Chasing Dragons

That's what the job in the middle of solving research issues and trying to balance funding between better coverage and better equipment had become. Countries already on the brink of panic were pushed harder than ever by the aliens and XCOM had to rush to stop the shops. The next stop would be in Cape Town, South Africa.

[SKYRANGER CABIN TRANSCRIPTION]

Proxy: All right, we are nearing a fairly large grocery store. Pilot, drop us by southeast of that, it looks like a decent spot with some good cover to start from. Let's make this swift.

Harmony Lad: Looks like there are higher locations for sniper fire as well. Hope they don't get any.

[TRANSCRIPTION ENDS]

The team nears the grocery store and it looks empty. Harmony Lad hauls himself on top of a delivery truck and sets up a camp in there. Proxy continues north on the street and takes cover behind a sedan. Then he hears some crashing and stomping from inside the grocery store and he deemed he's hearing voices; the store was just observed by five soldiers from different angles that there is not even a single cockroach moving inside. Somehow two of the those 250-kilogram mutons the squad had encountered already earlier had managed to hide there well enough and long enough to lure the squad too close. They took immediate positions along the shelves and Proxy was all exposed on the street. Behind a car, yes, but absolutely flanked from the supposedly empty store. Svensson and Ironside rushed onto the grocery store windows and opened furious laser fire. Ironside turned his scatter laser in the face of the nearest muton, which let out a terrifying and intimidating roar of pain, while getting rendered into an unidentifiable hulk of burning and searing flesh and formidable killing machine driven by unearthly rage by Ironside's scatter laser. It stood its ground. Svensson missed with his scatter laser from a short range. Proxy was readying his heavy laser, but it took terribly long time to get into full operation.

[TACTICAL COMMS TRANSCRIPTION]

Harmony Lad: Targets! I need targets!

Ironside: Um, one right in front of me, staring at me in the eye.

Harmony Lad: Can't get a visual from here, hang on I'll get into a better posit--

Sureshot: Popping smoke!

Proxy: AAAA--

[TRANSCRIPTION ENDS]

The mutons were much more intelligent than they looked. Sureshot's smoke screened both Ironside and Svensson and this made the mutons turn their attention to Proxy in an instant. Both hit him squarely. First hit rendered his armor into a molten pulp and the second one turned the team's absolute leader and a true survivor into a casualty.

Sureshot managed to finish the nearest muton by the window and something snapped in Ironside's head. He jumped through the window and hurled himself in motion, beyond point of caring. The only image he was seeing on his eyes was the other muton.

[TACTICAL COMMS TRANSCRIPTION]

Ironside: YOU. UGLY. FATTY.

[TRANSCRIPTION ENDS]

The other muton was turned into nothingness in an instant, from point-blank range. It did not bring any of Proxy back, but at least the threat was neutralized for now.

The rest of the mission was executed in a silence that could be heard echoing in itself. The team sweeped through the area in silence, but it looked like they were reading each others' minds and operating only on the necessary hand signals. Nobody spoke a single word even when they boarded the Skyranger again and nobody at the Central spoke a word either to congratulate the squad on a successful mission that should secure South Africa for a while. The price had been already paid in full.