Jump 388: XCOM 2

Jump #388: XCOM 2
>The Devil: Lust for and obsession with money and power.
>Age: 49
>Location: Europe
>Identity: Drop-In
>Drawbacks: (0) Season 2
All around me are familiar faces.
>Instinctual Administration (900, Drop-In)
Oh, this is going to be so helpful with CruxCorp down the line...
>Oversight (800, Drop-In)
Okay, now this is just cool. Cutaway view of everything I might own for diagrams, it's nifty.
>Inconspicuous (600)
So wait. This is literally the 'you can disguise yourself with a fake moustache and glasses' perk? Yes please.
>Advanced Materials (400)
Huh, this is neat. If I want to mix strange things from other universes, at least I'll have an idea as to the effect instead of just having to guess before I do it. That's actually been the cause of many a singed eyebrow.
>Peak ADVENT Technology (200)
So 20th century tech isn't enough, now I've got the bulk of the aliens' tech, too. Well, the occupation government, at least. Still useful, though. No gene modding though? That's okay, because that's not how gene modding works in any other reality. Except maybe Naruto.
>Field Commander (0)
So Bradford will sit down and shut up while I run the show. Good, he's not very good at this.

At the start of the jump, something seems to itch at the edge of my senses. I'm back in the same role, playing commander, but I feel detached. It feels like I am literally PLAYING commander, and this isn't quite right. Everyone is two dimensional. And so I stretch my senses outward -

My senses don't stretch outward in my role as commander, which raises a red flag. So I stop what I'm doing, heedless of the screams of my soldiers as they are left to their own devices, and I center myself before probing with my senses again. And... the soldiers are real enough, but not quite... right. I probe myself with my senses, and it feels like a virtuality. Data. And since I really don't have the patience for this, I sever the connection and open my eyes.

A life support suit, but designed to keep a man bound. But despite being where I am, I am no mere mortal.

As a firefight begins outside of the building I'm in, said building goes dark. Then the block goes dark. Then the city goes dark... and then every city goes dark. Traditional weaponry works just fine, but anything that requires advanced technology - laser and plasma weaponry, for example - does not. The battle becomes a rout, the Advent forces trying and failing to hold off the humans. And then the xenos collapse like puppets with cut strings.

When Bradford enters, I've broken out of the test tube and am tearing the stasis suit from my emaciated body, and I shoot him a crooked smile. He offers a terse, "Commander," to me, his weapon held at a low ready. I raise a hand in a weak wave, before collapsing. He hustles me away.

The lights never come back on worldwide. The Advent government panics, and without their puppets psionically connected, they're useless. To keep the peace, Advent starts using sectoids again, this time as commanders to handle their puppets. But it's a funny thing, how technology failing utterly can cause people to feel unrest; and when the unrest is answered with oppression, and Advent can't push propaganda easily, people push back and start to rebel.

When the lights come back on, every screen that can show images worldwide begins showing interesting things. Footage from inside the facilities showing atrocities. Humans being experimented on. Advent outright murdering those who lived outside the cities. Files that should have never seen the light of day. If Advent were having problems with protests and rebels before, this throws everything into full blown rebellion.

Into that mix comes XCOM, who are now outfitted with the best human technology that money can't buy. No, not robots or plasma guns, not W.A.R. suits and hellweave. Carapace armor, bolt rifles, drop pods. XCOM had spent the last six weeks being drilled to deal with new equipment that was foreign to them, but more intuitive than any xeno wargear, because it had been designed by human hands for use by mankind to defeat its enemies. Sure, in the end the bolters ran dry and had to be loaded with shotgun slugs instead, but by that point Advent had been largely defeated anyway, torn down so that men might rule themselves and destroy their oppressors.

The Avatar project was a bust, all of the technology scrambled and failed, suppressed by the same being that stepped between worlds to erase the Ethereals from existence. A being who was able to seize control of all technology worldwide, to help return the planet to its rightful owners before he travelled onward. The same one who gave XCOM the tools to fight the aliens on their own terms, and to take the fight to the stars if need be.

And yes, I gave them synthetic elerium again, along with the rest of the research that had been done the first time around. It's a harsh universe out there - they need the tools to be able to fight whatever might lurk in the black.