RP XCOM: The Story of Defiance.

[Adrammalech]

// MEMORY: APOSTATA //
Luxuria, Cycle 14
Primary Science Facility of Tien'lyssigan
Ethereal Homeworld
Dusk

I tinkered with the drone, trying to get it to accept my charge. Robotics were never my thing, but the ones that could accept our powers were particularly intriguing. If the entertainers could place the emotion of ecstasy into a small, blinking disc, surely I could put the power of lust and satisfaction in a simple drone. Such applications I could dream of, commercial and military, business and pleasure. Yet it always eluded me, a cruel machination of practicality against creativity. The relay beside my workbench buzzed and hummed, and a connection darted directly into my brain.

Anyone there?

The voice, even in its brevity, filled my heart with relief. He often had that effect, his work was so effortless and smooth that it would rub on myself. Working with him was often my relaxation from working by myself.

This One is available.

Don’t get all formal on me now. A chortle rippled out from the relay, signaling that he was teasing me again. How are you?

I am well, Shen. And yourself?

Just finished some culture studies, primitive societies burgeoning on a few planets. None that impressive compared to us, but it is fascinating work all the same. Several show promise. And you?

Working on my satisfaction drone. Trouble with the conductors.

Oh, you and your toys. What would you unleash it on, I wonder?

Wouldn’t you like to know?

Another chortle. Perhaps I can visit and provide assistance, I’ve been taking on more advanced studies with robotics. Psionic interfacing isn’t my specialty, but it couldn’t hurt.

I would like that. I turn towards the door and scowl. But maybe your facility would be better, I am at a place in the construction I can move it.

That will work, I will clear a space for it. I’ll see you soon.

I felt happiness and anticipation and beamed it in all directions, always glad for a change of scenery, especially with an enticing challenge inside of it. I looked down at the drone, several heavy modules hanging by simple wires. I pulled most of them out on impulse, for the sake of making the drone transportable. My excitement was cut short as a whir came from the door, the metal slats thumping into the wall. I turned around to see him floating towards me, the same arrogance shining from him like warmth from a candle.

Siathi, have you finished the text?

I have not started.

What?

I have no interest in yet another journal on broodkin anatomy or psychology. I have my own projects that need tending to.

Oh? Your projects are selfish distractions. Prove me wrong, tell me about one.

They are nothing that would interest you, father.

Everything you do interests me. You are part of my legacy, soon part of the Overseers, and you must keep progressing.

So that my progress doesn’t reflect poorly on you? I turned and stared at him, my glare desperately trying to burn through my mask and his. And what makes you think I care about your legacy?

He floated towards me and raised his hand overhead, the space between his wrinkled and slender fingers glowing a savage red. I raised my upper two arms to protect my mask, my frail arms trembling as he towered over me.

S-stop.

Read…the text.

I will…I will.

I expect a report about it, four pages minimum, to show your comprehension. Tomorrow, do you understand?

Yes, father.

He turned and floated away from me, slow and confident, as he always did. I stood from my seat and flicked my wrist with a yellow glow. We both looked back at me, and he gave an approving nod. I watched the image of myself from the corner of the room, the image slaving away at my workspace, reading with no recognition, writing with no ink. ‘The good daughter.’ I opened the port on the wall slowly and floated out, disappearing into the streets to meet Shen. He was far more important than this.

Was…

Emily Fischer
XCOM Headquarters – Supply Closet #4
Siberia, Russian Federation
November 14th, 2018 - 8:39 AM

“Uh…” Dallas started.

“Sorry,” Emily rubbed her temples. “I don’t know what happened…”

“Well, I understood half of it…I’m sorry you had to go through that, it must’ve been painful…for you and for them.”

“It was, but it was also a long time ago, and I’ve had more immediate worries since then,” Emily replied in a monotone, clutching her head. “Did you hear the other part?”

“I did, was that an…Ethereal memory?”

“Y-yeah, it’s Luxuria’s. Leftover from the mission we did.”

“Who is Shen? Not our Shen, right?”

“No, Shen’lutusus. Um, Avaritia.”

“Oh,” Dallas smirked, “That’s kind of cute. She snuck out to meet him, just like we’re doing.”

“Yeah…I miss him.”

“Avaritia?”

“I mean Luxuria misses him, I bet.”

Emily rubbed her forehead hard, digging her palm into her brow and sighing. She felt sorrow for Avaritia, despite him already being long gone; she felt panic, despite being years since she had run away from her own problems. Before she could get up, she felt a rhythmic stroking on her back, and she looked over to Dallas giving a look of concern.

“Emily, are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” she said, taking a deep breath. “Thank you. I felt…sad, and then some alien emotions, from the other memory. I’ve never felt one of her memories that vividly before, and for it to just pop up by accident…”

“I wish I could help…I can’t imagine what it’s like…”

Emily smiled towards him, slinging an arm back around him. “You help just by being you.”

“Well, I’ll be happy to be me as long as you like,” he chuckled. “Want to cuddle a little longer before we clean up?”

“You always know the right thing to say…”

Emily pulled him tightly against her as he grabbed the sheet at their waist and pulled it up, wrapping them both up in their closet cocoon.

 

[DarkGemini24601]

"New Directions, Old Bonds" - Part 1 of 'Resolutions'

XCOM Headquarters, Somewhere in Siberia
0945 Hours, November 17th, 2018
Main Engineering

Information flowed across Yaralria's mind in the form of alien symbols, a form of writing the Interface could understand completely. There was data on the inconsiable experiments Invidia had performed using the DNA of her people. A shiver ran down her spine, knowing that one of those 'human floaters' had her face, and that Atka had to watch the unfortunate being die. She wasn't quite sure which of those was worse.

Isitoq shifted restlessly, standing beside the seated woman as she interpreted the data behind closed eyes. "If it makes you uncomfortable, you do not have to do this. Cheshire is fully capable of..."

"I know, but at the same time, some of the less literal meanings are lost on him. For instance, this particular symbol..." Yaralria opened her eyes, a silver light shining through her pupils and projecting a holographic rune. "...means 'enlightenment' in regards to the Path, literally. But what the late Overseer of Australia meant by this was the biokinetic reprogramming of Xifeng in order to make her loyal."

Isitoq stared at the symbol blankly for a moment. "I dont follow."

"It is information I'd like to pass on to Chandra Gatup. She is skilled in green psionics, and might be able to reproduce the effect. You know of Poinsettia, correct?" Yaralria inquired,

Isitoq nodded. "The clone of Lily, and a mec trooper. I... was hoping to meet her, actually. She reminds me much of myself."

A faint smile creased Yaralria's features. "Oh? Perhaps you shall find her desr to you then... and with the application of biokinetic reprogramming, we can override the implanted memories on her so she can lead a more fair life."

Isitoq rubbed the back of his neck, an uncharacteristic flash of embarrassment crossing his face. "Maybe," he replied cryptically.

Yaralria closed her eyes again and waved her hand dismissively. "Go see her. You ought. To have more friends that a woman more than twenty years older than you." Ths cyborg's retreating footsteps attested to his consent, and Yaralria returned to interpreting the information recovered from the Uluru. Her abilities were something of a curse, so much knowledge meaning the Inuit could never return to her simple way of life. Her brain, forever mixed with computer processers, was an indelible part of her now.

Sunny seems to manage somehow, Yaralria mused, though she has lived with it most of her life. The Interface frowned, finishing the files on her daughter's clone not being pleasant. A few files later, and Yaralria's smiled returned as she noted the cave paintings on the walls, a reminder of another aboriginal culture. Interestingly, few of them were damaged or covered, perhaps due to the hesitancy of the Balmadaar to wipe out pictures that reminded them of their own culture.

"Ogedei and Kokachin may be onto something after all," Yaralria whispered. Her eyes opened to see the central, teal optic of an infantry airframe. The modified drone's wing pistols were lowered and nonthreatening, the robot seeming to be in escort mode, standing to the side of it was a smiling Ipiktok.

"What is my beautiful wife thinking about right now?" The inuit man wondered aloud.

"Peoples similar to ours, and a sign of hope." Yaralria projected the related images with her modified eyes and explained further.

Ipiktok winced slightly, wondering if he'd ever get used to that, or the other changes to his wife. The Interface seemed to notice his discomfort, and dismissed the holograms. "Wait, I didn't mean...."

Yaralria looked down sadly. "I know. But I feel as if our relationship has been irrevocably damaged,"

Ipiktok stepped forward quickly, brushing aside the drone and sending it spinning a bit before it could right itself. He wrapped his arms around Yaralria, holding her tightly. "I would never love you less, no matter what they did to you. If anyone is to blame it is me, for not being able to protect you and Nouja."

Yaralria's modified eyes watered. "And would you blame Atka for not being there as well? No one is to blame but our foes for what they did. I just... don't want to lose you."

Ipiktok pressed his lips against his wife's gently, and whispered, "And you never will. That much I can promise." The two embraced for a good while, not really caring about the stares from some of the engineers while others milled about, awkwardly trying to avoid bothering the couple. "You know, its funny..." Ipiktok mumbled, "Before, I was the hunter, and you were the foundation on which I could do so. But now, you'd make an excellent engineer, and I'm not sure what I could do to be useful to you."

Yaralria shook her head, "You'd make a fine assistant, a mechanic. You've repaired 'Buzzshot' here more times than I can count."

Ipiktok chuckled, shaking his head, "You lying woman... you can count far beyond what I can." With a more serious tone, he added, "I can live with that, I never did worry too much about gender roles being swapped sometimes. Wonder what Nouja's going to do, though..."

Yaralria shrugged. "She may not have a formal education, but she has many practical skills. Atka says she's a better artist than herself, and I know natige artwork is something any Canadian can cherish."

Ipiktok nodded slowly, "Why don't we... go spend some time with them? We ought to gather the family together again, especially for Atka's sake." Yaralria quickly agreed, and they went in search of their two daughters.

 

[DarkGemini24601]

"An Opportunity Presents Itself" - Part 2 of 'Resolutions'

XCOM Headquarters, Somewhere in Siberia
1315 Hours, November 17th, 2018
Civilian Quarters

Through her mind's eye, Nouja watched as Atka paced around the couch. I can see you! The sixteen year old though excitedly. She saw Atka smile.

Good. Your ESP is a lot better than last time. Atka returned to the nearby room. "Want to show me your mindfray?"

Nouja shifted her weight between her feet, "You sure that's a good idea? I don't want to hurt you..."

Atka smiled. "Don't worry about me. I've got plenty of resistance." She stood ready, and Nouja extended a hand, biting her lip as she concentrated. A tendril of blue psionic energy, slighter darker than Atka's, stretched out and connected with the scout's forehead. The Colonel reeled back a few steps, her vision blurring as the intensity of the psionic strike affected her. "Wow... that's certainly better than a Sectoid can pull off. You'll make Xaver jealous."

Nouja seemed worried until Atka regained her balance, and scratched her head. "Mind if I show you something else?"

Atka nodded, though her expression fell. "I won't force you to do this. If it makes you uncomfortable..."

Nouja shook her head. "It's not that... I just feel so small around you. You've gotten so much wiser, and stronger... I don't know what I can offer anymore."

Atka sat down beside her sister on the bed. "You don't have to be as powerful as me, you know. The person you are isn't determined by powers like these. And Nouja... no matter what I go through, no matter how I change, I'm always going to be your big sister." Atka pulled Nouja over, letting the younger girl rest her head on her shoulder. "I really regret leaving you behind and not writing at all. After this is all over, I swear I'll spend a lot more time with you."

Nouja smiled, her muscles relaxing. "Thank you," she said quietly. "I really missed you too. Even if I understood why you had to go out on your own." The two were quiet for awhile, just happy to be reunited. Finally, Nouja broke the silence again. "So... how are things going with your boyfriend?"

Atka raised an eyebrow. "Well... I'm pretty sure he's going to be living with me after all this."

Nouja giggled. "So you've gone that far, huh?"

Atka felt the color in her cheeks rise slightly. "That's not something you just casually ask, you little..."

Nouja laughed. "But it's fun!" She calmed herself down, continuing, "You have changed a little lately, for the better. Weeks ago you were all stiff, but you're back to the Atka I know."

The Colonel smiled gently. "Well, I'm glad to be back." The door creaked open, Yaralria and Ipiktok walking in. "Hey mom, dad," Atka said softly.

Yaralria's eyes widened at a beautifully crafted seal bone carving on the counter. It had slight curves and waves etched into its body, and its flippers had the Inuit symbols for high tide and low tide. Its face was so intricately designed that it looked lifelike, with a curious expression. "Nouja... this is lovely," Yaralria said in awe.

Nouja looked to the side, embarrassed. "I...t-thanks..."

Ipiktok grinned. "I was waiting for you to finally unveil your next masterpiece. Well done."

Atka patted Nouja lightly on the back. "You should be proud of that. If your next work is even better, I can't even imagine what it will look like."

Yaralria produced out a simple carving of a fox from whale bone, painted in red-orange, white, and black colors with green eyes. "This doesn’t seem like much now, does it? Still... could you give this to Morrigan for me?"

Atka took the fox gently, shaking her head. "It may not be as intricate, but she'll love it. Thank you." Turning to Nouja, she asked, "So what was it you wanted to show me?"

Nouja tapped her foot. "I...may have taken some lessons from Chandra after I realized I couldn't make your telekinetic helixes."

Atka did as she was told while her parents watched curiously. "Oh? Doing so without my permission? " the Inuit scout joked. Nouja grumbled a bit, and had Atka lift her shirt so she could see the mostly healed wound on her stomach. The younger sister laid a palm on it, and a green glow began to completely knit together small portions of the wound.

Yaralria held a hand over her mouth, and as Nouja finished all eyes turned to her. "What is it?" Ipiktok asked.

"If... she can operate so precisely on that scale... it might be her ESP helping with that... what if she could utilize that to use biokinetic reprogramming? To help Poinsettia..."

"Chandra did tell me an hour ago she might have a task for me..." Nouja muttered. "I'll do it. If I can help someone like that... there's no reason not to."

 

[DarkGemini24601]

“Empathy Erodes” - Part 3 of Resolutions

XCOM Headquarters, Somewhere in Siberia
1700 Hours, November 17th, 2018
The Brig

“What do you want?” Isitioq had scarcely stepped into view of Poinsettia before she posed the question in an irritated tone.

Isitoq tilted his head slightly. “You do not… appear to have any company," he explained to the red-haired clone of Lily. I do not understand the hostility.

Poinsettia looked over the cyborg closer, noting his mechanical limbs and strange red ‘screen’ eyes. “What, did they send a borg to try and get empathy points from me? Damn…”

Isitoq only seemed further confused. “No… I came of my own volition.”

“I don’t exactly know you…”

“But you are like me, in some ways… and I do not just mean in the mechanical sense.”

Poinsettia rolled her eyes. “I bet you’re not imprisoned by people that killed your dad, and subject to berating about how he was actually a horrible person.”

Isitoq shook his head, sitting down so he was at eye level with the EXALT clone on the other end of the bars. “I am a clone, like you are, copied from something previous. Though my original is deceased.”

Poinsettia sighed. “Do you expect sympathy from me? Or are you just looking for a connection? ‘Cause… I’m not the best person for that sort of thing,” she warned, looking away from Isitoq.

“I would imagine you would be lonely, being in here for so long.”

“The hell are you implying?” Poinsettia said with an unamused expression.

Isitoq processed the statement for a moment, and then waved his hands desperately. “I-I did not mean that!”

Poinsettia maintained the angry expression for a moment, but then grinned slightly. “That’s better… less like a robot.”

The cyborg regarded the MEC trooper. “You were… testing me there?”

“Yep. You don’t seem like such a bad guy…” Poinsettia held her head, groaning. “Honestly, I could use someone to talk to that’s not affiliated with the Exalts. I… hope my judgement about you in that regard is correct.”

Isitoq nodded. “I can listen.”

“Well… I’m starting to think something’s off. Viktor… was so kind to me, yet for some reason he seemed to hate everyone else. I’ve… come to accept that Lily wasn’t lying about what he did to her.” Poinsettia’s eyes watered a bit, and she frustratedly wiped away the moisture. “I just… I don’t understand… he told me they and their mother had done so much to harm him… but… they still didn’t deserve…”

Isitoq was quiet for a moment, unsure of what to say, when the sound of footsteps made them both look up. Lily was standing there with an inquisitive expression. “I see you have made a new friend, sister.”

Poinsettia looked away again with a bit of a pout. “I told you not to call me that…”

“I did hear some of the last of that.” Poinsettia tensed, and Lily looked down for a moment. “Poinsettia… we have come across a means to remove the biological programming that implanted those false memories and directive to be loyal to Viktor. Though… I will not force it upon you if you do not believe me.”

“I’m not sure what to believe!” Poinsettia shouted suddenly. “My father was so… brutal… to others, yet he loved me so dearly… I don’t want to betray that, and I certainly don’t want to forgive the murderess you call a sister!” Seeing Lily’s disheartened expression, Poinsettia quieted down. “But… what he did to you… I don’t understand… I should hate him for doing that to someone so like me… my original… that’s sick… to call someone a daughter even though…” Poinsettia growled. “But… I still look upon him fondly… I guess I owe him that much.”

Lily sighed. “Please understand… that is because of the nature of your creation. He made you to be like that… if you let me fix that…”

“But then how do I know you didn’t just brainwash me? How do I know I’m not playing into enemy hands and shaming my father?” Poinsettia mumbled, running her hands through her crimson hair.

Isitoq frowned. “Poinsettia…”

“What?” she asked quietly. “What could you possibly...say…” Try as Poinsettia might to push him away, she didn’t have the resolve anymore.

Isitoq seemed undaunted, wanting to help Poinsettia as best as he could. “Would you rather live like this, unable to ever act on that desire for vengeance, and seperated from someone you care about by these bars? Your sister? I could not…”

“I don’t...see her…” Poinsettia tried to say, but her words rang hollow, and tears came freely this time. “This isn’t fair…”

Lily sat down next to the cell, taking one of Poinsettia’s hands and clasping it gently. “Life has a habit of being like that, I have learned. But please… all I want is to let you be happy.”

Isitoq inclined his head in agreement. “And the other option is to abandon that desire for vengeance, and take this chance to remove your constraints and live happily. Your father… if he did love you, is that not what he would have wanted?”

Poinsettia slowly began to nod, and then latched onto the idea, becoming more vehement in her agreement. “You’re right! So that’s the best option, then…” She looked up at Lily, smiling genuinely. “I’ll… I’ll do it then.”

Lily smiled softly. “I shall inform Nouja to begin preparing for doing such then. I shall not betray your trust, Poinsettia.”

Poinsettia patted Isitoq on the shoulder. “Thanks for your help. And I’ll count on that…” Poinsettia sighed, muttering, “...sister.” Lily’s face lit up, and she thanked Isitoq briefly before running off to inform Atka’s sister that she should start perfecting her ability as soon as possible.

 

[ZombieSplitter53]

Sui Generis: Part One

X-COM Headquarters
Holo-Training Room
November 18th, 1200 Hours

"So, you and Hawke..." Morrigan twiddled two fingers, the motion seemingly pointless, but Aya knew the context.

The Central Officer lightly bumped her shoulder against the Commander. "No, you pervert. We chatted up over some drinks. He's a little head strong, but I was surprised how much fun he was to talk to. But I have standards, this was the first time we've talked at length, and his brother is dating me sister. Don't... be weird."

"Alright, alright." Morrigan grinned. "Just figured you could stand to loosen up a bit."

"Oh?" Aya smiled confidently back. "And what is this I hear about you and Chief getting wasted together, then heading back to..."

"No... nothing... he just escorted me to my room, nothing... more," Morrigan quickly, awkwardly, responded.

"I see." Aya nodded. "So, him supposedly placing his hand on you thigh?"

"He was off balance."

"And you holding each other on the way to your room?"

"We were having trouble walking."

"And him... leaving your room the next..."

"He passed out on the floor."

"Aw." Aya's smile only widened as she watched the soldiers step in. "So... how was it?"

A big grin spread across Morrigan's face. "Not bad. No bad at all."

Aya nodded, and put on her business face. She stepped up to the saluting soldiers, returning the gesture. "At ease. Now... as you all know, I originally scouted you in the hopes that you would all have psionic potential. But it was always your choice, which is why I was up front with you, and supported Fedor and So Ji when they decided to join the MEC program, something that, at the time, was only occupied by Amanda Ortiz. I am glad the rest of you were so willing, of course."

Morrigan stepped forward. "First and foremost, we would like to emphasize how impressive your development has been. Psionics aren't completely reliable, and you have all done well to develop you abilities in other fields. I'd like to think I speak for the both of us when I say how proud we are of you. Not only are you skilled psions, but you are some of the top soldiers in you individual soldiers classes."

Alicia and Christine exchanged a grin while Sylvia blushed a bit. Jamie and Laurent bowed their heads, and stone-faced Sergio simply nodded.

"But, psionics are what we are here for today," Aya continued. "Our artificial means of awakening about abilities in those with potential is useful, but imperfect. Like one with natural abilities, it takes time to develop, and time is one thing we don't have. Atka and Walker are as far along as they are thanks to being exposed to their abilities for years, and even with Fischer's... unique relationship with the Ethereal allowing to learn abilities quicker then normal, she still suffers for extreme fatigue and headaches on abilities she isn't used to. As such, I have asked you each to take one or two abilities, and focus your efforts on them. If possible, take a note from Atka and Walker's respective use of mind fray and psi lance and make something unique for yourself, something the aliens wouldn't expect."

Aya waved her hand towards the two Japanese women standing apart from the rest. "Now, most of you likely know Marina and Airi Akizuki, two of our newest psions, either from missions or working to develop their abilities. I asked them to attends this demonstration, in the hopes that..."

"Um, excuse me." Airi raised her hand. "Sorry, but we don't just wanna watch. Marina and I have been..."

Marina wrapped her arms around her sisters head, covering her mouth. With a sheepish laugh, she said, "Please excuse my sister's rudeness. It is just, we heard about your suggestion, and have been doing the same ourselves. We... wish to join in the demonstration."

Morrigan and Aya exchanged a glance, and the former gave Airi a worried glance. "You are free to join in, as long as you feel up to it. We just don't want you to hurt yourself."

Airi pushed away from her sister, and grinned at the Commander. "Thank you, sir. That means a lot to me. But Chandra gave me a clean bill of health. As long as I don't push myself."

"And I'll make sure she doesn't," Marina assured her.

"Alright then." Aya nodded towards the other six. "Who's first?"

Jamie stepped forward. "I'll go first," the young assault said. "My ability probably isn't as flashy or impressive as the others. I went to Desmond... I mean, Mr. Walker..."

Morrigan raised a hand. "Please, Jamie. No need to be too formal."

"Right." Jamie smiled. "I asked Desmond for some advice on making my own unique skill. He recommended telekinesis, since it seems to be my strong suit, and mentioned the advice he gave to Brigid. Since then, I've been focusing on speed and accuracy, weight, and number of objects on an alternating schedule, except when I felt one was falling behind. I am now faster at grabbing objects for distraction purposes, and if I focus, I can lift a single heavy object without too much struggle." She extended her had towards Sylvia as an example, lifting her gently in the air.

The scout pouted as she was lowered back down." You calling me heavy or something?"

Jamie chuckled. She reached into a back pouch, producing six throwing knives. "My main focus has been on this." She tossed the knives up, and they began circling around he head. "Naturally, these aren't as strong as tungsten bullets, and I can't throw them as hard or as for as Fay Henderson. So no punching through armor for me. But my focus has been more on control. Not only can I take out the small fry so others can focus on more deadly enemies..." The knives glowed red, and began slashing in front of her, slowly at first, then quite rapidly. "As long as I keep them close to me, they make a great defensive weapon."

"Excellent, very impressive." Aya smiled at Sylvia. "How about you?"

Sylvia cupped her hands together, a yellow orb forming in it. "I can do shields, just like other yellow psions. But I've also been working on this." She glanced at Sergio, and receiving a nod, sent the orb towards him. Once it hit the sniper, an orb with a slight yellow tint appeared around him. "I call these my fire-and-forget shields," Sylvia explained. "They cost a bit more energy, and they can't take a lot of damage, but I can put them on someone, then do something else without having to maintain them." She nodded at Jamie, and the assault sent a knife flying towards Sergio. It bounced off the shield, landing harmlessly on the ground before the shield faded.

Sergio slung a Alloy Strike Rifle off his back, amd looked up. "Run Martinez program 225-7." A simple series of holograms formed, low cover four Sergio, a Sectoid behind high cover, and the curved ceiling of a UFO. "Atka and Sarah easily have me beat with Mindfrays, and I have no interest in most other psionics. Though I have found a use for ESP." He took his place behind his cover. His eyes tinted blue as he slowly closed them. A few moments later, he took aim at the ceiling. He fired, the bullet ricocheting twice before hitting the Sectoid. The simulation ended, and Sergio said, "I can do it with a pistol too, though it needs to be Gauss. Regular ballistics are too weak."

 

[ZombieSplitter53]

Sui Generis: Part Two

Morrigan nodded. "Not bad, not bad. Laurent?"

"I've been practicing biokinesis in the infirmary," the medic answered. "Chandra is a strict teacher, but skilled. I've also been trying my hands at this." He grinned as he pulled out a small, round object. "These are modified plasma weapon cores. Atka taught me how to do this. You can use imbuing to charge them with energy for an impressive blast, but Atka warned me not to pump too much energy, or I would damage the gun, or even overload them. So I thought, what if I wanted to overload them." He turned around, saying out loud, "Computer, raise a wall big enough to cover us on my mark." Laurent closed his eyes, and a green glow flowed from his hand to the plasma core. He through it, yelling, "Mark!" A wall formed, and a few moments later, a massive explosion went of behind it. He grinned. "Not bad, huh?"

"Nope, as long as you're careful with that," Aya responded.

"My turn." Christine stepped forward. "I've done what I can with the Rift ability, and while it is... okay, I've had trouble with control and power output. So I've been studying it with Jeanne in the psi labs, and we've discovered a specific, readable, and repeatable distortion in Minkowski space and time. With this knowledge, by focusing all my energies on... on control and purposely precluding power, I can opening a pathway between two separate rifts and circumvent the space between them. We were a little worried this my have caused an accidental creation of an Einstein-Rosen Podolsky-bridge and objects we received originated... b-but our readings show it is, in fact, merely a Einstein-Rosen bridge, as the items have spacial and temporal readings consistent with..."

"Christine, please!" Morrigan tried to smile gently while rubbing her temples. "English, please. And why aren't you a scientist, assuming all that was not just techno-babble?"

Christine smiled sheepishly. "The second matter would... take too long to explain. As for the first, I can... make mini wormholes." She patted herself down, pulling an inert grenade casing from her pocket. Holding it under her chin, she snapped her fingers with both hands. A small, nearly invisible rift appeared in front of her, and she tossed the empty grenade into it. A moment later, it dropped to the ground a few feet in front of Morrigan, presumably from another rift near the ceiling. Christine excitingly clapped her hands together, and said, "I've only been able to set the rifts about four to five meters apart, but I'm still working on it."

"Amazing," Morrigan muttered, lifting the grenade. "Can you do this with people?"

"Hmm... not sure." Christian snapped her fingers again, two human sized rifts appearing two meters apart.

"Wait, Christian, don't!" Aya shouted, but Christian was already running. She jumped into one rift, jumping out the other almost instantaneously. As the rocketeer panted and hunched over, Aya asked, "Are... you okay?"

Christian looked at Aya with half open eyes and smiled. "It... worked... a-awesome...' She collapsed to the ground, and everyone rushed over, Laurent and Marina up and down.

Marina let out a sigh of relief. "She's fine, she just overexerted herself."

"That's putting it simply," Laurent muttered as he picked Christian up and carried her to the side of the room. "Probably used every ounce of psionic energy she had with that stunt."

Alicia shook her head and chuckled. She lifted her hand, a long, purple, tentacle-like strand of energy emerging from it. "Well, it might not be as creative as that, but I've mostly been focusing on upping my energy output by using as much energy in one practice session as I can. I... hasn't been easy, and I don't quite I'm up to the level of other strong psions, but I believe I can mind control all but the strongest willed opponents. And like Jamie, I've been working on something to deal with weaker enemies. Um... I, uh..." She frowned at Morrigan. "I'm... sorry, Commander, but... you're the only non-psion here, so..."

"It's fine, dear." Morrigan stepped forward. "Go ahead."

Alicia nodded. The energy split into half a dozen smaller strands. "I have a more limited way of controlling multiple enemies at once. I' most comfortable with six, but I can do more if I push myself or their weak, less if they strong or Sectoids." She sent one into Morrigan, and started moving her arms and legs, Morrigan mimicking her perfectly. As Alicia spoke, Morrigan said the same thing at the same time. "This is my... shadow control, if I need to name it. While linked, the opponents do everything I do. How it is limited is obvious. I can't have them run head first into a wall unless there is room for me to run, or I'm willing to do the same. But if can utilize their grenades as long as I keep mine somewhere they normally don't, I can make them say what I say, and I can obviously immobilize them."

As contact was broken, Morrigan rubbed her head. "Whoa... interesting." She took a moment to compose herself, and smiled at the Akizukis. "Marina?"

"Well, most of you have already seen what I can do." Marina lifted her hands, the tips of her fingers glowing green. "I'm not very skilled with biokinesis, so instead, I've focused on imbuing. I've found that I have very weak access to telekinesis, possibly from... whichever parent Airi got her potential from. Combining this, imbuing, and my knowledge of pressure points and acupuncture, I can apply pressure to parts of the body without the use of needles, and send energy directly into them for enhanced effect. With this, I can stop bleeding, relieve pain, and in enemies, temporarily paralyze body parts, amongst... other things."

Airi rolled her eyes and nudged her sisters. "Come on, sis. Now's not the time to be modest. What about that thing you did to that Muton. Right Chris..." She looked back and frowned and Christine, the rocketeer out like a light.

Marina laughed nervously. "W-well, I am still learning about Balmadaar anatomy, with the help of Ogedai. I wasn't sure at the time, so I did something I knew would work. I, uh... I cut off the flow of blood from the brain but not to the brain, causing side effects of quadriplegia, bleeding from the head's orifices, and a, uh... painful death via a brain aneurysm."

Morrigan nodded. "Alright... just... don't..."

"Use it on any humans?" Marina shook her head. "Of course. I never thought I'd have to do that to anything, and I'd never do it to a human."

"And now, the best for last." Airi grinned widely. "Sis has the issue of being able to project energy well, but not having a lot to work with. I, admittedly, have the opposite, with tons of energy, but an inability to release a lot of it, or send it very far. I'm getting better with fire starting, but I'm no where near Inderpal. Heck, Desmond has only been using it for a while, and he's still above me by leaps and bounds. So, I've tried my hands at psi lances, but again, not so good at projecting energy. Telekinesis? When I'm pissed off, maybe, but other wise, still no. Finally, I decided, fine. The energy doesn't want to leave my body, then it can stay with me."

Airi cupped her right hand, a ball of orange-red energy forming it. She extended her arm, and wrapped her left hand around her right wrist. A bead of sweat running down her brow, she clenched her teeth and concentrated. In a burst of power, energy shot out of the orb, and it took the form of a sword.

Panting lightly, she grinned as she held the psionic sword in front of her. "Pretty cool, huh? If I was a guy, I'd have something more to say... heh. It is made out of pure psionic energy, like the psi lance, and held together by telekinesis! Aaaaand, I can do two things with it. First..." She flicked her wrist, and the sword turned into whip. She thrust her arm to the side, and it straightened out into a sword again. "And second, I'm not letting that fire starting work go to waste." The sword erupted in flames. "Now... am I... hot..." Airi panted heavily. "Or... am... I..."

"Airi." Marina folded her arms and tapped her foot. "You promised."

"Yeah... yeah..." Airi opened her palm, and the sword evaporated. Marina walked over to her sister, helping her take a seat.

Morrigan laughed, and clapped her hands together. "Alright. So... how about a nice training simulation." The able soldiers all nodded, and Aya walked over to the computer, looking for something fun.

 

[DarkGemini24601]

DarkGemini24601 and Adrammalech: “Last Minute Friends, Part 1”

XCOM Headquarters, Somewhere in Siberia
1400 Hours, November 18th, 2018
The Bar

“Uh...hold on… what’s ‘Buzzshot?’” Atka asked, adjusting the communications attachment to a basic headset she was wearing to keep in contact with her father while he was busy. “Doesn’t sound like something I’d want to have following me around.”

Ipiktok chuckled. “Just one of the Infantry Airframes the Exalts made. Helps to have around considering I can’t use a gun to any effect. Though with its weapons concealed, its just a shiny robot to Brigid.”

“I just hope it never has to live up to its name.” Atka took a sip of her glass of water, but a loud buzz from the headset as Ipiktok’s mic bumped into something made her lose her grip, and only a quick telekinetic helix stopped it from shattering on the table, or her.

Emily walked close to the bar, her face still flushed from her session in the training room. Failing to see Nika or Dallas, she scanned the bar for familiar faces, the look being stopped by the psionic display coming from Atka. She walked over and hopped onto the stool next to them and the bartender came over quickly, nodding towards her getting a small glass ready for her usual fake drink.

“Nice little trick you’ve got there,” she said over to Atka, smiling a bit.

Atka carefully set down the glass. “Gotta go. Talk to you later, dad.” She pulled off the headset. “Yeah… a lifesaver in more than just combat, I’ll give it that. And it seems like it’s only my trick… tried showing it to my sister, but she can’t use it.”

“Hmm, maybe it’s just a practice thing? All else fails, you can try to invade her mind, I heard that does wonders,” Emily smirked a bit at the self-deprecation. “Also, sorry if I...interrupted something, I didn’t know you were on a call.”

Atka shook her head. “I was mostly finished. And he’s busy watching the Commander’s daughter anyway, so I shouldn’t take up much of his time.”

“Oh, good,” Emily smiled. The bartender gave her a small napkin and her orange juice, obviously darker than the cocktail she disguised it as. “I heard about your mission, bet you’re glad to tie up that loose end,” she said, taking a sip.

“I guess getting rid of Invidia was satisfying… but that was after the hell the rest of the mission had been.” Atka took another sip of her water, going quiet for a moment.

“Yeah…” Emily joined in the silence, perking up after a few seconds. “At least you can put it behind you. I’m surprised you’re not holding something stronger,” she pointed towards Atka’s glass.

Atka shook her head. “Even if I wanted to… I don’t drink. I can live with Modya and Morrigan drinking… when they’re doing it for the right reasons… but it often does more harm than good if you’re trying to drown your sorrows.”

“True enough. I don’t drink either, not anymore,” she said, taking another sip, “this is just juice, I just tell people it’s not. You know, people that are really cutting loose like to think everyone’s doing the same. I don’t think it fools anyone really, but the illusion is usually enough…”

Atka shrugged. “Well, for me its less of worries about it will do to my immediate state of mind and more about it being personal. Alcohol… hasn’t exactly improved anything for native americans, Canadian or otherwise.”

“I know the feeling. I started drinking way too young, then grew up and realized the same thing.”

“So… why do you seem about as exhausted as me?” the Inuit Colonel inquired.

“Ah, is it that obvious?” Emily patted the sweat from her glass onto her forehead, then wiped it away with the napkin. “I was practicing my psi lance in the holo room for a couple hours. Almost to a point where I can call it reliable...but not yet.”

“Not really my style… a high energy attack like the telekinetic javelin takes pretty much everything out of me,” Atka stated. “Though with you being orange and me being blue, we’re pretty much opposites in regards to our abilities.”

“That we are, although a pure attack isn’t exactly my personal style either. I’m hoping I can find a sneakier utility for it, myself,” Emily stated, taking another sip of her drink. “How about you, how are your powers coming along? Any cool blue tricks I can be jealous of, other than those helixes?”

“Well, I doubt a mean mindfray and physical enhancement are that much in the way of special…” Atka held up a finger. “But, although I don’t like to brag, it would seem people are impressed by the whole ‘meet the Ethereal leader in a lucid dream’ incident awhile back.”

“Well, that sure seems interesting,” Emily chuckled. “How’d you manage that?”

“Way back when we were searching for the first alien base, my ESP manifested as an uncontrollable clairvoyance, where I could see what was happening to my sister. A lucid dream seems much more powerful in that regard… I was able to project my consciousness through the hyperwave relay, and see the homeworld for myself. I went…” Atka paused. “...to the place where their leader was. Saw him, and nearly got my presence captured, if he didn’t grow tired of my being there after awhile. Phobos is, well, eccentric.”

“I would guess so, considering he’s keeping this up even with all of this resistance. Can’t wait to take a shot at that animal,” Emily grinned. “How much of their homeworld did you see? It’s pretty beautiful, in my opinion…”

“Well, yeah, I suppose the homeworld is beautiful,” Atka replied. “Not so much where Phobos hangs out.”

“Yeah, probably not...I’ve only mostly seen the outside. Do you think he’s headed here soon?”

Atka shrugged. “If not now… after we take out Superbia, I doubt he can just pretend like we aren’t a threat. If that’s the case, he will certainly come after we take care of the ‘Honored Overseer’ that presides over the seven.” How we’ll deal with the Temple Ship though, I have no idea, Atka thought to herself.

“I don’t know much about the latter. Have you seen him too?” Emily asked.

“No, what I know about him is just the information Buniq gave us,” the Colonel responded, tapping the side of her glass.

“Hmm,” Emily sighed, thinking for a moment. “Well, if you have another run-in, maybe we could pool intel. I’m understanding a lot more stuff about them from my meetings, the language and gestures and that kind of thing.”

“I doubt I’m going to try that again,” Atka replied quickly. “Between nearly being killed and the unpredictability of when lucid dreams occur…”

“Probably better off that way. We’ll handle him when he comes, just like we have everyone else,” Emily said confidently, lifting her drink. “But we’re off the clock now, let’s talk about something a little lighter. How’s Jake treating you?”

Atka’s expression lightened. “Really well. He’s sweet as always, and the three girls only compliment that. I remember him saying he got some advice from you, so I appreciate that.”

“Ah, I just told him what he already knew, he just needed a little push,” Emily smiled. “I’m glad things are going well, considering…nevermind.”

Atka raised an eyebrow. “You can't just leave me hanging like that.”

 

[Adrammalech]

“Sorry, not you, just been hearing some rumors about another person I gave advice to. Kinda worried about it.”

“Someone I might know?” the Inuit woman pressed. “I do know a lot of people, so chances are…”

“Maybe, he’s one of the Elites, those clones that came on base a good while ago. His name is Fox.”

“The one Eve is in a relationship with… right. I was worried about her… especially considering all the nasty crap people were spewing for awhile,” Atka murmured.

“Mmhmm, I hope it’s all false, but I should really visit and make sure,” Emily replied.

“Well, I heard better things after awhile, and it sounded like it was coming from Fox’s brothers,” Atka offered reassuringly. “So if they believe things worked out, that ought to mean they did.”

“That’s good,” she nodded, “I’d hate to think I helped with having his heart broken.”

“I’m glad things are working out between you and Jack,” Atka added. “You two seemed pretty happy at the wedding party.”

“Very happy,” Emily beamed, twisting the ring on her finger, “he’s been very patient with me, and I’m just as grateful.”

Atka smiled at the ring. “Well, I figure I’ll take Jake back to Canada with me when this is all over.” He… doesn’t have much to return to, anyway, Atka thought sadly.

“That’s great, I hope the best for you,” Emily smiled. “I still don’t know where Jack and I are going, but our hometowns aren’t radically far from each other in the end. Maybe a nice halfway point…”

“Where’d you live before?” Atka asked curiously.

“New Hampshire for most of my childhood. Jack is from Canada himself.”

Atka grinned widely. “Apparently we just make excellent officers. Us, Russians, and the Irish… must be a northern thing.”

“Bah, he’s from Ottawa, it’s barely above my home. I think he just got it because he’s better eye candy,” she smirked.

“If that were universal, then how do you explain MEC officers? Not that I mean any disrespect to Fedor…” Atka said with a smirk.

“Are you saying robots can’t be sexy? Because I’m sure Alice keeps a log of her conversations…”

“Hulking robots with armor plating are more impressive than sexy,” Atka replied with a roll of her eyes. “And I can’t say anything about Alice, I’ll leave that to Mary or something.”

“Hehe, if we left it all to Mary, there wouldn’t be anyone left for us,” Emily chuckled.

“I didn’t mean it like that… just the evaluation of her attractiveness… I’m not the sort of person that could do that without feeling weird,” Atka muttered.

“Just teasing,” Emily nudged her playfully. “I don’t see that kind of appeal personally either.”

“At least you didn’t have Mary hit on you,” the Inuit woman countered. “She apparently thinks the world would be better off if everyone swung both ways.”

“Actually, I did,” she smirked.

Atka sighed. “Is there anyone she hasn’t hit on? Anyone attractive, I mean.”

“I don’t think she’s taken a run at Nika yet...although, maybe I just missed it, since she’s around our room occasionally.”

The Colonel shrugged. “Mary’s sex life aside, I don’t think I could offer you much with my blue abilities, but I have gained teleimagery and telekinetic field lately, and I’ve had imbuing and psi inspiration for awhile. Though the telekinetic field...isn’t easy to demonstrate.”

“Hmm...I know Luxxy loved her teleimagery, and my rift is like...a specialized kinetic field, in a sense. Psi inspiration sounds useful though. And you know, I have biokinesis as well, if you wanted to study that. Well, I have a certain kind of it, at least.”

Atka shrugged. “I tried learning healing biokinesis from Chandra. I’m not very good at it, though my sister is. She might be able to help Poinsettia with it. What do you mean by a certain kind, though?”

“Well…it’s awkward to explain…”

“I’m not as thin-skinned as I used to be… try me,” Atka replied resolutely.

“I can manipulate certain things in the body...generally to produce pleasure, comfort, or lust,” Emily stated shyly. “It has its uses in private, or with enough power...it can make a suitable distraction.”

Atka shook her head. “I probably can’t get enough power for the latter… though I wonder how…” she trailed off, wondering how Jake would react to that particular usage of psionics if she could manage it.

“I haven’t used it too much on Dallas, but I’m thinking about asking him about it. Kind of worried it would ruin the natural feel, you know?”

Atka nodded, pausing her mischevious musings. “Yeah, I can see how that would be a problem. Didn’t Luxuria… sort of have the problem of not being satisfied by normal things?”

“Well, I think she had more problems in that arena. I don’t even know if her people can really…do much, at least not with passion. And then she hated her own body, so I imagine it would’ve been difficult to be naked,” Emily explained before finding her tangent odd to talk about. “I don’t know. I guess it’d have diminishing returns if you used it to it’s full potential all the time, like anything else.”

Atka nodded. “I’ll probably call a rain check on that then. I can still teach you psi inspiration, though if you want telekinetic field you’d probably have to ask someone with a more normal one like Sylvia.”

“Sounds like fun, maybe I’ll take you up on that later this week. Might ask Luxuria about teleimagery as well,” she rubbed her chin, “I don’t know, I’ve still got some work in psi lance to do too. Ah, I’ll sort it out another time.”

“Whatever works for you. I figure we’ll have time… I’m thinking Desmond and Aya are handling Superbia, anyway,” Atka concluded.

“Indeed, plenty of time,” Emily smiled and raised her nearly empty glass of juice towards Atka, “to our many glorious powers.” Atka smiled as well, clanking her glass against Emily’s.

 

[Frostlich1228]

Frostlich1228 and DarkGemini24601: “Breaking a Circle”

XCOM Headquarters, Somewhere in Siberia
1630 Hours, November 18th, 2018
Room of Ammelia Cross

Ammelia sat on her bed, looking up at her sister with a slight smile.

“Se, ‘Cedia wants me te’ pay ‘er eh’ ‘isit? Why net’, ‘ef ye’ ‘eally ‘ink ‘at she’s ‘anged ‘or th’ ‘etter.” (So, Acedia wants me to pay her a visit? Why not, if you really think she’s changed for the better.) Mary spoke, standing next to the computer.

“I think she has, she honestly cared about our well being when I told Morrigan the truth… She’s willing to help us too…” Ammelia replied, considering, “In her own way…”

“Es ‘omething… Wrong? Ye’ ‘eem eh’ ‘ittle off, beh’ eh’ ‘an’t put my ‘inger on ‘et.” (Is something… Wrong? You seem a little off, but I can’t exactly put my finger on it.) Mary asked, taking a seat in Ammy’s computer chair.

“I’m fine… It’s just something that happened during the attack on the tower has left me thinking…” Ammy admitted, “I plan on dealing with it tomorrow though… It’s something that only my father could really explain and I want to give him some time… He lost a lot of his friends…”

A faint, almost inaudible knock came on the door, only able to be heard due to the current silence. “A-Ammelia? Are you t-there?”

Ammelia turned towards the door, instantly recognizing the voice, “Buniq? Yeah, come on in.”

Buniq started to walk in, blinking for a moment before recognizing Mary. “Oh… uh, h-hi again.”

“‘Ey, ‘ice see’in my ‘ister’s ‘irlfriend ‘gain.” (Hey, nice seeing my sister’s girlfriend again.) Mary replied, smirking slightly.

Ammy blushed a little, “Oh, I didn’t know you knew…”

“‘Course eh know, ‘ord got ‘round ‘at meh’ ‘ister was shagg’in eh’ cute bug ‘irl.” (Course I know, word got around that my sister was shagging a cute bug girl.) Mary replied, turning back towards Ammy.

Ammy blushed a deeper red, “W-We haven’t gone that far yet…! We’re taking it slow…”

Buniq had to look away. “W-we… d-didn’t…” she said at nearly the same time.

“Eh’ ‘ow, eh’ ‘ow, eh’m je’ mess’in wit’ ye’.”(I know, I know, I’m justing messing with you.) Mary chuckled as Ammelia rolled her eyes, “Se, why ‘aven’t ye’ yet?” (So, why haven’t you yet?)

“W-Well… Because I don’t want to pressure her into doing something she doesn’t want to… She’s only a few months old, I don’t want to push anything on her.” Ammelia explained.

Buniq’s eyes darted between Ammelia and Mary for a moment. “M-maybe it would b-be b-better to r-refer to me by m-my b-biological a-age… s-saying it l-like that m-makes you s-sound like a p-p-pe…”

Mary started laughing, looking over to her sister, “Eh’ guess ‘at ‘oes te’ne’cally ‘ake ye’ eh’-”

(I guess that does technically make you a-)

“I’m not a pedophile! That’s not funny!” Ammy said, glaring back over at her sister.

“Ah, fergot ye’ ‘an’t ‘eally take eh’ joke.” (Ah, forgot you can’t really take a joke.) Mary shrugged.

“It’s not a joke because it’s not funny.” Ammy sighed loudly.

Buniq shook her head several times, wanting to change the subject, at least a little. “I t-think I’m a-actually e-eighteen now, i-if my r-retained memories a-are correct…”

“Don’t worry about her, Mary has a gross sense of humor...” Ammy replied, walking over towards Buniq.

“U-um… w-was… ‘t-that’ s-something you w-wanted to d-do?” Buniq asked quietly, seeming unsure of Ammelia’s desires in regards to intimacy.

Ammelia seemed a little surprised by the question, “I-I mean… I didn’t mean I-I wanted to… I mean… Maybe not… Right now… But… Do you want to?”

Buniq reddenned. “I-I d-don’t k-know… y-you know I-I’m n-not good w-with t-those s-sort of d-decisions.”

“I-I know it’s something that… couples do… But I… I don’t want to… make you do something that’d make you uncomfortable…” Ammy stammered a little. Buniq just shifted her feet, mumbling another ‘I don’t know’.

Mary walked up behind her sister, (You have to try it at least once, won’t know if you like it if you never try.)

“I uh…” Ammy flushed red again, “I’m not even sure… How it works… With another girl… I mean, I know how a normal couple… Does it… But I’ve never…”


Mary placed her head in her palm, trying to find a way to explain it simply, “‘Ook, ‘et ‘volves ‘icking, some ‘inger stuff, an’ ‘ot’s eh’ ‘aking out. Et’s eh’ ‘ittle ‘or compli’ated ‘an ‘at, but ‘at’s the jist of et’.” (Look, it involves licking, some finger stuff, and lots of making out. It’s a little more complicated than that but that’s the jist of it.)

Buniq just seemed perpetually embarrassed, to the point where she hid her face with her arms.

Ammy turned away from her sister and back towards Buniq, “I… I want to wait a little longer… We don’t need to be intimate to love each other… I want to wait until you’re ready…”

Buniq nodded slowly. “I a-agree… I j-just d-don’t know w-when I-I’d be...b-but...b-but I d-don’t...w-want to make y-you wait f-forever…”

“You can make me wait as long as you like, I want to do what’s best for you…” Ammy said, touching Buniq’s cheek softly.

“I-I j-just… a-am not g-good at m-making decisions…” Buniq mumbled.

“I understand… And I can wait until you feel confident making that choice…” Ammelia said softly, “I can wait however long you need…”

Buniq shook her head in frustration. “I-I d-don’t know th-that I c-can feel c-confident in that s-sort of d-decision… t-though I-I’m not t-trying t-to sh-shoot you d-down…”

“I don’t want to make the decision for you though… We’re in this together…” Ammelia spoke.


Mary sighed loudly, “Someone je’ ‘cide some’thin… Yer’ ‘oing en’ ‘ircles…” (Someone just decide something… You’re going in circles…)

Ammy looked up at her sister, before turning back to Buniq, “You’re right… I want to wait then…”

Buniq nodded. “At l-least f-for now…” I don’t think that resolved anything.

“‘Ell, ‘at got us no’ere… ‘Omeone ‘as te’ ‘ave th’ ‘alls in this ‘lationship an’ take ‘arge, ye’ two’ll ne’er get anythin’ done je’ lettin’ th’ other ‘erson ‘cide.” (Well, that got us nowhere… Someone has to have the balls in this relationship and take charge, you two’ll never get anything done just letting the other person decide…) Mary said, crossing her arms.

Buniq blinked for a second. “T-then...w-who d-do you r-reccomend s-should t-take c-charge?”

Ammy sighed, “I guess I can… But I don’t feel right telling her what to do…”

“Yer’ ‘ot ‘elling ‘er ‘at te’ do… ‘Ome’imes ‘ushing ‘omeone te’ do ‘omething can turn out te’ be ‘un ‘or the ‘erson ‘at didn’t ‘ant te.” (You’re not telling her what to do… Sometimes pushing someone to do something can turn out to be fun for the person that didn’t want to.) Mary responded.

Buniq shrugged. “I-I c-could m-make you d-do something too if i-it made y-you feel b-better.”

“Well, what do you want to do?” Ammy asked, smiling at her.

“For w-what I-I’d make you do? I d-dunno… m-maybe h-help me t-train m-my powers…”

Ammy smiled, “I think I could do that… But then you’d have to do something I wanted…”

Buniq looked over Ammy. “A-And t-that w-would be…”

Ammy considered for a moment before speaking, “I… I think I’d like you to meet a new friend of mine… She’s had a hard couple of weeks and I’m sure she could use another friend.”

Buniq tilted her head. “Who’s that?”

“Acedia, I think you’d like her.” The sniper answered.

The chryssalid hybrid blinked rapidly. “T-the Ethereal? M-maybe… I h-hear she’s n-nice… m-maybe too l-laid back.”

“Just trust me, this is a good way to get us to do things we might not normally do, and, no one is feeling like they’re bossing the other person around. It’s perfect.” Ammy replied, her smiling widening.

Buniq nodded. “I-I l-like it. Thanks, M-Mary.”

“Heh, dun’t ‘ention et’... Neh’ ye’ ‘ame up wit’ ‘at idea ye’self, eh’ je’ ‘ave ye eh’ push.” (Heh, Don’t mention it… But you came up with that idea by yourself, I just gave you a push. ) Mary replied.

 

[DarkGemini24601]

DarkGemini24601 and ZombieSplitter53: “Swordswomen of the Alien Resistance!”

XCOM Headquarters, Somewhere in Siberia
2100 Hours, November 1?th, 2018
Holo-Training Room

“So, considering I’m less experienced with blades,” Atka began, knowing wielding a spear was an entirely different matter than swinging a sword, “What pointers do you have for me?”

“A few.” Ayame stepped behind Atka, wrapping her arms around her and placing them on Atka’s wrist, a kendo stick in Atka’s hands. “First, remember that when you strike an opponent, and especially when you strike their sword, the vibrations of the hit are going to move through the sword and into your hands. It is important to keep a firm grip, but too firm, and you’ll hurt your wrists.” She lifted Atka’s arms. “Try and keep your weapon in a position so it covers most of your upper body. And remember to follow through with your strikes.” Ayame stepped around, grabbing her own practice sword and stepping in front of the Colonel. “You ever see those things were the guy punches a solid concrete cinder-block with a single punch?”

“Not very realistic?” Atka guessed, getting a feel for the sword in the way Ayame had recommended.

Ayame grinned. “Oh, plenty of those are fake, but it is possible. The trick is the follow through.” Ayame knelt down, and punched her hand down, stopping a few feet from the ground. “You try that by just hitting the blocks, you’ll break your hand. Because you body will only exert so much force.” She punched down again, stopping inches from the ground. “You want to do it right, you aim past the blocks.” Ayame stood up again, holding the sword up. “Same goes for a killing blow. Make sure, when it is time to end it, you follow through with that slash, of you might find yourself open, and your death blow can mean them needlessly taking you with them. Got it?”

Atka nodded. “Right. Though I can always use physical enhancement to lessen the amount of strength I waste with a blow… though that feels like cheating.”

“You say that, but I’m constantly cheating with these augmented muscles,” Vee countered with her characteristic grin.

“She has a point.” Ayame smiled sheepishly at Atka. “This isn’t some competition or tournament. It’s training. So feel free to buff yourself up a bit. I… I-I’m not saying your not tough as nails, Atka, but with my training, and Vee’s mods… you know…”

Atka shrugged. “Fair enough. So, how do you want to go about this? Simulation, sparring?”

“Yep.” Ayame looked up. “Cheshire, give me a… dojo. Something sizable but not too big.” The simulation started to form, and Ayame added, “And if it is anything stereotypical, I will scramble your systems! Don’t test me!” The hologram formation paused, before forming into something that seemed to be a bit different from what it started as. Stretching a bit as she stepped up to the wooden platform, Ayame asked, “So, what’s your experience with melee weapons, Vee? I know you can use knives. Anything else?”

“Well, I’ve got basic knowledge of swords and stuff in my head.” Vee tapped the side of her skull. “And I may have messed around with Desmond’s sword while he was busy once or twice.”

“Alright. You want to go first, or you Atka?” Ayame cracked her neck, and took her stance on one side of the mat. “I could always take you both at once.” She grinned. “Just kidding. I’m not that arrogant.”

Vee shrugged. “I’ll let Atka go. I did want to tell you something though, Ayame… I may have gotten someone to make Mary a ‘special toy’ of sorts… you may find out what I mean soon. Call it her ‘ultimate sword’.”

Ayame’s eyes darted back and forth. “I… see. I’ll have to… look into that later.” Ayame shook her head, trying to get those thoughts off her mind as Atka stepped forward. “Now, I’m going to take a few swings at you, and your job is to block them. With those new senses of yours, you should catch on fast, but I’m going to get faster and faster. Are you ready?”

Atka smirked. “Just don’t let me beat you. I don’t want to embarrass my sensei here.”

“A true master teaches in the hope that their student will one day surpass them.” Ayame stepped forward, swing her sword slowly from the left. Atka raised an eyebrow at the childish swing as she blocked it. Ayame swung again, this time faster from the right, and Atka blocked again. Another from the upper left, another from the lower right. Faster and faster, Ayame’s swings came with a surprisingly consistent increase in speed and accuracy. As she swung again and again, Ayame’s expression was stoic, but her tone was light. “You alright, Atka? Keeping up alright?”

“Yeah… though I can see how you’d be a force to be reckoned with in close quarters. And how you beat that Incubator on your own, without the help of psionics,” Atka said admiringly, dodging one blow and blocking the next.

Ayame smiled a bit as she moved faster, mixing her attacks into less predictable patterns. “Well, I’m not much compared to people like Eva or Desmond. Hell, I’m sure Vee is going to whoop me in a minute.”

“I don’t have the ‘Eye of Chronos’ or whatever the hell Atka calls it, though. Don’t make bets just yet,” the destroyer called out.

Atka managed to block the next few strikes, though one of her predictions failed her and she received a hard whap on the shoulder, through her defenses didn’t go down completely.

“Keep your guard up,” Ayame warned. “Can’t insult you by going easy. You have impeccable intuition, without your abilities. Try going on the offensive now.”

Atka went forward, going for a thrust on her injured side to throw Ayame off, seeming better with jabs than she was with slashing attacks, though the helixes had given her experience with the latter, and she did attempt it once or twice to some effect.

“Good, good.” Ayame switched to a more defensive stance to encourage Atka to be more aggressive. “You know what you’re good with. But remember, a sword fight can last a few seconds or several minutes. If it goes long, mix up your attacks. You’d be surprise how easy it can be to unconsciously fall into a pattern, and if your opponent picks up on it, you’re in trouble.”

The Colonel nodded, concentrating on alternating between slashes and thrusts, and even went for a powerful, striking attack, while Vee watched eagerly.

“Good, great!” Ayame laughed. “Now, I’m gonna go all out. You ready?”

Atka raised an eyebrow. “Probably not, but go ahead.”

Ayame nodded, and suddenly ducked to the right, moving twice as fast as she has before. She swung up, hard, and the vibrations sent a wave of pain through Atka’s arms. Ayame ducked and dodged, swinging left and right, going in for feints and taking the occasional shot at Atka’s exposed areas.

Atka did her best to keep up, but she found herself predicting one attack perfectly, only to be blindsided by the next, swift follow-up. Eventually, she was forced back with several spots throbbing or otherwise sore, and yielded. “Not...bad… at all…” the Inuit woman panted.

Ayame smiled, bowing her head. “Well, I… I’m not really experienced with teaching, but I’d say you have quite the talent. You’re no pushover, that’s for sure.”

Atka smiled, while Vee shook her head. “I am so fucked…” the destroyer grumbled.

 

[ZombieSplitter53]

“What are you talking about?” Ayame motioned for Vee to take Atka’s place. “I have more experience, but you're faster and stronger, and you have all that knowledge in your head. Probably evens out nicely.”

“Yeah, but experience and skill beats impractical knowledge.” Vee balanced her practice sword, and went on the attack, her attacks swift and strong, but certainly lacking the fluidity Ayame had, and Atka did to a lesser extent.

Ayame lifted her sword, going for a block to get a feel of Vee’s strength. and regretting to as she jumped back, her hands a bit numb. “Damn… anyone ever tell you that you’re a lot stronger then you look?”

Vee grinned. “On occasion. Though you’re nimble, use that.” Vee gripped her sword tightly with both hands, and swung with a bit more force, going for solid strikes even if it hurt her arms a bit.

Ayame dodged to the right, barely avoiding the slash, but Vee was faster then she looked too. Instead of taking the attacks full force, Ayame deflected the attacks, batting the sword away as she searched for an opening, but hesitated, not wanting to underestimate Vee for a third time. “I don’t… suppose I could… wait for you to run outta… outta whoa! ... outta stamina, huh?”

“That’d probably be a bad plan.” Vee went for a powerful attack at Ayame’s upper body, but she left an opening at her stomach when she did so, unintentionally.

Ayame took the opportunity, swinging quickly but going for a glancing blow. She was sure she couldn’t break Vee’s ribs, but she wasn’t going to take the chance. “Watch your openings!”

Vee grimaced, but didn’t falter too badly, only losing some of the force behind her vicious blows, and kept going. “You may be a wasp, but I’m just a steamroller…”

“Poetic,” Atka mumbled.

“Just… trying to help… Vee.” Ayame dodged to the side, even a glancing shot across her belly hurting more than she expected. “Never, ever go for a power strike unless you know it is a killing blow. If it isn’t, you’re dead. And never assume your foe want take a sword to the arm to get a killing shot on you. If these aliens have taught us anything, its don’t underestimate an opponent’s willingness to die if it takes you down with it.”

“Well, I’m not trying to kill you right now,” Vee said, blocking a strike from Ayame narrowly. “Wouldn’t want to hurt you too bad… I’m not into that sort of stuff.”

Atka sighed deeply, putting a hand over her face. “Don’t turn into Mary, for the love of all that is holy…”

Vee rolled her eyes. “Sorry, sir,” she replied playfully.

Ayame chuckled, and said, “Vee, gotta be honest with you. I’m not going to win unless I go all out. So I’m going to…” She leaped back, and held her sword up. Vee brought hers down, and two pushed against each other, Ayame only holding her own by pushing off the floor. “I need you.. t-to promise me… i-if I go all out… y-you will… too.”

“At least without risking killing you,” Vee mumbled. “Alright… let’s do this, then.” She rushed forward, putting as much force as she could behind her blows without harming herself, and was surprisingly fast still, although not as swift as Ayame.

Ayame’s eyes were emotionless as she moved as fast as she could push herself. As she dodged or parried Vee’s strikes, her eyes darted back and forth as she scanned every movement, every opening, every possibility. Can’t win with strength. Vee is probably faster, but not when she is putting so much force in her strikes. Jump over? Too open. Left open? No, won’t stop, and she’ll get a free hit. Need to focus on her… her posture. Ayame’s eyes started going up and down. She ignored the fatigue rapidly growing in her arms as she tried to stay on the defensive while still checking… there! Ayame ducked down, barely avoiding a blow to the head and went for a leg sweep, knowing at the very least, they had similar leg mods.

Vee jumped up to avoid it, landing back a bit, but this left her somewhat open as she readjusted her stance. For probably the first time, Ayame could switch to offense, and she was hoping Vee wouldn’t hold a grudge. She swung swiftly, putting everything she had into speed. A jab here, a slash there, Ayame put everything into trying to overwhelm Vee. Hoping she was off guard, Ayame slashed at Vee’s head, leaving her right side open, seemingly so, at least.

Vee moved slightly to the side, but the strike still disoriented her, and she struggled to go for an attack on the exposed side of her opponent, taking the bait in her confusion. Ayame braced herself, the wooden sword whacking her in the side with incredible force. Ayame hooked her arm around it, and swung her own sword, bringing it to a rest against Vee’s neck.

It did so, and the destroyer froze, calming her boiling blood down. “Alright, alright… you win.”

Ayame panted heavily as she slowly pulled the sword away. She stepped back, gripping her side. “No… neither of us did. It was a double kill. Like I said, never underestimate an enemy’s willingness to sacrifice himself to take you with them. That’s an easy way to die needlessly, and if I accomplish one thing today, I hope it is a lesson that might save your life, Vee.” She grinned sheepishly. “Sorry… this is becoming a speech. Not what you guys came for.”

Vee rolled her eyes. “Just don’t make a habit of it…”

Atka shrugged. “I’ve already experienced that first hand… just had a lucky shield to save me.”

Ayame chuckled as she dropped to the ground, taking a seat. “Still, Vee… damn. Maybe if I had pushed right from the beginning, I might have won. But as it was, that was all I could do.” She tilted her head slightly. “You mad?”

Vee sighed. “A little. I don’t think I handle defeat well… I know mother certainly doesn’t, so I’ll blame her for that.” The destroyer grinned a bit frustratedly and a bit sheepishly. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay. If it helps, put a little practice in, and watch that temper during a fight… I’d give it two years until you surpass me. Depending on my capacity to improve. Though you’re younger, so…”

“Oh, don’t call yourself old… you’re in your thirties, that’s still your prime…” Vee protested.

Ayame grinned at Atka. “Post battle compliment session. While we’re at it, you did a fine job tiring me before that fight. For someone switching between spears to swords, you really impressed me.”

Atka smiled. “I do my best, though I think practice with my more physical psionic attacks helped a lot.”

“Mhmm.” Ayame climbed to her feet, trying and failing to hide a pain expression as she grasped her side. “Whelp… time to go get yelled at by Chandra. She’s such a sweet woman until you come to her with a dozen training related injuries in a row.”

Atka shrugged. “Well, we brought it on ourselves this time… though maybe Nouja will be there for the nicer side of things.” Ayame nodded in agreement, hiding how much she was hoping that was true.

 

[Adrammalech]

// TOO MUCH OF A GOOD THING //
Emily Fischer
XCOM Headquarters – Holo Training Room
Siberia, Russian Federation
November 18th, 2018 - 4:40 PM

Emily fired another smoothly rounded orb through her target, stepping away and breathing heavily. #97 was a success, just like the last 24. Only 9 had missed since she reset the count the day before the last, and only mostly to outside distractions and wandering thoughts. Emily wiped the increasing sweat off her brow, her face a bright red and her eyes half-lidded and her mind ready to give up and go to sleep. She stepped back up to the target and tapped her head.

“Sorry little buddy…we gotta finish this,” she mumbled.

Emily held out her palm and materialized another psi lance, focusing intently on it. Although she wasn’t able to wield it in melee like Desmond or make it into a drastically different shape, she was able to line the surface with some wide spikes, making it look like something a bespectacled cloud surfer might throw at unsuspecting victims. With a pitcher’s wind up, she punched it through the target and pulled her arm back. With a groan of exertion, she created another and tossed it quickly, blasting it through the hole made by the first.

“On…one m-more…”

She held out a third orb and smashed it through the target’s center, collapsing her hands to her knees. A fierce ringing blared in her ears, unable to reach the sound inside her head. She looked up at the target between pants with pride welling up in her chest, reaching 91%, the goal she set to call her power reliable. She straightened up and pat down her forehead again, looking around victoriously.

“Guess I’ll try my next test tomorrow,” Emily smiled, breathing raggedly. She watched the targets pop away and found herself in the clear and open room. “Or…I could do it now…”

Emily focused, the bronze backdrop of her hazel eyes pronouncing into a bright, amber glow. She held up her arms and the air circulated around her into a modestly-powerful wind. Her hand darted forward, cradling another one of her psi lances. The orb rolled off her fingertips and sucked into the wind, then a second, then a third. Seeing her psionic weapons rotating around in the rift brought a smile to her lips, and she instantly wanted more.

She raised her hand above her head and the rift sped up to a hurricane, the sheer speed flinging the lances quick enough that they looked like colored lasers in the midst of a tornado. The rogue breezes tossed her hair and underclothes about and she laughed in the center of all of it, the thrill of her combination exciting her to no end. After a few seconds of maintaining the rift, the winds slowed and broke apart, the lances firing into random directions and popping against the walls. Her head felt like it was rotating in place and she gave a tired sigh, wobbling on her feet. She brought her hand to her nose and noticed a couple drops worth of blood on her fingertips.

“M-might’ve onverdown…overdone it…”

She passed out immediately, toppling to the ground as her eyes turned back to normal and the last remnants of her psionic training was whisked away. After a few minutes, another soldier walked in to use the room and quickly called the medics, and Emily was wheeled away on a stretcher.

 

[MarineAvenger]

Unwavering Love For the Special Kind of Someone

XCOM Headquarters, Somewhere in Siberia
Labs
November 18th, 2018
1400 Hours

At the end of a long day at work, Markus slipped off his gloves and happily disposed of the Meld crusted protection. His back was stiff from from bending over and looking through a microscope all day, just experimenting on different sorts of things to see how the substance would react. So far, the results have been miniscule, but insightful none the less. It seemed that Tz6 bonded well with various heavy metals easily, the bond being strongest with iron and silicon, while metals like gold and aluminum had less stronger bonds. Gases were almost impossible to fuse, and for obvious good reasons, and it seemed that the Meld was a good match with carbon.

The scientist wrote down his findings,passing them off as just side notes to another lab tech and scratched his head as he walked out the lab doors and into the hallway. Not seeing where he was going, Markus bumped into a woman who was walking in the opposite direction, accidently falling over one another with Markus on top of her.

He quickly looked down at the blushing girl and quickly go off of her, wiping off his coat and letting down a hand to help her up. “Are you okay? I’m sorry, I wasn’t looking.”

“Oh no...I was the clumsy one, I should have paid better attention to my surroundings.” The woman had a slender frame and was tall, She had short, curly brown hair and freckles dotting her face under a pair of small glasses.

Markus knew he remembered the girl from somewhere but couldn’t place a name. “Have we met before? I swear I have seen you somewhere...”

The woman took a closer look at Markus and she asked. “Your name wouldn’t happen to be Grathem would it?”

Markus nodded. “Yeah that is my last name, my first name is Markus.”

Her eyes widened and the girl threw her arms around Markus, giggling to herself. “Now I remember!” She released Markus from her grasp but still had her hands on his shoulders. “You probably don’t remember me but my name is Shelly Tutly, I went to college with your brother Will. Me and your brother were friends, and I even visited your house a couple of times.”

Markus smiled. “Oh yeah, now I remember you. How are you doing!” Markus said excitedly, returning the hug to the old friend.

“I’m wonderful, but I should be asking you that. Last I heard you had started college yourself, what happened to that? How did you end up here?”

“Long story, but I work in the gene-labs now. I actually got off my shift just now.”

Shelly’s smile widened further and she nodded her head. “Great. I get off mine in a couple of hours so how about we grab a drink then and catch up, I haven’t seen you in forever.”

“I would like that, see you then.” With a good bye from the female lab tech, Markus looked back at her and shook his head in disbelief. “What are the chances…?”

***

Markus walked all dressed up, at least by his standards; though there wasn't many options for him anyways, and entered the bar, Shelly sitting at a table looking fashionably casual. Their eyes meeting, she waved her friend over and Markus sat down and smiled.

"You dress up good." The scientist said as he flashed a large grin.

"Thank you, as do you. I hope you don't mind I ordered our drinks already. You drink just regular beer, right?"

"Yeah, that is fine. So...we have years to catch up on...where do we begin?" Markus asked, his grin falling a bit as he settled in for the long conversation ahead of him.

Shelly started hers first, telling Markus about how she graduated college and went on to work with a research lab based in out in Memphis. After leaving Sydney, and moved to the U.S., she had apparently fallen in love with a big shot attorney and the two got married a couple of years later.

“Remember all the times you used to crush on my brother?” Markus teased, taking a sip of his third beer.

“Did not!” The tech protested.

“You followed him around like a puppy.” With a sense of annoyance, telling Markus about her little girl and boy, one seven and the other three.

“You really became a family woman, didn’t you?”

“What can I say, I love my babies. Now enough about me, I want to know about you!” She pleaded, leaning forward and staring at him in anticipation.

“Well...I guess my story begins when I was in the middle of my semester in college, and I had gotten an internship to a lab based out of Australia. So somewhat reluctantly, I joined and was ship out to Switzerland, where low and behold, the place I was interning for was EXALT.”

“You mean that crazy group of rogue scientists who were bent on world domination?” Shelly asked.

Markus shook his head. “Correction, there was one of them and that person wasn’t the leader, he was just a usurper.”

“But...I heard that this crazy chick was in charge, and that she was doing all sorts of sciency taboo stuff.”

The scientist shook his head. “Well, that isn’t true, not by a long shot. Eventually, things got worse but XCOM came to our rescue and...here I am.”

“Well, why didn’t you just go home? You didn’t owe XCOM anything and I know how much you loved your home...what part of this story aren’t you telling me?” She asked, with a raised eyebrow and mischievous grin on Shelly’s face.

Markus blushed a bit and looked away at the ground. “I may have...fallen for someone.”

Shelly made an ‘eek’ noise and giggled to herself. “Who is she? What is her name, what does she do! Come on boy, details, details!”

Markus scratched his head and chewed his lip. “Well...she is that crazy science taboo lady.”

Shelly came to a realization and she smiled, shaking her head. “Look, I didn’t mean that, just spouting what I heard. If a girl was able to get your attention, and seeing as how you and Will are almost identical, she must be someone special, that is for sure.” Markus smiled slightly and Shelly bumped his arm. “Come on, tell me about her.”

Markus let out a long sigh and put his chin in his palm. “Where to begin...well, her name is Elene. And...she is 18, dark blonde…”

“Beautiful?” Shelly asked.

“You have no idea.” He smirked and rubbed his eyes a bit embarrassed.

“That is awesome dude, good for you. So have you two…?” Shelly raised her eyebrow and rolled her hand.

Markus’s face reddened and he looked down at his beer. “Don’t ask me that!”

“Why not?”

“‘Cause it is kind of personal you know…” He spoke out, rubbing his wrist.

“Come on, I am like your second older sister, you can tell me.”

“I don’t see…”

“Look, are you going to spill it or not?” She asked a little annoyed now.

“Yes, we have, alright?” Markus finally blurted out, crossing his arms and sitting back.

Shelly made an ‘aww’ sound and sat forward. “Somebody is in love.”

“Of course I am. I wouldn’t ask for anyone other than her.” He stated confidently.

“Good, hold on to that Markus. If you feel so strongly about a woman like that, then you two deserve each other. Just...don’t get her knocked up, alright? I got lucky and loved my kid.” Shelly told him with a look that said she was joking, but her tone making it clear she was serious.

“We use…” Markus shook his head. “Why am I telling you this? Besides, I doubt Elene wants any kids…”

“Ah,” Shelly snapped, raising a finger. “That is a big mistake Mr. Grathem, never assume you know what a lady is thinking.” She stated sternly. “Who knows, she could want a big family some day, but now isn’t the best of times to start a family. You can, and power to the people who want to, Lord knows we need hope like that but it won’t exactly be a cakewalk so just...keep...doing what you are doing.”

“Yeah, helpful advice there…”

“Hey, my advice might save you one day. Just follow your heart and do what you do best boy, and you will make this Elene the happiest girl alive.”

Markus nodded, grinning and finishing off his last beer as his mind started to drift away from focusing on the conversation and more towards the girl of his dreams.

 

[DarkGemini24601]

“There’s More?!” - Modya Dragomirov

XCOM Headquarters, Somewhere in Siberia
1200 Hours, November 20th, 2018
Room of Modya Dragomirov

*Translated from Russian, you know the drill*

Modya paced restlessly before his computer. On the screen was a video feet to St. Petersburg, just one click away from being opened. Why am I so nervous? the Russian thought to himself. Dad already knows about me and Jessica… Another voice, more skeptical, amended, but not about Alexia, the pregnancy, or my gene mods.

Before having more time to worry, Modya pressed the fatal key, and Stanimir’s stubble-fringed face appeared on the screen, before he stepped back, his red-haired wife standing beside him. Both of them… great.

Stanimir smiled widely. “Good to see you again, Modya,” the gray-brown haired tank commander greeted. “How have you been?”

“Good, dad,” Modya replied. “Considering you’re back in the loop…”

Katya confirmed her son’s suspicion. “How badly did you beat that Ethereal bastard? Blow him to smithereens?”

Modya chuckled, his mood quickly lightened by his mother’s fiery demeanor. “Not that drastic, at least, not on my own. Though explosions were a contribution to his demise.”

Stanimir smirked. “What about that American girlfriend of yours? How has Jessica been treating you?” he questioned, faint blue eyes brimming with curiosity and amusement.

“Without going into details that would make mom blush, things have been good,” MOdya responded. “There are a few pieces of information I wanted to-”

His father laid his palm over his brow. “Dammit, Modya, we’re not Catholics. Didn’t you use…”

“That wasn’t the issue!” Modya was speedy to protest. “Exposure to alien substances made her superfertile, and…” he sighed. “Yes, Jessica is pregnant… with twins,” he added.

His mother smiled happily. “I’m going to be a grandmother! I mean, sure that means me feel a bit old, but that’s wonderful. Did you decide on names?”

“Mikhail and Sasha,” Modya replied proudly.

“He who is like God and defender of humanity… not bad choices. Especially the second, considering the state of things,” Stanimir chuckled.

The rocketeer scratched his head, and took a deep breath to steady himself. “There is something else,” he began, trying to relax. “Do you know what dissociative personality disorder is?”

Katya raised her eyebrows, seeming worried. “They can tell that about the children?”

“What...no.” Modya shook his head vehemently. “Jessica has… another person inside of her, essentially. Another mind. Her name is Alexia… and… she kind of loves me too.”

Stanimir sighed. “I can see how that would be difficult, though I’m guessing you’ve already reached some sort of resolution on that?” he asked plainly.

Modya nodded, tensing a bit. “Jessie is very dear to me, but I have the capacity to care about Alex as well. I’m not sure if I could say that they’re equally close to me… but I know that I can’t just spurn Alexia’s feelings and leave her alone, especially since they share the same body… and they’ll both be the childrens’ mother.”

Katya rubbed the back of her neck. “That is… a lot to take in. Damn, that’s confusing,” the Russian woman muttered, closing her green eyes for a moment.

The tank commander next to her shrugged. “Wouldn’t want you sharing her body if someone else was interested in this ‘Alexia’ anyway.”

Katya smacked Stanimir on the back of the head. “What your father is saying is that we support your decision, even if we don’t know how we’d handle that situation ourselves.”

Modya breathed a sigh of relief. “And the third thing…” he started, more relaxed than before thanks to the positive reactions thus far.

“Dear Lord! There’s a third thing?” Stanimir exclaimed.

“Nothing… concerning Jessie or the twins directly,” Modya reassured him, and more importantly, his mother, who was shifting uneasily where she stood. “I just… have some genetic modifications.”

“Oh, just the altering of your DNA, nothing major,” Katya said sarcastically, raising an eyebrow. “Like… what?” she asked more seriously with a tinge of concern.

“Well, we utilized that one alien substance to make me able to regenerate faster, lift heavier objects with more ease, and create a mechanism in my brain that will shut me down if an alien attempts psionic control my mind and body,” Modya answered truthfully.

Stanimir whistled softly. “That’s a list. Never thought I’d see the day when soldiers would become a little more than human, though a war like this calls for those sort of measures. Still…”

“If it makes you feel any better, Jessie’s the one that handled the operation. She wouldn’t do anything that’s risky, harmful, or too far,” Modya offered, smiling weakly.

Katya was quiet for a moment, and then smiled in return. “Well, just remember that phrase… ‘with great power comes great obligation’.”

Modya shook his head. “It’s ‘responsibility.’ Wouldn’t know that if not for a certain assault trooper.”

Stanimov smirked again. “Aside from that, I’ll have to ask her how the muscular enhancements are working-”

“I will find a way to call down an airstrike on you, old man,” Modya grumbled. Both parents and their child alike chuckled, and Modya smiled genuinely, wondering why he had doubted how accepting his parents could be.

 

[Adrammalech]

MarineAvenger and Adrammalech: “Tunnel Vision”
XCOM Headquarters – Medical Wing
Siberia, Russian Federation
November 18th, 2018 - 5:00 PM

Emily felt the uncomfortably thin cloth beneath her and the rhythmic thumping of wheels jumping the cracks in the tiles. Her eyes went wide and she sat up, quickly pushed down by the medic moving the stretcher.

“Lay down, Ms. Fischer, we’re taking you to the infirmary,” the medic said from behind her head.

“Agh, I’m fine,” she declared, ignoring the continuing ringing in her ears, “just a little fainting. Haven’t you ever passed out before?”

“If I did, I’d want someone to make sure I’m okay. Now just relax.”

“Ugghh…”

Emily noticed the scene of the headquarters give way to the façade of a hospital, and she saw herself being wheeled past the front desk, a small grouping of people dispersing from in front of them. As she looked over the people in the lobby, she noticed Fox amongst them, and called out to the people pushing her along.

“Hey, hold on a minute,” Emily said.

“We’re almost there, just sit tight.”

“No, stop this thing, I want to say hi to someone.”

“We can’t-”

Emily quickly gave a measured hit to the medic’s stomach, causing him to back away from the stretcher and stop it from moving. He growled angrily at the soldier as she sat up and waved to the wiry scout with a broad smile on her face.

“Hey, Fox!”

The scout looked around to see who was calling him and he took a moment to realize that Emily was the one calling him, though she was laying on a stretcher which caused him t approach a bit cautiously. “Hey Em...funny, uh...meeting you here.” He had wrapping on his head that pushed his already messy hairstyle even up further and he shifted around uneasily as he saw his friend in the state she was in. “What happened?”

“Oh, just a little training accident,” she chuckled nervously. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you, so it’s good to see you here.” She noticed the bandages on his head and regretted the implications of her words. “Umm...what are you doing here, actually?”

“Oh...uh…” Fox rubbed his head and smiled nervously. “Well...a mission I went on sort of went pear shaped. I got separated from the others by accident and had a run in with a Berserker...not a nice guy.” Fox looked down, both embarrassed and sad. “Hawke said I almost died…”

“Oh, Jesus, how did I not hear about that…” Emily shook her head. “You look good though, for almost dead.”

“Ms. Fischer, we need to get you into a room…” the medic interrupted.

“Hey, you mind following me for a bit? I won’t keep you here too long,” Emily said to Fox.

“Yeah, sure.” Fox followed along the side of the stretcher and rubbed his head again. “This was just for a concussion I got by the way. The doctors just wanted to make sure that I was good to go. They were really nice to me.”

Emily laid back down, finding it a little awkward to talk in such a pose. Luckily, they were pretty close to the rooms already. “I don’t have anything against doctors, just the ones here aren’t huge fans of me.”

“I wonder why…” the medic behind her grumbled.

“I can hit you harder,” Emily grinned.

“Please don’t...we need these guys you know…” Fox stated, wanting to scratch his head but the spot where it itched hurting at the moment.

Emily looked up behind her. “Just kidding, big guy.” The medic only scowled at her.

After a few moments of rolling, Emily was bumped into an infirmary room, and she sat on one of the medical beds with ease. The medic quickly got a cotton ball and wiped the blood from her lip, tossing it away and heading for the door. “I’ll give you two a moment, but we should do some scans soon,” he said, exiting the room. Emily pat the spot on the bed beside her, beckoning Fox to join her.

He begrudgingly agreed to do so, hopping up and sitting where she wanted him.

“So, how are you doing?” Emily asked.

“Hm? I already said I am fine...the doctors say so too.” The scout simply told her.

“Well, I am glad about that,” she smiled and put her hand on his shoulder, “but I mean...overall. I’ve been hearing some rumors about things.”

“Oh...y-you heard…” Fox looked down, biting his lip a bit.

“Mmhmm, some guy told Nika that she was cheating on you every day, and then some other guy told Sven that you were practically engaged already. It’s pretty confusing, to be honest,” she chuckled.

“W-What! I’m not engaged to her!” Fox exclaimed, rubbing the back of his neck. “Oh..uh, sorry about that. That just sort of thing isn’t on my mind right now but...yeah, Eve did cheat...well, half cheated. She didn't go through but enough happened that…” Fox looked down again.

“Well, that explains why Nika said the guy was being ‘a real try hard’ about it,” Emily smiled nervously. “How are you holding up, then? I assume you’ve talked to her by now...”

Fox nodded his head. “Yeah...we are back together now though I have refrained from...seeing her as much as I used to. She knows that I am still a little hurt over it, so she hasn’t brought it up. She also hasn’t come to me for...fun, either...which I am both glad and terrified over.”

“That’s...big of you, to still be open to anything with her. And I’m sure you’re not missing any signals this time, as far as fun goes.”

“Well...I did bring up that if she wants something she can be upfront with me...I am not a big signal person. But...I haven’t had to worry so…” Fox just shrugged his shoulders. “I think this is a good thing?”

“I’m not sure about that, but it’s not a bad thing. Did my advice work, at least? Did you two…you know…” Emily rubbed her hands together, trying to make it obvious.

“Yeah...though she was a lot more impressed by my resolve than the actual...sex...well, if Jessica was telling me the truth the other day which I am pretty sure she was.” The scout smiled and wrapped his arms around Emily. “So yes, you did…”

“That’s great, I’m glad it worked out,” Emily beamed, patting him on the back during the hug. “It sounds like everything’s pretty good with you other than people’s gums flapping, and I’m sure that’ll blow over soon as it always does.”

“I hope so...Eve is a really nice girl. Even if I am still a little wary...I still love her!” He said with distinct determination, something he seemed to have more and more of recently. “A-And I want this to work.”

“Did you want to ask me any more questions or anything? I want you two to be happy, after all.”

 

[MarineAvenger]

Part Two

“I-I don’t know. But...oh, I don’t know...what do you think I should do? I don’t want to look like I am pushing her away and I want to do something soon for her. Any advice?”

“Well, there’s that one thing I did for Jack once,” Emily smirked. “But that wouldn’t really work unless you wanted ‘do something’ to be a bit more literal.”

Fox blushed a bit and he looked away for a split second. “Would it...help though? I want to hear...all my options…”

“I’m not going to push anything on you, and there are plenty of romantic gestures you could make that didn’t involve anything...physical,” Emily prefaced, “but you’ve gotten a couple tastes of it, so...if you wanted to reignite that portion of your relationship, maybe I could give you a couple ideas.”

He blinked a couple of times and gave a quick nod. “If it will help...then..i-it is worth it.”

“I think it would, but only if you wanted to,” Emily explained, “I know you want to take care of her, but your wants and needs are important too. If you start things and then it turns out you’re not interested in going through with it, it’ll cause more problems than help.”

“I...I can’t know if I don’t try.” He finally decided on, turning around and facing Emily.

“Alright, well, past the first impressions and the first couple dates, romance is all about tunnel vision,” Emily said, “I’ve already told you that a bit. Making someone feel important and unique, appreciating the things about them. All of the classic romantic gestures are about tunnel vision, proposals in public, spontaneous vacations, that kind of thing. Here is more difficult to do that, but really all you have to do is find some lonely corner of this base to make it yours and hers ‘spot.’”

“That...really is hard to do.” He rubbed his hand and got an idea. “T-There are a lot of empty rooms in the Legion Sector...maybe somewhere there?”

“Absolutely, as long as it’s private and you’re creative about it, it’ll work.” Emily looked around a bit, then smiled. “As long as you don’t tell anyone...Jack and mine’s is a closet near our barracks. Lots of stolen blankets and some candles to disguise the smell, and it’s our spot.”

Fox shook his head as it turned red but he just rubbed his face hard, “I...can try at least…”

“Don’t be worried about it, it’s fun,” Emily assured. “Think of it in creative terms, you know, making a world for the two of you, and putting it to reality as best you can. Then you can cuddle and do whatever you want in privacy and comfort, and she’ll be impressed with you as well.”

“I’m going to need a lot of paper…” Fox mumbled to himself as he thought some things over in his head.

“If you’re thinking what I think you’re thinking, then yeah probably,” she chuckled.

“Well...last time you said make a world for her...and I did. But that was only one sheet that time and I don’t know how many pads I have left…”

“Maybe there’s another solution without drawing. Like if you drew a forest or a tropical island, I’m sure there’s some random potted plants around that no one would miss,” Emily said.

“Even if there were things like that, if someone were to find the place, we would get in a lot of trouble, plus all that embarrassment…” Fox looked at Emily. “Haven’t you ever worried about getting caught?”

“At first, maybe a little, but I made a deal with the janitor that uses that closet. As for other people...meh, like I said, it’s about you and her, not some random snooper.”

“I don’t do well with embarrassment you know.” He pouted, crossing his arms and revealing his more childish side. “I will attempt it, but I don’t know if I will like it…”

Emily smirked mischievously. “When its 3 AM and you have your special someone blushing and threadbare in your arms, you’ll see the benefits.”

Fox pushed her face away. “Don’t say stuff like that out loud, it is bad enough I have to think that…”

“Seriously though, I know you’re shy, but I wouldn’t recommend it if I didn’t think you’d like it.”

“Well...I did ask for this, didn’t I?” Fox nodded and then shook his head, then slapping his cheeks he nodded again. “Alright...I can do this…” The scout looked into Emily’s eyes and asked, “So what else? I mean...is that really all that is required?”

“Does something else come to mind? To be honest, she should be the one worrying about doing things, proving she appreciates the chance you’ve given her,” Emily noted.

“I hope she does…” Fox stated solemnly, looking at Emily meekly and finally saying. “B-Before I go...there is...one thing I wanted to ask but it is really embarrassing…”

“Go ahead, you can tell me anything,” Emily smiled comfortingly.

“Could you...give me some tips on how to…” Fox rubbed the back of his head and looked down. “I mean I know very little and I was wondering...how do I make her feel good? Seeing as you are a girl I…” Fox looked almost ready to fall over and die, his face a deep shade of red.

“Well...before I say anything, do you know what you’re working with?” Emily asked, awkwardly hovering her hands over her waist. “Like...the basics of the thing, if you know what I mean?”

“Just...tell me everything I would need to know. Like I said...I know very little…”

“Alright...just try not to freak out.” Emily leaned in and whispered into his ear, going over the sweet spots and the general gist of most of the common maneuvers.

Fox did his best to pay attention but he had to cover his face and shake his head of embarrassment, he began to question why he asked in the first place. When Emily finally finished with her lesson, he was quiet for a good few minutes. “This...was a lot more complicated than I thought it was. And this will help me...please Eve?”

“It should, although I’m sure you’ve done fine yourself. Book knowledge is good, but there’s no substitute for passion and love, which you have plenty of,” Emily smiled. “If you still have trouble, there’s more I can include. There’s a lot of...creative positions, and there’s a lot more to licking than you might think.”

The doctor walked into the room at that moment, looking awkwardly between the two. “Um, it’s time for your MRI, Ms. Fischer.”

Emily looked over towards Fox. “You got all that?”

Fox just looked at the doctor with more relief than he should have and quickly hopped from the bed and speed walked to the door. “Uh...y-yep...thank you andIhopeyougetbetter!” He exclaimed as he bolted out the door of the room, shutting it behind him. A few moments later, there was a thud of metal and a small ‘ow’ from the scout just outside of Emily’s door.

Emily jumped up herself and opened the door, looking at Fox worriedly before he could try to dash off again. “Umm...take care of that head, huh?”

“Uh...yeah…” He held his head with a very pain expression and smiled awkwardly. “Didn’t really think that one through.” He turned and ran again, this time falling into a doctor and causing the two to fall to the ground. “Sorry!” He called out, getting up and running again. “Bye Em!” He called out as he rounded the corner and was getting as far away as he could.

Emily’s doctor stood awkwardly just outside of the room, watching the whole thing. “I guess you torment more than our staff, hm?”

Emily’s lips curled into an innocent smile and she shrugged, following along to get her brain scanned.

 

[MarineAvenger]

MarineAvenger and DarkGemini24601: “Cerebral Therapy”

XCOM Headquarters, Somewhere in Siberia
1530 Hours, November 19th, 2018
The Brig

Asher sat in his plain white cell, leaning against the wall and trying to catch any rest he could. He was having trouble sleeping and was staying up a lot longer than usual, sometimes not sleeping at all. Unlike his template counterpart, a light stubble dawned his face and he scratched at the irritant, not allowed to shave due to the blades. Like an animal in a cage...how long must I continue to rot before something, anything happens.

Lily walked up to his cell in her simple clothing and labcoat. “I have a question to ask of you,” she asked, handing him a pen and paper.

He looked at her with a blank stare, nodding once to indicate for her to ask before he responded.

“Would you like to visit Poinsettia?” the clone of Lusett asked.

Asher looked at her a little confused, quickly scribbling down on the pad his response. ‘So that is her name. What is the catch to this? I have been in a cell for a good while, or at least I assume so and have never offered before, so tell me what brings you here in actuality?’

“It may be helpful, and I figure she might enjoy meeting someone she can more easily trust,” Lily explained.

‘I doubt she hardly even remembers me. Viktor kept her hidden away as much as he could, the few times I saw her I was masked. I never talked to her before...for obvious reasons as you no doubt know but I must say she did pique my curiosity. So will this just be a friendly meeting or do you have an agenda planned?’

“I will introduce you and see if anything comes of it. If not, then I shall work with her on my own,” Lily replied. “Though there is one condition. You are there to help. If you say something to intentionally reinforce her confidence in Dorian, I shall return you to your cell immediately. Destroying progress won’t do either of us any good.”

‘So I am an experiment? Although it could be better I see no reason why I should deny this chance. However...I have something I wish to ask you of my own, if you will hear me out.’

“And that is?”

Asher stood up from his sitting position and he approached the bars slowly, not getting too close should he risk an incident with his guards. ‘I know that one lab tech wished for me to regain my voice but that is not something I wish, at least not at the moment.’

Asher ripped off the paper to the pad and started again on a fresh page. ‘I want you to wipe my mind. I no longer wish to have to suffer through the constant agony of knowing that I want to die every second of the day or have to feel the urge to kill someone because some dead man once demanded it of me. You help me purge my mind...and I will help you connect with your twin in any way I could be a useful asset.’

Lily folded her hands together, thinking for a moment. “Curious… especially considering the recent breakthrough we had. Atka’s sister, Nouja, has the potential for a biokinetic ability that can rewrite neural patterns. She could use that to remove the biological directive implanted in you, as I intended to do for Poinsettia while exposing her false memories. But in regards to removing true memories… I am not so sure I can agree to that part. Without those… all you are as an individual would be wiped.”

Asher looked like he wanted to protest but he quickly stopped, looking down at his pad and writing on it slowly. ‘So...I can lose the kill orders? Truely?’

Lily nodded. “With that in mind, perhaps it would be better if you two truly got to know each other after I go through with the operation. She has agreed to the procedure, and if you have as well, we can take care of both today.”

Asher looked down at the ground and scratched his stubble, standing up from his sitting position and walking to the door, handing her a slip of paper. ‘I...see your point. Any help...I will take it. Just please...end this for me, it is unbearable.”

Lily nodded. “I shall send a Legion trooper down to retrieve you and Poinsettia in a minute. I need to go inform Nouja of the task at hand.” With that, the clone of Lusett walked off, and was true to her word. Seven minutes passed, and then two of the machines walked up to Asher’s cell, Poinsettia with them, and unlocked it, taking them up an elevator.

“So you’re the masked sniper… never did see much of your face,” Poinsettia muttered as they waited.

Asher just stared at her, pulling down his collar to show the large scar across his neck. Handing her a paper, the contents said, ‘I am sorry I did not say hello before, for obvious reasons. I am glad to see you are...well. I worried.’

Poinsettia looked at him incredulously. “Why? I thought you had something of a one-track mind.”

‘I...do. It is just something I felt I needed to worry about. You didn’t see much of a soldier, though I mean no offense.’

“I managed to last longer than a certain assassin that got himself backed in a corner,” Poinsettia stated, crossing her arms as the door opened. “Maybe you’re just full of yourself.”

Asher just stared forward and didn’t write anything for a few moments, looking down at his pad. ‘I did see you a few times before the mission...you just didn’t have that look about you. You may have skills that are impressive, but you looked like a normal girl. Though...what is my experience, I am just trying to make a point.”

The red-haired MEC trooper lifted her mechanical arms and looked at Asher blankly. “Oooh, this is totally normal…” she countered sarcastically as they approached the room Lily had set aside.

He handed her a final note and looked forward. ‘Your body wasn’t a factor...it was the smile on your face. You looked...’ Asher hadn’t finish the note, not knowing the right word to use to describe the MEC girl.

Poinsettia glanced at him curiously for a moment before the doors opened and they walked in. There was a simple medical tablesin this part of the medical ward, and it was devoid of any instruments, save for monitoring equipment that was currently blank-screened. Avanix was standing by the observation equipment, the android nodding to the two patients for a moment before finalizing her diagnostics.

Lily was seated in a mobile swivel chair, and had it between the two tables. Beside her was a level-headed Chandra and Nouja, who seemed a bit more nervous than her tutor. “Do either of you have a preference on who wants to go first?”

Asher shook his head, not wanting to delay anything any further; he had to use a lot of willpower to keep himself under control.

Poinsettia shrugged. “He can go first, I really don’t care.” With a nod, Lily motioned for Asher to lay down on the medical bed, the two Legion troopers moving to guard the doors from any unwanted guests.

Chandra walked over to the opposite side of the bed from the Exalt scientist, Nouja with her. “She may be nervous, but I’ve made sure she knows what she’s doing. We’re going to have Nouja here find the neural pathways in your brain that have been altered to instill that unwanted directive, and rewrite them out of existence. Normally, I wouldn’t let someone who doesn’t know the first damn thing about brain chemistry handle something like this, but she can use her ESP to find what we’re looking for, so it works out.” The green psion stepped back, crossing her arms. “Are you ready to begin?” the Indian woman asked Asher.

 

[DarkGemini24601]

Asher just closed his eyes and loosened up; giving all the response necessary.

Nouja placed her hands on either side of the sniper’s head, and shut her eyes, concentrating. Her ESP focused within Asher’s head, and then became more and more precise as the Inuit searched for the neural pathways altered upon the clone’s creation. She quietly relayed everything she saw to Chandra, and the headset she was wearing displayed the images on the screen.

Looking over them, Avanix was reminded of an x-ray scan. The power of precise ESP and biokinesis, amplified by that headset Eve Brea came up with… the A.I. mused. “There, that’s what we’re looking for,” she said finally, Nouja coming across the altered part of Asher’s brain.

Nouja was too focused to even nod. “So… now what?”

“Carefully alter those small pathways you see in the location you’re currently focused on,” Chandra explained. “The bits that seem to stand out to you… if it weren’t for how abnormal biological programming showed up as, I’m not sure we could find it. Just… concentrate on healing it. Biokinesis should do the delicate work for you.”

“Alright.” Nouja sucked in a calming breath, and a green glow emanated from her hands, tiny cords phasing through Asher’s skull and affecting the brain. Minutes passed, and the tiny, seemingly inflamed portion of the clone’s frontal lobe was smoothed over, wiping the directive to kill Elene from his subconscious.

The three observers beside the Inuit girl stepped back as she slowly did as well. “I-I think that worked…” Lily spoke quietly. “Though there is only one way to test that.”

Asher’s eyes slowly opened and he blinked a couple of times, his eyes reacting as if he had been asleep and suddenly had a bright light flashed in his eyes. He sat up, holding his head and feeling a little dizzy, though that being expected when having your mind worked on, and he looked at the observers, looking around for his pad and not finding it.

The door opened with a muted hiss, and the pad was retrieved from one of the Legion troopers. A hand stretched out to offer it to Asher, and the clone of Markus found himself looking at the heiress of Exalt. “Do you feel like killing me right now?” Elene asked as if that were casual conversation.

Asher looked at the heiress up and down, taking the pad slowly and looking down at it, slowly writing a simple statement. ‘So this is what silence feels like? I believe it has worked...’

Elene smiled, though the smile quickly faded as she saw Poinsettia tense nearby. “I shall… depart for now, then,” the heiress concluded, a twang of guilt evident in her voice. Please… do help her, she told Lily silently. Even if she never forgives me.

Lily frowned, but nodded as Elene departed. “Poinsettia…” she began.

The red-haired cyborg shook her head, laying down on the bed. “Just get it over with.” Poinsettia closed her eyes, while Lily sat beside her, a hand on her twin’s shoulder reassuringly. Nouja placed her hands lower on the second patient’s head, her focus concentrated on the temporal lobe. After a few more minutes, she found what she was looking for, a section of implanted memories with an unnatural focus emphasized catching her learning mental eye.

“I’ve got it…” Nouja said, before starting the healing process. As she did, she felt a half-formed dreamscape take shape. The artificial, happy memories of Poinsettia and her father played out on a computer screen within the MEC trooper’s mind like a static-y movie. Looking around, having to squint from the haze of only being half-connected, Nouja notice the dreamscape took the shape of a room filled with gears and mechanical equipment. The red-haired clone was sitting within on a floating gear, and looked up at Nouja sadly.

“This fucking sucks, you know…” Poinsettia muttered.

Nouja smiled sadly. “Maybe. But you have an actual family that cares about you…” The TV screen splintered all over. “There’s no need to be caught up in fantasies.”

Poinsettia sighed. “You’d better be right.” She hopped off the gear, the metal clattering to the ground behind her. A door started to open in the side of the room, and Nouja motioned for Poinsettia to follow her out into the light as the TV broke entirely.

Poinsettia’s eyes snapped open, and she held her head, feeling a splitting headache for a moment. “So it… was all a lie… then…” she said disheartenedly.

Asher looked at her from the side of the room and slowly approached Poinsettia, looking down at her. Placing a note in her hands, it read, ‘It may not be the outcome you were hoping for, but this was for the best. I guess I can finally say, it is nice to finally meet you, Poinsettia.’ He tried to add a friendly smile as she read it but quickly shook his head, his expression turning stoic again.

“Don’t you both go all philosophical on me,” Poinsettia muttered, getting up. She glanced at Lily, sighing. “Knowing that he didn’t really care about me… I think I see things more your way now.” The MEC trooper paused, growling a bit to herself in frustration. “Do you...mind if I talk to Elene?”

Lily smiled faintly. “Not at all, though perhaps a bit later, if Asher wishes to speak further with you.”

Asher nodded and wrote to Lily. ‘In private if possible, it won’t take long at all.’

The copy of Lusett nodded. “Of course.” Nouja smiled at the two, before an unamused Chandra ushered her out of the room, and the two Legion troopers went to stand guard on the other side of the door, Avanix following them out last.

Asher looked to Poinsettia and he stood there for a few moments before writing something down. ‘Cute...Happy...those are the words I would have used to describe what you looked like.’

Poinsettia raised an eyebrow. “I can live with the second thing… the first? It sounds like what you’d call a puppy… and if you compare me to such…” The MEC Trooper placed a fist in her opposite palm.

Asher calmly responded, ‘Do not look at what I said with bad taste. I meant both your personality and your general appearance. Thinking of you as an animal would just be rude, and you are obviously not an animal.’

Is he… Poinsettia sighed. “You’d be the second guy to hit on me then...I think. Does everyone have a prisoner fetish around here or something?” the MEC trooper lamented.

‘Seeing as how I thought of this before our containment, I do not see that being relevant. I was just merely thinking over what best describes you at that moment in time. Though to be honest, your beauty is undeniable. Just denying so would be an insult and be lying to oneself.’

Poinsettia tapped her foot. “You’re not just saying that? I mean, Lily looks pretty much identical to me besides hair color…”

‘True...but she isn’t you.’ Asher stated on the paper, his expression generally unchanging.

Poinsettia shrugged. Guess he isn’t faking it then. A slight grin wound itself onto her expression, and she quickly kissed Asher, half meaning to for the sake of it and half wanting to see his reaction.

Asher just blinked a few times, his face unchanged except for his somewhat widened eyes. He looked down at the pad and quickly wrote, ‘That was...an unexpected reaction...’

“Well, that was me returning the affection. And you’re cute when you’re confused,” Poinsettia replied evenly.

Asher continued to look at Poinsettia, still a little confused as to what had happened but he had strangely felt...good about it. ‘I have...no complaints.’

“Good. I suppose I’ll be sent back to my cell soon, but I’ll stop by after I talk to Elene.” Poinsettia shrugged, and walked out the door.

 

[Taxor_the_First]

Mark

Rome, Italy
10:38 PM, 16th August 2018

The Judge snarled as bullets whizzed past his head, narrowly missing the fragile collection of bones and flesh he called ‘himself’. He stood up from behind the short crate and turned around, already aiming down the iron sights of his Mosin, and took the shot. The unfortunate thug on the other side of the corridor lost his head to the force of the blow, and the Judge ducked back into cover before their friends could retaliate.

“What the hell are you doing?” he shouted into the room now in front of him. He got a curse in response.

“Getting what we came for, comrade!” came the more informative report. “You’re perfectly capable of holding a choke point yourself, right?”

The Judge grumbled, peeking up to get a look at his opposition. The situation was, at this point, relatively under his control. The mafia were stuck at the other end of the corridor, and any who ran in were immediately shot. Theoretically they could successfully breach if they all rushed in at once, but the Judge had five shots at any given time, not including the shotgun-pistol hanging from his hip. No one wanted to be among the first five, oddly.

However, it wasn’t all good for the Judge – there were still quite a few people left over there, some of them dangerous if given the chance. Occasionally one would pop his head out for a pot-shot and be taken down, but in doing so they merely left the experienced ones to be last. Most of them had SMG’s or other ‘personal defense’ weapons, one or two had shotguns, and almost all of them had knives of some description. Certainly nothing for a long-range engagement like this had turned into.

The Judge rolled his shoulders, trying to keep limber while crouching behind his makeshift cover. As much as he had the advantage here, it would have been preferable to avoid this situation altogether. The plan had been to go in, ‘make a deal’ with the local mafia – info they had for info the Overseer had – but that had been a front. The two agents had gone to the meeting place, an area almost right next to the mafia’s base of operations, and attempted to silently kill everyone there, so that they might enter the building stealthily. Unfortunately, they hadn’t been quite fast enough, and one of the bodyguards had shot with an unsilenced weapon. And the mafia had swarmed out like bees from a hive.

The Judge, accompanied by Samuel, had fought their way through the building, eventually arriving at the main offices. In the offices, however, they’d come across one of the leaders of this little setup. He was now graciously assisting Samuel to copy just about everything on his computer’s hard drive to a portable one Samuel kept on him. Hence their current predicament.

The thugs apparently had decided enough was enough. As one, and with little regard for their own safety, they charged through the door. Frowning underneath the woolen replacement for his mask, the Judge rose and picked off the first five. More behind. Cursing softly, he dropped the sniper rifle and drew his appropriately named ‘Judge’ shotgun-pistol and readied to deal with the survivors with it. Five shots.

There were six men.

When the sixth ran around the box in an attempt to blitzkrieg the Judge into submission, he was tackled to the ground. A quick glance at the doorway confirmed that this was the last pursuant. Taking advantage of this distraction, the thug threw the Judge off him with surprising force, and drew his knife.

The Judge merely smiled. “That’s not a knife…” he muttered, reaching to his side. When he came away empty, he looked. No good. Must’ve left his own back at the safe-room. Bugger.

The lackey grinned, making the blade dance through his fingers in a display meant to intimidate. Although fully aware he was out of ammo, the Judge raised his weapon and attempted to shoot. Click. Sometimes he hated being right.

Now things got interesting. The Judge analyzed the situation. Both weapons out of ammo, reloading would leave him open for far too long. No weapon in the nearby vicinity. The only weapon between the two of them seemed to be that knife in the thug’s hand. Which meant that if the Judge was to win this little tussle, he needed to wrest it from his opponents grasp.

With a feint, the Judge lunged at his opponent hoping to steal the knife from him before he’d registered the attack. With a grin on his face, his opponent lunged forward too, swinging the knife across. The Judge barely had time to move his neck out of the way, and even then he wasn’t entirely successful. The blade buried itself into the material of the ski-mask he was wearing, and continued deeper into the flesh beneath. The slice went across his cheek, and when the knife came away, so too did a sizable amount of blood.

Even with the cut, however, the sudden change in their positions meant the Judge now had the advantage. He snatched the blade out of his opponent’s hand, swinging it around and pushing it into his chest, right over the heart. While the man was in shock, he reached to his side and took the thug’s SMG, firing it into his face twice. He keeled backwards, dead before he hit the floor.

With a disappointed grunt, the Judge dropped the weapon over his foe’s corpse. Samuel stuck his head out of the door.

“The firing had stopped. Just checking you were ok,” he said, disappearing back inside. “We’re done in here," he shouted.

The Judge exhaled as he rose, and entered the room. A man in a suit was sitting in a chair in front of a desktop monitor, his eyes darting between Samuel and the Judge. Without much in the way of warning, Samuel swung at his head, knocking him out cold.

The Russian smiled, wiping his hands together, then frowned when he saw the Judge’s face. “Tell me that’s not your blood.”

Isaac pulled off the ski-mask, hissing slightly as the fabric caught on his new injury. He glanced at Samuel. “Bad?”

Samuel squinted, coming in for a closer look. He dabbed at the gash before wincing and stepping back. “You feeling it?” he asked.

“Only when you prod it like that.”

Samuel nodded. “You’ve cut the nerves, then. Killed them off. It’ll be a little bit before the feeling returns, but when it does… you’re not going to be comfortable, friend. Going to leave a mark, too.”

Isaac shook his head. “Of course someone would go for my face with a knife when I’m not using my usual mask.”

“That’s what you get for being careless with it,” the Russian retorted, before clapping Isaac on the shoulder. “Come on,” he said. “We’ve got data to go over, and police to avoid.”

*

When they arrived back at the tourists lodge they were utilizing as a safe house, the first order of business was dressing and fixing up the wound, though it might need stitches eventually. Once that was done, they started the arduous process of sorting through an entire hard-drives worth of data, most of it useless and irrelevant.

Samuel frowned slightly when he found what they were looking for. “What?” said Isaac, placing the laptop he was using down and walking over.

“Not liking the names I’m seeing here. I can confirm the Triad connection – we’ve got a go-between called Zhang –“

“Not our mutual friend, comrade Zhang?”

Samuel gave Isaac a withering stare. “Zhang’s a relatively common last name in China. You of all people should know that.”

“So… no relation?”

“None.”

Isaac exhaled sharply. “Good. If Helen’s watching, I don’t think she’d appreciate me interrogating her cousin.”

Samuel raised an eyebrow. “If she’s watching? That sounded almost spiritual.”

“End of the world has a way of making you reassess what you believe in.” Isaac hesitated. “Or, rather, what you want to believe in.”

The Russian watched his friend for a moment. “Alright,” he said, unusually softly, and turned back to the laptop. “There’s a name that keeps popping up in these files. ‘Mr. Lester’.”

Isaac frowned. “Lester? Can’t say I know anyone called that.”

“Well, he knows you. Not saying very flattering things here. Seems like you cost him a lot of money.”

“Is there ever any other reason for wanting someone dead?”

Samuel scoffed. “Not in your Capitalist society, no.”

“And there’s a reason other than that in Communism?”

“Political suppression.”

“Because that’s so much better.”

Samuel squinted, reading the file intensely. “These are minutes. From meetings with Lester. There were a lot of different parties involved with this. People from all over the globe. All with some grievance against you or other.”

“For what? If they wanted to kill me, they would have tried harder.”

“Killing you was discussed, but discarded early on the insistence of Lester. Instead the idea was to…” Samuel frowned. “’Break’ you.”

Isaac moved so he was hovering over Samuel’s shoulder. “So kill my family. But not Penny?”

“She was supposed to be there with Helen. The meeting after that had a lot of bickering. Some parties withdrew from the motley alliance. Those that were left set about something else.” The Russian’s eyes widened as he scrolled down. “That’s…”

Isaac shook his head, not wanting to believe what he saw. “You were right.”

Samuel shook his head, at a loss for words for the first time in years. “I… had hoped… For them to go that far is…”

“… monstrous.” Isaac finished. His eyes narrowed. “When I find the assholes on this list, they are going to wish they’d shot this ‘Lester’ as soon as he showed up on their doorsteps.”

“What about your daughter?”

That made the Australian hesitate. “She’s safe for now,” he decided. “We’ll do some research, figure out how to fix…” He waved a hand at the screen. “… this. But we can do that once this war is over. For now, we wouldn’t be able to get to her anyway.”

Samuel sighed, clearly not pleased with the decision. “I say we eliminate the problem now, before the damage it causes is irreversible.”

Isaac exhaled and sat down, running a hand through his hair. “It may already be too late for that,” he muttered sadly.

 

[Adrammalech]

// IN FINE FEATHER //
Emily Fischer
XCOM Headquarters – Medical Wing
Siberia, Russian Federation
November 19th, 2018 - 7:41 AM

Emily nodded as the dusky doctor in front of her droned on about the intricacies of neuroimagery, mentioning her unique circumstances time after time. In the end, the fifteen minute conversation boiled down to one thing in Emily’s mind, ‘don’t shoot 58 psi lances in a day.’ Even that prognosis bored her, as she rather enjoyed it until she collapsed into a stammering and bleeding mess.

“So in the end, despite all the anomalies that popped up, you’re free to go,” the doctor concluded. “Just be careful with further psionics, as you might get an aneurysm or hemorrhage with efforts like that.”

“Awesome, thanks,” Emily nodded absent-mindedly.

Emily quickly threw off her hospital gown like she was a kid waiting for recess, briefly down to her underwear before quickly whipping on a set of pants and a tank top. The doctor’s eyes went wide and she smiled shyly at the sneak peek before resuming her lecture, more worried about the support’s obvious impetuousness.

“I’m serious, Ms. Fischer. Be careful,” she stated firmly, watching the soldier put her engagement ring back on. “Think about your future, and take it easy.”

“I’ll keep it in mind, doctor,” Emily smiled. “Thanks.”

The doctor nodded curtly and Emily left, happy to be getting out of the medical wing. As she stepped towards the lobby, her feet froze as she realized she had a duty that she had been neglecting, thinking it firmly in good hands after Luxuria’s last revision. Still, she did wonder how they were doing the past month or two. She walked over into the quiet corner of the medical wing, where the women she had rescued so long ago crawled towards recovery.

Emily looked in shock at the placards of the patient rooms, half of the wing empty, the other side holding double names. Each listing had a true name as well. Aleksandra, Lena, Olivia, Venla, Linnea, and of course Sybille. The girls were now apparently rooming together. She walked a little further to see the doctor she had met a couple times having a heated argument with Ben at a small round table.

“And I’m telling you, it is too soon!” Ben slammed his fist on the table, shockingly assertive.

“With all due respect, Mr. Ceymotch, I am the doctor here. There is benefit to being decisive, including learning how to deal with our other patients.”

“Being ‘decisive’ is also dangerous, trust me, I know. Rushing the process will only hurt her.”

“I’m not advocating we cut her off and shove her out into the world,” the doctor sighed. “We will keep her here where she is safe and monitor her regularly, and if she shows signs of withdrawal we can bring her back into the program.”

“Only 7% of ORT patients who stop early can stay abstinent for just two months, and withdrawal can be as subtle as a twitchy thumb or a nervous blink. I’ve had patients attempt suicide without a single warning sign in the public eye.”

“We are not a backwater clinic shooting from the hip. We are professionals, Ben. We can handle this.”

“What are you guys talking about?” Emily interjected.

“Oh, Ms. Fischer…I wasn’t aware you were visiting, not since the new formula came in,” the doctor replied. “It has worked wonders, the diluents that she pointed out were completely off our radar.”

“I’m glad. But it sounds like something else is going on.”

“It’s nothing to concern yourself with, ma’am, we have our best doctors working on this as always. Ben just disagrees with some of our ideas.”

“You could say that,” Ben growled.

“Rest assured we are doing everything for them,” the doctor continued.

“Would you mind if I talked to Sybille?” Emily asked.

“Not at all, in fact, the interaction will be good for her.”

“Just like the dual rooming, which was also my idea,” Ben grumbled.

“Enough, Ben. I have heard your statement and I understand it…please, help our guest find her way,” the doctor got up and tossed a single key onto the table.

Ben walked forwards like a man with sudden determination, a hard stare and a purposeful walk that Emily certainly hadn’t seen in his mail work. He touched her shoulder and led her back towards Sybille’s room.

“What the hell’s going on?” Emily asked.

“The good doctor wants to take Sybille off the opioid replacement,” Ben explained in a whisper. “He thinks she’s far enough ahead of the others that she might be able to go clean.”

“That sounds…rushed, but then again, I’ve never been addicted to something that hard.”

“It is rushed. They want a feel for how quickly they can wean off Luxuria’s opioid since they’re not dealing with pure heroin or methadone. And if they’re wrong…I have to live a nightmare all over again.”

“What do you mean…?”

He shook his head as they stood outside the door. “Story for another time. Her roommate Linnea is pretty far behind her, so I wouldn’t hold up hopes for a double consolation. Just talk to Sybille clearly and it’ll be fine.”

“Roommates was your idea?”

“Yeah, they’re comfortable around other redhead girls, as you’ve seen. As long as they don’t start worshipping each other, they stay docile and even socialize, far before they say a word to us.”

“Nice,” Emily smiled. “See you in a bit.”

Emily took the key and slid it into the lock, opening the door quietly and stepping inside. The girl on the right side was clearly Linnea, looking at her with red-rimmed eyes and a slightly terrified expression at someone different coming in. Sybille perked up and got out of bed, walking to her slowly. She opened her mouth to talk, but instead hooked her arms around Emily. The soldier gave the young woman a warm hug, smiling slightly.

“I missed you,” Sybille said, with emotion and clarity.

“I missed you too. I’m sorry it’s been a while.”

“The doctors…have been good. The water has been good too. They even give me tasty food, like from the before.”

“That’s good,” Emily smiled, leading Sybille back to her bed and sitting beside her.

“The doctors are good. The mas…the Ethereals took my before from me…I see that now. Now there’s just the water, their only real gift. The doctors and the water make me happy.”

“What would you think about…not taking the water anymore?”

“No. No, wouldn’t like that…”

“They wanted you to like the water, so you would forget your before,” Emily explained.

“I want to forget…the sad thoughts, when they come back…no, the water protects me.”

“You can’t just forget, though. You need to confront it, so you can come out stronger. You need to be brave.”

Sybille looked at her with a sad stare, not unlike the heartbreaking one Emily had given her parents once. “I c-can’t. I want t-to…but I c-can’t.”

“It’s alright, I understand,” she replied, touching her shoulder lightly.

“I hope I can be brave…one day…”

“The after?” Emily smiled.

“Yes…the after,” Sybille carefully smirked. “I like that idea.”

“So, you have a roommate now, huh?”

“Y-yes, she is nice, and talented,” Sybille smiled openly, glad to have the spotlight off of her. She looked over to Linnea. “Hey, come here. Meet my friend.”

“N-n-no…” she replied, huddling tightly against the corner.

“Please? She is nice, and an Amelia, just like us.”

The manic, fearful look in Linnea’s eyes began to subside, and her face began to cool into calmness. “Not alone…”

“Not anymore,” Sybille said.

Emily looked at Sybille with an approving smile, and Linnea slowly walked over, holding her fingers and tugging on them nervously. She stuttered and shivered as she introduced herself, but before long, she was smiling and talking just like her roommate. They talked about their room, the doctors, and even briefly about their hometowns before their memories caught up with them. As Emily got up to leave, Sybille gave her another hug and Linnea waved nervously, the women slumping back into their beds and relaxing into their slightly-drugged state. Ben walked over as the door closed, glad to see Emily smiling for once after a visit.

“Looks like it went well,” he noted.

“I’m shocked, Sybille has improved so much. She’s thinking clearly, barely stuttering, and she’s a great influence.”

“She has made a lot of progress. Does that mean you agree with…”

“No,” she shook her head. “It’s amazing and admirable to improve so much, but she’s still mortal, and still traumatized. I know a little something about that…”

“You need to tell the doctor then.”

“Why? I’m just a soldier who visits sometimes, why would my opinion be worth more than yours? You need to become a fixture here and help these girls, like you were meant to.”

“I…I can’t do that, Emily. I swore off that kind of work a long time ago.”

“You listen to my memories all the time,” Emily crossed her arms. “You should tell me what happened that made you want to cast off your entire degree.”

“Emily, I appreciate why you want me to…but…”

The attending doctor walked over, recovering the key to Sybille’s room from Emily. He looked at her relaxed demeanor and gave a small smile. “I take it your visit went well? Sybille is an extraordinary patient.”

“She is…but I don’t think she’s ready to get off the water,” Emily replied.

“You too?” he sighed. “I’ll…bring it up with the other attendants, but honestly, it’s two outsider opinions against a trained group of doctors. We will not treat this flippantly, I promise you. Even if she shows withdrawal, we’ll bring her back in an instant.”

“I have to trust you, doctor,” Emily nodded. “Just watch her like your own daughter.”

“You have my word,” he smiled sincerely. He walked away, back towards the spot he and Ben were fighting before.

Emily gave a stern glance towards Ben, who only returned in a frown. As Emily went to leave the medical wing, he knew what he had to do, but his guilt kept him anchored in place. He merely looked back into the patient room, watching Sybille pick at her fingernails and Linnea drawing a pencil pattern onto the wall.