A dire Mistake

calm before the storm

Well, the evac of Coda is underway, something XCOM is unfortunately well-versed in. 

Now then, unto the breach

The team was doing their best to help the villagers of Coda get their things together. Every now and then a villager would try to bring more things than they needed, only for the attempt to be shot down by the veteran XCOM team. The villagers would get angry, and the operatives could only off their sympathy, as they knew the consequences of carrying too much. Out of nowhere, the sound of wood breaking was heard. Evidently, a family had slipped stuff by, and had broken the wagon's axle doing so. The horse that was to pull it was writhing on the ground while a little girl was lying hurt nearby. Haver was quick to run over and help, his gremlin already scanning her.

"You're a healer?" A female voice asked. It originated from a young girl with blue hair and green eyes. She wore robes and held a staff, almost as if she was some sort of mage. This was Lelei La Lalena, an apprentice mage. Suddenly the horse that was on the ground earlier reared up, about to crush the bluenette. 'This... is how I die?' She mentally asked, everything seemingly moving in slow motion. But instead of pain, Lelei heard a loud bang, and the horse fell dead, a hole the size of a fist in its head. Turning around, she saw Luca with Darkclaw in his hand, before returning it to its holster.

Not long after that, the village was ready to leave, escorted by XCOM, some of the children sitting in the APC. Jarik then put a hand to the comms unit in his ear. "Shen, I want Raptor squad in the air. Their target is a literal, fire breathing dragon." He ordered. And to her credit, the chief engineer was shocked for a few seconds before chalking it up as the fantasy world they were on being a fantasy world. Lily went over to the PA system that was in the large tent that was her temporary workshop. "Raptor squadron get in your birds, your going dragon hunting." She said. Soon enough, Shen heard the sound of jet engines igniting. Since earth was freed, XCOM had got much more funding, more then what they knew what to do with. So they formed branches. They had a navy, an artillery division, and of course an air force. These duties fell to the Skirmishers, as the ADVENT troopers were made to be jacks of all trades.

They used the F-45 velociraptors, a VTOL descendant of the F-22 raptor. With the use of Elerium, the amount of space a fuel tank needed was greatly reduced, allowing for more ammo, electronics, and other things. As for a physical description, it was similar to its predecessor, only that the wings were front-facing and its air intake vents were somewhat larger. Regardless, the three plane squad took off, quickly breaking the sound barrier.

Back with the convoy, they had begun to cross a large grassy plain. Luca was on top of the APC, looking through the scope of the Darklance when he saw something. "Heads up, an abnormally large flock of... I want to say ravens to our twelve." He said over the radio with a slight French accent. Everyone looked to see what Luca was talking about, and there was indeed a large flock of black birds. And once they crested a small hill, they saw someone sitting in the center of the flock. A small girl in a black and red dress with long black hair and red eyes with a quite frankly disturbing smile. Beside her sat a massive halberd. "Stop." Jarik ordered. The convoy stopped, but much to the commander's surprise, a bunch of kids jumped out of their carts as well as the APC and ran to the girl without a care in the world, shouting "priestess" as they went.

With the gothic-themed girl, she smiled warmly at the children. No matter how many years pass, Rory always enjoys interacting with kids, their simple views of the world being a breath of fresh air from all of the praise that comes with being an apostle of Emory. Though she was suspicious of the weird horseless carriage that was leading the line of normal wagons. But she was blessed by the god of death, there was little doubt in her mind that she could take care of these strange people. "Who are these people? Are they forcing you out of your homes?" She asked one child, a boy with orange hair and steel grey eyes. He shook his head, the smile never leaving his face. "No, they're helping us escape the fire dragon. Their horseless carriage is very comfortable!" He explained. Rory grimaced. The legendary beast was part of the god of the earth Hardy's latest plan to make her his bride, despite Rory not wanting anything to do with the perverted troglodyte of a god.

Shaking her head to clear it of the thought, Rory looked at the people in their weird carriage, and her eyes widened somewhat in shock. Each and every one of them had a large amount of death rolling off of them, as if they all single-handedly slaughtered armies. Her eyes went to one that was dismounting the walled roof of the carriage, and felt a wave of euphoria hit her. The man reeked of death, more than the others. She watched him open a door on the front side of the carriage, and sit down after the one that was previously sitting there took his place on the roof of the carriage. "Comfortable you say?" She said, gaining a smile as she stood up. She began to walk towards the convoy.

Jarik got out of the APC and walked in front of it. "Who are you?" he asked. Rory met his gaze with her ever-present confident smirk, and Jarik could feel the age that radiated from the gothic girl. "Rory Mercury, apostle of Emory, goddess of death." She said simply before walking past him. Jarik sat there for a moment, his mind processing the fact that he had just encountered what was essentially a demigod. This also suggested that gods exist here, and demons in theory.

"que se passe-t-il?!"

'Oh thank god, a distraction from my latest existential crisis.' The commander thought, turning to see whatever idiotic situation his operatives had gotten themselves into this time. Once he entered the APC, he was treated to the sight of Rory's halberd laid carefully next to the elf girl, while the apostle herself was sitting in Luca's lap, said Frenchman spewing curses in his native language. The rest of the squad was laughing at the marksman's expense. "I didn't realize you were a lolicon, Luca!" David said, causing the laughter to intensify.

"Hé, va te faire foutre!" Luca snapped, sounding rather flustered. He turned to the girl in his lap, who looked rather content there. "Can you please get off of me?" He asked Rory. Said apostle held her finger to her chin as if considering it before responding. "No, I don't think I will." she shurgged, then leaned into Luca and closed her eyes.

Luca let out a resigned sigh. "Merde" was all he said, knowing damn well that he was never going to live this down.

ANNND DONE! God, I really procrastinated on wrapping this up for a while, why do I do this to myself. And on top of that, it is 2:11 at the time of writing this AN, I need professional help. Anyway, I wanted to get to the dragon by now, but I couldn't get that far, so you all will just have to wait~.

Goodbye, friends.