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UFO: X-COM Enemy Unknown – Herald of the Agregate *^-Introduction and Notes-^* *Notes Section* Beware of bad language! Other warnings will flare up and be marked in sections as they are needed. This is a Re-Imagination (Thanks to the new game) of one of my first works that I made while I was 14 or so, when I first got a computer and discovered the joys of NOT writing in paper since my writing sucks when you have to read my handwriting, seriously it is total garbage. I made the original story, now lost except a few old notes in my notebook and some memories, to spawn the 3 original X-COM games, with minor tweaks. I explained the reasons the aliens had, I made them present much sooner than when they were found and I made them experiment in humans to solve the reason they came to Earth before the brutality of war, the slaughter (Or attempt) of humanity, was needed. It has been ten years, I have a work now, for now at least, and I have little time to write and my own projects, adult themed or otherwise, going. Yet I could admit to be taken by nostalgia when I saw X-COM returning from the ashes not being SHIT and a FPS. Shame is I cannot say I own it, not yet, being in Spain means it will arrive in time and I will buy it, or probably it will be bought to me as a present, these Christmas. Until then I am seeing Lets Plays in Youtube because, even if you see it, the love to such a franchise and the DESIRE TO PLAY just grows, no matter if you saw what will happen before you got your hands on it. That is how you know you want a game, the same way as I wanted Brutal Legend. Now, I set this around 2034, 21 years after the story starts in the new game. I know it is forward in time, but with how technology is developing that should be long enough for it to be somewhat to the point of the game, maybe not, but I am the writer and in my story I am god as far as I can make it have some sense with a simple ‘I say so’. This story will be gory in some points, language and maybe adult themes will be present (MAYBE) but will have so many warnings fired upon them that you cannot read them by mistake, I mean it. If you read them by mistake you weren’t paying attention and you better burn! (Kidding). It is not cannon, I am not trying to make it cannon and it will also be slightly AU just to inform you, as my original story was. Of course… you may want to know about it by reading, right? Let’s see what you think then, onwards to the story. *^- Chapter 1: Isolation -^* It was a sad day for ‘Thor’, a sad day indeed. Looking at the grave the poor and young man could not think of anything but his fantasies, as his father had asked him: ‘Believe in your fantasies son! Write, draw, act! Do as you like and guide yourself by heart! I had been told since I was young that I would have to fight to be a writer and damn right those people were by telling me… but now here I am!’ His father had told him that when he was only five, he had told him that when he admitted he was adopted when Thor had reached fourteen and he told him that when he sat in front of his son after the accident three months ago. Now his father was dead, brain damage, severe lacerations, organ malfunctions… the car crash had been harsh and he was only alive because he had shielded Thor with his body. In a perfect scene it would be raining, it would be crowded and it would be a gloom day. This wasn’t perfect; sun was up, the birds chirped and no one had been here all day. His family left his father to his own means once he became thickheaded and turned to his writing before anything else. Friends were scarce, he was not a social man and, to be sincere, Thor wasn’t either. No one mourned him but his fans, yet none had come, probably because this funeral was no more than looking at an empty grave after spilling his father’s remains in front of the ocean, as he had asked him to do. The laminated grave, pure grounded steel, reflected him. Thor, most known by those outside the web as his real name: Armando Gonzalez Fernandez. He had been asked by his father if he wanted HIS last names or if he would go with what was biologically his thanks to his parents, but being abandoned probably had some to do with his decision of stay with what his adoptive dad gave him. Tall, taller than his dad by a few inches, he was six feet and around two inches, wide shoulders, small nose, perky ears, a bit of a prominent chin and, also, unlike his dad (Who ended up bald), Thor had long brown hair and was muscled up thanks to his dad’s encouragement to buff up and not get bullied. It took him a couple of years being teased for being a fatty to change that though. If something was to be said though, is that he wasn’t pretty, just average, but those green eyes were alluring to many. Usually he would be dressed with a light vest, white or black shirt and probably army pants and reinforced boots. Today was no different, his father told him to be strong, happy and to evade depression and dark thoughts. It was hard, he was crying, a grown up man crying at the lost of probably the one person, related by blood or not, that had decided to give him a chance and cared for him. It was sad, but he had left him all he owned, his father had given him all he would ever need, including time; time to create, to construct, to do as he wanted. It would take time but he would be happy again and do what he loved. Today though? Today it was time to turn it in and sleep. He would be able to do nothing feeling this down, as much as his father had helped him prepare for the worst things with a big smile. ***Somewhere else, during the night…*** *BOOM!* Another explosion rocked the cockpit around and the two figures in it squealed over while giving grunts, hisses or other sounds at each other. It was hard to make anything over the alarms, the pressure being lost and the mixing of gases from the many openings in the craft that got the pressured mix they were used to escape to the outside world. Where they in space like a few minutes ago, they would be screwed, but here? Here they just had annoyance, headache and a harder time maneuvering the scout ship. They both had escaped, they were the first two, but there was hundreds more, maybe thousands. The problem is that they were few, they were weak and they were not that superior to humans as the OTHERS were. It had been a hit or miss in the others’ part, and it had missed. They both knew it had been an idea for the greater good, but it had not turned out like that in their heads as they both knew, every single one of them probably knew, that the others would hurt mankind no matter what. The solution would maybe cut humans’ wings forever… if they had to pick allegiances, they would not pick their creators’ side on this one, as there were two sides and the biological one was stronger for them than the one engineered in their brains. *CRASH!* Another hit, right in the engine room. It would not explode, they had modified the thing with help of one of the others that wanted to help and for that reason it had much less power, but was much sturdier (In hopes to hide it and use it in the future without repairs) than it would normally be. They knew they probably would never thank him, but his help had made sure they would survive, or at least survive a bit more as the ship went straight down towards the Earth’s surface. It had been so pretty up there, far away, but now they questioned how their ideas of beauty had been betrayed as they saw the concrete and steel of the city as they went over so few gardens or green areas of the city. It was a ravaged world, even if years of care and repair had made Earth recover much of what it had lost. The brutal nature of the human had only forced the species to heal the planet in 2020 after the third world war was adverted ONLY because a nuclear missile was fired and it caused catastrophic events in Africa. Radiation had been cleansed, the place had been helped, wealth of the world had been evened and mass destruction weapons abolished and destroyed with clean energy and newer technologies applied. And still the world looked ugly thanks to how much humans had ransacked it during their whole life as a species. Had it been alright for them to break from the program to come and warn them? A few of their companions would probably escape in time, some were already in Earth in the hidden bases, but they knew most of them would be placed in stasis in the main base, hidden from the temptation of rebellion. This brought the question, the IF, because those that were here could, maybe, have seen what happened in Earth closer than both friends had. If it was uglier than what both friends could see, maybe they would be alone in this to the end. Whatever the case, they had committed themselves to this, and they would see through it to the bitter end, an end that approached as fast as the small house on the residential area full of cars, street lights, small gardens and a few trees. The impact would hurt, the fact that the other scout was on their tail, and that it had deployed the pods to capture specific humans with a certain something to them. The terminology wasn’t exactly in their heads as the ship finally crashed. They knew they had forced plan B on their creators: War. Yet war was much easier in any sense: Victory for the humans would bring them possible salvation, the retaining of their free will and newer technologies. Victory for their creators would force them to appear in front of the humans and guide them to what would best help the whole. Two options, both with good and bad things happening, but none of them being able to mingle with each other as humans would not like to give what their creators asked in exchange of their help and foreshadowing. It would be a slow attrition and a sure defeat to humans by plan A, or a possible destruction or win by Plan B. Either way they had made it, even if consciousness escaped and survival looked a distant possibility now. *** ‘Thor’s’ House *** Sleep hadn’t kicked in today. Thor had just let himself fall on the couch inside the so empty room without even eating, tired from hiding his sadness and mentally spent as he tried to cope with the loss. The only thing he did before getting his useless body on the black leather couch was to take every movie; every book and every object in the main room to his father’s room, at least anything that made him remember what he had lost. He would bring everything back once he finally got himself together, but for now it would not be possible, his mind, and his usual cheery nature, were not really as they used to be, not at least right now. So bare he had left the room that the only things he could see was the table they ate in, his own chair, the TV, the little table it stood in and his plate with a day old food. On the side was the window that showed night sky, filled with clouds that let rain come at least, pouring like there was nothing to stop it after being needed, even if for a childish reason, during the day. On the other side was the exit, a heavy black jacket perched near the door if he decided to get a night stroll under the rain and one of his father’s handguns to protect the house from would be robbers. For once Thor desired someone would try to break in, something that didn’t happen more than once a year, tops, but that usually scared him… now he wanted someone to blame and hurt. The crash was surprising, the explosions not so much… but the tremor that came with them? Hell that stirred him up ok. Thor had been told that planes crashing close to your position would make the ground tremble and throw you to the ground, but this had been quite powerful, maybe enough to hope for a damn jumbo when the bigger thing around the sky over the city was a small police or news chopper. It startled him, and it startled everyone in the neighborhood, when he finally decided to get his ass up and go check around five minutes had gone by as his cold sweat told him not to get involved with whatever happened, only to finally see something incredible on the outside. A UFO, a big ass, well, not really huge, ship with impressive lights, alien design and blue fire out of many of the hull’s cracks! It was surprising, hard to describe from a long range and obscurity as his house was not in the right spot to see it with so many cars, the crater of the impact and a few… pods? There were some pods, taller than some cars, that had been thrown around seemingly at random near, and even far away, from the craft. They were cool, or he guessed they should be, they didn’t look human at least and with how much fantasy his father had put on his head, Thor was interested in anything alien. It was an interest that partially died once shit hit the fan. The pods seemed to open, spraying some weird green goo all over the people that had concentrated around them and the crash site of the UFO. Some walked away unscathed, running for their lives, while others were engulfed and ‘cocooned’ by the green goo, crystallizing in horrendous and still forms that let everyone see the ones still alive within the green sludge. Even from where Thor was he could see that they were alive, why? Because some people walked away, head covered in the goo, obviously dizzy and confused but able to move, even sit down and take a breath when the dizziness was too much. Whatever the thing was had the intended purpose of capturing, not killing, though it took ample force to pry off and anyone heavily covered on it would not be able to free from its grasp. Seeing enough, and fearful of what might happen, Thor nearly decided to get back to the sofa, close the window and even reinforce the door, but people out there needed help. His father had been a writer, reclusive, taciturn and had admitted openly that he didn’t like humanity all that much thanks to all the betrayals he had suffered and how badly a lot of the world had been treated in front of his eyes. He had been quite blunt to a lot of short sighted people telling them he would probably kill a human before an animal to scare them off, though he was serious. Thor was not much better, but he knew that even his father would’ve helped the people out there. Having an excuse to maybe harm something and take his pain out on something, Thor decided to get his jacket and his father’s gun, a pair of prepared clips near the weapon and head out. It was going to be quite the night and nothing would be the same no matter how things ended. *** Not even the alarms of the police echoed in the night as the cries faded away, only the brittle droplets of rain as they fell on him and all around where he was. A thunder struck close, hitting on one of the pods that had already spent the green goo though this one had gotten nothing out of it. The thing was like a little pyramid, though it was slightly round on the edges, mounted on four arms and anchored to the ground by a huge spike for what Thor could see once he got close to it. An octagonal body seemed to hold the green goo within its main core and four of the sides were open, sporting three rows of two openings each from where the stuff came out like if it was a silky web in search of prey for its arachnid master. Touching it may be not the best idea, but Thor was curious and so he did it. The feeling was smooth, nice, strange… it was metal but seemed like it could be worn on top of skin with little problem and it would feel light and right unlike a lot of clothes. Maybe it was just his mind pulling tricks on him as he wished to take a look at it with more time, scientist or not, just to satisfy his curiosity. However a muffled cry took his attention as he turned, seeing no one, only to look to the path between his house and one of his neighbors’ own. A young man, Terry Oxford, his neighbors’ son, was struggling to take the stuff from his arm, chest and, soon, his legs. The kid was fifteen, hated Thor’s guts and was the obvious bully from school that would fuck with you given the chance. Still he had a good heart even if he dressed like the stereotypical fat biker with chains and leather all over his body, even a red bandana over the black hair and sunglasses covering his brown eyes. For his short stature he was broad and strong, liking to push others around, but now? Now he crawled over the ground, part of the green goo getting to cover his eyes and mouth, making him obviously groggy. His dad was quite vengeful, Thor? Well, a bit, but the young man needed help and that he was an asshole was not reason enough... well, let’s say he would simply help him. Thor came close to the teen, forcing him to stay put as he took a firm grasp of the stuff and pulled, tearing part of the goo that was over Terry’s face and chest, helping him free from the green crap as fast as possible. It took a whole minute for something that looked like putty, but it came off and finally Terry could breathe free, though not out of the stuff’s effects. “Holly shit man!” The teen cried out as he half embraced his savior “Those things came out so fast! Didn’t you feel the shock? And that fucking UFO man! I wish my parents were home so they told me to not get my nose where it doesn’t belong!” “Calm down Terry!” Thor shook the young man before lifting him from the ground “Get in your house and call the police! I am going to try and free anyone caught with this crap ok?” “You crazy man?” They weren’t in the USA, but being born there, Terry’s parents had the habit of having weapons at all times near them. Terry’s father was, unlike his son, short, bulky and not really that smart, so he thought it would be a great idea to give his son an old revolver modified with modern technologies. Twenty years ago, this revolver could’ve punched a hole in a tank, for today’s standards? It would still kill a people without armor, but even shirts and normal clothes offered a bit of armor, so it was a dangerous tool, but not the worst. “I am going with ya” “Like hell you are going!” Thor pushed the young man against his house’s wall. While looking like wood and like the common mass produced house, these things were made out of the newest mix of concrete. The idea was to hurt and scare him into getting to safety, the only way a bully learned sometimes “Get to your house, NOW!” It backfired, though, as Terry got up and against him “You got me even if you don’t want it, pal” “Kid, I can get you knocked out with a well placed punch. Why should I let you come?” Thor was just about to punch Terry in the face and get on with it, but then the kid pointed to the sky “What?” A round object, larger than a bus and twice, maybe thrice as wide, an exact copy, intact at that, of the UFO crashed close by was getting closer to the ground, maybe a kilometer or two away from where Thor and Terry where located. For some reason it seemed that they had fought between them and maybe the ones in the UFO were friends, or maybe it was the other way around and the ones trying to help were on the crashed ship. There were few options for Thor’s mind as he looked around to see at least twenty people ‘cocooned’ and a crashed ship when not even a single army fighter was around the place. Thor had to think that someone in there was a friend, or this would get very bad very soon. “Ok kid, you’ll help me: We free everyone as the goo seems to stay still once it captures someone, ok?” Terry nodded at Thor’s words before he let the teen go “Get their faces and arms open and then get to the next, even if they are dizzy we need to get them all free before whatever is in that ship gets here ok?” Terry nodded again and got free from Thor. He had to wonder how a young guy like that was so much like a grown up and had so much malice, anger and violence inside… of course his dad used to tell him that the pair next door wasn’t exactly your common one and that they were maybe a bit violent and blunt. Even in this age some people will always be a bit more like an animal than a person, but at least animals don’t show their young how to kill others or threaten them for fun. In any case Terry got two persons free while Thor worked over his thoughts and only freed one, he had to be fast and think latter. It would take around five minutes, time he didn’t think he had, but everyone would be free, if only because everyone else tried to help. Once the deed was done the group scattered, searching for more survivors and heading away from the large ship that finally touched ground on the horizon while a sea of people running in the other way got past them in hopes of getting out of the way of whatever was coming. It was disheartening to see cooperation only from those who had already suffered from the attack, but Thor thought he couldn’t ask for much more. A few of the civilians that hadn’t decided on running after the group scattered finally yelped in terror as a green shot of some kind came too close to comfort and burned the base of a close lamp post, throwing it to the ground with a loud crash. They ran off the moment we saw what was coming: Greys. Greys are the ‘mythical’ aliens so to speak: They are human looking, slightly shorter than us, hunched, with long spidery fingers, big yellow eyes, no mouths and a huge head that shows their capabilities being more mental than physical. While obviously weak and, probably cold from the rain, there were eight of those monsters coming slowly, weapons strapped to their arms like bracers and pistols mixed in one with green energy running down their connections, powering up the death bringers they were aiming at the still pair that were Terry and Thor. “Fucking move man!” The aliens took another shot before Terry pushed Thor to the side, avoiding the green ball by an inch. Their attention turned to the disk like UFO that had crashed there not so long ago, inside a small crater that offered protection and at least a sense of security. The thing was huge, looked sleek and aerodynamic at the same time as resistant and probably capable of doing things human craft couldn’t. It had two doors made out of blue light, or maybe they were force fields? Whatever they were, they offered entrance to the craft and a possible safe haven as the green shot just melted harmlessly on the surface of the strange metal. Terry was already running towards the door, skidding down the small crater as a few shots went wide over his head, going so far as to burn the side of his left ear only barely, but turning him into a shrieking mess as Thor went down with him, seeing how a small droplet of something green ate at that little area to the point of burning a good chunk of it. The sight was gross as it just MELTED right on top of itself, a bit of the upper part of the ear just falling to the ground before it stopped, that appendage ruined even if it hadn’t been rendered useless. Even being young, and probably at least one feet shorter than he was, Terry was used to pain and the burning of his ear didn’t make him stop running, he didn’t even cry, only smiled maliciously as it enraged him to the point where he turned, ran up and surprised the aliens. Thor could see how the bullet he fired went straight towards one of the things’ eyes, cutting through it, plastering the brains against the others behind him and going so far as to impact on the one behind and stun it for a second. Weird thing was that a totally different alien just had his head EXPLODE as the first one died, like something had overloaded it, basically the same as an overheated potato. “FUCK YOU, BITCHES!” Showing his face for more than a few seconds had been a mistake, flipping the bird to the aliens had been much worse, but we were dealing with a teen here, and one driven by anger and pure rage at that. It was just pure luck that the aliens had been dazed by the obviously brass, and lucky, act of the young male, otherwise the few shots they could fire at him would have been much better aimed and, unluckily, would have taken much more than just his raised hand with that well aimed shot. Losing a hand WAS more than enough for a grown up man to cry out in pain, for Terry it had been way worse as the wrist, and part of the hand, had been intact, though the fingers and more than half of it had been gone as the green shot went through it. Now the remains of that green attack were eating at the flesh, making it melt slowly and painfully as it burned bone, tissue, blood and anything inorganic, including the clothing and metal, like they were nothing. Thor was only lucky that he got Terry as he fell down only when the green sludge had finished its gory path and the stump had been left alone, already burned to a crisp. Seeing as Terry had passed out, though not before crying out profusely, Thor rushed to the doors of the fallen UFO, being missed only by a few inches as the aliens got closer. It was by now obvious that rain was affecting the aliens or something was making them stagger a bit, because so many shots missing weren’t normal. It was made apparent that it was not once he got inside the UFO and turned to see if he could close the doors again as the force field had powered down and the automated door had opened. Why was it obvious? Because kiddy gloves were gone and the aim of the Greys suddenly turned much better as a myriad of shots went straight at him. A strange kind of sound, clicks and other kind of ‘voices’, made the defenses come back online, letting only a bit of the green energy through, though it was enough to burn down on Thor’s right leg and cut also his right arm with its remains, making him stagger and fall down, taking care to not hurt the teen in his arms as he crawled away from the entrance. The defenses, and what reassurance Thor could get from them, burned down quickly with a few shots though. As he looked around, seeing if more enemies were about, he could only see a large upper level, not much over most adult humans’ height (Probably tall enough for a Grey to be a second level), that occupied half the craft. In that place two forms laid slumped against command chairs in front of a fried computer. They were larger than the Greys and looked also vaguely human, but with a leg hurt and panic racing through his mind, Thor didn’t have the courage to try and get up to see if they were alive or any help could be had. Trying to get up was out of the question, quickly. The bone of his leg had been hit slightly, his muscles burned and his flesh hurt enough to send alarms over a large area. The damage was ‘minimal’ compared to what he believed such a weapon could do, but saying a lot of curse words and thinking it would be worse would make the pain go away no faster than shooting at the bastards that made him suffer. Thor could basically just shove, slowly, Terry to a safe position away from part of the ship’s broken components as he crawled away to get closer to that second level, using it as cover for when those monsters came in. Speed was not of the essence though, the creatures were chatting outside in some way, linking each other with purple emanations that got from one of them to the other, forming pairs and, somehow, making it possible from both to be aware of the other’s perspective. It was unnerving, but also something Thor was made aware of, and very important if he wanted to get out of this, as only half of them were looking at him, the other half eyeing the surroundings with their attention all but on him, yet the weapons on their hands pointed at him with pinpoint accuracy thanks to the others being able to see through the force field that shielded the entrance. A pair of them was dead, probably the ones that had good aim because of that link, the ones that hurt Terry first. Now they all were ready to terminate him and probably Terry to, though he could think of many other desires that the aliens would have towards an unconscious and live prey, even if it had been wounded and was in not a perfect state. There was, at least, something to feel safe with as Thor’s handgun was of the newest models: sleek, powerful and capable of firing bullets in a way that would put the famous Desert Eagle to same. Though they were all generic and boring, their power was something he relished right now as his only anchor to life. Miracles were stuff of fantasies though, so when two of them finally decided to walk down the other four remained vigilant. This was going to be, in the worst case, a small war of attrition: Thor was about to pass out and his right arm, his good one, had been harmed. He could hold his pistol but the aim was going to be crap in the best situation possible here, so two of those aliens were going to be a mortal threat, four or more at once? Well, he was fucked. Suddenly a flurry of gunfire took place on the outside and two aliens went down, one of those that was about to enter was also killed by the feedback of whatever that purple link did, the other just looked stunned, hurt and could only tumble forward to instantly get shot down by Thor as he emptied the thirty round clip in his general direction, being able to hit two or three times. To his surprise the gun was not all that effective on a naked body, but the ones outside didn’t seem to be able to hold back against a lot of guns firing a massive amount of bullets at them, finally ending the last pair’s lives with little effort even before they could open fire. This was, probably, a sight that would never repeat itself easily in his presence, if at all. Threat averted, pain subsiding as well as his consciousness, Thor got up as best as he could, wishing to look to the other side and, luckily, seeing how Terry was still intact, even if he was probably not going to be awake anytime soon. Then the figures that had been initially in the UFO took his interest. He turned towards them, but as he did so, and as voices of humans came crying out for him to stay still, Thor finally fell down, consciousness leaving him for the time being. *** He didn’t know when he woke up, he only knew that his leg and his arm were killing him, not literally, but fuck the pain was annoying. When he opened his eyes and saw the intense and bright light in front of him things went worse as he angrily swatted away the one holding it in front of her while seeing if Thor was responding to the stimuli and at least partially conscious. “Subject seems stable after the last dose of the medication” While warm in her tone and in her face, it was obvious that the woman treated this as something unimportant, which didn’t bode well with Thor and made a very bad impression “Your name is Armando, is it not?” Armando nodded and the woman smiled “Good, good” The accent seemed to be thicker on her with only a few words “You suffered plasma wounds in your arm and legs. Tissue has regenerated appropriately but you have seen things you should not seen… and you had a minor dragged into the action” “He wanted to come and didn’t seem to be bothered by carrying his own toy gun around” Thor didn’t seem to like the woman very much and it showed, not like he had great ways with people anyway “I told him twice and he just wanted to come. It is the kid’s goddamn fault” “For what we have seen, that is true” The woman hrumped as she got up “I suppose you would want some answers?” Thor nodded and finally looked around. He was in a medic bay, nice comfortable beds littered the place with him being the only occupant of the very, and by that Thor meant VERY large room. It looked full with equipment and personal ready to threat twenty, maybe thirty persons at once with little effort, even if for long periods of time. All the equipment was top notch, things that went from light implants, artificial limbs and general health care were around. Thor even had his clothes on as it probably had been deemed much easier to heal him without trying to remove the fused up cloth and skin until the skin and tissue had regenerated, so this was a very good place that made no mistakes. “This is the medical area of the barrack of the X-COM base” The woman took him out from his scrutiny and brought his attention back on her “I am Doctor Vahlen, head of research. My mission is to direct the team of scientist here to discover whatever we can about the aliens that are attacking the Earth” “X-COM? What is that?” As Thor got up from the bed, he eyed the Doctor with analytic interest. She had treated him as an experiment, probably sizing the damage of light wounds made by plasma in a grown up since she probably saw the ones done in Terry already. Vahlen had brown hair done in a pigtail, not overly large for practical reasons as she probably would have it mess with her work otherwise. She wore glasses, though as she put them away it was obvious she didn’t really need them much. Her brightly blue eyes shone with intellect and her pretty face was always looking curious and quite happy, probably with reasons to as she was in such an obviously important place doing a job most would kill for. Under her green and white coat she was probably slim and not really much more than a egghead in complexion (Meaning quite weak, no matter if she was pretty). It was a weird world when small biological engineering had allowed nearly no ‘ugly’ people to be born in the last twelve years… though this woman showed that with, or maybe even without that, you could be smart and still look like a cute pencil. Now, personality wise though… Thor didn’t like her much for now, so she would need to show another side of her if he was to change his mind. “X-COM is a project that has been alive since before the XXII century, to be specific I think it was founded in the year 1993” Vahlen got her gases back in place with one hand as she looked on her datapad “Yes, 1993 it is. It was put down as a dormant project with a skeleton crew during the last nearly forty years. Its intended use was to prepare humanity to contact with aliens once they came in or, if they were dangerous, fight against them. During all these years it has been known that aliens were around us, but only three weeks ago did we finally get see them showing their intentions: War against humanity” “Three weeks?” Thor eyes widened as he looked at the doctor with shock “How long have I been out?” “Nearly as much as your young friend, but do not worry, it has been little more than eight days. Though you had neural overload and the pain receptors didn’t stop for nearly two weeks, moment in which we started working on you” She smiled at that as if it was perfectly normal “His hand has been replaced with a new one, but sadly he cannot go home now that he knows this much, much less after he made a few of my men blab” Vahlen had quite an angry look on her face as she said that “We will have to keep him her alongside you until this ends. Letting you two go would endanger the secret and we already rely a lot in special programs, medical compounds and politicians to hide the alien attacks… Yours was the first attack and one that gave us the biggest hoard to this point, but it was also the cleanest of all the fights” “You mean the ships?” When she shook her head Thor wondered “Why not? One touched the ground unharmed, the other was half destroyed but it was there anyway” “Yes, but the one that was left untouched had a safety mechanism: It flew away when our troops got close to it, four creatures of pure energy, or what we assume is pure energy, manned the controls as a security measure” Vahlen sighed, obviously displeased because she did not have such a rare thing as an OVNI to study “But we got two alien specimens that are being held in our laboratory area thanks to you two holding off the Sectoids until we could get there, otherwise they would have been killed for sure” “They are alive? I sincerely thought that they had fought against each other for some reason out there… I didn’t see any other way that thing had crashed there with only police helicopters around my city” Thor gave the doctor a questioning look “Why would the aliens fight againts each other and also try to abduct people?” “Cover up operation for what we have been told” Vahlen just nodded at those words, a sure expression being what she lacked in her face “The captives speak perfect English so we can understand them, the problem is that it seems a security measure was forced on them and they cannot remember most details from the operation that the aliens are launching… Would you want to come and visit them? They are interested in meeting the pair that helped them” “You would… allow me… Terry and I… to see them?” For some reason it sounded fishy to him, but since it meant only contact between fellow captives… “Yes, we have little to gain keeping you all apart, besides, you are isolated from the rest of the world for now” The Doctor didn’t seem to register Thor’s disapproval at those words “We also think it may help them: They have enough knowledge to work in our society if needed, but we would like to help them regain their lost knowledge and stimuli to the brain is our greatest hope as we do not have the aliens’ technology for surgery. Would you like to visit them then? Terry will come along once you decide” Thor had little to lose; besides, he could spy the layout of the base only in case. Being a prisoner was not in his to do list. *** It had been only a few minutes for Thor since he last saw Terry; sadly it had only been a few minutes when it should’ve been around twenty two days of pleasurable silence. Now Terry was nagging at him nonstop to say how cool the place was and how frigging awesome it had been to see his hand being reconstructed in two weeks’ time. He hadn’t been allowed outside of the barracks but he had meet the team that had saved his ass and had seen pictures of the ships used to combat the aliens, shots from a few of the Sectoids (The Greys) aliens that they had fought, how they were inside, weaponry in the field… The kid was having a blast and didn’t seem to mind the idea that his parents had been told he had suffered great injuries during the ‘terrorist attack’ on their city and that he would be in a high security medical facility until he was well again. Thor himself had seen some of them, but hadn’t been able to meet them properly. All in all, he had seen around twelve persons of around fifteen or so, a big elite group of both buffed up boys and girls left and right, though most of the buff was made of the armors they had and them being top notch geared with weaponry too. The Sky Rangers, the transports these people used, could go around the world in less than one day, maybe twelve hours or so going ‘slow’, but the transport capacity for personnel was small and for that reason it made sense only a few soldiers were around, for now at least. For what Thor had been told, in the three missions there had been no causalities, but nearly every guy and girl had been wounded once or twice. Four days at the hospital was the best you got from a plasma burn right now, and some had been nearly as long as he or Terry. The first mission for Thor had seemed like no danger was involved, but there were a lot more abductees in the city and two more UFOs came to land troops and leave, so the men ended up banged pretty badly after the mission ended. It had been whispered that the team had eighteen, maybe more than twenty soldiers before, so there was probably a mission no one was talking about there. He also wanted to meet the ones in charge and other important guys around the facility, but beggars can’t be choosers and he had enough being given a small map and also being guided towards the research center. Thor wanted more out of this experience, but being a prisoner of any kind made him have few options when it came to what he would do in the future and how to make sure he would not be pushed around this place for too long. One idea came to him quite quickly, but after the last, well, the first encounter with the aliens… it wasn’t appealing. During the walk he found some personnel: All with green in their shirts and clothes as well as brown pants or similar clothing and quite serious faces. They all were duty minded, but were gentle towards the pair and the doctor, not seemingly bothered by the fact that a child or a civilian were here, only happy to know that they were somewhere safe. It was a reminder that he was away from all he once cared because danger was rising, yet it was not enough to take his mind to the fact that he was very much alone no matter what. If this had happened with his father around, Thor would be really happy to be here and have this chance, probably could do something to tell these guys to bring his father here. He was quite the strategist and had a bright mind developed with age, unlike Thor, whom got shot the first time he saw an alien. Of course… the elite teams here also did get hurt, or worse, so probably he hadn’t done THAT bad, maybe. “We are sure that the aliens are safe here as much as you two” Vahlen had been trying to explain to them what the rooms they passed did, like the Situation Room, where information about awareness and panic as well as funding to X-COM was always detailed to the latest bit of information, or the Mission Control room with the huge Earth 3D model and highlited points of interest for possible missions. She made sure to repeat it a lot: they were safe there, at least until now as they approached the lab. “However we cannot stress it enough: Things will get ugly, fast” She admitted as the door opened and the laboratory, full with various rooms with materials, a good group of nine scientists and a few small workshops in plain sight was presented to Thor and Terry “We need a lot of help and few problems; we would like to ask you two to remain out of trouble and cause as little as possible to our men” “Hey doc, I want to get revenge on the monsters!” Terry jumped up and down, while not developed to its full potential, the teen was quite vivid and he was ‘too much a man’ to back down “I said it once and I say it twice: I want to go kill stuff!” “And get yourself killed too? I do not think so” Vahlen scolded him and waved it off as they continued “You need to be very special to get in one of these teams, if you aren’t, you die” Thor shrugged at the conversation (or better say discussion) that ensued; he wasn’t all that interested in them nitpicking at each other, instead looking around the lab to see what this place had to offer to him. There were to access doors, one to the upper level and Mission Control, the other to go to the Engineering area. Outside that, there were the lodges for the scientists and a ‘minimum security area’ for certain materials and test subjects. Outside that the laboratory had many computers, either in the workbenches, some small cubicles on the side and obviously more space as huge windows showed that there was a testing area on the other side of the facilities. “Come on! Many others saw the aliens and the UFO and you didn’t bring them here! We are special!” “Young man! You are underage in ALL countries and too frail to get any armor but a woman’s in this team! You will remain here until the commander tells you to go home” Vahlen was getting exasperated it seemed “And we brought you here because you were wounded and such wounds would have been a dead giveaway that our cover was just that, a cover story. You two were the only ones to be immersed in the action” For some reason the excuse seemed weak, but it probably was because anyone would be a skeptic in this kind of situation. Whatever the case, the two were at each other’s throats and they didn’t pay much attention to Thor since they wanted opposite things and all Thor desired now was to satiate his curiosity and maybe get sidetracked so he wouldn’t have to think on what he would do for the time being. It was lucky that only a few scientists were located here for now though; they all seemed amused at what was happening between the teen and their boss so Thor was only a side attraction that no one wanted to look at much. It hurt his pride a little bit that they didn’t find himself a treat worth looking after, but as he moved away he had to remember that his leg and arm were still recuperating a bit, as when he tried to put too much pressure on his leg to be sneaky and not make a sound it hurt like if it was on fire, which made him grab for the nearest workbench and suffer the same fate on his arm. Cursing and simply walking away normally, Thor got inside the storage area with little problem. Surprisingly, it wasn’t a storage area per se, but an elevator to the first or second level of the thing: Storage for alien equipment and holding cells. Thanks to the information pamphlet for new researchers and engineers, it showed that this was one of the two access lifts used for personnel only, the hangar having the third that was designed to move the scavenged components when they were too big. All the new information only meant to him that probably no security would be down there, so he would be able to get to minimum security with ease. Pushing the button, he ‘enjoyed’ the elevator music that seemed to plague even the most secret and harder to reach place in the world. It was a relief when the thing got down and the music stopped, it was not so great when a soldier of t he USA (Mark right on his shoulder pads) gave him a bright smirk and welcomed him in. “Hey there dude, you are that…” “I am Thor” He winced at his little escapade being foiled and probably being watched again in the base. Feeling like a prisoner was not making his mind ease “The doctor and Terry are bitching in the lab” “They do that a lot” The soldier nodded, obviously used to that “You were going to see the weirdoes, right?” “Weirdoes?” Thor was surprised at the man calling the aliens that. The tags on him said he was called John Johansson Jones and, as it showed in his insignia, he was from the United States of America. The man was a few inches taller than Thor, had weird flat top hair, it made him remember the character of Street Fighter called Guile. J3, as the nick in the tags called him, was black, and by that Thor meant really frigging black, as much as his top hair and looked like the stereotypical badass guerrilla warfare men from Africa with big broad muscles that had to be fitted inside a probably handmade armor to fit him inside. Still he seemed amicable and had relaxed brown eyes and a bit of a smirk, though he obviously seemed blunt with what he thought. “Yea… The doc says they are aliens, but they had admitted themselves that it is only half the truth” He nudged the rifle that Thor had neglected to see towards the corridor that lied behind him “Come; I’ll show you what I mean” Nodding, Thor followed J3 through the corridor, eyeing the side rooms they passed, each one of them being cold storage for bodies of many, many Sectoids. In fact each room contained five bodies and he could count at least five being to full capacity as they went by with a plus shaped corridor heading forward to holding cells and to the sides for more cold storages. It was obvious that live specimens were not going to be held here, at least the dangerous ones. This made him think of how had it been possible for two aliens to survive the crash and still be friendly enough to be put in such a ‘badly defended’ area that was more a cold catacomb than anything else. As they got close the sound of someone hitting the bars of a cell, like if this was a common prison, came to his ears clearly. It was accompanied by a loud hissing and the rubbing of something sleek but hard and probably ragged against metal in a nonstop way. One of the aliens was, most probably, riddled by being here probably longer than Terry had been awake by now. As Thor came close he could see it was indeed the case as the two aliens came into view at the end of the holding cells. “What are you looking at, human?” Two females, surprisingly resembling humans, were at each side of the little pat they were in. The closest to him was the angry one; a warrior by the looks of it, the woman was taller than him by a mile, being probably over two meters in height and surprising that stature with ease. She was bald, had scales instead of skin, large fangs in the middle of the mouth that made her permanently grin with the jaws open, showing smaller fangs on the sides instead of the front and small spike like protrusions from the top of her skull to the base of the neck. Shoulder pads of strange material, probably alien alloys, were fixated on her shoulders with armor covering her chest and powerful arms, the lower body present without anything covering it but dense grey like scales in the front and the yellow/brown colored ones in the rest of the body. She lacked any legs, instead having only the tail of a snake to let her move, a tail powerful by obvious reasons as it continuously hit on the wall, leaving a mark that was growing slowly, but steadily. Instead of white, she had brown, maybe a really dirty red in her eyes with the irises being yellow like, monster in appearance, probably heat based like the common snake. “Stop scaring them, we came to help” The other alien was tall, as tall as him, if not more, with grey ‘skin’ that seemed to reflect light slightly, a big round head like one of the Sectoids but also proportional to the large and slim body. She had black eyes instead of yellow and he was sure he could see pupils inside of them, also she didn’t seem to have any kind of ‘light’ within her unlike the Sectoids that he had fought, as those had their chest with a bright yellow coloration. Another difference were his black, shining lips and the white teeth hidden behind with a blue like tongue inside of the mouth as well as, now that he looked, a few scrapes or wounds over her frame that still had a bit of blue fluid on them. Unlike the first one, this alien had no armor, but instead she had been given researcher clothes to maintain her ‘modesty’ as she was obviously enough like a human to need it. “Krisssha, your plan of helping them ended up with mossst the detailsss wiped from our mindsss” The snake woman hissed at her friend, the fangs retracting to let her close her maw as she talked “What help can we offer that will get usss free from thisss damn place? I want to get out of here and fight!” “Guiss, patience is a virtue” Krisha (¿?) was relaxed, sitting on the bed she had in her cell, reading a book while being calm, the so called Guiss was, however, rubbing the claws of her hands against the bars of her own prison, slowly eroding them in what would take probably weeks to cut through the thing, but she didn’t seem to have any problem doing it or showing it to her captors. Both of them seemed completely polar opposites, but in most cases that is what made some friends. “Patience my asss!” Guiss hissed as she crashed against the bar, prompting J3 to lift his weapon and Thor to jump back “We were taken from our mothersss, breed in tubesss to help subdue our former ssspeciesss for some objective we can no longer remember!” The snake woman hissed at her friend, her eyes flashing red “I wisssh retribution… Retribution and to remember! To have my life back! I want what isss mine!” The snake woman trashed around for a second as it was obvious tears were getting ready to escape her eyes, though the obviously hard headed woman was too much of a headstrong, and probably simply geared, towards not showing emotions besides anger. It all lasted only a minute or so, but she calmed down once green blood started showing from her hands, arms and head. The sight worried her friend and a new discussion started again to try and calm her down. “See what I told you?” J3 half whispered to Thor as the two females discussed one heatedly and the other in a relaxed way “The aliens have been around for even longer than X-COM has been operative. They say that they can remember older ‘hybrids’ around the base and that all of the other ‘hybrids’ share some genetic makeup, but they haven’t been altered excessively like the pure aliens. The Sectoid hybrid told us that ‘her species’ is divided in Queen and Workers, which is the latter the ones we are facing, though of a lower caste. The Snakemen female says her species is mercenary, though they have an agreement with the ones attacking and a part of their men had agreed to be subject to experiment to create infiltrators amongst the humans” The soldier shuddered at the thought “I wonder how long they have been around and what they want…” “What do you think?” Thor wondered about the same thing, unable to decipher why the aliens were here and attacking, but J3 just shrugged as he walked away, letting the hybrids discuss “They don’t seem eager to fight us, but they also don’t seem capable to help much where they are” “They still have shock trauma from the crash and the partial wipe of their minds” J3 looked back with a bit of sadness, probably pitying the two back there “Young ones kidnapped and twisted like that… it sounds horrible to be forced to lose what one is. They can turn fully human with a device installed in them though” That surprised Thor and he looked up at the soldier in awe “The Doctor says it uses the mutant factor in our DNA to transform their bodies until it is activated once it recharges as far as the hybrids have enough fat to power the conversion and is willing to feel the heavy pain it gives them. Doctor Vahlen says also that normal humans or full aliens cannot do that, so whatever kind of infiltrator the Snakeman female means is probably different than what we have seen” “Have you found any yet?” Thor’s mind raced with what may be the idea of a human aiming at him, wishing to help its true masters “What does it look like?” “Not yet, no” J3 rubbed his chin “We are only scratching the surface of the attacks as far as those two have told us. They say many other hybrids should be around and that they would help us, but by now they are probably being held like these two are, though probably in less kind of a way. This probably made the aliens take a bit longer to prepare a powerful assault but we will see new dangers soon enough” Thor nodded and walked with J3 as Vahlen finally came down, berated at him for not waiting and Terry just ran past them to see the aliens in the holding cells, soon enough dragging Vahlen away to watch over him and scold him again. It was a funny moment, but seeing what had happened only made him turn deadly serious in his thoughts. Humanity had been isolated from the treat for too long and now, now the treat loomed over them. It would take only a little more time for the aliens to spread panic and, for what Vahlen told him, panic would make countries cut down contacts and shelter themselves in the bunkers and other facilities. A few comments had told me that the first attack had been… well, it had been light and maybe it had been a misunderstanding, so it had not spawned real hostilities then, even the whispers of a fight that had ended with some X-Com operatives dead was thought to be a infight between factions. One of the guys at the Mission Control room commented how a few deaths and direct attack to a diplomat on the second incursion had flared up the alarms for sure and had made things happen and forced people to get ready. He had seen and had felt how this could make you run for your life and fight to preserve it. It was not something he did like much, but with also many, if what the hybrids said were true, families broken by the lack of those that had already been kidnapped before… Thor just couldn’t think of nothing else but being taken away from his father, even if in his case it was different. No one should suffer that, not until natural causes or, at worst, an accident took place. Being taken just to be turned into something else, or killed, was something he could not condone and simply sit down to wait. “Hey, J3?” The soldier turned and arched an eyebrow at him when Thor said his nickname “Do you think I could apply for a place in the X-COM team?” The large man gave him a pat on the back and laughed, guiding him to the elevator and telling him he would accompany Thor to the commander and then, since he was sure Thor would get in, to the armory to outfit him. It was going to be a way of doing what his father had told him to, not how he probably hopped it would be achieved, but it would accomplish all his hopes and dreams. ‘Look dad, I am making a story without having to even write’ He smiled as the elevator shut down and the new chapter of his life began. ***End of 1º Chapter*** *^-End Notes-^* Well, this was the intro; I hope everyone more or less liked it. Yes, I had hybrids in the original story, yes, I had a Snakeman female and a Sectoid female and yes, I used two civilians and a soldier as main characters alongside the hybrids. In the original story it had started in a camp area with a lonely man and his friend watching how a UFO crashed down and ‘valiantly’ defending it from an alien rescue team. You can see the bull crap pilling in the corner with such a little statement, right? Still it was one of my first 2 serious works and the one that didn’t have porn exuding every frigging chapter, so it was more or less alright, though my English sucked back then for lack of practice. I decided to make things more dangerous, have some deaths, even if off screen (Following the tutorial I have seen on youtube) and starting the action around one month after the first combats began. I need to probably give much more detail to some rooms, probably the characters and so forth, but I will do so in a separate ‘chapter’ once I have some free time to create profiles with descriptions and such. I would also offer people the chance of joining the X-COM team with their guys, but after ten years of writing I have to say something. I am picky, and I like detail while hating powerplay. People will die, I will not have super powered people and I will try to have drama and romantic stuff to a minimum except with the main cast, and even so drama will be hard to come by with romance only being second. If you want to apply for the team you need this though: A nice description, back-story and a sound reason to be in the team and the obvious choice if you are willing to DIE or not. Only one character per person. That is it. If I don’t have enough people I will make the characters myself, so I don’t have much problem with that, but getting people to help makes it a bit more fun and may get me to have some extra entertainment and not get bored like it happens with most my works nowadays. On a side note: If I don’t like the character I will go Yautaja on your ass and cut your spine to make a trophy out of your skull, got it :3? Comments are welcome ^^.