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Badlands Refugee Camp

Badlands National Park, North America

2036 AD (21 After Unification)

Aiden Young yawned as he watched the sun set over the Badlands of South Dakota, assault rifle laid across his lap. The view was beautiful, as was the usual, and the young human glanced down to check the watch on his arm to see when the next watch would take over. Sighing, he slumped back in his small watchtower, scanning the horizon for any Advent aircraft.

The refugee was about to nod off when he spotted an aircraft coming in over the horizon. "Oh shit!" he hissed, standing up quickly, grabbing the binoculars from his side and raising them up. Looking through them, he quickly caught sight of the aircraft and sighed in relief, seeing the now familiar "X" emblem painted on the side.

"Watch-1 to BRC Control, Watch-1 to BRC Control, do you read over?" Aiden asked into his shoulder radio, still looking through the optics at the approaching aircraft.

"Watch-1, this is BRC Control, go ahead over."

Aiden smiled. "BRC Control, Avenger is coming in, bearing one-six-five, at five-fifty," he said. "Can you confirm, over?"

There was a pause before the Radar operator spoke again. "Watch-1, we confirm Avenger signature. Tasking Watches Two though Six with overwatch, go ahead and come back in, Sherry should be there anyway, over." Aiden peeked out of his hide to see his replacement walking up the hill.

"Yeah, I see her," he said, lowered the binoculars. "This is Young, over and out." Clicking off his radio, Aiden took the time to roll his shoulders, releasing some of the tension before heading to meet his replacement. "Evening Sherry," he said, raising a hand to greet her.

The brunette German chuckled. "Ja, sehr guten nacht," she said to him, smiling. "Going back to camp?" Aiden chuckled warmly.

"Yeah, you know it!" he told her. "That's chair's getting pretty damned painful to sit in, I think the plastics about to fall apart completely on us sometime soon." Sherry sighed.

"Vell, maybe we get a new shipment of chairs from the search teams?" she said, shrugging. Aiden sighed.

"Yeah, sure," he said. "Anyway, good luck staying awake tonight. I'll remind Dale to send you some coffee later."

"Ah, und that is vhy you are my favorite rookie," Sherry stated, dragging Aiden into a bear hug before sending him on his way. "Now go, eat up! You need more meat on those bones!"

"Then I'd look like old man Volkov!" Aiden declared, laughing as he began his trek back to camp. Silently, the refugee made his way back to came, the clear night sky providing more than enough light to see the path home. About half an hour later, he made it back to the camp, where he was happily assaulted by the smell of good cooking. Making his way to the mess tent, Aiden waltzed over to the foodline and peeked at the pot. "Hey Cookie, what's in the pot this time?" he asked, eyeing the stew warily. Experience had taught him early on to ALWAYS ask before eating any stew that the camp's cook made, because that was one week of pure, anus destroying hell that NOBODY wanted to go through again.

Turning around, the grizzled old man looked at Aiden with a crooked smile, showing off his disturbingly yellow teeth. "Ah, nothin' but one day ol' coyote!" Cookie exclaimed. "Mixed in wit' an extra servin' o' lard!" Aiden stood still as he looked at Cookie.

"Cookie, do we have any crackers left?"

Cookie nodded. "Yep! Gotta whole sleeve ri' here just in case! How many, two, three?" Aiden slowly scooped a bowl out for himself, eying the chunks of meat in the stew.

"Umm, four will be good if you don't mind," he said, pulling a spoon out from one of his pockets. The cook took four of the near divine salted crackers out of the plastic sleeve and handed them to Aiden, who quickly ran off with a quick cry of "Thanks Cookie!"

Finding a spot outside to eat, Aiden sat on a boulder and quickly crumbled the crackers onto the soup before stirring. Taking an experimental bite, he looked down at the soup in surprise. "Huh. Well, it is only a day old," he muttered to himself. "Better than three day old coyote." He very quickly ate the meal with gusto, finishing off the bowl in minutes. Patting his stomach, the young soldier brought the bowl back to the tent to drop it off before heading back to his tent for the night.

However, the moment he stepped into the 'residential' area of camp, Aiden noticed the crowd of people gathered around something, pointing at it angrily. Curiosity peaked, Aiden wandered over to the crowd and made his way through. Upon entering the inner ring of the group, he looked down and gasped.

There on the ground, with four very angry XCOM soldiers aiming at it, was a Viper.

And she was naked.

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Samelia was terrified. The Viper had been on her way to work when the terrorists had struck, killing five of the Administration soldiers in seconds, and critically wounding another Viper Sergeant before going to plant explosives on a nearby statue of an Elder.

Samelia had tried to hide, but the Viper Sergeant had dragged her out of her spot, shoved a human gun into her hands, and ordered her to kill the terrorists. Needless to say, the sergeant was quickly killed, and Samelia had thrown the gun away, trying to run away again.

She hadn't noticed the human drone flying above her.

She did notice when 1.21 megawatts of electricity coursed through her, every muscle in her body twisting into spasms before falling unconscious.

The next time she woke up, she was in a cell of some kind, with one massive, clear wall in front of her. Sluggishly, the Viper slithered into an upright position, shaking herself awake.

"Hello?" she asked hesitantly. "Where am I?" Looking through the windowed wall, she saw a human scientist look at a data-pad dispassionately before glancing up coldly at her.

"Doctor Vahlen, the subject is awake," he said, holding what looked like a primitive communicator in his hand. Samelia looked at him confused just as another human walked in. This one... this one made Samelia's blood run colder than it already was.

The female scientist strode towards her cell calmly, and with a straight back. Her brown hair was streaked heavily with silver, and the way she looked at Samelia....

It utterly terrified the Viper to her core.

So when the giant probes extended from the wall, the alien very quickly began pounding on the wall in panic. "Please, let me out!" she hissed in terror. "I'm not a soldier, I'm just a scientist! Please, I don't want to die! PLEASE!"

"Doctor Miles, hold back on the probes for a moment," the female said to the other scientist. Samelia looked at the probes, and then back at the scientists.

"Please, I'll do anything, just don't kill me, please!" Samelia begged, her fists pounding the glass uselessly. The human female looked at her coldly before speaking again.

"Miles, go to the Commander and report this," Vahlen said. "And I want full proof of authorization. I want to know what he has in store for this thing."

Which was how she ended up here, on cold, hard dirt, with a crowd of shoddily dressed, and angry humans shouting and pointing at her. The soldiers that had captured her had brutally ripped off her vestments, exposing her to elements, and the Viper did the best she could to cover herself up in shame as she all but flattened herself against the ground. Samelia would have cried, had she the biology to do so when a human jostled their way into full view of her. Glancing up, she hissed piteously, hoping for a miracle.

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*So, I'm an avid fan of XCOM, and became EXTREMELY excited when they announced XCOM 2 last June. And when I saw the Viper, I was grinning like an idiot because I remembered the Snakemen from the 1994 game! *

Obviously, this may very well head into severe AU territory, so be warned. Also, as to why Samelia isn't on a rampaging death spree, well, seriously, when was the last time a scientist with no training was sent into a war to fight? Because I remember in the flavor text for Snakemen in the original game that they were actually mercenaries. Also, Firaxis DID state that some aliens were recruitable, and mentioned the Vipers. So there.

So, headcanon says, well, if they're guns for hire, maybe they can be something else too. Inspired in part by some EXCELLENT fan art of Vipers, which are provided in the following links below. Anyhow, this is just a little idea I had, just wanted to know if people want me to go ahead with this.