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I have legitimately been sitting here for about 2 mins staring at OP's avatar and laughing, good story although I have no idea what's going, I should play X-Com someday, maybe it will make more sense then.

Still Night

The last buzzing words from Centrals briefing filtered out of the air inside the skyranger. The details were unimportant, at least to Shizune. She still didn't want to be here, but she had grudgingly acquiesced to the skilled lawyers XCOM employed for precisely that reason.

The wind whistled past. She wouldn't have said she was scared. Perhaps more like... resigned. She had signed a contract without really thinking about it. Why? It had sounded fun at the time. But the heavy weight of her rifle, the thick padding of her body armor... this wasn't what fun felt like. Shizune had her eyes closed. Part of her wanted to spend time looking for a way out, but the safer option would be to look for a way of not getting into these situations in the first place, especially not in the span of a few days.

The back door of the skyranger opened, and someone nudged her. She looked up into the eyes of a large Argentinian man, who had introduced himself as Felix Mareno. Felix tapped her helmet again. "We have to move." He said. His face gave Shizune the impression it was supposed to be soothing. In her silent world, words meant more than expression, however, and it was just another sub-artic chill down her sub-zero spine.

Felix clattered down the ramp of the skyranger. Shizune mimicked him; One of her new resolutions was to find someone better than her and copy-cat until she understood (Shizune had actually been using this as a learning tool for a while, but she had never admitted someone was better than she was. She still never used those words, in fact.).

The rain fell in dark sheets, lit by intermittent red and blue flashes from a pair of police vehicles, a small car parked in the middle of the road and a large truck flipped onto its side. The sky was overcast, though the wind was fairly light for such a heavy downpour. The designated Squad Leader, Delta One, immediately passed out orders.

"Felix, get to that van up there and get a visual on the other side of that truck. Brianne, get on his tail and then get a up-close visual. I'm headed left, and I'll provide overwatch. Hakamichi, you're on the statue."

"Rodger."
"Moving."
"Understood."

Shizune was the last one in position, even though she sprinted. Panting, she wondered how she thought she would survive.

"Central, you seeing this?" Asked Delta Three (Brianna, Shizune recalled) incredulously. A tiny screen showing Central popped onto Shizune's HUD and the accompanying text rolled out.

"That looks like the recon team. Whatever did this to him is still out there. Be on your guard, people." Shizune did another overview of the area, but she didn't see anything out of the ordinary, other than an odd machine still weakly spraying a greenish gas into the air. She hoped her helmet would protect her from poison, but doubted it.

"I got a lot of blood over here." Said Felix, his expression uneasy.

"Go check it out."

Shizune peeked around the corner of her statue, then immediately regretted doing so. There was a lot of blood. Quickly, she looked away, and upward, towards the sky. Her eye caught on a familiar shape.

A man, silhouetted against the dark night sky, obscured by sheets of rain, stood on the roof of a nearby building. She squinted against the running water on her visor, but the man vanished. But she could have sworn she recognized that blue hair, and the foxlike glint of white teeth in the darkness.

Dark omens.

"Delta Four! MOVE UP!" Somehow the helmet managed to convey shouting just right. It was probably the way the whole helmet vibrated like she was listening to a amplified jet engine. She ran up to the rest of her squad, slamming up against the nearest cover she could find. It took her a second to realize it was the alien device, still spraying the green gas. It was odd in texture, less like a smoke than a gel-like webbing. The back of her helmet was sticky where it had smacked against the source of the stuff, and tiny strands settled on her like silly string. She reeled back, instinct telling her to run from this stuff, but a giant hand grabbed her shoulder and slammed her against the device once more.

Felix glared at her, very close up. Shizune had just enough time to detect a spicy scent before he was gone again, up against the window, rifle at the ready, head poking around the corner.

The building was dark. Really dark. And then the purple text representing "other forces" was overlaid onto her screen.

"Hilfe..."

"What is he saying, Doctor?" Asked Central. Shizune wanted to say that she didn't care, it was bad, but she didn't have time to poke the message out with her tongue.

"He is saying... Help me." Replied Vahlen.