off just how powerful you are."

"Fair point," Gamil admitted. "Maybe it's an American thing. I have more respect for governments that actually do their job than just talk about doing it. Might just be me, but ADVENT seems at least more honest. At least they're open about what they do, and don't hide it."

"Which is a point in their favor," Sierra agreed. "But yeah, the idea of ADVENT is good. I'd say it's even avoided abusing its power so far, even if they do show off. But the problem is that ADVENT seems to rely on the people in charge having the right priorities, and I don't believe that, and Human nature are compatible right now."

"Perhaps that can be changed," Gamil mused thoughtfully. "If there was ever a time for us to unite as a species, this would be it."

"What an optimist," Sierra commented dryly. "I think you confused 'priorities' with 'good'. Good people don't get to where Saudia and the Commander are. ADVENT doesn't reward the good, it rewards the effective. I guess we'll see if you're right though, eventually."

"Hopefully." He gave a lopsided smile, standing. "No point in delaying this I suppose. Time to get my own gene modding done. Thanks, Sierra."

She returned the smile, probably looking rather cynical now. "Anytime. See you on the other side."

---

The Praesidium, Psionic Training Area

The amount of newly awakened psions was almost staggering. The Commander had pulled from their current roster, as well as drawn a few from the PRIEST program, and now there were twenty-five other psions of various powers, a surprisingly high number of Magus-class psions, and even a few Leviathan-class ones like herself.

They were going to need specialized rooms for each discipline now, it seemed.

It was fairly split between disciplines when everything finally settled. Telekines and Defensive aptitudes were the most common, Offensive and Telepaths slightly less so. However, it was easier now that there were some actual veterans beyond Aegis and herself that were helping. She was focusing on the Telepaths, while Matthew focused on Telekines, Chan assisted with the Offensive-focused ones, and Aegis directly taught the Defensive-focused psions, as well as helping everywhere else.

Complicating training further, some of the psions had decided to join the ranks of the Templars, and with a few psions being in the Archangel program, that was going to change the application of their own attacks. It was an interesting balancing act, but one she felt would be settled over the next few days.

"Does it ever get quieter?" Patricia looked to her right as an exhausted-looking woman approached, face beaded in sweat and clutching a water bottle. She was fairly old for a soldier here, pushing forty if Patricia recalled correctly. She was also not up to the current physical standards, but she did have a legitimate reason for such, and the gene mods were helping.

Sussan Sevhonkian was one of the only psions XCOM had requested from the PRIEST Program, a civilian data scientist from Armenia; she'd never even held a weapon before joining XCOM, but had still felt compelled to do her part in the war nonetheless. Patricia respected her quite a lot, since she had been willing to leave her family to come here, and had finally forced XCOM to figure out what they were going to do with soldiers who had families.

For the most part, they had tried to avoid soldiers that had spouses or children, but with the PRIEST Program, that wasn't as easy, and made the soldier in question a possible security breach. However, in this case, they had the ability to read minds, so any leaks would be shut down quickly. Besides, it was only one or two families they had to worry about. Some reasonable accommodations could be made.

Sussan herself was a Telepath just shy of the Leviathan class, but she was getting the hang of it pretty quickly. Patricia understood her question completely. "No," she admitted. "But you eventually learn to block out what you don't want to hear."

Sussan shook her head. "How? I haven't been able to sleep well at all because everything is just…overwhelming." She took a long drink of water. "It's fine when I'm awake, like now, I can just focus or do some kind of physical exercise to distract me, but it's impossible when I close my eyes."

Patricia considered that for a minute. "How do you visualize it?"

"Like a coordinate plane," she chuckled. "Data points on an X/Y axis. I'm trying to work on visualizing it in a 3D plane, but it's not as easy since all of them scream for your attention," she waved a hand. "It's just meaningless gibberish, and that's probably the most irritating thing for me."

Patricia scratched her chin. "To be honest, I don't have a sure answer. I know what worked for me, but that doesn't mean it works for everyone else. Telepathy isn't an exact science, unfortunately."

"I'll take anything at this point," she sighed. "What did you do?"

"I had someone to practice on," she answered fondly with a smile. "I got better at focusing on him, and through that I figured out how to block out what I didn't want subconsciously. Then again, my awakening happened more gradually. It wasn't as quick as yours."

"Hm, I'll have to try that," she said. "So…there really isn't a limit on what you can do to someone once you're in their mind? That's what I've been getting from a lot of what you've taught us so far."

Patricia gave her a humorless smile. "Exactly. The closest comparison is a puppet. You are only limited by your imagination."

Patricia felt and saw her shiver at that. "There is some messed up stuff you can do," she said quietly. "I think I accidentally killed one of those Chryssalids just by making it think it was drowning."

"That's the purpose of them," Patricia nodded. "Experiment with the Chryssalids, and then apply to actual Humans. Our minds regulate everything in our body, and if they can be tricked, they can be turned against the body. Don't feel bad about killing them, it's only an alien."

"I guess," Sussan said, unconvinced. "I've never done anything like this before. Killing things is…unsettling."

"This sounds callous, but you get used to it," Patricia told her. "If you still have issues with it, just focus on the fact that more aliens that die, the better chance your family will live. That grid you visualize when using your telepathy? That is where you'll be in battle. Think of it as removing bad data. You aren't killing people, you're killing aliens. Don't forget that."

"I think I'll practice that," Sussan nodded. "And…well, maybe find someone to practice on."

"You ever want me to help, I will," Patricia promised. "Aegis would also be willing."

"I'll consider it," she said. "Thanks, Patricia."

"Anytime." Sussan walked off, and Patricia decided to walk over where the most interesting and unnerving of the new psions was standing. Lukas Von Theil, though he preferred to be called Geist for some reason, was the most powerful psion ever awakened, at least on the Trask scale. Patricia had been somewhat surprised when he'd shown equal inclination towards telepathic and defensive disciplines, and so he'd trained for both of them at the same time.

He seemed wholly disinterested in traditional training, preferring to get basic overviews from her and Aegis and go experiment on his own. He seemed intentionally cryptic and vague for the sake of it when talking to anyone, and didn't socialize with the other psions. Still, she was going to make an effort. He even felt odd compared to everyone else, making him stand out to any psion nearby.

All she sensed was an intense focus and curiosity. She didn't pry, but he seemed completely unaffected by some of the other effects of psionics such as the initial loudness Sussan had complained about. Right now he was standing, looking down at the ground, hands clasped behind his back. "Interesting floor?" She asked.

"I am concentrating, Psion Trask," he answered without looking at her. "I am attempting to conceptualize a more effective defense. The lack of creativity and utilization of psionics is surprising here, and stifling."

"Really," she said sarcastically. "And how did you come to that conclusion?"

"I am surprised you do not understand," he said, looking up at her finally, his eyes tinged purple. He was definitely drawing upon his power. "There is a lack of ambition. Thus far few here seem to grasp the scale of what beings like us can do. There is little need to stay with the single-layered shields, single Chryssalids, and dummies. Those offer no challenge or ability for growth."

Ah, so that's what it was then. "Two reasons for that," she said. "First, not everyone has the raw talent you do, and second, there is a limit to what we can do within the Praesidium. You want a challenge, talk to Aegis."

"I am not foolish enough to challenge Aegis," he stated in the same voice. "Not yet. He is much more skilled than he has shown to your psions. He is deliberately holding them back, be it because of their lack of skill, or other reasons. I do not care, but I will not waste time performing the trivial exercises such as simple domes and shields."

He pulled out a clenched fist and held it out before him, opened it, and they were suddenly in a small psionically shielded dome, with Geist's arm rippling with psionic energy. "This is trivial, Patricia. Much like how dominating a single mind is simple for you. But you did not stop at a single mind, did you?"

Patricia crossed her arms. Geist was working towards a point, and she suspected she knew what it was. "No. You don't think the scale is adequate? Fair, but again, the psions need to get used to their abilities before they start pulling off mass mind control."

"Scale is simple, complexity is not," Geist stated flatly, letting the shield dissipate. "This is a lesson you seem to have yet to learn as well, Psion Trask. The ability to mind control hundreds is simply you applying the basic powers of your discipline on a larger scale. There are easier ways to kill, there are more effective means of sabotaging the aliens. Why not warp the alien commanders into sleepers or force their brains to shut off?"

Patricia raised an eyebrow. "Because that takes time. Time that isn't always available in combat."

"Spare me," Geist said dryly, stepping forward. "No, it's because of your habits, and because it is easier. I am only somewhat more powerful than you, and you have more experience, and it should not be me who is more creative."

His words were reminiscent of what Aegis had told her, about how she wasn't thinking as much as she should, and brute forcing everything. Geist was blunt, and frankly rude, but he did have a point. "Point taken. You certainly don't have issues speaking your mind."

"I do not particularly care if you dislike me or not," Geist shrugged. "But I don't see a point risking this war because you are held to a standard beyond reproach." He held his hands up, palms vertical to the floor, and two small psionic shields appeared, then two more, until there was a shimmering purple cube between his hands. "Aegis is talented, Patricia, but he will only teach what he knows."

"That wasn't an insult," she said, referring to his earlier comment. "And yes he will, but if there is anyone who knows about psionics, it is him. Like it or not, he knows more than you."

"What I would suggest, Patricia, is that we do not solely rely on him," he corrected, disintegrating the cube in his hand. "Whatever he teaches, the Ethereals know how to counter. We are not still in this war solely because of one alien, but because we have adapted in ways the Ethereals did not anticipate. That is our strength, and this should be applied to our own psionic abilities."

Patricia idly wondered if he would be this forward if he wasn't a psion. She suspected he likely wouldn't act differently. Still, she did appreciate the different perspective. It was slightly irritating, but perhaps he could actually meet the Commander. He appeared to have some ideas the Commander would like, and they were alike in their practical methodicalism.

"Were you actually a chemistry teacher?" She asked curiously. "Because you certainly don't talk like a teacher."

"Most teachers are sympathetic, and are predictable," Geist said. "They do not fully understand their students, nor the intricacies of childhood. I understand people, and I know how best to engage them. I did not lie, Trask, I simply had different methods than most teachers."

"Clearly," she muttered. "But fair enough."

"Most people I simply do not find engaging enough," Geist continued. "I do not need Human interaction to function, nor lead what I consider to be a fulfilling life. And I think that more people appreciate that than the alternative."

"As long as you can work with others, that won't be a problem," Patricia said. "You wouldn't be the first quiet one I've worked with."

He smiled for the first time, but it appeared closer to an imitation than the real thing. "Then I believe we have nothing to worry about. Now if you'll excuse me, I would prefer some time to ensure that I am adequately prepared for our next attack."

"I'll leave you then," she said. "Have fun."

---

The Praesidium, Situation Room

"One per continent, is that the suggestion?" Jackson asked, looking up from the holotable.

The Commander exchanged a look with Shen, who gave a short nod. "Yes, that would be ideal. Actual bases can be in the future, but for now we should have Hangars on standby, especially with the Firestorms coming online shortly."

"Right," Jackson nodded, biting her lower lip as she thought. "And how many Firestorms are we talking about per base?"

"Twenty to start with," the Commander said. "Likely more in the future."

"I expect production to increase once we launch our own construction facility," Shen added. "But it isn't feasible to have the entirety of our air force confined to the Praesidium."

"So we can aim for one per continent," Jackson said, pressing some buttons on the holotable. "I assume ADVENT would assist in the construction?"

"If possible," the Commander confirmed. "Otherwise, we can hire who we need; but I doubt ADVENT would pass this up. On the condition that this is not on record and the workers have the location of the base removed from their minds."

Jackson pinched the bridge of her nose. "See, I don't know if they'll go for that."

"I want this going to Saudia," the Commander said. "Let her answer it before jumping to conclusions. Worst case scenario, we create an XCOM construction wing and do it ourselves to bypass ADVENT altogether."

Shen frowned. "Why not just do that to begin with?"

"I do want to eventually," the Commander clarified. "But in this case, speed is important. ADVENT can have Hangars built in several weeks if they leverage their crews. Doing this ourselves will take time I don't know we have."

"Makes sense," Jackson said. "Alright, there are several obvious locations we could station a base. Brazil makes the most sense for South America, the United States for North America, maybe Midwest." The holomap shifted to the other side of the world. "I would also suggest Germany and Russia for the other continents, Africa would be an issue, unless you want to wait until Egypt or South Africa joins ADVENT."

"Are there alternatives?" The Commander asked. So far this was good, but he wanted to be aware of all his options.

"Potentially," Jackson stressed the word. "We could avoid the continents altogether and instead set up bases along nearby islands. This would apply more to the coasts, but we could potentially construct more, and outside of ADVENT territory."

"And what if there are no islands available?" The Commander asked.

Shen seemed to get it first. "You want to explore the artificial island possibility?"

"Exactly," Jackson said firmly. "Maybe not at first, but something to look into when we have our own construction wing."

The Commander frowned. "And is that actually feasible? How exactly could we create an island?"

"It technically isn't 'creating' an island, so much as building on top of existing rocks, islands, and reefs to support something larger," Jackson explained. "It's a fairly simple, if involved process. For our purposes, we wouldn't need much, but just enough to support a small Hangar, so the job wouldn't be as extensive. We would need a large supply of sand to make it work."

The Commander thought for a moment. "I suspect this has been done before successfully. We could look into how it was done before, for the equipment used if nothing else."

Shen coughed awkwardly. "I'm surprised you didn't know about this. China was the one who put the idea into action, and until recently, they've been constructing islands to cement their claim on the South China Sea. It was a large geopolitical issue for some time, though it died down once the aliens showed up."

Hm, he must have missed that, which wasn't surprisingly given that China hadn't been a focal point during the past year, aside from causing issues with the Council. Even then he hadn't needed to gather ammunition on their previous overreaches, since China was one country that kind of pseudo-intimidation wouldn't work on.

However, this gave him an idea.

"How willing do you think China would be to do this for us?" He mused.

Jackson blinked. "That depends. What are they getting out of it?"

"Showing that they are willing to work against the aliens?" The Commander thought. "China apparently wants to play nice now. This might be a good opportunity for them to actually prove it."

"It would lessen tensions significantly," Shen said thoughtfully, rubbing his chin. "China would be seen as working with ADVENT, and the Communist Party can demonstrate that they are still influential enough to negotiate with the primary world power. A win for both parties."

"ADVENT is starting Operation Kraken as well," Jackson reminded him. "If they could get Chinese support, that would make their job significantly easier."

Operation Kraken was one of the newer initiatives by ADVENT to leverage their naval forces to hinder alien supply drops in the Pacific theatre. It was their attempt to cover the ocean with submarines ready to fire at UFOs at a moment's notice. Right now the majority were moving towards Japan, while several more groups were stationed at various intervals around Korea.

China joining, even if they weren't as technologically advanced, would be a massive boon. Definitely something to at least attempt. "Send that to Saudia and Laura," the Commander said. "And send it to the Chinese as well. Let's see what they say. In the meantime, I also want continent Hangars planned. We can focus on the artificial island idea later."

"Got it," Jackson confirmed, looking rather pleased. "I hope they accept. If China and ADVENT actually work together, there goes the largest chance of an idiotic war."

"Don't get your hopes up," the Commander warned. "China won't do this for anyone but themselves. The good news is that they're not idiots…for the most part." Their antics on the Council threw some doubt on that claim, but in hindsight, they had gotten out before he'd put a violent end to the Council. At least they took a stand and left instead of just complaining about him.

But that was in the past. If China was open to being an ally, he was willing to give them another chance. He had a feeling that they wouldn't squander it this time.

---

The Praesidium, Barracks

Oliver was still feeling decidedly odd after the genetic modification. It certainly hadn't been close to the most unpleasant thing he'd ever dealt with in his life, but it hadn't exactly been pleasurable either. Still, he couldn't entirely argue with the results. He honestly felt better after all was said and done; stronger and more energetic.

To test this out he'd run a series of exercises that he knew would exhaust himself, and as opposed to feeling wiped out, he felt merely winded. That had been an amazing, and somewhat unnerving realization. Whatever he had been before, he was decidedly no longer a normal Human.

He wasn't sure how he felt about that. The rational part of him realized that this was a great improvement, and it would likely save his life. On the other, he almost felt like he was cheating. He'd worked hard to get to where he was, and the gene mods had basically given him the end result with no effort. It was a minor thing, and didn't make rational sense, but it did bother him somewhat.

The eye modifications were going to take some getting used to. He was still learning to focus them on what he wanted, because he'd gone through a period of focusing on things really far away, and everything else becoming blurry, and vice-versa. He'd been assured that was just a normal phase and that he'd adjust within a few days. It seemed to be accurate, and his vision had stabilized over the past few hours.

And now the new recruits had shown up, and boy were they providing some of the best entertainment any of them had seen in weeks. It was funny upon reflection, because under normal circumstances, what was happening in XCOM was literal world-shattering information, but it was something that just…happened at XCOM.

Really, Oliver couldn't blame the young Frenchman who was having an incredulous conversation with Zara. If he'd been hit with the news that the Illuminati was running the world, and that XCOM was working with alien defectors and an Ethereal all at once, then he might be just as shocked. One he could handle pretty well, and he had, but three at once was a bit much.

"So you were not only running the media, you also had an army?" Leonard Bissonnette practically accused a highly amused, and smiling Zara. "Do I understand that right?"

"One, we weren't 'running the media'; we had a number of agents and had some monetary investments in the larger media organizations, but far from 'running it'," Zara clarified, raising a finger, then adding a second as she continued. "Two, an army might be a generous term. I'd compare it to more of an elite special forces group, commanded by yours truly." She gave a mock bow.

"Uh huh," Leonard said skeptically. "So you never killed stories or twisted the news to fit your narrative?"

"What? No, of course we did," Zara admitted with a shrug. "Really, this shouldn't be a shock. And honestly, we did everyone a favor. We mostly helped make sure that stupidly corrupt and idiotic people didn't get into positions of power, and making conspiracy people look stupider than they already did. You'd want to ask Elizabeth, I'm just a soldier."

"Elizabeth who?"

"Elizabeth Falka," Zara said, clearly enjoying this way too much. "I think she's the Director of ADVENT Intelligence now? I can give her a call if you want."

"Fucking hell," he swore under his breath, looking around at all of them. "Does this not seem like a big deal or is it just me?"

"Honestly," Ellinor, one of the newer soldiers, and soon-to-be Defensive Templar, interjected. "I was more surprised that there was an Ethereal of all things here. You know, the one thing that's repeatedly beaten our soldiers?"

"Eh, I'm in a similar boat," Shun shrugged, leaning comfortably into the corner of a couch. "Really, this kind of stuff just kinda happens here. Carmelita, remember when Soran turned out to be an alien?"

"Hard to forget that," the little Korean woman snorted. Even without armor Oliver was quite sure she was the most intimidating person in the room. "I especially liked how weird Patricia was acting for a few months before she actually told us she was reading minds."

"Or Aegis just showing up and surrendering," Seok, another Korean, added with a nod. "Although we didn't find out about that till later."

"At least for me, XCOM showing up out of nowhere and helping us take the Fury Base ranks up there," Zara commented. "And the Commander showing up and saying 'Hey, want to run the world?'"

"With a lot of strings attached," Shun muttered under her breath. "Still, wouldn't have predicted that."

"So I guess the point of this is that weird stuff happens in XCOM," Oliver summarized for Leonard. "You get used to it pretty quick."

"So…" Ellinor said after a few moment of silence. "Does, ah, anyone know exactly why the Commander made sure to stress not to, er, flirt with aliens? Did something…ah…happen?"

Oliver rubbed his forehead. Oh no, it was only a matter of time. He'd not heard of it, but having some familiarity with the internet, and people being curious to a stupid degree, it was one hundred percent not surprising that apparently something had happened. Because there was no way this was just something the Commander would casually require…months after they were originally acquired.

"He didn't actually say that," Zara snorted. "He didn't, right?" She looked around for some answers.

"Don't look at me," Oliver shook his head. "First I've heard of it."

"Hey, I heard it too," Leonard added. "Didn't help that the alien with him made what I think was a joke about it."

They were interrupted by the light sound of Carmelita laughing, something it seemed none of them had heard before. It was a pleasant sound; a stark contrast to her normally dark demeanor. "I can answer that," she said between laughs. "One of the scientists told me about it."

"Don't leave us in suspense," Shun said, leaning forward. "Tell us what happened."

Oliver was not sure he wanted to know, exactly, but this was the equivalent of watching a train wreck and he couldn't really stop listening. "So," Carmelita continued. "This was after some big project completion, didn't figure out what. So the science team decides to celebrate and have a small party. So one of them, being a nice Human and all, decided to ask the Vitakarian who'd been helping them to join them."

Oliver could see exactly where this was going. "From what she told me," Carmelita explained. "It was a good start. The alien seemed a little restrained, if happy, to be participating, and as with any civilized party, there was wine involved. And chocolate."

Ellinor sniffed. "Wimps. They should have something actually alcoholic."

"She said civilized," Oliver pointed out. "Not a bar fight."

"Knulle deg," she likely insulted in Norwegian.

"What?"

"Both of you be quiet," Shun shushed. "Anyway, keep going."

"Also, why is that they had chocolate important?" Zara added.

"I'll get to that," Carmelita said, raising her non-modified arm to focus their attention. "So yeah, everything's going well. So a good ways into it, most everyone is drunk, and now the Vitakarian is a lot more relaxed. She was described to me as 'high'."

"Drunk?" Shun asked.

"No, high, like on drugs," Carmelita clarified. "Not that I would know, but at this point one of the scientists was flirting with her, and seemed to be going over her head, and they were all just kinda laughing at the situation. Then, the Vitakarian says, and I quote, 'I would like to have sexual intercourse with that Human,' and she points at the guy who'd been flirting with her all night."

All of them were torn between mock horror and amusement. "Brilliant," Zara chuckled. "I have to use that sometime. Did it work?"

"Well…" Carmelita paused. "We definitely now know that Humans and Vitakara are…compatible. I think. My friend didn't have the intimate details, although both involved didn't seem to regret it afterwards. So I guess it worked?" She shook her head. "Although apparently the mood was killed several times when she started vomiting randomly. A few times after they went too their private quarters to, so I'm told."

"Why?" Oliver inquired.

"The unproven scientific consensus is that Vitakarians get high on chocolate, and it makes them vomit if they consume it," Carmelita said, cracking up. "I know there is at least one person working to convert it to a safe drug."

"Send it to the science teams," Ellinor chuckled. "We've got a new weapon to use against the aliens! We kill them with chocolate."

"What if this is what they do when they're high though?" Leonard asked jokingly. "I don't know how we'd respond if they start yelling at random Humans if they want to have 'sexual intercourse'."

"Let's hope the aliens don't have a way to weaponize weed in response," Zara added. "What do we get when both armies are equally stoned?"

"Let's not go there," Oliver said quickly. "I think this discussion has run its course."

"Hey, at least they sort of look like us," Leonard pointed out. "At least it wasn't something really weird like an Oyariah."

"I don't really blame the guy," Shun said. "As far as aliens go, they aren't that bad. I wouldn't say no. They're pretty much like us, at least physically."

"Aside from their skin, and their eyes, and they don't have hair, and they're tall," Zara listed off. "But yeah, very similar."

"Oh shut up," Shun snorted. "You know exactly what I mean."

"I'll stick with Humans, thank you very much," Ellinor huffed. "I would never be able to get past the whole 'alien' thing. What about you, Oliver?"

He was not getting dragged into this. "I'm sticking to attractive Human women thank you very much."

"Hey, does anyone know if there is any organized crime in the Collective?" Ellinor asked suddenly. "Because if there is, we definitely need to smuggle some chocolate to them."

They all laughed at that. "Better idea," Carmelita said. "We just send out some care packages to alien territory, like Australia. Just have them labeled as "Chocolate – Do not open" or something. Then of course they do, and eat them, and we give them food poisoning."

"Trolling worthy of Quisilia," Leonard commended with a nod. "I approve. Get this to the Commander right away."

"Why the hell are you following Quisilia?" Carmelita asked. "You do know he's an Ethereal right?"

"Oh, he is?" Leonard said. "I was fifty-fifty on that, didn't know if that was real or him just trolling everyone."

"He takes selfies."

"You do know Photoshop exists?"

"Really, I kinda don't care he's an alien bent on enslaving us," Shun admitted. "I mean, I kinda do, but on the other hand, I have to respect anyone that openly mocks Caelior, then trolls the Zar'Chon, and the Battlemaster. His Youtube channel is hilarious too. Say what you will about him, he produces good content."

All of them stared at her. "What do you mean 'his Youtube channel'?" Carmelita asked, very slowly.

"You remember that really weird announcement on his Twitter that everyone freaked out about?" Shun asked. "Well, it turned out it was just the launch of his Youtube channel. He already has twenty-million subscribers, including myself, I admit."

"Traitor," Zara rolled her eyes sarcastically. "Alright, I have to see this."

"Count me in," Oliver added, grabbing his tablet and tossing it to Shun. "Pull it up, let's see how Quisilia is giving everyone in ADVENT Intelligence a headache."

"Gladly," Shun smiled. "Bet you didn't expect this when you came to XCOM, Leonard, did you?"

"Watching a video with a living memelord Ethereal?" Leonard said, as they gathered around Shun. "Can't say that I did."

"Welcome to XCOM, kid," Oliver grunted. "Like I said earlier, you'll get used to it."

---

The Praesidium, Research Labs

There was quite a bit that Vahlen wanted to discuss, even though the majority of her work had been assisting Shen with other projects, which the elder engineer would be showing off soon. But it was built on the basis of what Vahlen's team had learned, and there was still quite a few other projects in production.

Elerium had been the main focus of Vahlen's team, and as a result there were elerium crystals everywhere in the labs; stored in jars, cases, hooked up to various machines with scientists running experiments on them. There was a louder than normal perpetual hum here, and the Commander suspected it was due to all the elerium being used.

Vahlen was in her regular lab coat and standing in front of a table with various unidentifiable tools attached to small elerium crystals. She must have sensed him walking up, because she turned to him, smiling, and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. "Welcome back,"

"You say that like you didn't just see me a few hours ago," he said, amused.

"Well, you haven't been here in a while," she amended, turning back to the table. "And we have been busy."

"So I see," the Commander noted. "Elerium?"

"That has been the primary focus of our team," Vahlen confirmed. "As per your directive. We have continued to make some progress on the Manchurian Project, but that has not been our priority. Anti-Psionics has taken priority over that, and now that we understand elerium enough to actually use it, it won't be long until we have plasma weapons of our own."

Excellent. With that, they would be able to successfully match the aliens in pure damage output. While he knew that by no means would they stop using laser and Gauss weapons, plasma gave them some additional options, and in general would be more effective against standard alien units than the other weapon types.

He was going to regret this, and likely not understand half of it, but he had to at least make an effort. "In that case, how does elerium work? It couldn't have been easy."

"Initially, you're right," Vahlen said, picking up one of the blue-green crystals with a gloved hand. "How familiar are you with Moscovium?"

Oh dear. "Vahlen…"

"Oh, right," she nodded rapidly, remembering she wasn't speaking to a scientist. "Element 115 on the periodic table, it was discovered just over a decade back, but has only recently been officially recognized. This is important because elerium, as it turns out, is actually an isotope of this element."

That was something he hadn't expected. "That seems like a large coincidence."

"Not necessarily," Vahlen disagreed. "The periodic table is unlikely to change if we were to expand beyond Earth. Elements don't suddenly cease to exist, but we would likely just find more, or different properties of already existing ones. That the aliens have discovered this element and turned it into a power source isn't exactly far-fetched."

She set the crystal down. "Normally, finding, let alone stabilizing an isotope like this would be extremely time intensive, but thanks to the aliens, we know how to achieve this necessary configuration. That actually wasn't the hard part, there is plenty of working alien tech to draw from; the issue was actually getting the elerium to react."

"Which I assumed you figured out," the Commander guessed.

"Yes," Vahlen said, smiling. "We were looking at elerium the wrong way. We had always assumed it was, or at least primarily exists, in a solid state."

The Commander looked down on the table, where there were quite a few very tangible-looking elerium crystals. He felt he was interpreting her statement wrong. "Are they not?"

Vahlen hesitated, clearly trying to think about the best way to explain this. "Not exactly. We now think that elerium is a kind of time crystal, based on how we've seen it react. Time crystals still oscillate, even in their ground state, which to not completely lose you, means that they can act as a way to carry momentum throughout its structure."

She motioned towards the table. "To explain more simply, there is a large reserve of potential untapped energy in each elerium crystal, and if we know how to…jumpstart it, for lack of a better word, it produces an exothermic reaction, and through this we can produce stable energy nearly anywhere."

He understood…most of that. "I assume you wrote a report on that?" He asked.

"Of course," she nodded. "I forwarded a copy to you."

He made a note to try and read it later. "So we know how elerium works, and can integrate it into our own technology?" He asked to clarify.

"Eventually," she said. "Because we know what elerium is now, we can synthesize it ourselves, as well as constructing more generators. It will take some time to convert our power sources to elerium, but it certainly is possible."

"Forward your research to ADVENT," the Commander said. "They need to begin integrating this immediately. The discovery of cheap energy will benefit the entire Human race, not just us."

"And now we can actually begin to research and design plasma weapons of our own," Vahlen continued. "With elerium solved, our largest hurdle is past. The next step then, is anti-psionics."

"Yes," the Commander nodded, as Vahlen picked up a tablet and tapped a finger on it. "Aside from the Manchurian Program, what other possibilities have you explored?"

"A genetic modification that would be able to either shut down the parts of the brain affected by telepathy, or stop it entirely." Vahlen turned the tablet to him, which showed pictures of brain scans which he didn't know how to interpret. "There is a recordable difference between a brain affected by psionics and a brain that isn't. There are some ways we are exploring to both detect, and shut this down."

"No test subjects yet?" The Commander noted.

"No, preliminary research only," Vahlen confirmed. "I didn't want to begin Human testing until we have isolated the probable brain regions to modify, and the majority of my team was able to focus on this. Now that elerium is finished, we can focus on it. However, this will have several drawbacks."

"Such as?" The Commander asked.

"We won't be able to do it to psions," Vahlen explained. "For obvious reasons, it would render them comatose. In addition, it is very likely that soldiers who undergo this modification will not be able to be enhanced with friendly telepathy. Distinguishing between allied and hostile telepathy is impossible.

Well, there wasn't going to be something that was perfect, and he could live with those limitations. Psions could defend themselves, or at least learn how. But he was curious. "Does it have to be a straight modification?" He asked. "We have technology to detect and interact with psionic abilities, could we use it for creating anti-psionic fields."

Vahlen set down the tablet, hesitating before she answered. "In theory…yes. In fact, it's another avenue we're exploring. However, we don't know much about how that specific technology works to interact with psionics, and reverse-engineering it will take time. I don't even know if it could actively block psionic abilities. But it is a possibility."

"Is there any of the Sovereign technology schematics Aegis has that could help with anti-psionics?" The Commander asked.

Vahlen pursed her lips. "I don't know. Much of what is in there is difficult even for me and Shen to fully understand, let me show you," a few taps on her tablet, and she showed an image to him. It was six full pages of gibberish and formulas written in an alien language that wasn't Ethereal Script, and only at the end were some schematics, which honestly to him looked like a sphere of some kind.

"And you don't understand this?" The Commander asked. "Can't really blame you."

"We haven't fully figured out the language the Sovereign Ones write in," Vahlen admitted. "The main pieces Aegis brought, the Gateways and practice amps, those had already been translated by the Ethereals, and it wasn't difficult to translate them to English. From what I can make out, whatever this device does 'ensures that the thralls are immune to tampering of the mind'. From what I can also make out, constructing it requires both equipment and resources that don't exist." She set the tablet down. "It might be a mistranslation, but I'm not sure. Even for Sovereign technology, it is complicated. Even just the math is beyond me."

"We can always bring in mathematicians," the Commander reminded her. "You don't need to do everything."

"No, but I should at least be able to have some idea how this works," she muttered scowling. "It's frustrating to have to rely on others. Luckily, Shen isn't having as much trouble. He grasps their formulas much better than I do. But maybe you're right, what Aegis has brought us could likely save us, should we decipher it. The more people looking at this, the better."

"I'll have Jackson put together a team of linguists, cryptologists, and mathematicians," the Commander told her. "You'll review the list before they're approved, but we need to do something to get an edge. I don't think this war is going to get easier, and we can't suffer any more defeats."

Vahlen smiled. "I think we've come up with something that will help us out a bit with that. If nothing else, it will give the Ethereals pause." He followed her as she turned to head towards the Genetic Labs, and the Subject Cells. "However, before we get there, we do have something of a situation," Vahlen warned as they walked towards the cells.

The Commander glanced down at her. "What happened?"

"Nothing major," Vahlen said, looking mildly disconcerted as she psionically unlocked the door to the Labs. "As a general rule, I experiment with my own telepathy on the various test subjects. I've gotten rather skilled at navigating and influencing their minds."

He was wholly unsurprised at that. She was a seventy-six on the Trask scale, a Magus-class psion and one of the most powerful in XCOM. Not quite Patricia, but closer than most. "Did you find something strange?"

"Not strange, but concerning," Vahlen clarified. "We only experiment on convicts, thankfully, and that has never been an issue. Their minds are interesting, from a purely clinical perspective, but the problem is that we somehow have someone who is actually innocent of what he was convicted for."

The Commander rubbed his forehead. As far as incidents, this was a thankfully minor, if irritating, one. "I hope you haven't done anything to him?"

"No, nothing yet," Vahlen assured him as they stepped into the Subject cells and stopped before one. "Once I found out, I quarantined him until I could speak to you. I've kept him well-fed and supplied him with actual amenities. But I did restrict him to the cell until we decided what to do with him." The man before them, sleeping on an actual bed Vahlen must have moved in for him, seemed to be in his forties, with thinning black hair and thin stature; he was also extremely pale, likely from years of confinement.

"He's seen too much," the Commander muttered. "I don't suppose you know who actually committed the crime he was convicted for? Or who actually convicted him?"

"He was accused of murdering his ex-girlfriend," Vahlen explained. "He doesn't know who did it, even if he has suspicions. I do know the judge and jury who presided over his trial. I don't know the details of the case, but I've put together a report you can give to ADVENT." She wrinkled her nose. "This is unacceptable. If ADVENT isn't working on a judicial branch for the PRIESTs, this will keep happening."

"Agreed," the Commander said grimly. "Wipe his mind of what he's seen here, and I want him moved out of here and to a country of his choice, with as much compensation as he wants. Give it to ADVENT too, maybe this will get them to accelerate their justice reform. I hope you included in your report suggestions to investigate this case."

"Certainly," Vahlen said. "I'll have him moved, then alter his memories. He'll remember us freeing him, but nothing of what he's actually seen. I doubt he'll care. He just wants to be free."

"We don't have any more, correct?" The Commander said.

"Innocent people here? No," Vahlen confirmed. "Like I said, I discovered this almost immediately. However, I want us to have a telepath to investigate the ones being sent to us beforehand so we don't have this situation again."

"Better yet, just go through all of death row and solve the issue at the root," the Commander half-seriously suggested. "I'll have to talk to Saudia about this."

"Now that we have that sorted out, we can move onto the developments," Vahlen said, as they walked further down. "The more research we perform on MELD, the more baffled I am that the Ethereals haven't put it to greater use. Genetic modification and mechanical augmentation is all well and good, but MELD is a lethal weapon if the potential is tapped."

"This is for Artemis?" The Commander asked.

"It could be," Vahlen clarified. "There are two methods of nanite weaponization we are working towards: Short-wave organic control, and bioproduction."

"Promising," the Commander said, since he suspected what both of those meant. "I assume short-wave is for in-combat usage only?"

"Correct," Vahlen confirmed as they stopped in front of another cell. "The problem we continually have to worry about is the nanites being compromised. The way around this is nanites slaved to a specific frequency, and said frequency would be connected to a soldier via an implant. This wouldn't allow the nanites to be altered or hacked."

She tapped a finger on the glass and the man inside bolted up, eyes widening in fear once he saw Vahlen. "Couldn't the implant be hacked?" The Commander asked.

"It's not connected to a network, so no," Vahlen dismissed, pressing a button that enabled communication into the cell. "Demonstrate nanite manipulation."

The man nodded and turned towards a small orange cube on the ground. The cube began vibrating and suddenly dissolved and the small MELD nanite swarm flew into the air and rematerialized into a cube in his hand. For good measure he tossed the cube into the air once and caught it.

"He can control it with his mind," the Commander noted. "An application of MEC cybernetics?"

"A lesser application, and nowhere near as complicated," Vahlen clarified. "He's technically not controlling them, he's controlling the implant. The implant sends a limited number of signals that mean different things; up, down, left right, sphere, cube, and so on. It takes some practice, but I think that idea can soon be put into practice."

"Give some soldiers MELD cubes, and this could kill the Battlemaster," the Commander said as he thought about it.

"It's nowhere near combat ready," Vahlen clarified. "But the concept is sound, which is what I wanted to show you. The next usage will be useful to increasing our MELD production without relying solely on facilities."

They moved down to another cell, where there actually wasn't a test subject inside, but a dead, naked corpse. She was suspended over a clear glass vat underneath her, and the machine suspending her had a syringe arm just hovering over her. "Explain," the Commander said dryly.

"MELD bioproduction," Vahlen explained. "MELD has the ability to replicate itself, and there are hundreds of thousands of human and alien corpses that go to waste rotting. They are just a valid source of MELD, but they haven't been utilized correctly as of yet. This was a specimen I requested from a morgue to test on, and I believe it will be beneficial to us."

"That sounds extremely dangerous," the Commander pointed out. "If it gets out of control-"

"Please, I know what I'm doing," Vahlen told him. "One: The nanites have been programed to only harvest organic material, as you can see, there is no other organic material in the room. Two: It's been specifically programed to not harvest the other materials in the room, like the steel and glass. Three: The nanites can be shut off or destroyed at any time. Four: The room has several incinerators that will melt everything if that fails." She pointed to the nozzles pointing out from the corners of the walls.

That seemed sufficient to the Commander. Although, he wasn't sure if you could be too careful when it came to this. "Fair. Go on and demonstrate."

"Will do," Vahlen said as she pressed a button on a wristpad. "This can be done with only one nanite to start, but I would prefer you have the enhanced version." As she spoke the syringe arm began injecting the yellow MELD into specific spots on her body; the feet, legs, chest, arms, hands and finally eyes.

The Commander grimaced as he saw the syringe go into her eyes. He never really liked seeing that.

"It will take a few minutes for the MELD to begin working," Vahlen said. "Just watch."

He did, and it took close to ten minutes before the first noticeable effects began showing. The body first began leaking MELD from cracks in the skin, where the nanites had eaten to that point, and began dripping down into the vat below. Then the Commander saw the MELD actually begin to dissolve the corpse entirely as the nanites replicated further.

Eventually it had eaten through the bones and tissue holding parts of it together, and parts of the body fell into the vat below, and were consumed by the nanites in the vat itself, while the ones still in the body harvested it. It seemed fairly slow, but the Commander then realized that the entire body had been turned into a vat full of MELD in just under a half hour.

"And that is enough MELD to fully enhance three soldiers," Vahlen said proudly, as she pressed a button on her wrist. "All from one body. The nanites within can then be wiped and reprogramed to whatever we want."

"I think," the Commander said slowly. "We might have potentially solved any MELD shortage we had. I would inform ADVENT about this use immediately. We now have a use for the bodies beyond fertilization and autopsies."

"Gladly," Vahlen said. "I take it you wish me to establish this program more fully?"

"Yes," the Commander ordered, a smile growing on his face as he looked at the vat of MELD. "Let's get this up and running."

---

The Praesidium, Patricia's Quarters

Patricia hadn't quite believed it before she'd actually sat down and watched it, but lo and behold, it was an actual thing, and was the funniest thing she'd seen all day. So she naturally had to share this with someone. "Hey," she called to Creed who was laying on the bed. "You'll never guess what just got greenlit."

His face scrunched in confusion. "What? A new project?"

"Not related to XCOM," she chuckled. "Well, officially anyway. You know, what they call entertainment that gets approved for production."

His face lit up and he nodded. "Ah, right. Took me a second to make the connection. So let me guess, they're making a movie about XCOM?"

"Close..."

"TV series?"

"Got it," she confirmed, sitting down beside him and holding up her tablet for him to see. "And boy is it something."

Creed smirked when he saw it. "This should be good."

The trailer was, all things considered, not completely terrible. It was treated completely serious…she thought, since the various actors seemed to be into their roles. The plot seemed to be set in the pre-invasion period when they were fighting small groups of aliens and dealing with abductions. Not too bad, but what they seemed to think happened during those times…yeah…

It seemed that the trailer seemed to think that the aliens had flat out invaded each and every town they'd abducted, taking the unfortunate civilians alive, who were of course yelling and begging for their lives. Then XCOM showed up, and it turned into some sort of hostage situation. Obviously supposed to be emotional, but she just snorted when she watched it. That wasn't anything close to what had actually happened.

"I don't recall it being that…exciting," Creed said, lips twitching. "We were lucky if there even were aliens there and they weren't already long-gone."

"Keep watching," she said, as it showed the first of the characters.

This might have been her favorite part, because it seriously looked as though someone had been told vaguely what the actual members of XCOM actually looked like, but nothing else. The 'Commander' here wasn't too far off visually, likely because he had actually been seen in public, but that was where the accuracy ended. For one, he appeared to be portraying a stand-up, nice, and ethical person. That alone was amusing.

There was the second in command who she thought was supposed to be Bradford, but looked absolutely nothing like him, and had the most overdramatic voice of them all. His one line as XCOM soldiers were seeing an alien for the first time was the most exaggerated "What…is it," she had ever heard. It was very funny.

Patricia presumed that no one actually knew who the science lead was, aside from that it was a woman, because the lead scientist was not Vahlen, but some Korean lady. Same for Shen, who she assumed had been described to them as 'the older engineer'. For good measure they'd made "Shen" look like a semi-mad scientist, with a beard too.

Creed started laughing. "Did you know they were doing this?"

Oh, and apparently she was also in this. Apparently in this timeline, XCOM already had psionics and she was the resident psion, called "Patricia". No last name was given, likely for legal reasons, but yeah, the actress playing her was too much of a copy for it to be a coincidence.

"They certainly think we use a lot of explosives," Creed commented. "And…oh, come on. Who thinks these clichés are actually good?"

And that was the other thing, whoever had made this just could not help themselves, and included stupidly generic taglines like "Witness the beginning" and "Can they succeed" and crap like that. Her personal favorite was the line the "Commander" spoke at the end that was perfectly punctuated by the dramatic music.

"Gentlemen, we are now dealing with an enemy…unknown."

It was so overly dramatic and out of character for the Commander that it was actually hilarious.

"So," Creed set down the tablet. "I guess this is a thing. Who's even making TV right now? That just seems like a waste of time that could be put elsewhere."

"ADVENT has to be behind this," Patricia said. "This is complete propaganda, and giving the general population a distraction so they don't lose morale. If we're having problems beating the aliens in real life, they can just show the aliens losing in TV. Psychologically it's very smart. But still," she smirked. "Completely inaccurate."

"I wonder if I get on…" he mused. "Because I just know everyone is going to have a love interest."

"I'm probably going to end up with that Russian soldier," she guessed with a smirk. "Just guessing, and I guarantee that the Commander will also end up with the science lady."

"Do you think they actually asked him about this?" Creed wondered. "I mean, it's only polite to ask first."

"Probably, and he likely said 'sure, but I have actual things to do. No, you can't have a tour,' the end." Patricia guessed. "Well, whatever the case, I think we have a new base-wide event. We haven't really had one of those for a while."

"Oh yes," he said as he thought some about it. "This is going to be great."

"Yeah," she agreed. "I'm personally going to be mailing them about every inaccuracy I spot."

"Careful," Creed warned mockingly. "I don't think executives would like being told that their entire show is inaccurate."

"Hey, I'm one of the few known XCOM soldiers in the world," she defended. "My word should count for something. And I can always threaten to mind control them."

Creed groaned. "Please don't."

She lightly punched him. "Kidding, don't worry."

He rubbed his eyes. "Just wait till Quisilia hears about this. I'm expecting nothing less than full weekly reviews."

"For some reason," Patricia said slowly and sarcastically. "I think they're counting on the publicity from that."

---

The Praesidium, Engineering Bay

The Commander was rather looking forward to seeing what Shen had managed to put together for him. If the list was all complete, it was a much-needed boon and boost to morale for the soldiers. While the Commander wasn't thrilled with the way the war had gone so far, it wasn't unexpected. He would have been more suspicious if they had been winning more often than not. It would have felt like a trap to lure them into complacency.

Ultimately, he knew that in the grand scheme of this war, these were only the beginning stages. They were still here, they were still making progress, and soon that was going to pay off. Today might just mark the moment when they started hurting the aliens, and preferably, make them scared.

The main threat the aliens had were the Ethereals. Just one could turn any victory into a near-assured defeat. They were the key to victory. Defeat the Ethereals, then the Collective would soon follow, and once it did, there was going to be retribution for this unprovoked war. But he would save his plans for when they were actually feasible.

Right now, he wanted to see what Shen had put together.

"Commander, welcome," Shen greeted as he walked up. "Your meeting with Vahlen was productive?"

"Very," the Commander agreed as they began walking through the whirring machines. "I expect now that we have elerium decoded, you can move forward with several other projects?"

"Yes," Shen nodded. "We will be working with the science teams to get plasma weaponry deployed as soon as possible. But elerium has helped us complete several major projects: Firestorm, Stargate, and Icarus. More will be coming in the future, but it is looking very bright, even as ADVENT will no doubt make advancements of their own."

He knew about Project Firestorm, and had passing knowledge of the other two. "Well, I'm ready to see what you've come up with."

"Let's start small then," Shen suggested, and led him to a metal table that had some kind of weapon on it. The size was about that of an autorifle, and the main barrel was circular and chrome, and culminated in an end with four prongs extended, all sparking with electricity. "While we didn't have many new weapons for you, aside from Templar requests," Shen continued. "Several engineers came up with this little weapon."

The Commander picked it up, noting it was much lighter than he was expecting. "So what is it?"

"This," Shen said with an amused smile. "Is the WHEEE."

The Commander gave an absentminded nod, until his brain caught up with his ears. "I'm sorry, what?"

"The Weaponized High Explosive Energy Emitter," Shen explained, giving a rare chuckle. "The idea was taken from the original ARC Thrower, which has sadly become rather obsolete in both use and power. The design was taken and scaled up to a full-sized cannon. The best description would be…" he paused, glancing up for inspiration. "A mobile lightning gun."

Well, that explained the weight. He began walking to the range, shifting it around as he figured out how it weighed in various positions. "I don't think you'll have to test this on me," he commented as he saw the end prongs spark. He could swear Shen sighed in relief at that. "Let's see how this actually works."

Shen had luckily set up several dummies at the end of a quartered off range. One was a regular stuffed dummy in the shape of a Vitakarian, or other vague humanoid, and the next was a copy, but with some light armor on it. He aimed first at the uncovered dummy, noting that the weapon sparked at the prongs, and saw a small laser beam shooting out from the WHEEE, which reminded him of the old laser weapons. The moment he applied some light pressure to the trigger, there was a sharp crack and bright flash, and the dummy was gone.

Only scraps of material floated down, whatever remained that hadn't been atomized by the WHEEE bolt.

That was rather satisfying. "Impressive," he complimented. "I don't suppose this can be fired indefinitely?"

"Unfortunately not," Shen said with a smile. "This current iteration can only shoot four blasts before it requires a replacement cell, and the cells take near ten minutes to fully recharge, even with elerium generators." He motioned to the WHEEE. "However, there are three different cells built into the cannon, which you can cycle through, and the recharging process will begin immediately for the most recent cell. You'll have to watch your fire, but we didn't want this to be a limited-use weapon."

"Smart," the Commander agreed. "Time for a little more conclusive test." He aimed for the armored dummy, wondering what would happen to the metal itself. If the person inside didn't die from literal shock, he wondered what-

He fired another bright white bolt, and the metal turned a scorched black, and then fell to the ground as the dummy had the same reaction as the first one, which was a violent explosion.

Huh. He smiled.

"I think we have another anti-Battlemaster weapon," he noted, cycling the cells even though he still technically had two shots left. "I don't imagine all that metal armor would be good for him if he were to…say…get struck by lightning."

"No," Shen agreed as the Commander turned back to him. "I don't think he would. This hasn't been field-tested yet…but you can imagine why we're pretty confident about the results."

"Be sure to make enough of these," the Commander said, gesturing for him to continue. "I think I'm going to keep this one." He flipped the labeled safety switch and followed Shen as they walked to a different part of the Engineering Bay.

"First I'll demonstrate the Stargate Project," Shen said, and they stepped into an expansive area, where there were two full-sized and identical Gateways, set a short distance from each other. Engineers were stationed at terminals close by, and connected to, the Gateways themselves.

"You figured it out," the Commander said approvingly. "How hard was it?"

"Reverse-engineering a piece of technology that allows instant teleportation?" Shen questioned with some rare sarcasm. "Fairly. Sovereign tech is…difficult to understand, even when fully translated to English. However, on a purely scientific level, it does make some degree of sense, though how this could have possibly been discovered I cannot imagine."

The Commander and Shen walked to the middle, in between both Gateways. "So if you can explain, how does it work?"

"The Gateways act as tuning forks, which resonates two points in space by creating a harmonic function," Shen began, and the Commander was already having trouble following. Physics was not something he particularly liked, or was good at. "This function is designed to resonate two points in space-time."

"Right," the Commander said dryly. "And how does it do that?"

"By creating a compound wave constructed by a fast-fourier transform, which spikes at two points on an infinite line…" he trailed off when he saw the Commander's face. "You don't follow?"

"No."

"Ok," Shen rubbed his forehead. "The two Gateways are resonating at the same frequency, and that is how they are connected. The connection is through two points in space through the space-time fabric. So anything going in one, comes out the other. It's not necessarily instantaneous, but the more perfect the resonance aligns between the two Gateways, the more likely people going into Gateways will exit instantly."

He understood that. "And if the resonance isn't perfect?"

"Two possibilities," Shen answered. "The most common is that it takes longer to emerge from the other side of the Gateway. Instead of instantly, it could be a minute or more. People who went in didn't report any difference in how it felt to them, as far as they were concerned, it was instantaneous. The other danger, and this was when we deliberately messed with the resonance, is that whatever goes in just vanishes."

The Commander raised an eyebrow. "Just vanishes? Nothing else?"

"The most likely outcome is that it was teleported, but to a location other than the second Gateway," Shen explained. "Where that is, we can't predict. It could be a few feet away, or the other side of the world. It's not lethal, or so we think, but it could transport beings to dangerous locations. We didn't test on people either, but we did need to know the potential dangers."

The Commander looked to the Gateways. "I hope you have a safe version prepared?"

"I assumed you'd want to test it for yourself," Shen said, pointing to the engineers manning the Gateway terminals. "Begin synchronization!"

"Synchronization beginning," one of them called, and both the Gateways began shimmering with purple and black energy, the black hole in the center growing larger and larger as Shen and the Commander walked up to one. A few minutes later, the Commander could make out a blurry image in the Gateway, which appeared to be the very room he was in.

"Synchronization complete!" Someone called. "Resonance is stable."

"Here goes nothing," the Commander muttered as Shen nodded it was safe to go through. He took a single step into the Gateway and he was suddenly on the other side of the room. He blinked. It seemed anticlimactic, but he then remembered that he had literally been teleported from one position to another.

"I think it works!" He called out. He turned around and walked through the Gateway he had exited, and was immediately back beside Shen. "That was strange," he commented. "I didn't feel anything. It was instant."

"The big test will be once we have Gateways across the world," Shen said. "I expect there might be some delay, but for now, it is instantaneous. The schematics and plans are ready to be given to ADVENT, as well as construct more of our own, with your approval."

"Done," the Commander said instantly. "I don't think the aliens will be pleased that we can have unlimited reinforcements now too."

"Unlikely," Shen agreed. "And with that, I think I'll show you the other two projects. I think you'll be just as pleased with the results for them."

With what he'd seen so far, his expectations were high. "Lead the way," he told Shen, and followed him to another part of the Engineering Bay."

---

The Praesidium, Barracks

[Concerningg the continuing development of XCOM technology, it has not slowwed despite the continuing losses against aalien forces. The main reason for this is that the Commander of XCOM hass taken an extremely long view of the war ahead, and has accounted for a difficult intial defense. In addition, the presence of the Ethereal Aegiss, as well as Psion Patricia Trask has helped maintainnn morale.]

[In addition, there are severall major projects that have been in development for the pastt several months, that I am not only just learning about. The FIRESTORM, ICARUS, STARGATE projects, as well as the ADVENT PRIEST Program have all siiginificantly contributed to XCOM strategy moving forward, which I will detaail below to the best of my abilityy…]

Nuan gritted her teeth as she looked over the currently typed report. The misspellings were bad, but it wasn't something that she could particularly fix at the moment or easily. Her prosthetics, which rested on the laptop in front of her, were more of a hindrance than a help in more delicate situations like this.

While she was still thankful to have hands, it was more…difficult to adjust than she was expecting. She hadn't felt right ever since she'd started using them, and everything she tried to do to get more used to them only highlighted just how…odd she felt. She was more dexterous with them than she'd been a few weeks ago, but still…

What continually upset her was there wasn't any feeling. Not like actual skin. She could control to an extent how much pressure she exerted, even if she'd shattered a few glasses every now and then. She used plastic now as a result, but that was the only stimuli she truly got. She knew when she was touching something, but it barely mattered what.

Heat, cold, hard, soft; she couldn't feel anything anymore. She knew the prosthetics could withstand extreme temperatures, so she wasn't in much danger per-se, but she would have honestly preferred the ability to feel pain, over this blank nothing. Before this, she would have liked the ability to just ignore pain, but now she wouldn't think of it. What people didn't understand was that if you couldn't feel pain, you also couldn't feel anything else.

And she missed that.

It felt petty and selfish since she actually had functional limbs, but all it was reminding her of more and more was just what she had lost. It was difficult to just keep ignoring that, since it could happen at any time, even while writing a report for her superiors.

So she'd tried everything she could to take her mind off it, and decided to figure out exactly what XCOM had been doing to make the most comprehensive assessment possible. Turned out that XCOM had quite a lot of projects going which were all being completed now. Elerium was perhaps the largest game-changer, and she was debating putting in a section explaining how to use it from Vahlen's report.

Considering the Commander's overall attitude to giving away information, she was expecting the majority of it to be redacted. Maybe she'd have to speak to him about it. Thankfully it seemed China was actually not making any rash decisions and making sure not to antagonize ADVENT. They were no doubt still concerned, but she was breathing a little easier now that she didn't have to worry about a Chinese-ADVENT war.

Although, once they learned the details of the PRIEST Program, that might change. China would be trying to make psions of their own, but she doubted they would have much success. The PRIEST Program would be considered a threat, but then again, pretty much everything was a threat now. If anything, they were going to be more concerned about the rapid technological progress of XCOM.

She was fully expecting Aegis to be censored as well, but maybe it would be enough for her superiors to figure out that something was causing this rapid advance. The Gateways were the largest tell and she hadn't planned on even trying to include how they worked. There was zero chance the Commander would let that fall into Chinese hands.

"Another report by the ever-diligent Chinese agent?" Iosif commented lightly as he walked up.

"Quiet," she muttered in return, but she was rather happy to see him. He at least didn't have any issues talking with her, as the combination of her nationality and now perceived disability had made her more unapproachable than ever. She wouldn't have minded too much, but sometimes the isolation was depressing.

Oddly enough, the MEC soldiers made for better conversation partners. Even if they couldn't quite relate, they at least understood more of what she was dealing with, even if they weren't necessarily…sympathetic. The newer-model ones that had just been converted did seem to retain at least some of their personalities, one had even made a joke, but they still seemed more imitations of personalities than the actual thing.

No, that wasn't really fair. They just…their augmented brains must not be able to process emotions and genuine displays like regular Humans. It was a strange combination to her, they were perfectly capable of understanding various emotions, as well as breaking down causes for each, but they couldn't really express them for themselves.

She wondered if that was actually just a cost of heavy brain modification, not necessarily related to the MECs. Either way, the MEC pilots were far from automatons that quite a few people perceived. Still, it wasn't quite like holding a conversation with an actual person. She glanced up at Iosif. "Shouldn't you be training those new Templars?"

"Where do you think I've been all day?" He asked rhetorically as he sat down by her. "I'm feeling rather good seeing the new ones come in. The aliens won't find us as easy to kill."

"Let's hope so," Nuan muttered, looking back at the laptop screen, willing herself to keep going. She did need to get this done. "The Commander has had his people advance a great deal technologically."

"I think we'll be attacking the aliens in America next," Iosif guessed. "Think you'll be combat ready by then?"

Her lips twitched as she thought. "Maybe. I can handle a weapon well enough."

"But…" he finished, clearly sensing her hesitation.

"But I'm not comfortable with these yet." She held up the prosthetic arms. "I'm not sure I'll ever be," she admitted.

His eyebrows furrowed as he likely sensed she wasn't exactly happy right now. "Is it really that bad? Have you talked with the engineers?"

"It's not that," she sighed, trying to think of how best to explain it. "Functionally, everything works perfectly. I can even write legibly now. My issues are more psychological, I think." She paused. "I can't feel anything. And that bothers me."

"How can your hands work then?" He asked, frowning, nodding to the cup by her laptop. "You shouldn't be able to pick that up then."

"That's pressure sensors," Nuan corrected. "It's…you've worn heavy gloves, right? You can still handle things, but it's more difficult and you don't have any sensitivity in them." She twisted a hand, exposing it to him. "That's what this is like. Permanently."

"Ah," he nodded in understanding. "That…hmm…I can see why that wouldn't be pleasant."

"I've found the best thing to do is just distract myself," Nuan shrugged. "Exercise, research, talking; physical things mostly. Too much time alone and I just start thinking about it again." She glanced back at her laptop. "However, some things just can't be helped. We all have people we answer to."

"Can I see them?" He asked suddenly.

"Sorry?"

"Your prosthetics." He nodded to her hands. "I've not seen any up close, aside from the MEC pilots, and theirs are vastly different."

She thought about it. It seemed a little strange, but Iosif probably had another point to this than just wanting to hold her hand. They were both professionals after all, and she had to admit that she would have been curious to see one up close if the positions were reversed. She didn't answer, but extended her right hand to him, which he took rather gently, or so it looked.

He manipulated her hand lightly, turning it over, and visibly gripping it harder and lighter. "You can't feel this?" He asked, looking up.

"I tell that something is holding onto it," Nuan clarified. "I can't tell the difference in how tight you're holding me or not. Well, except if you're barely holding on. Metal doesn't bend easily."

He tapped the palm of her hand. "So still nothing?"

"I know something is tapping it, but that's it."

"Thank you," he said, setting her hand back on the table, which she kept there for the moment. "Have you looked into…" He paused. "Well, weaponizing them?"

She blinked. "No? I mean, I was just wanting to get used to them first."

"Fair enough," Iosif nodded. "But you can't feel pain now. Honestly, something that might help might be to take advantage of this. If you can't feel, I don't think you're going to come to terms with it just thinking of how much worse it is. Strength-wise, I think that only the MEC pilots are stronger than you. Maybe some of the modified soldiers like Carmelita."

"I can punch walls and not be hurt," she said. "I guess that's something."

"And you felt good, right?" Iosif asked knowingly. "Taking out frustrations on nameless walls always helps."

"More than was probably good," she admitted. "I really haven't thought about these like…that."

"Maybe think about it," Iosif said. "At the very least, I bet punching an alien would feel good. I'd even say you'd make a good Templar, but if you don't, I'd like to at least teach you some basic skills. It isn't everyone who can punch with impunity."

She cocked her head, somewhat surprised by the offer. "I don't want to hurt you."

He chuckled, extending his own arm, and she saw the faintly illuminated hexagons that lined his skin from the light above. "I have Iron Skin and psionics. I think I can take a punch. Might not feel good, but if my skin can stop plasma, it can take a prosthetic punch. Besides, this would take your mind off everything else."

Nuan didn't really see a reason not to do it. It was a kind offer, and one she probably wouldn't get anywhere else. "Ok, I accept… and I hope you don't regret it."

"Regret?" He laughed. "I highly doubt that. I wouldn't have proposed the idea otherwise." He stood. "Anyway, whenever you finish writing stuff for the Commander to redact, find me. I'll be waiting."

She pointedly ignored most of his last sentence. "I will. Thank you."

"Anytime, Nuan," he said with a smile. "We're all here to help each other, regardless of what expectations are."

A good sentiment. If only more people would follow it, they likely wouldn't have the problems they did today.

---

The Praesidium, MEC Suit Storage

"You finished the Shinobi-Class MEC?" The Commander asked as they stepped into the main MEC Suit Storage area, where the suits were stored when not in use.

"We delayed it slightly, as we needed to account for several different variables the Battlemaster proposed," Shen explained. "This is a MEC specifically designed for fighting him, and with Aegis's help, I think he'll be surprised at what exactly it can do."

The Commander then saw the Shinobi MEC itself. With a pilot inside, and all powered up, the MEC itself stood twelve feet tall exactly, near the same size as the Battlemaster, which would already make the battle more even. The suit was white, and slimmer than the other MECs; more humanoid in some aspects. Every part of the joints and limbs were covered in a smooth metal layer, even if it was clearly not as much as a Marauder or Ballista-class.

There were two tanks of something on the back, and both wrists had attachments built into the limb itself, which didn't stand out, but were clearly to be used for dispersing something. What that could be, the Commander could only guess at this point. There were also strange attachments on each of the joints, small, blunt protrusions that appeared to be a mesh, with a faint blue glow underneath.

The weapons it held was where his attention was directed. The right hand held a massive longsword, which seemed to be not quite as long as the Battlemaster's, but at least eight feet long, and with equally large proportions for the hilt size and width. It had an upward angled crossguard, and a block pommel. The other hand held a dark grey rectangle shield, with the XCOM logo emblazoned on it in black.

"Impressive," the Commander said, nodding in approval. "I assume it does more than just fight with a sword and shield?"

"Certainly," Shen said with a nod, as Aegis also then stepped into the room. "Aegis will demonstrate it in a simulated battle."

"While not perfect, Shen and his team have made an excellent effort to combat the Battlemaster," Aegis said, not stopping as a purple psionic sword of his own appeared in one of his hands. "I am no swordsman, but I can provide an effective demonstration."

The Commander was amused to see that Aegis was actually in the inferior position here since he was several feet smaller, but certainly didn't act like it was a problem. He swung his psionic sword and the MEC answered by meeting the strike, then immediately began going on the offensive, raining down a series of sword blows and strikes that the Commander would not have thought possible. It seemed to him even faster than the Battlemaster.

"In theory, MEC pilots should have faster reaction times than purely organic beings," Shen commented as Aegis was forced to use additional defensive psionics to protect himself, as the Shinobi used both the sword and shield offensively; stabbing with the sword while bashing the shield into Aegis when he wasn't expecting it. "This includes the Battlemaster. We can't fully match his charging ability, but we can try and react to it better."

The Shinobi was also extremely mobile for a twelve-foot machine. The Commander noted that there were several small jets built into the legs, feet, and back of the MEC which fired off intermittently as the Shinobi moved, which must have been precisely controlled by the pilot since it never seemed to hinder the suit in any way.

Aegis apparently got tired of being attacked, and thrust out a hand, lifting the Shinobi into the air and tossing it back, then leaping forward to continue the assault. The jets on the Shinobi flared, and while it didn't quite have a smooth landing, it recovered extremely quickly, despite losing its shield. While the sword hand blocked Aegis's strike, holding him in a sword lock, the other arm raised and shot out a stream of white mist towards the Ethereal.

Aegis fell back, covering himself in a psionic shield as the Shinobi advanced, wrist raised and spraying more of it in his direction. "Liquid nitrogen," Shen explained. "A potential way to slow the Battlemaster down, or any other fast alien. If nothing else, he'll want to stay away from it."

"Clever," the Commander noted slowly. "I assume it can be adapted for other chemicals?"

"Yes," Shen confirmed. "Acid, napalm, white phosphorus, thermite. The only thing that we didn't design it for was chlorine triflouride for…obvious reasons."

Aegis extended a hand, and the MEC froze in place, as it was caught telekinetically. Aegis moved around it, and suddenly there was a blue flash, making Aegis stumble back, freeing the MEC. It leapt toward Aegis, sword in hand and Aegis barely got his own psionic blade up to deflect it, as he was still dazed.

"Short-range electric pulse," Shen clarified. "The Battlemaster wears metal armor. He is vulnerable to electricity, and if the Shinobi is stuck telekinetically, they can emit this and it should disrupt his control. Unfortunately it needs a brief recharging period, but it is effective, as you can see with Aegis who doesn't even have that."

"It certainly looks like it will hold up well," the Commander complimented. "Anything else it can do?"

"Those are the main features," Shen said, motioning to the two duelists. "Stand down! Demonstration finished!" The Shinobi stood down immediately, and the psionic blade and shield around Aegis dissipated as he straightened.

"As you can see," Aegis said. "I believe this will provide an adequate challenge to the Battlemaster."

"Ah, one more thing," Shen motioned to Aegis. "Stab her in the arm with the sword. There is another feature we added."

"Certainly," Aegis took the offered sword from the Shinobi and stabbed towards the arm. The Commander assumed this was part of the demonstration, even if it was an unconventional way of showing it off. Aegis had to turn the blade to the heat setting, but he pushed the tip through and withdrew quickly. Mere seconds later, the gaping wound leaking liquid and oil began closing, until a few seconds later there was no visible wound at all.

"Self-healing MELD nanites," Shen confirmed. "We expect the Battlemaster will land several blows, and knowing him, most will be critical. The Shinobi suit has repairing nanites to repair surface damage, and internal nanites to regulate internal systems. Not an infinite supply, mind you, but it will increase survivability significantly."

"The sword can be configured to be attached to the hand of the suit," Aegis added. "As can the shield. However, it is an optional function that varies on the style of the pilots in question."

The Commander smiled grimly. "I'm looking forward to the Battlemaster encountering this. Especially with Templars…"

"Or soldiers in general," Shen said. "I imagine that a Shinobi-Templar-WHEEE combination might be enough to overcome even him. No superweapons required."

"I would not become overconfident," Aegis warned. "This will cause problems for the Battlemaster, but he will adapt."

"Maybe," the Commander agreed. "But I think sooner or later he'll reach a limit."

Shen motioned to the MEC, and the Shinobi walked off. "While we're here, Commander, I do want to appraise you of another project that isn't officially in production yet."

The Commander raised an eyebrow. Shen doing something off the record. This was unexpected. "Nothing too outlandish, I hope?"

"Depends on your definition," Shen said slowly, and began leading him to another section of the Engineering Bay, with Aegis following closely behind. "You recall the Athena Contingency?"

"I wrote it," the Commander snorted. "Of course I do."

"But as of yet, no steps have been taken in case we…need it," Shen pointed out hesitantly. "Considering our precarious position…I do think that is a mistake. Even with our advances, we are still far from posing a dangerous threat to the larger Collective, much less more powerful Ethereals."

The Commander suddenly frowned, recalling exactly what the Athena Contingency entailed. The implications were not…bad…but it was one where there were a very limited number of good outcomes. He hadn't started work on it for a reason. This needed to be something that was handled very, very carefully. "Please don't tell me you have a-"

"No," Shen quickly clarified. "Not a sentient one. More of a…let's say, proof of concept."

"This is dangerous." Aegis commented.

"I assume you read my mind?" Shen sighed.

"When it comes to machines, relying on them is dangerous, and giving them abilities to reason is cataclysmic," Aegis answered. "There is a reason we avoided artificial intelligence. We observed multiple alien species believe they could harness the advanced capabilities of an AI. All of them were eventually betrayed by it, or otherwise sabotaged. One of the most likely theories as to what the Synthesized are is an AI that turned on its creators. You are playing with something you do not understand, Raymond Shen. I would advise-"

"You can advise all you wish," Shen retorted, surprisingly sounding irritated with the Ethereal as they stepped into a circular room that was filled with alien computers that the Commander recognized from various UFOs. "But the fact is that our options and tools are limited. If you continue to not provide more tangible assistance, then we need to explore other possibilities. And since you admit that the Ethereals are unfamiliar with this field, I hardly think you are in a position to lecture us about the dangers."

"I have seen where this leads." Aegis stated flatly. "It has never turned out positively."

"Enough," the Commander demanded, raising a hand, looking at Shen. "Doctor, what exactly do you have to show me?"

"Yes," Shen adjusted his glasses. "The CODEX system was what I am interested in. While it is not a true artificial intelligence, it can perform many functions and has an ability to respond to stimuli that is extremely similar to theoretical AI concepts. However, it cannot go beyond this, as there are programming blocks that prevent it from ever being able to answer or think outside the designated parameters."

"So you took a CODEX and did what?" The Commander asked.

"The first thing I did was set up a working CODEX," Shen said, walking over to one of the consoles. "It relies on databases for all information, as well as connections to UFOs or other systems. I and a small team created a system disconnected from any networks or systems. This still is not connected to any XCOM database."

"At least you are sensible." Aegis commented.

"And…here." Shen pressed a button, and a solid blue hologram of the CODEX figure appeared, but instead of a faceless head, it instead appeared to be an older man, with glasses and thinning hair. He appeared to be based off a real person, but who that was, the Commander couldn't guess. "As you can see, I made some visual changes. The CODEX system has quite a bit of untapped versatility, but the default is the faceless golden figure, with Female Voice Two, to be specific."

"I see," the Commander looked at the hologram closely. "Where are you?" He asked the hologram.

"I am currently, error: Location unknown," the hologram answered in a generic male voice without any inflection. "Error: Data not found; Error: Database connection lost; Error: Local systems not accessible; Error: Likelihood of memory corruption: One Hundred percent."

"Quiet," Shen called to the hologram. "He's not connected to anything. You won't be able to ask him anything without getting roughly fifteen error messages."

"'He'?" Aegis said skeptically.

"Better than it," Shen shrugged. "I doubt you referred to the CODEX as 'it' either."

"Does he have a name?" The Commander asked, amused. "Or at least the system itself?"

"Yes," Shen said, as he continued working at the terminal. "The JULIAN System. Named after a friend who worked in artificial intelligence. Expert programmer and my teacher many years ago." Shen paused. "I'm afraid he passed away several years ago. I felt it fitting to name what may be the first artificial intelligence after him."

"Fair enough," the Commander nodded.

"I'm sure your friend would appreciate you jeopardizing the Human race in his name," Aegis commented. "But the sentiment is commendable."

"Comments like that aside, I do have another demonstration," Shen said. "And…now. JULIAN, identify the following people in this room."

"Current residents in the area," JULIAN said in the same monotone. "Three: Jack Young, Shen Trey, Pablo Roberto. Do you have further inquiries?"

"No," Shen shook his head. "Shut down." JULIAN vanished as he continued explaining. "Even with a temporary database, I didn't want to use actual data, so I simply put our pictures with different names. But you can see that it works near-instantly."

The Commander scratched his chin as he thought. AI was not something he wanted done in secret, or with only a few people. While Shen had his heart in the right place, Aegis had a very good point that an actual AI was not something they had much experience with. "I'm expanding this to a full operation; find the best experts in artificial intelligence and put them on making this work safely. And I want to be appraised of every development. You don't do things like connecting it to external sources, or giving it increased capabilities without my approval." He looked to Shen. "This looks good so far, but this is either being done correctly, or not at all. We can't take the chance."

He glanced up at the Ethereal. "And you are going to work with Aegis on this. While he clearly doesn't like AIs, I'd rather he disapprove and keep you from doing something stupid than have him not be involved at all. And this is going forward Aegis, even with the dangers."

"I do not like it," Aegis said. "But I will have to ensure you do not cause lasting damage."

"Good enough," the Commander nodded, before looking to Shen. "Now, let's see what else you have to show off."

---

The Praesidium, Archangel Testing Area

"Coming in hot!" Sierra called out as she angled her armor to prepare for the rapid insertion. "Ted, Anna, you with me?"

"Copy, Sierra," Ted Holden answered, sounding way too excited about this. "Right behind you. Ready for this?"

"We are completely not," Anna Pavlova disputed, slightly stammering as they approached the ground. "Fuck you and your idiot plans, Sierra."

"Noted," Sierra grinned as the target zone was highlighted on her HUD. She'd wanted to try this ever since she'd strapped on the Archangel armor. She would never have thought she'd be in this position, but now she didn't want to be anywhere else. "Prepare to cut jets."

A few seconds later the HUD flashed yellow, and she flipped her body up vertically, flared her jets with a mental command which briefly slowed her, and then cut the power and fell to the ground feet first. The first time she'd done anything like this she'd thought for sure she was committing suicide, but much to her surprise, the Muscle Fiber Density modification did let her drop entire stories without any damage whatsoever.

And it worked especially well for Archangel drops. She landed on the sandy metal flat filled with targets with a sharp thud, and immediately began firing her gauss rifle at the targets. Ted landed right beside her and thrust out his arms, which were encircled with psionic energy. Purple beams shot from them, incinerating the targets in question.

Anna landed on the other side, and began firing her own autorifle, marching forward as she fired, turning the targets into metal scraps and pieces of material. "Targets eliminated," Sierra said. "Launch!" She triggered the launch command manually, and jumped into the air. She'd memorized the exact time needed for the jets to fully turn on, and timed correctly, she could be in the air again nearly instantly.

Ted whooped as they flew back into the midnight desert sky. "Now that was a combat drop!"

"Fifteen seconds and thirty-two targets removed," Anna commented as they circled the sky. "Not bad for a first try."

"I think I came in a little too early," Sierra said, thinking on the drop. "I could have waited another second before killing the jets."

"Good run," the voice of Shen said. "Perform air-to-ground assault on Section 7. I'll let you decide how to handle it."

"Copy," Sierra confirmed, and began angling her body and jets towards the section. Controlling the armor had taken some getting used to, and for a while she'd mostly gone through various stages of crashing it into walls and sand. But the moment when she'd actually flown in the air for a decent amount of time, and landed it without stumbling had been one of the best feelings ever.

The armor itself was largely controlled by a kind of neural interface, which was a much less invasive version of the MEC implants. Each time she technically had to be connected to the suit, and that allowed her a surprising amount of control over it. Everything vital was displayed on the HUD, but for direction, speed, and intensity, she mostly just had to think about it, and the suit would usually respond. It was a difficult thing to explain, but while the Archangel armor was bulkier than Aegis armor, she didn't really feel it at all.

Complicating controls slightly were small pads in the boots that when pressed by the toes, gave the jet on that leg an extra boost. It had taken some time to not accidentally press it while flying, but now she was good at keeping her feet still unless she needed a little extra control. She'd spent enough time in the suit that some of the more complicated maneuvers were starting to become familiar.

"Section 7 is urban chokeholds, yes?" Anna asked. "Or is that 8?"

"No, 7 is urban chokeholds," Sierra confirmed, a grin stretching across her face once she said that. "Firestorm tactic?"

"Oh yeah," Ted said gleefully. "Think I'll let you ladies take point. I'll destroy whatever you miss."

Sierra checked her fuel levels for the suit heavy weapon. Archangel armor had several different integrated attachments, chemical dispensers and heavy lasers being chief among them, and the flamethrower was without a doubt her favorite weapon she had yet to use. "Anna, you take street two."

"Understood," she confirmed and sped past her as Section 7 approached. It was a mock city block created, with several buildings filling a small web of streets. No skyscrapers unfortunately, but it provided a good enough simulation. And on the streets were dummies in fake cover, presumably attacking allied or XCOM forces.

"Pulling up to the center," Ted informed her and flew upwards until he was stationed more or less in the center of the section, having a clear view of everything, His arms were encircled in violent psionic energy as he waited to unleash it.

"Prepping flamethrower and coming around for the first pass," Sierra stated as she manually prepped her flamethrower. She wasn't as familiar with the weapon, and didn't want to rely on mental commands through the suit with it yet. The Commander was probably watching, and he would want to see everything working.

She circled around, took a breath, and then sped forward, lining up with the street she was planning to strafe. She stuck her rifle to the attachment on her chest, which kept it in place temporarily as she got closer to the ground. Now came her favorite part. "Firing." At the correct mental command, napalm shot out the nozzle on her left wrist, covering the entire street.

Sierra was now prepared for the kickback of the weapon, and had adjusted the strength of her jets to compensate. Once she reached the end of the street, and therefore the enemy line, she ceased the napalm stream and angled herself upward, shooting for the sky with a victorious cheer of her own.

"Strafing run complete," Anna updated, and as Sierra angled herself around, she saw Anna's chosen street burning as well. Ted was also shooting lances of psionic energy at the dummies that hadn't been incinerated, which was almost none, bless his excitable little heart.

"You know, I wish you had missed a few more," Ted commented, as he flew up to where they were congregating. "I didn't really do anything."

"Hey, the lights looked pretty," Anna joked. "All we did was set some things on fire."

"Good work, all of you," Shen interrupted. "Return to Praesidium entrance. Nothing fancy when you come in."

"Roger," Sierra acknowledged. "We're on our way."

She turned herself around, and they shot back across the desert towards the Praesidium. In retrospect, she considered herself very lucky she'd decided to go check out just what XCOM had been working on that one day, because if she hadn't, she likely wouldn't have been asked if she wanted to join the program, and she would have missed out on the ability to fly.

Flying was, unequivocally, awesome. There wasn't a better word to describe it.

Granted, it probably wouldn't be quite as fun when aliens were shooting at her, but she was more or less invincible, so she wasn't quite as worried about that as she probably should have been. She wasn't the only one of the current soldiers who were asked. She was an outlier in that she really didn't have any kind of air experience whatsoever. Most everyone else had a background in parachute insertions, or other paratrooper activities. Anna was an Air Force TRF, and Ted had been a paratrooper.

All the new soldiers recruited specifically for the Archangel Program were all experienced pilots or paratroopers. All things considered, she felt she was holding her own pretty well. It helped that she completely loved doing this.

"Coming in for a landing," Sierra said as she saw the landing pad, where Shen, the Commander, and a few other Archangels were standing. Per the orders, she took it slow, and angled herself up vertically about fifteen feet above the ground and killed the jets; falling to the ground and landing upright, Ted and Anna right behind her.

"Impressive," the Commander complimented, inclining his head. "It sounds like you had fun."

"As much fun as can be had, Commander," she said tactfully. While she most certainly had, it might be best not to visibly have too much fun. "I expect things will become more serious in actual combat. But we are well-prepared."

"We'll find out shortly," the Commander said, turning to Shen. "The pilots you have certainly seem skilled enough. Would you consider them combat-ready?"

"That is more of a question for the respective Dominion Archangels," Shen said, cracking a smile. He hadn't quite gotten into the whole titles they'd decided on, but since they were coming up with entirely new military divisions, most of them had decided to give themselves appropriately decent titles. Which the Commander seemed to recognize.

"Taking the whole 'angel' theme seriously, I see," he said dryly.

Sierra smirked. "All the psions get neat titles, Commander," she pointed out. "Only fair we get some of our own."

"Well in that case, what do they think?" He said turning to the two Dominion Archangels, the ones with the most experience both with the suits and aerial operations in general.

There was Nu Jung-Hwan, who just went by Hwan, one of the most experienced South Korean pilots in their entire military. In his off time he was also proficient in multiple martial arts and had taken up swordplay as a hobby. Naturally, he was one of the few Templar Archangels, and there wasn't anyone who had picked up on how to use the suit as well as he had.

Since he'd apparently helped design it, that wasn't a surprise. Even with the limited time the suits had actually been able to be used, he was a natural at it, pulling off insertions at incredible distances and leaving again in mere seconds.

The other was Viktoria Hammarström, who had quite possibly the best name Sierra had ever heard. She was special beyond her name though, since she was originally part of the Swedish Parachute Rangers, and was also a natural with the Archangel suit. However, aside from being more tactically-minded, she was also a Leviathan-class Psion, and with the Offensive aptitude of powers.

While still getting used to her psionic abilities, Sierra had witnessed her destroy the entirety of Section 7 once with some kind of psionic maelstrom. She was going to give Patricia a run for her money if she kept training.

"Most I believe are sufficiently combat ready," Hwan stated confidently. "Some of the Templars have yet to fully master aerial melee combat adequately, as some are not in acceptable control of the suit. But who you saw today are quite ready, as I'm sure you'd agree."

"I concur," Viktoria agreed. "There is little more that can be learned from repeated exercises outside of actual combat. The Archangels here are more than adequate for combat."

"Excellent," the Commander said. "In that case, I would prepare yourselves. We will be taking the fight to the aliens in the next few days. I would advise that you be ready."

They all saluted. "Yes, Commander."

"Then return to your training," the Commander said, returning the salute. "I look forward to seeing you in action against the aliens themselves."

Sierra couldn't agree more.

---

The Praesidium, Practice Ranges

Oliver did have to admit that the new gene mods really did make a difference. He had literally hit every single target at maximum range and it had genuinely not been that difficult for him. He was going to have to ask that XCOM get some harder practice ranges, because it was almost stupidly easy now.

He hadn't been the only one there either, and some of them had sort of tried to see who could make the most impressive trickshot. He was too old to really do stuff like that, and it might have irritated him before the mandatory upgrades. But considering how accurate he was with a pistol of all things, he was less offended by professional soldiers not taking a practice range completely seriously.

But he was done now, and would have been on his way back had he not spotted a very much armored Carmelita sitting in the background with some tools and a paint can of all things, working on something. He had to at least go and see what that was about. "Expecting trouble?" He asked, making her glance up.

"Oliver, right?" She said in her soft voice, looking at his face inquisitively.

"Yes." He looked down at the table. "Project?"

Carmelita seemed to be working on some kind of helmet. It wasn't the standard one issued to Assault-class soldiers, but a design he'd never seen before. It reminded him more of an astronauts helmet, if the faceplate was complete black and not transparent, as well as the overall design being more oval to fit the head better.

He raised an eyebrow, and he broke into a smirk once he saw what Carmelita had painted on the front of the helmet. It was a smiley face of all things, in a bright Wal-Mart yellow, with two slits for eyes and a curved line underneath for a mouth. Nothing original, but it was not something he was expecting to see on a helmet. "Ah, what is that?"

Carmelita looked at the helmet fondly as she flipped it in her hands. "This," she said, looking up. "Is one of the few unsolved mysteries in XCOM. It's an old helmet, one of the first-gen kinds. As far as I know, only one was made and I found it, and didn't want it to go to waste."

"That's the mystery?" He asked. It seemed rather benign to him.

"Nope," she clarified. "Back in the beginning, this actually belonged to a sniper. No one ever figured out anything about him since he didn't talk, but we had to go along with it. He never showed his face and only communicated in sign language."

Oliver's eyebrows furrowed. "Why? And isn't that dangerous?"

"Never found that out," Carmelita shrugged. "And you would think, but we somehow managed to make it work. Probably because the sniper was actually one of the best I've seen. I think he came with the Commander, but no one knows for sure that I could find."

"He had a sense of humor, clearly," Oliver said, looking down at the helmet.

Carmelita gave a sad smile. "No, a…friend…he found out where the sniper was hiding out, and made some 'adjustments' to the helmet." Her eyes unfocused as she looked sightlessly into the distance. "Needless to say, the sniper was not amused, but I guess he liked it enough to keep it."

Oliver found that very amusing. "Who? I'd give him thanks for creativity. That's rather brilliant. And terrifying." He added after a few seconds of thought.

"His name was Shawn," Carmelita said with a sigh. "He's dead. Chryssalid."

"Oh." That detail suddenly put this in a new context for him. Considering how Carmelita was acting, he suspected that this Shawn had been…important to her. "I'm sorry to hear that." Especially if he'd died to a chryssalid. Hopefully it had been quick and not as a reanimated corpse carrying eggs.

"Appreciated," she said tonelessly. "His was one of the first deaths. Hamburg. I should have been sent with him. He might have lived."

Or, if he died by chryssalid, you would have had to shoot him. He privately thought, but didn't say aloud. "Not necessarily. I think you know that."

She pursed her lips. "I was a better soldier than him. His chances would have been better with me protecting him."

"Protecting?" He raised an eyebrow. "Interesting choice of words."

"Don't play coy, I doubt you're an idiot," she stated flatly. "I doubt it's 'interesting' either. You try and protect the people you care about, right? Even if you know they can do that themselves?"

"True," he admitted. "Although I'm afraid not in the same context as you."

"Count yourself lucky," Carmelita said coldly. "Mira was right. Attachments never work out in our line of work. All it will eventually cause is pain."

The name was unfamiliar to him. "Another friend?"

"Wouldn't call her that," Carmelita said. "She's dead too." Carmelita looked thoughtfully around. "It's funny. There aren't really any survivors from the original team of soldiers. Only Patricia and Abby are still alive, and me. It's strange, somehow managing to endure while everyone dies around you. I don't want to think how many of the new people just coming in will die in the war."

"That seems defeatist," Oliver commented.

"Maybe," she said slowly. "But all I can do is what Shawn would want. He would want XCOM protected, and I shall do that."

"You're only doing this for him?" Oliver asked.

"Not completely," Carmelita shook her head. "He would want me to protect XCOM. But the only thing I really care about is avenging him, and every other Human killed in this war. I will either see all the alien worlds burning, or I will die. There is no peace with the aliens, regardless of what some think. They must be driven extinct, and I will work until my dying breath of make that a reality."

Oliver felt like he was on thin ice right now. "You don't seem to have much of a problem with the aliens here."

"They are allied," she said simply. "They are a danger, but one that can be controlled. That is the only possibility I see for aliens should we win. They will submit to us, or they will die. I would personally prefer the second option."

"I see." Oliver was not quite sure how to take this. He'd known Carmelita unsettled him on some level, but had largely chalked it up to her serious charisma and natural intimidation. But now he knew it was because he was quite sure she was a sociopath who would not be dissimilar to how some aliens probably viewed humanity. She didn't seem unstable, not in the usual sense.

He'd seen broken people before. If the loss of her lover would snap her, it would have happened long ago. She was at a stage where that chance had passed, and all that mattered to her was vengeance, and she was perhaps one of the most dangerous women you could have for an enemy. When she said she intended to kill or virtually enslave every alien, he was inclined to believe her.

He wondered where the Commander stood in regards to her.

"So whatever happened to the sniper?" He asked, changing the topic. "Did he die too?"

"No one knows, actually," Carmelita stated. "The mystery, as I mentioned earlier. He just sort of…vanished. XCOM Intelligence actually started up around that time, so I assume he was transferred there. But no one actually knows. Wherever he is, I'm sure he's doing fine. I don't see him dying easily."

She flipped the helmet in her hands. "In the meantime, I'm going to use this. Maybe give the aliens something else to fear." She put it on her head; Oliver heard it hiss as it clicked. "How does it look?"

She stood before him, fully armored. "Rather terrifying, actually," he said honestly. A smiley face should not be scary, but knowing who Carmelita was, and the happy simplicity of the smiley face, it seemed ironically malicious. It might be funny, had said woman it belonged to not been carrying an alloy cannon, had a stinger that still made him shiver when she used it, and generally was a ruthless killing machine.

"Good," she said. "I think he'd like me using his work this way."

Oliver suspected that Shawn had likely intended it as a joke, and not a symbol for the aliens to fear, but then again, he might be wrong. "A good way to carry on his memory."

"Yes, exactly," she said, looking into the distance. "If I'm going to survive this war, I don't want to forget what I fought for. This will help remind me." She began walking away, and placed a hand on his shoulder. "Not often I have an actual conversation with people these days. Thanks."

"Anytime," he said as she walked off.

He wondered if he should keep an eye out for her, but decided against it. Whatever Carmelita did, there was almost no chance he'd be able to impact it one way or another, and he did not want to get in her way.

She already had entire alien species marked for death. He suspected that one older man wouldn't even make her blink. Best not to risk it until he talked with her some more.

---

The Praesidium, Hangar Bay 2

The Commander smiled as Shen brought him into the Hangar. "About time we had a modern fighter."

Before him were ten of the new Firestorms, the first of the next-generation XCOM air force. The design had taken initial inspiration from the Sectoid UFOs, but had stripped down the superfluous aspects, and was ultimately much smaller. It had a single cockpit, and the back half of the Firestorm was a semi-circle containing the engine, the front half holding the cockpit and tipped 'wings', even though it was an aircraft that didn't rely on such anymore.

"Adapting the alien anti-gravity systems was one of the easiest parts in constructing the fighter," Shen said as they took a closer look. The Commander liked how sleek the fighter was. No wasted space or unneeded accessories. "Once elerium was solved, it was only a matter of shrinking the necessary parts to an acceptable size."

"How does it pilot?" The Commander asked, peering into the cockpit.

"At the moment, the actual controls are not dissimilar to current fighter aircraft," Shen explained. "Depending on how the Archangel Program turns out, we may investigate a means of similar connection between a pilot and a Firestorm."

"And weapons?"

"Varies," Shen said, motioning to the location of the twin guns, one on each side of the cockpit, within two sheets of metal which obscured it from being that visible. "We attempted to make it possible to swap out different weapons, but it was ultimately simpler to have slightly different models of Firestorms. One with laser capabilities, and one with gauss cannons."

The Commander nodded, looking at the Firestorm. "Sustained laser, I assume?"

"Yes, and initial simulations are very promising," Shen said, rapping his knuckles on the hull. "I think you'll be surprised at how much this can be applied to aerial bombardment. Firestorms do not have to be in motion. They can hold and fire from hovering positions. Essentially, this means a Firestorm can function as a mobile turret in the sky, and in the case of the laser variant, precision at long distances is a feature."

Now that was very good to have. The Commander wondered if the Sectoid UFOs had ever been considered to perform similar functions. The UFOs had the capability of hovering and firing, as Patricia had demonstrated during the first battle of Japan. For that matter, he wondered just how much of their navy he hadn't seen.

By Aegis's own admission, the Sectoid fleet was only one part. There was the Ethereal Dreadnought, but to date he didn't believe that they had seen Vitakara or Andromedon crafts. He wasn't counting the transports. And they had to have additional types of aircraft, such as bombers and frigates.

He wondered just how much the Firestorms would force the Collective to deploy to stop them. The basic UFOs probably wouldn't cut it anymore. They had died to conventional weaponry, much less this kind of aircraft.

"And this is spaceworthy?" He asked, remembering that had been a requirement he'd put in.

"Correct," Shen said with a nod. "There are life support systems, and the Firestorm can operate in zero-g environments without major issues. Oxygen supplies last twelve hours, and the hull is durable enough for atmospheric exit and reentry."

"And no fuel needed," he added, just to be clear on its capabilities. "Just elerium?"

"Yes, the only thing that needs to be changed is the elerium crystals that power the engines," Shen said. "And elerium crystals of that size last a long time. There is little worry about the Firestorm suddenly running out of power. Multiple contingencies are in place to prevent that concern."

"On that note…" the Commander began, after a few seconds of silence. "The Avenger Project."

"Undergoing some revisions," Shen said, adjusting his glasses. "While the schematics Aegis provided are useful, it was a prototype Andromedon ship, and one with some flaws in it. We are going to improve on the design, and then we will need to build a facility large enough to house it."

"Leave that to Jackson," the Commander assured him. "Just give her the size. We can have a suitable facility done in several months."

"By then we'll have a schematic in place," Shen said. "To be honest, that is our initial concern. The Praesidium is large, but I expect that the Avenger-class ship itself will be the same size."

"We'll have to be careful with it," the Commander said, thinking. "I don't want to lose it to someone like Caelior. Or the Battlemaster for that matter."

"I have some ideas to lessen the risk," Shen assured him with a faint smile. "Depending on how the JULIAN Project turns out, that may be one way. Alternatively, I have found some rather curious schematics based on Sovereign technology, which I do not believe the Collective has taken note of."

"Really?" The Commander said skeptically. "Why?"

"Because if I understand some of them correctly, they allow things to be done that shouldn't be possible," Shen said, then shook his head. "But that is a completely different topic. I trust you are satisfied with the Firestorms?"

"Very," the Commander nodded. "I look forward to seeing them in action."

"I think the pilots are eager to find out for themselves," Shen chuckled. "I expect soon we will give them what they want."

---

The Praesidium, Situation Room

"I'm curious," the Commander said. "Do you think you can defeat the Imperator?"

"Alone?" Aegis answered flatly, standing almost motionless opposite him; the holotable in between. "No."

The Commander smirked humorlessly. "That was fast."

"The Imperators were the most powerful of our kind by a significant margin," Aegis said. "I am not delusional about how I compare. Nor any other Ethereal either, I suspect."

"Right," the Commander said slowly. "And you did know about this before defecting to us?"

"Yes."

"So," the Commander crossed his arms. "Despite that, you still felt it worth the risk. You never actually explained why you did it, besides disagreements with how our species was handled."

"Because the Imperator is both apathetic and practical," Aegis said. "Upon reflection, my kind have been…poor leaders. Only a select few of us have bothered to ensure that the Collective is something strong enough to fight the Synthesized, or any other enemy. But the rest? Unfortunately other aliens are of less importance to them. The Imperator does not care what happens to the Collective, so long as they eventually follow his orders."

"But aside from that, anything goes?" The Commander said.

"Not once has he interacted with any alien representative," Aegis said. "Which is why his continued interest in Patricia is disquieting. He may not hold aliens in high regard, but for some reason, your species he considers different. He plans in terms of decades, not weeks, or even years. I suspect over time he realized that both of us held significantly different views, and slowly cut me out of his inner circle."

Aegis sounded rather offended as he spoke. "I do not understand his motives anymore, nor his strategy, if there ever was one he shared with me. There was only one way to effectively call attention to our isolated leader, and that was to leave. And XCOM was the natural place to head to. That, and the Sovereign Ones gave us the location of this planet for a reason. Under the Imperator, I feel your potential would be wasted. I will not sacrifice our chance against the Synthesized for loyalty."

The Commander wasn't completely sure if Aegis was telling the whole truth, but it sounded right. "Yet you say he considers our species different."

"Yes," Aegis reaffirmed. "I suspect it is simply your psionic potential. The Gift is exceedingly rare, and those with it can eventually pose a threat…or be turned into an asset."

"So," the Commander said, looking down at the holotable. "If you cannot fight the Imperator and win, what is your plan to defeat him?"

"I do not anticipate he will be defeated," Aegis said bluntly. "Your species, like it or not, will not win this war. The best you can do is extract too heavy a toll to justify continued assaults. Perhaps you will kill one or two of my kind. But you will not win completely. You are not facing just us, but the Greater Hive Commanders, Andromedon Federation, and the Aui'Vitakar. Even should you build an army of psions, it will not be enough."

"So you want them to sue for peace." The Commander stated flatly. "You actually think that we would just accept that after everything that has happened? And do you really think the Imperator would just forget that there is an entire species that was able to hold off his entire alien Collective?"

"As I said, the Imperator is practical," Aegis repeated. "While I cannot speak for your species, if the Collective offers peace, I suggest you take it. The Imperator is the only one who can stop this war now, and if nothing else, he will keep his word. Though I expect there will be some stipulations."

"And I think you're being naïve," the Commander responded, furrowing his eyebrows. "You've said yourself he likely has plans for us. Do you really think he'd abandon them, especially if he is as powerful as you say? What is to just stop him from coming himself and finishing it?"

"Because you are beneath his attention," Aegis said, clearly frustrated. "You do not have a concept of how little you and your species ultimately matter, which can be forgiven, given the circumstances, but it is the truth. The Imperator would only fight if he actually considered you a threat. Whatever his plans are, they are decades if not centuries into the future. He has no doubt planned for such a contingency as extracting too high a toll from the Collective."

"And what could such a contingency be?" The Commander asked. "If you said he wouldn't break his word, that does not leave many options."

"I expect that, should the situation worsen, the Imperator will order an autopsy of the entire Collective, and this war to figure out what went wrong," Aegis said. "After a retreat, he will likely hold the Collective back for a century or two, wait until the prominent figures like you have grown old and died, and the war with the Collective is a distant memory. Your species will likely be different at that time, and throughout this I expect that the Imperator will order humanity be exposed to aliens on a gradual peaceful basis. The Vitakara are ideal for this."

The Commander saw where Aegis was going with this, and he did not like it. "At some point, the Imperator will have the Collective extend an offer, allowing Humanity to join them. I doubt that the xenophobia your species currently feels will last by this time, and this will no doubt be accepted as a 'fresh start,' I believe the saying is. And humanity officially becomes part of the Collective, no war required."

Aegis paused. "In the end, all you have accomplished in the grand scope will be the delaying of the Imperator's plans by several centuries. Perhaps he will not even wait that long before beginning an incursion of the inner galaxy."

The Commander pursed his lips. There was the Ethereal longevity in action. Time was not something that really affected them, while age would eventually kill any Human. Unfortunately, Aegis had a good point. Two hundred years was a long time, minimum, and even he wasn't sure he would be able to prevent a more naïve humanity from falling to a hypothetical Imperator offer to join the Collective.

The Imperator, whatever his motivations, and whatever his plans, was not an idiot. Mostly. Despite bungling Humanity so spectacularly, the Commander figured he would learn from this. Which meant that there couldn't be any surrender, peace offer or no. There were no good options. Keep on fighting, they might very likely die, and stop fighting, and the Imperator won the war later.

"Whatever happens, you have changed the Collective forever," Aegis told him, maybe trying to reassure him. "Few could do what your species has, and that is-"

"No." The Commander interrupted bluntly. "I don't care about that. You're expecting to lose."

"I am not expecting to win." Aegis clarified.

"I am not interested in peace," the Commander stated. "That is impossible at this point. I don't care really what you think our chances are, but if you're going to be here, you are going to help us on the assumption that we will win." He held up a hand, forestalling any comments. "Now, will we? Maybe, maybe not. But we're damn well going to try. We're not trying to damage the Collective, we are trying to destroy them. It may take years, or even decades, but you had better be planning to win the entire time. If you aren't going to help us with that, then go into isolation somewhere else."

"I meant no offense," Aegis said, apparently not surprised by his words. "But I do not like giving false hope."

The Commander laughed ruefully. "There is a difference between false hope and planning to lose. Going by what you said, we should have surrendered the first time you bombed Hamburg, since the idea of soon facing an Ethereal and winning was simply impossible, yes?"

Aegis was silent. "I believe you once said that killing an Ethereal 'should be impossible'," the Commander recounted. "What is next? That it is impossible to kill the Battlemaster? That it is hopeless to drive the Collective off Earth? That it is outlandish to even think of taking the fight beyond it?" He shook his head. "No, Aegis. We are not going to give up until either the Collective is in ruins, or we all die."

"I hope you maintain that optimism," Aegis said neutrally. "And that it doesn't lead your species to a fate that could have been prevented. Your ideals mean nothing if everything you care about dies in the process. What worth is there in a pointless sacrifice? Because that is what you are proposing. Alive, you still have a chance, however small."

"It wouldn't be pointless," the Commander said. "Maybe it's a Human thing, but we don't like being beholden to an alien race who will enslave us in all but name. At the very least, we screw up whatever grand plans the Imperator has."

Aegis looked at him for a few seconds. "It is a shame it came to this," he mused. "Your species would have been excellent allies against the Synthesized."

"We are allied to you, yes?" The Commander smiled. "Perhaps we still will be someday. That isn't something we need to worry about for a while. But for now…" He looked back to the holomap of America. "We need to focus on the immediate threat."

---

The Praesidium, Psionic Training Arena

"How well did you know him?" Patricia asked as she and Aegis observed the psions training on targets, dummies, and each other. This topic was something that had been bugging her for some time, and she hadn't gotten a proper chance to ask Aegis about the Imperator.

"Moderately well," Aegis said, also watching the psions. "He never made an effort to befriend those around him without good reason. The only ones I would say who know him well are the Battlemaster, Quisilia, the Overmind, and Sicarius. Everyone else…he was the Imperator, and our leader."

Patricia nodded. The names made sense except for one. "Sicarius? That seems odd."

"Not so odd when you consider the Imperator practically raised her," Aegis mused. "I suspect she is considered an adoptive daughter, though he would never say so to anyone else."

"Really?" Patricia glanced up, surprised. "I didn't realize that."

"I have yet to determine how the Imperator actually found her," Aegis recalled. "He ordered us to randomly stop on a planet that had been ravaged by the Synthesized." His voice took on an odd tone. "And he went down alone, and returned with a young Ethereal girl, barely thirty, a child by our standards, starving and half-mad. That she survived at all is a miracle, and the Imperator took her with him wherever he went and personally trained her."

Aegis's voice became softer. "It is acts like that which make me believe that the Imperator is merely misguided, and not innately malicious. However, I cannot be sure if it was a simple act of decency or he found and raised Sicarius for the sole purpose of having a loyal assassin who could rival Quisilia."

Well, this was new. "She's better than Quisilia?" She asked. "Really?"

"I would say she is more dangerous," Aegis amended. "She is not normal, especially for an Ethereal. Killing is instinct for her, and the Imperator has fed that over the years. Nuance and context are not things she can easily grasp. Quisilia can, and is far more independent. Sicarius does not care what she does, as long as it is what the Imperator orders."

"Hmm," Patricia thought on that. The Imperator was an odd figure. Absurdly powerful, so Aegis said, but not someone who ever seemed keen on using it. He was capable of, at least on the surface, performing selfless acts, but his motivations were a mystery. She, like Aegis, was not entirely convinced he was completely evil. But misguided seemed too naïve. The Imperator knew what he was doing.

The question was why?

"Why the interest?" Aegis asked, looking down at her. "Did you speak to the Commander?"

"Huh? No," she frowned. "But considering the Imperator seems to have some interest in me, I'd prefer to know a little about him. More than that he's a threat that could probably kill us all with his mind."

"Understandable," Aegis agreed. "Unfortunately, I am afraid I am of little help. I would not consider him a friend, and even as part of his inner circle for a time, we did not hold similar views. We have both changed since we emerged from stasis. Ever since then he has strayed more and more from our original goal."

"Which was fighting the Synthesized, right?" Patricia recalled, confused. "Why? Wasn't that the reason you intentionally froze yourselves? So you could fight them knowing what you were up against?"

"Originally, yes," Aegis explained. "But something changed over the years. I do not know why, but his priorities shifted. He withdrew from managing the affairs of the Collective, and placed myself and the Battlemaster in charge. The Battlemaster has not wavered in this goal, but he did not see that the Imperator was just putting him in a position where he wouldn't ask questions."

"Risky," Patricia noted. "I wouldn't want the Battlemaster angry at me."

"The Battlemaster is not a threat to the Imperator," Aegis said. "Or so everyone believes."

Patricia snorted. "You think otherwise?"

"No," Aegis said flatly. "But if anyone could surprise me in this, it is him. There was a reason the Imperator chose him out of all the Battlemasters in the Collective."

"Getting back to the point," Patricia redirected. "So what else would the Imperator focus on if not the Synthesized?"

Aegis paused for a moment. "I do not know. It has to do with the inner galactic species. The first expedition he only intended to gather cursory information. He sent Quisilia, Sicarius, and Nebulan, and whatever they brought back…it seemed to have changed his priorities. Ever since then, he has been focusing on learning whatever he can about them. The Battlemaster believes he is simply gathering information for when they prepare to fight them, but I do not think it is just that."

"Then what?"

"I do not know," Aegis admitted. "The Imperator never shared what he learned from those expeditions. I do not even know their names, or even descriptions. But I do also know he became very interested in finding ruins and relics of previous civilizations. He was looking for something, that much I can say for certain."

"For what, I wonder?" Patricia mused rhetorically, rubbing her chin thoughtfully. "A weapon? Information? You said you think the Synthesized have done this before? Maybe he's looking for more survivors? I doubt he was the first to think of putting himself in stasis."

"Perhaps," Aegis was clearly doubtful. "I doubt it is a weapon, but information is plausible. But even that faded as he began investigating planets of different biomes. Water worlds and rocky dead ones became sites of interest. I only know this because of the copied reports I received from the Zararch agents, forwarded by Quisilia. I suppose he wanted to keep me at least partially informed, but whatever the Imperator was looking for, I do not think he found it."

This seemed stranger the more she heard. "I guess I can ask him about that whenever he decides to talk," she shrugged. "And I guess during this time, he just ignored the Collective completely."

"Yes, though not because he didn't have time." A sigh escaped Aegis's helmet. "I do not necessarily think it was intentional either. Time…it is not the same when you are immortal, Patricia. Years can pass you without really noticing. After some time, it becomes meaningless since it is not something to be concerned about any longer. Mortal species like yours, the Andromedons, and the Vitakara move at a speed that is alien to us who are not used to it. For some like myself and the Battlemaster, we are used to it, but the speed at which you research, develop, and build is foreign to one like Revelean or the Creator."

"That actually explains a lot," Patricia said. "I guess that it works to our advantage."

"For now," Aegis agreed. "But Ethereals are not wired for quick decisions. A week is considered fast by our standards, and even for the Battlemaster, a well-planned attack can take weeks to put together and carry out. This is a large reason why the attacks are fewer than you might expect. So yes, since you Humans work quickly, this gives you an advantage."

"One which the Battlemaster will regret letting us have," Patricia said with a grim smile. "He's not going to know what hit him in the next few days."

"No," Aegis agreed thoughtfully. "I do not think he will."

---

The Citadel, Situation Room – Two Days Later

Laura had clearly not expected him to show up in full armor, but the Commander figured it was time to take a more direct role in this fight. He was quite tired of just directing from the safety of the Situation Room. He didn't want to get out of practice, and the soldiers needed to see their Commander fighting on the front lines.

"I didn't realize you were going out there," she commented as he joined her and Weekes, with Patricia and Jackson beside him. "And what is that?"

She nodded towards the WHEEE cannon strapped to his back. "That?" The Commander smiled. "The WHEEE."

Weekes snorted. "Cute."

"Wouldn't mock it," Patricia warned lightly. "I wouldn't want to get shot by it."

"Unimportant." The Commander raised a gauntleted hand. "Are your forces in position?"

"Yes," Laura brought up the holomap showing the West Coast. "We've got armies ready to converge on Seattle, Salem, Hillsboro, and Las Vegas areas. Purifiers, MDUs, and squads are all ready to go."

"The Lancers are also going to be assisting," Weekes said with a smile. "We've got enough gene-modded ones that the aliens won't know what hit them."

"Good." The Commander nodded. "Seattle first."

"There will be two main armies, one from the north and one from the east," Laura said, focusing on the city. "The aliens have fortified it heavily, but they can't withstand an army. Especially one supported by both the Lancers and XCOM."

"We're going to move beyond Portland as well," Weekes said, pointing at the highlighted areas around the city itself. "Hillsboro and Salem are the two locations the aliens have entrenched themselves. They aren't as heavily defended, so unless they get a sudden influx of reinforcements, I don't think there is much we need to worry about."

"Las Vegas will be an issue," Laura warned. "Or what's left of it. The aliens have turned the remains into a full military base, and assaulting it is going to be…challenging. That is where the heaviest fighting will take place. ADVENT Intelligence suspects that there might be a Sargon there, but I don't think we'll know for sure until we attack."

"I have three teams prepared," the Commander promised. "And one for whenever the Battlemaster shows up."

"You think he will?" Weekes asked.

The Commander smiled. "Yes. But we have several plans for him."

Laura nodded in recollection. "At your command, I will assume?"

"Or the ranking XCOM operative on-site," the Commander affirmed. "Hopefully we won't need it, but I want it ready in case."

"I suppose the question is where you will be?" Weekes asked. "And I assume Central Officer Jackson will act in your stead here?"

"Correct," Jackson stepped forward. "I will handle communication and updates between XCOM personnel." She paused. "I'm not experienced in tactics, but I will provide what assistance I can."

"I'll be leading the XCOM squad in Seattle," the Commander said. "Patricia will lead one in Las Vegas, and Matthew Hawkins will assist in Portland. In addition to that, there will be two Firestorm and Archangel squads for Vegas, and one of each for Seattle and Portland."

They both nodded, having been appraised of the capabilities of each earlier. "If you want numbers, I'm planning for one thousand Lancers for Las Vegas, and five hundred for every other location," Weekes stated. "All fully gene modded and ready to go."

"The PRIEST Program doesn't have anyone yet?" The Commander asked.

"None combat-ready." Laura shook her head. "A shame. It was likely going to change in a few days. Some of the soldiers are exhibiting appropriate control."

"Not needed," the Commander said. "We've delayed this long enough. What we have will suffice. Let's give the people something to be optimistic about."

"Not just the civilians," Laura said with a weary smile. "I think everyone could use a victory about now."

"Let's not jump to conclusions," Weekes warned. "The battle hasn't even started yet."

"True." The Commander placed the helmet over his head. "But I have a good feeling about this." He looked at both of them through his helmet. "Give the order. We begin retaking America now."

"Copy that," Laura said, pressing a switch opening the intercom. "This is Commander Christiaens. You are cleared to deploy and engage. Good luck, XCOM will be right behind you."

That they would be. The Commander turned away, and began marching toward the Hangar, where his skyranger was waiting; Patricia right behind him.

Despite how badly it could go wrong, he was looking forward to what happened next.

What happened next would be a turning point, one way or another.

---

Supplementary Material

XCOM File 0772

Subject: Current List of Psions

Author: Overseer Patricia Trask

Commander,

Due to the recent influx of recruits, and the development of the Trask System of measuring psionic power by the ADVENT PRIEST Program, I thought it prudent to put together a comprehensive list of the current psionic soldiers, including Templars and non-Templars. I will continue to update this as more psions are awakened, but for now, this should suffice for our records. The list is in alphabetical order, and I will mark their power classification, Trask level, and psionic specialization by their names.

If you don't want to look up the PRIEST Document ADVENT sent over, this is how the different classifications are broken down. The Trask level is from 1 to 100.

An Awakened classification is from Trask levels of 1 to 20.

An Adept classification is from Trask levels of 21 to 40.

A Psion classification is from Trask levels of 41 to 60.

A Magus classification is from Trask levels of 61 to 80.

A Leviathan classification is from Trask levels of 80 to 100.

There is no higher classification, even though Trask levels can exceed 100. However, since I sincerely doubt we will find a psion of a higher power level than 100 outside of aliens, I will be classifying any individual with a Trask level higher than 100 as Ethereal.

This will obviously only apply to one specific being.

In addition to that, there are four specializations, or disciplines, if you prefer, of psionic abilities. These will also be stated by the psion in question. I will put them here for the record:

A Telekine primarily specializes in telekinetic abilities.

A Telepath primarily specializes in telepathic abilities

A Defensive specialization focuses on protection and manipulation of psionic solids.

An Offensive specialization focuses on destructive abilities of various focuses.

Without delaying it any longer, here is the current list of psions:

- Ellinor Aagard – Defensive Magus (70) [Notes: Templar]

- Taqi al-Pour – Defensive Magus (66)

- Saar Aron – Telekine Adept (40) [Notes: Templar]

- Iosif Bronis – Defensive Magus (78) [Notes: Templar]

- Leono Cantu – Defensive Psion (56)

- Mona Eriksson – Offensive Magus (71)

- Zama Elethu – Defensive Magus (74) [Notes: Archangel]

- Eddison Fisher – Telekine Psion (49)

- Ryo Ha-Sun – Telekine Psion (55) [Notes: Templar]

- Viktoria Hammarström – Offensive Leviathan (81) [Notes: Archangel]

- Matthew Hawkins – Telekine Magus (77) [Notes: One of the recovered Furies - "Alecto"]

- Ted Holden – Offensive Psion (49) [Notes: Archangel]

- Moriai Jin – Telepath Adept (33)

- Chan Jin-Taek – Offensive Psion (57) [Notes: Templar]

- Pall Johansson – Telekine Psion (58) [Notes: Templar]

- Charlie Jones – Offensive Psion (47)

- Ismail Mazar – Telekine Magus (68) [Notes: Recruited from ADVENT PRIEST Program; civilian background]

- Hugo Nilsen – Defensive Magus (62) [Notes: Templar]

- Alicia Sancho – Offensive Psion (53)

- Sussan Sevhonkian – Telepath Magus (80) [Notes: Recruited from ADVENT PRIEST Program; civilian background]

- Gamil Sultan – Defensive Psion (50)

- Kawamura Taira – Telekine Leviathan (82) [Notes: Archangel]

- Fatima Tariq – Telepath Magus (80) [Notes: One of the recovered Furies – "Tisiphone"]

- Said Tariq – Defensive Magus (79) [Notes: One of the recovered Furies – "Megarea"]

- Lukas Von Theil – Telepath/Defensive Leviathan (93) [Notes: Prefers to be called "Geist"; Recruited from ADVENT PRIEST Program; civilian background; tested equally high for both Defensive and Telepathic disciplines]

And myself, of course:

- Patricia Trask – Telepath Leviathan (84)

And I didn't forget about the other members of the Internal Council either:

- The Commander – Telekine Adept (36)

- Moira Vahlen – Telepath Magus (76)

And I didn't forget about our resident Ethereal:

- Aegis – Defensive Ethereal (138) [Notes: Looking at this, I wonder what the other Ethereals come in at]

This should cover the current psions enlisted. I'll update this when more come.

---

A/N: Since I doubt I'll be posting another chapter before then, I'll wish everyone reading a Merry Christmas and again say thanks for continuing to read this story that's gotten much, much larger than I had ever planned for. On that note, the good news is that the next chapter is already written (And it will be even somewhat longer than this), so you'll likely get it sooner than later once my editing team finishes it up.

And thank Johnclaw Dragonhelm for coming up with the explanations for Elerium and Gateways that are more plausible than anything I could come up with.

- Xabiar