Interlude Two: Very Involved Eldritch Abomination
New York, January 1st, 1999
The city bustled with the activity of the new year, but not in the first alley off of 3rd Avenue. This alley, dusty and odorous, contained very few things: some trash cans, assorted litter, and an unconscious man wearing a suit with a pin bearing the emblem of the Knights Templar. The man began to stir. The only distinguishing feature the man possessed was the overwhelming air of normalcy surrounding him. He was average height, average weight, with averagely brown hair and brown eyes. Not overly handsome, but not ugly either. In one word, he was ordinary. He sat up from the position in which he lay and took stock. He knew something important was about to happen, but he was a little fuzzy on the details. A newspaper blew into the alley. The man grabbed the newspaper and began to read.
UFO Spotted In Kansas
Aliens Among Us?
Below the headline was a picture that looked like an alien from a bad 50s B-movie. For some reason, that alien looked strangely...attractive to the man. After some careful...consideration of the newspaper, he stuffed it into his suit pocket. As he did that, he noticed something else in his pocket. A sheaf of paper, with what looked like instructions on it. They read:
TEMPLAR PROTOCOL X-RAY//AGENT XANTALOS
In event of alien incursion onto Sol-3, locate the local anti-alien agency, designation X-COM. Seek recruitment. A suitable skillset has been provided via flash-training. Side effects may include temporary memory loss. If this is the case, enact protocol MEMENTO and locate designated memory recovery item. Once memory is recovered and admittance gained to X-COM, proceed to... assist, the organization.
DESTROY ONCE READ
The instructions were damaged slightly in the middle, but still legible. The man paused, and fumbled about himself for whatever his recovery item was. In his other pocket, he found a small lightning bolt. His memory began to return. He was Xantalos, and his duty called him. The aliens were here, and he needed...to drive them off? That felt...wrong, somehow, but those were his orders. He remembered other things, vague snippets of another life. He had been a god! He had fought in wars the world over! He had been...abducted by aliens? But no, that couldn't be. It must have been a side effect of the flash-training. He exited the alley into New York, and proceeded to hail a taxi. "X-COM New York office, please, and as fast as you can!"
"You got it, mister."
The cab driver wondered why the man wanted anything to do with those X-COM nuts, but it wasn't his place to ask questions. And besides, the man seemed so...ordinary. After a short trip, the cab emerged near X-COM's public building. Xantalos paid the cabbie, and the cab drove away.
41 Years Later
New Years Day, 2040
Xantalos looked out at the sky. The aliens had been gone for so long, and yet still he felt anxious. There was something...off about the way they just stopped after he personally blew the alien brain to hell with a blaster bomb. Then, he felt it. Something he hadn't felt in a long time. He felt...called. Then, he knew. The aliens were returning. And they meant to finish what they began forty years ago. He knew something had to be done. After all, he still had his orders. Although, X-COM wasn't around anymore, not really. The only thing left was an undersea salvage operation, recovering artifacts from the Alien War. That'll have to do, he thought, and set out for the Bermuda Triangle.
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Topic: Let's Play X-COM: Terror from the Deep-We're all gonna die! (Read 38773 times)