{April 5th, 2015, United States of America, 9:57am}
[...reports say a string of crimes in Canada began yesterday as a tractor-trailer and a Family Foods’s entire produce section were stolen by unknown assailants, with the only current evidence being… hoofprints? More at 11]
The Commander stared at the news for a moment, and noted that event into his notebook. “That is a bit suspicious… But why would the aliens need a truck?” He questioned as he tapped the armrest of his chair.
“SIR! Another UFO was spotted flying over Mexico! Raven 2 is already on route.” Bradford yelled as he ran into the Commander’s office. The Commander jumped to his feet and ran to the hologlobe.
“Ok, get Strike 1 and 2 ready. And have someone with rank swap in for Jerry. We need more experienced troops in the field right now.” The commander said as he looked at the images of the UFO. It was like the others they have shot down luckily, so he was certain Raven 2 could handle it. Now the biggest worry was if his soldiers could handle all the forces held within.
---
Lawrence grabbed a newly made “S.C.O.P.E.” from a supply box, and stared at it. It looked like a standard scope, and he couldn’t notice anything about it that would warrant it having been made with knowledge from the alien’s weapons.
“I trust Vahlen and all, but why the hell did we need days of research to make a scope?”
“You mean a S.C.O-”
“You know what I mean Bens” Lawrence said as he tossed Bens one too.
“I think it has a bunch of high tech aim assist things or something. I wasn’t able to hear what Vahlen said about it other than it could improve our aim, and that the Commander ordered about 8 of them for missions.” Bens said as he and Lawrence attached the new scopes to their sniper rifles. “Though it doesn’t help that these things need an external battery pack. Seriously, I had to give up a grenade just to clip it in a good spot.”
“Same here. This had better be worth it.” Lawrence said as another soldier entered the room and pulled a medikit from the cooler set up for them.
“Seriously got to wonder when these things were made, and why they aren’t widespread through the military branches” They said as they placed it where one would normally place a grenade.
“No idea. Hey, who are you anyway? I thought Jerry was going to go on this mission with us.” Bens asked as the man turned around.
“Oh! Hi, my name is Chris Hamer. I shall be taking over for Jerry Pyre until he is fully healed.” Chris said, as Bens smiled.
“Finally another Brit! I was worried that this whole base was filled with Americans!”
“... You're British?” Lawrence asked Bens, as this is the first time he heard anything close to a british accent from him.
“Of course! How could you not tell?”
“I just never heard you speak with an accent or use British slang.”
"Don't you remember? We were told during induction to be discreet about our home countries. Something about XCom being independent of any nation… But, I’ve been meaning to ask, where are you from?”
“...Seriously?”
“Hey, you couldn’t tell I’m British, so the fact I can’t tell where you call home isn’t that bad.”
“... guess that is true… I’m from Texas.” Lawrence said, as Bens snickered.
“Well, you definitely have the hat, but you don’t have the accent.”
“Are ya’ll serious? Ah’ve had this darn accent the entire time.” Lawrence said, keeping a straight face, though he was laughing on the inside. “Ah can’t believe that ah’m hear-in tis. Ah’m tayk-in a back bay howl little ya’ll listen”
“Wait no, please stop!” Bens said in mock terror as Chris snickered.
“What do ya’ll mean? Ah’ve allhas had there darn akcent”
“What is going on here? I heard the sound of an army of Texans.” Salanda said with a snicker as she stepped in quickly to grab her rocket launcher.
“Lawrence is activating his souther mode” Bens said as he tried to not laugh
“No Ah Diddly Darn Didn’t! Ah’ve allhays ben lik tis” Lawrence said, holding back a cough from his forced accent.
“Wow, that was so Southern that it made me manifest a cowboy hat out of thin air.” Salanda said, holding a cowboy hat, though Lawerence was missing his.
“Hey! That’s mine!” Lawrence said, snatching it back.
“Well, that was fun,” Chris said as they all grabbed their main weapons. He then noticed both Lawrence and Bens grabbed sniper rifles.
“Anyway, quit yah bellyaching we gotta mission to do.” Lawrence said as they headed for the hanger.
---
{April 5th, 2015, Mexico, 10:37 am}
Lawrence sat near the back door of the skyranger, tapping his foot on the ground. “This is taking longer than usual…” He mumbled as stretched out a bit.
“Strike 1 and Strike 3, you are approaching the crash site. We have word that the UFO crashed in a recently evacuated town, and that the aliens have begun to spread out to create a perimeter around it. Be advised that there seems to be a large disturbance in our video and radio feeds, so you might end up in the dark on this one.” Bradford said, as Bens sighed.
“Great, the aliens are getting ready for us, and we are going in blind. Who wants to bet on who ends up in the hospital and who ends up in the morgue? Morgue for me, I once broke my leg tripping on my shoelaces.”
“Morgue for Salanda. She would blow herself up to take down a sectoid if she couldn’t get out of the way in time.” Lawrence joked, as Salanada laughed as well.
“Fair. You… hmm, can’t tell if you would end up in the hospital thanks to Texan Luck-”
“Let me stop ya’ll there. There ain’t no darn thang called ‘Texan Luck’. The closest thang we got es an old movie called ‘The Lucky Texan’, ya hear.” Lawrence interrupted with a smile.
“Sorry to interrupt your family bonding time, but we are at the A.O. Get moving fast.” Firebrand said as the back doors of the Skyranger opened and the squad ran out, and saw Strike 2 getting out of their Skyranger as well.
Strike 2 was made up of two rookies that no one in the group had met before, as well as Naga John, and Everest Thakor. Lawrence didn’t know to much about Naga, other than the fact of her being the first Heavy trained by Xcom, and she had a friendly rivalry with Salanda, but Everest was known as the most… reckless Assault in Xcom, having taken time during a reload to stomp on a dead Sectoid’s skull.
“Alright,” Lawrence began, “me and Bens need to get up high. Salanda, you and Naga try to find the UFO, and be ready to tear a hole in it so we can ge-” Before he could finish, a bolt of plasma struck one of the rookies, and tore through his chest! “SHIT!” Lawrence yelled as the Strike teams ran for cover as more plasma fire came raining down on their positions.
“Enemy Contact here!” One of the rookies yelled into the coms, but all he got out of it was static.
“Already?” Bens asked as he readied his rifle. “I was expecting to be able to get to a different position before I got blown to hell!” He then took aim and fired upon a Thin Man on a roof, but missed his shot. “Damn it!”
Lawrence turned around and saw that there were two pairs of Thin men, each pair on a separate rooftop. Odd, he thought as he took aim, the aliens usually go in teams of three… The scope then activated and began to point to where the bullet was actually going to hit from where he was aiming. Guess Bens was right, he thought as he reaimed and took a shot, smiling a bit as a cloud of poison came from the corpse. The other Thin Man on that roof jumped to a lower level and ran into the building. He then turned in time to fire off a shot at another one, and take it out. “Alright, we need to get moving while they are repositioning!” He yelled to everyone else.
“Good shots Lawrence. Give those filthy Xeno scum some lead to the brain!” Everest yelled as he ran forwards, as the others except Bens and Lawrence followed behind him. The both of them ran to the right to find a better vantage point, heading to a convenience store to get onto its roof.
Instead, they found a group of Sectoids still in the middle of preparing an ambush. A few were dragging overturned tables into a firing arc facing the doorway whilst the rest seemed to be concentrating on cords of purple energy which connected them. The pair of snipers took aim, and fired their shots into the group, both landing shots on a Sectoid producing the cord. The two they were connected to dropped to the floor like a puppet with its strings cut and didn't get back up."
Before Lawrence could move to pursue them, he staggered back as a searing bolt of plasma slammed into his shoulder, followed a moment later by a wave of pain. Likely a lucky shot by one of the Thin Men who had escaped earlier. Through the blood pounding in his ears, he thought he heard Salanda screaming she had been hit as well. Bens fired at the attacker, but it ran inside the building again before the shot hit. “You ok Cowboy?” Bens asked as Lawrence held the wound.
“Fuck, ya, I’ll be alright. Hurts like hell th-” He winced as he tried to move his arm and failing, before hearing explosives going off. “Vahlen’s going to be pissed!” He joked as Chris came running.
“I heard you got hit. Salanda was too, but Mr. Haris has a medikit too.”
“Um…”
“The rookie that survived the ambush. She is getting patched up, and we have good news. They found the ship, and Naga is capturing the alien pilot right now!” Chris said as he used the new spray that Shen had concocted. Lawrence felt a cool go over his arm as the large chunk missing from his shoulder was repaired for the time being.
“Thanks Doc… But that seemed too fast… Be on the lookout though, there is still a Thin Man up in the building over there." As if to prove Lawrence right, a bolt of plasma flew over their heads, as Bens fired around where the shot came from. Another bolt struck Ben's in the back as the Sectoids began firing on the three of them as well, though the number of bolts was cut down quickly by a rifle shot from Chris.
"How the hell did we forget about the Sectoids?" Bens yelled as he tore off the smoldering armor. Lawrence got a brief glimpse of the unnatural green energy eating through the red hot armor plates before he returned his attention to the Sectoid that was left and taking it out.
"Ok, there is only one Thin Man left as far as I know. Now-" Lawrence didn't get a chance to finish his order before he heard a rocket being fired, and they all ran for cover. The explosion was above them enough that it was deafening instead of deadly, but it did still rain down a large amount of rubble, as well as some alien guts.
"THERE WE GO! PROBLEM SOLVED!" Naga yelled so that the three of them had a chance to hear, as Salanda sat on a piece of concrete, getting patched up.
"NEXT TIME, YELL…UM… WHAT DO PEOPLE YELL BEFORE EXPLOSIONS?"
"FIRE IN THE HOLE?"
"YA! YELL THAT NEXT TIME SO WE ARE READY!" Lawrence yelled as his hearing began returning to normal. "I at least want to know how I'm going to die so I can watch it happen."
"Ya, well, the bugger was behind a wall, so you four were going to have a half hour shoot out if I didn't fire my rocket." Naga said as she looked at the other buildings.
"Ya, and I'm glad you did that, but a warning is nice. Salanda does it, so that's what I'm used to on missions."
"Ya, my sis is nice like that."
“... Oh, I didn’t know you were related.” Lawrence said as Naga smirked, before nearly getting her head blown off by a bolt plasma. A Thin Man was fire on them again, but before anyone could react, Everest flew up a ladder and shot it in the chest.
“Filthy Xeno scum” He said. As he climbed back down to the street the communications crackled back into life, whatever was jamming them likely crushed by the now collapsing building.
“This is Bradford. We're not detecting further heat signatures in the AO. Strike One, Strike Three, report."
"Strike one, Lawrence. Area clear. Four injured, one kia." Lawrence responded, grimacing at the less than ideal news.
"Roger that. Firebrand and Stormbolt are inbound to bring you all back to base.”
“That is great. I can’t wait to get back to base and rest. I think my arm is going to need surgery once the medikit wears off.” Lawrence said.
“Ya… but we are in Mexico… Who wants some authentic Mexican food while we are here? We can stop by a drive through or something.” Bens said with a smile, as Everest shrugs.
“Eh, why not. That is, if we can get Stormbolt to stop.”
“Same here, except for Firebrand” Salanda said with a laugh as they headed back to the Skyrangers.
---{April 5th, 2015, Mexico, 12:39 pm}
[In more recent news, two advanced aircraft were spotted near a fast food place in Mexico called “El Pollo Pepe”. Locals said they looked blocky and had a pair of fan like turbines in each wing, as well as having a red circle and line over a stock alien image. 7 individuals exited the vehicles and ordered 9 meals. They paid in American dollars, and returned to the vehicles, which then took off. There have been no more sightings of the vehicles after this incident.]
The Commander turned off the news and took a deep breath. He then groaned in anger as he put his head in his hands. “This is a SECRET ORGANIZATION PEOPLE!” He yelled.
Ah, yes, this is Discord Disharmonic Chacos here. After the author realized how bad military punishments are, he realized his original ideas couldn't work with this joke, so it is essentual been written out, though not deleted, for your viewing pleasure.