X-COM: Tales from City 31 [LazyKitsune]

[Ze Blitzkrieg]

Name: Myo Soo-Jung / Susan Myo
Nickname: Gospel
Age: 19
Gender: Female
Appearance:

Spoiler (click to show/hide):

03f6a1313855f09e71492c683391b26c.jpg

Background:

Spoiler (click to show/hide):

Its not common knowledge that hacktivist and cyber terrorist group known as "Gospel" was originally just one teenage girl who had found herself dragged down a rabbit hole of decrypted files and altered recordings. Soo-Jung had quite the comfortable upbringing, all things considered. Her father wasn't a bad man, but he wasn't an incredibly brave one either and at the end of the day was deeply pragmatic. When the war ended and the aliens began installing a puppet government to manage Earth, Myo Ji-Hoon was one of many to cooperate with the newly formed ADVENT. His experience with I.T. and data logistics helped with the integration of alien technologies within human infrastructures and the creation of various systems that would keep a highly accurate census of the human population and monitor what information was available to them. Myo Ji-Hoon may not have been involved in any of the gene camps or military actions performed during the occupation, but he contributed a great deal to the information war, helping ADVENT paint the picture of being a peaceful human government that was willingly working alongside the benevolent Elders.

He did not do this without reservation, but his concern for his family's wellbeing outweighed any misgivings he had about working with the invaders. A family which grew with the birth of Soo-Jung during the occupation. Soo-Jung never knew a world without aliens, and for many years she believed the lies her father had helped create. Though much like her father she had an aptitude for technology and for information. A brilliant mind for pattern recognition and access to resources that helped her father's work meant it was only a matter of time before she started to see the cracks in the façade Advent had created.

Much as her father's breakthroughs would help ADVENT's control, Soo-Jung's would one day help the Resistance turn the tide. Though at first they mainly came about in order to satisfy her own curiosity. She first learned how ADVENT kept track of everyone's digital comings and goings so as to find avenues to work around it, developing new forms of traceless searches through reverse engineering the very systems her father helped put in place. As she discovered more and more - messages and recordings from Resistance camps that ADVENT tried to keep buried, information about what the world was really like outside of ADVENT's controlled cities, and dark implications about the real purposes of the gene clinics - she found herself burdened by this knowledge. The very moral values that Ji-Hoon had instilled in her taught her that deception on such a scale was deeply wrong. And that someone, somehow, needed to make this public.

Soo-Jung feigned a fascination with archaic prewar tech and leaned in on the positive relationship she had with her father to convince him to pull a few strings to help her with her personal pet project - something she presented as being far more mundane and harmless than what she was really doing. With these outdated parts, free of even the most basic retrofitting of Elder technology, she constructed a computer of her own design that she would use to launch her secret project. Gospel. A network of hackers and whistle blowers from across the globe... that were all secretly the same 14 year old girl operating out of her parents' basement. Over time, other individuals would use the Gospel handle to leak more information, so in a way a genuine network had been made - with the rather significant caveat that no members of Gospel had any way to directly communicate with each other. That is until Soo-Jung found her way into a Resistance frequency and made contact.

She withheld the details of her age and family, but began leaking information directly to the Resistance. What she didn't know was that ADVENT had found out about her activities, and contacted her father about them. Many of her more recent breakthroughs, and even her means of communicating freely with the Resistance, we provided to her surreptitiously in order to use her as a way to gain intel on the Resistance. Ji-Hoon hated lying to his daughter even more than lying to the human population of Earth, but he felt it was the only way to stop them from taking her away to somewhere where he would never hear from her again. That was until he did a little snooping of his own and confirmed his fears that not only would his daughter be taken from him once this was over no matter what, but his entire family would be scheduled for mandatory gene therapy in a matter of months, around the same time as the estimated conclusion of something referred to as the Avatar Project.

Ji-Hoon established his own link with the Resistance, spring boarding off of his daughter's work to establish connection of his own. He informed them of his identity, what he had done for ADVENT and that he was willing to tell them everything he knew if and when they extracted him out of the city. He gave them a time and a location and hoped it would be enough. This did not go beyond ADVENT's notice, although that was part of Ji-Hoon's plan. When the Resistance came to extract him, he instead used himself as a distraction to draw ADVENT forces away, leaving the Resistance with only his daughter to extract in his place.

Despite her investigations, Soo-Jung ultimately knew a fraction of what her father was aware of, yet she was adamant about making herself useful to the Resistance. No outside the closely watched confines of an ADVENT city, she had more freedom in how she operated and was able to construct much more successful means of hacking into ADVENT networks and pulling information before cutting the connection before it could be traced. She worked on exposing ADVENT's lies worldwide and improving the Resistance's own communications network and digital security. Despite her age, she even took part in several field operations. While she wasn't participating in person, she was relieved to find out that eventually her father was recovered from an ADVENT facility - even if his compliance with ADVENT had earned him a prison sentence once the war was over.

In the years that passed, Soo-Jung found her family's legacy had been marred, despite her father's final actions. Those that knew her only for who she was related to were distrustful of her and would make comments about the alien sympathiser - even if many of them were living happily in ADVENT cities themselves in the months leading up to liberation. Perhaps to spite them, or to simply be a better person herself, Soo-Jung actually grew to be a strong believer that humans and aliens genuinely could coexist. Just as long as neither side was controlling the narrative as heavily as before. Because of this, her general desire to do good, her need to redeem her family's legacy and because of the connections she made while working with the Resistance, she found herself recommended for a position with the Reclamation Agency, despite at this point only being 19.

It would be a very different position from what she was used to. Her skills were still considered a good match - she could provide onsite surveillance information, pull up a comprehensive profile on any suspect her team would encounter, and it was always handy to have someone that could hack into any electronic equipment nearby. But she was used to working from behind the scenes, uncovering the truth that those in power were hiding. Though maybe this change of pace was what was needed. To step into the light herself and be the honest face the world needed. After some deliberation, she decided she actually quite liked the idea and accepted the position as the Reclamation Agency's latest squad recruit.

Perks:
Combat Scanners: Using her Gremlin, Gospel can scan a room to identify and mark all targets present, providing a bonus to her team's attacks against them and helping reveal hidden enemies.
Expert Hacker: With or without her Gremlin, Gospel can hack into a wide array of electronical equipment and even on occasion reprogram robotic enemies.
Hacker Network: Some of Gospel's old network is still kicking around, and new hackers join their fold regularly. While not their leader by any means, Gospel knows how to issue requests that get results fast. If she needs information dug up that is beyond her skills of acquiring, she can make a request to her network. One of the other hackers in her network will provide the information... and occasionally she might have to do something in return.
Flying Taser: Gospel can use her Gremlin to perform a shock attack that can potentially stun enemies or disrupt the systems of machines.

Flaws:
Xenophilic: Gospel wants to believe that humans and the aliens left on Earth can all coexist peacefully. Her desire to see this brighter future, and to fight against the bigots that have branded her and her whole family as alien sympathisers, is not a flaw in itself, however it does create some blind spots for her. She's more likely to trust an alien that's presenting itself as non-hostile to her, and conversely is more likely to be irritated into hot-headed action by a human spouting anti-alien rhetoric.
Favour For A Favour: When utilising benefits she's gained from her old hacker network, Gospel may sometimes have to perform a task in return. With new Hackers that she doesn't know as well getting involved as time goes on, she's less and less certain of what kind of favours this might be. Originally this might be providing an information source or helping uncover something, but any request could theoretically be made and refusing to comply could hinder her ability to rely on her network.
Just A Little Girl: Gospel's youth is evident. Despite having participated in a handful of field operations when she was younger still, respect is hard to come by when you look far too young for the job you're doing. She'll have a harder time earning the respect of some of her squad mates and superior officers, or keeping rowdy civilians inline on her own.

Turn Ons: Sub/dom play, rape, gangbang, drugged / drunk sex, pheromones, mind control, memory alteration, reality perception alteration, sex for payment, workplace harassment/groping, power imbalance, humiliation, blackmail, bestiality, cheating, cuckolding, size difference, fucked silly, hand holding.
Turn Offs: Gore, vore, pedo, scat, insects and arachnids

The hum of wheels on highway serves as your only real companion as the transport hurdles towards City 31 and your future with the Reclamation Agency; unless you count the Gremlin you were assigned as part of your kit as a 'companion'. You've spent the last five years of your life making the unknown your business, trafficking in intelligence that had, at least as far as you were concerned, a pivotal role in bringing down ADVENT and the schemes of the Elders. Compared to that, it was almost silly to consider what awaited you nerve-wracking. But that was always the risk with a shift in dichotomy. You would be taking on a new role, the first hands on role since your time with the Resistance, and making acquaintances of a whole new host of team members; many of whom were not liable to be humans. You had long believed that the future of the Earth was one of peace coexistence, but now you would be made to put those beliefs into practice, on a very personal scale. And for however confident you were in your ideals, that humanity could reach across the aisle and make amends with the species who had been used as weapons against it in the not so distant past, there was always the risk that those very same species, those aliens who were left to their fates by their shadowy overlords, would not be half-so willing to take the metaphorical hand. You could only hope to change their minds.

Your transport begins to slow significantly as highway changes to thoroughfare changes to arterial street. It's hard to say where exactly in City 31 you're going, as you've never had the opportunity to live there, for however much as you've memorized its broad layout during your research. It stands to reason that the Reclamation Agency would be somewhat tight-lipped about the locale of this new squad of theirs, who would for all intents and purposes serve as the scalpel used to excise dissidents and criminals from the carefully woven fabric of Earth's future. Long gone were the days of dropping hammers on the lingering ADVENT elements on the planet. In the pursuit of a more permanent peace, caution and subtlety were the keywords. You kept that in mind as you peered through the slits along the transport's side and watched as the vehicle turned down a nondescript alleyway in what looked to be an industrial part of town and pulled through the automated gate at a fenced in warehouse complex. The bay doors were quick to open in welcome, and the fading light of evening was replaced with the bright lights within.

When the transport came to a stop inside, the green light above its loading door came on, and it took opened with a mechanical hiss. It hadn't exactly been a comfortable trip, stuffed into the back with the equipment and supplies for this new venture as you were, but it was certainly efficient. As you move to stretch your legs after the hours long drive and make for the doorway, you catch sight of a silhouette beneath the bright lights just near the door, your eyes working to make them out as they adjust to your new surroundings.

"Hah! Another girl! I was starting to think this was going to be a real sausage fest."

The way each S is enunciated with a subtle, inhuman hissing hits just as you realize the figure awaiting you at the end of the transport isn't a human one. It might have seemed like so, from a distance, given the bottom of the transport's bumped cuts her off at about waist-level, leaving an almost humanoid torso, but the way the neck extends far above, and then fans out into a full, lustrous hood of scales around a serpentine face reveals the source of the voice to be a Viper.

"That's what you soft-skins have, don't you? Little pink sausages dangling between your legs? I suppose I could always ask Gator whether or not he's got one, but I think he might end up having a whole roll! Heheheh!"

"Can it, Duchess."

While the Viper's mouth unhinges to allow her to giggle at her own little observation, another voice cuts in to interrupt. By that time, you've just about disembarked the transport, and you can clearly see the figure that comes into view is that of a human. An older gentleman, probably about your dad's age if you had to estimate, but definitely more gruff than he had ever been. Aside from the obvious scarring across his face, the soft click of his prosthetic arm as he stuffs the hand into his pocket tells you this guy is probably a veteran of some kind, probably from the Resistance before it got folded into X-COM during the final years of the war. Unlike the alien accompanying him, he doesn't look like the joking type.

"You're... what was it... Gospel, correct?" The man's good eye flickers to a data-pad held in his good arm, and then falls on you with all the sharpness of a drill instructor, as if inspecting you to see exactly what he's working with. It's pretty hard to tell whether or not he likes what he sees, the guy being such a stone waller, but at least he doesn't scoff or dismiss you out of hand, which is better than some of the old grizzled types you've met since joining up, "Welcome to Chimera Squad, City 31's best hope at keeping everything together."

---

Duchess

Spoiler (click to show/hide):

Older Man

Spoiler (click to show/hide):

[Lazy Kitsune]

Gospel Appearance Reupload

Spoiler (click to show/hide):

---

There might be a few familiar faces to be seen - a lot of the Reclamation Agency's field teams were composed of ex-resistance operatives - but it was going to be a very different experience working for them than for the resistance. For one thing, I had a uniform now. Which was not really how the Resistance worked. At least, not the part of the Resistance I worked with. That was much more ragtag, where what you can get your hands on. This may seem like a small detail, but it does a pretty good job symbolising the wider issue. I was now working for the greater authority. The very thing I had built my reputation and skillset fighting. Sure, Reclamation weren't ADVENT, but they also weren't the Resistance. Not anymore. And I doubt I'd be the only one that feels a little disorientated by the shift from upsetting to status quo to upholding it.

Although that was the point. To not be the Resistance. The Resistance fought aliens when all the aliens were being brainwashed to do the bidding of the Elders. Now the Elders are gone, but all those aliens are still here and with nowhere to really go. We need to not be the people they were fighting against, but people that maybe they can feel comfortable fighting alongside, should the Elders or something else show up again. There were a lot of bridges that needed tending to. Bridges that were burnt long before anyone even considered that they could be built in the first place. And while doing it all I had to sort out where I was going to fit into all this. Will I actually have a role to play in making City 31 the kind of harmonious place I know it can be, or am I going to be stuck forever trying to escape my father's shadow.

I try to push such melancholic and... quite frankly, egotistically masturbatory thoughts out of my head. I'm here to do a job, not wax poetically about how my daddy issues could shape the future of all the species on Earth. Still, I had little other than my thoughts to accompany me with on this drive. I was hardly being transported in comfort. They didn't even throw a magazine back here for me to flick through.

"Looks like you're my only company for this ride, little buddy." I say, flicking on the Gremlin they had assigned to me. "How're you doing then? I should really name you something if we're going to be working together. Maybe write up some basic personality quirks for your system." I lean in, covering my mouth from the side with one hand as I whisper. "But that's just between you and me."

I give the Gremlin a quick wink, sitting back and watching it hover, before gradually my smile fades and I switch it off with a sigh. "Yeah, guess we're not friends yet, huh?" I say, sitting the remainder of the trip in silence.

I groan as I finally seem to reach my destination, arching my back and stretching out my arms as I start to make my way towards the transport's exit and shake off all the stiffness in my joints. I roll my head from side to side to work out a kink in my neck before I notice the figures waiting for me to arrive. Well look at that, I've only just got here and I've got my first alien to impress. Though if she's working for Reclamation, she's probably already on the same - or at least a similar - page as myself.

And she's kind of funny too.

"Hey now." I say, quickly snapping my fingers and pointing in her direction. "You don't know what I've got in my pants. I could have a whole bratwurst down there for all you know." I give her a quick wink and click my tongue against my cheek before turning my attention to the much sterner man that seems to demand a more professional approach to this introduction. Well shit, probably should have held my tongue for just a few seconds more before fumbling this first impression.

"Uh... yeah." I says, wondering if I should salute or just keep standing here and gawking up at him like a goldfish with my Gremlin slung under my arm. "I mean, that's correct, sir." Well, he certainly was soft selling this place. Best hope. Keep that in mind, Soo-Jung. Expectations. Are. High. "Thankyou sir. It's nice to meet you. Uh, the both of you." I stretch out an arm, but find myself pivoting between both of them to see who'll take my hand first, growing intensely more anxious each second that passes without one of them shaking it.

[Ze Blitzkrieg]

"This one was a civilian before she got here, wasn't she? Looks like you've got your work cut out for you, Colonel."

The viper seems to take a level of enjoyment in teasing the stone-faced gentleman who, by all accounts, seems to be your superior officer, based on his title. His grimace towards the mischievous alien seems to indicate he's none-too-pleased about being addressed as such, though. While he's busy giving her a stern glare, the reptilian reaches out with one of her big, clawed hands and wraps it around your own to shake. You're taken aback by two things, first, just how strange her skin feels. It's definitely scaly, but not especially coarse, instead possessing a rather silky, fine-leather type of texture, cool and smooth. Secondly, the amount of strength behind her friendly little shake. Though she has the good judgment not to squeeze down on your hand too hard, the up-and-down motion of her arm nearly pulls you off your feet, which only seems to amuse her all the more. It's easy to forget that most of the aliens on Earth were genetically engineered to be living weapons, now that the worst of the hostilities have ceased.

"Not the sturdiest girly, hmm? That's fine. We've got enough meat shields as it is. You can call me Duchess."

Rather than follow up the act with an arm yanker of his own, the older gentleman grumbles to himself as he tucks his pad away, and fishes out what looks like a pack of old-world cigarettes from his pocket.

"We don't usually use names around here, on account of some of our agents not having them. Code-names usually suffice. You can call me Castle—ex-Colonel for X-COM and the commander of this motley crew."

The fact he identifies himself as X-COM and not of the resistance certainly casts his war wounds and advanced age in a new light. You can't help but wonder how long he served with the organization. Was he there for the first wave? For the surrender? All the way through to the resistance period and final defeat of the Elders? If nothing else could be said about this new initiative, at least the Reclamation Agency put somebody qualified at its head. He certainly exudes a certain aura of authority, the type that comes with experience in giving orders and seeing them carried out.

"Afraid I can't offer you much in the way of a homecoming. We're still setting up most of the facility, and we've only got the start of a barracks set down. I'm sure you wanna unpack your personal effects, so we can put off the orientation until you're settled in. We've still got time until everyone arrives."

Duchess seems to respond to this with a predatory glint in her slitted eyes. Raising one of her clawed hands like a child in a classroom, the alien is quick to ask her questions even before Castle calls on her.

"Ooh, ooh, can I show her around? I think she likes me. If I'm lucky, I can get her to show me her brat-worse!"

"Bratwurst, Duchess. And don't push your luck. I don't need you terrorizing every recruit we get before they've even set down their rucksack."

"Terrorizing? Everyone loves me! Even the little androids that scurry around doing my bidding. Especially the little androids that scurry around doing my bidding. Even this one likes me, yes?"

Her eyes turn to you as if expecting a response, and Castle gives you a wary glance with his one good eye. It seems like he's willing to send the overly eager viper off without you if you prefer to explore by yourself. Otherwise, it looks like you've got a chaperone.

[Lazy Kitsune]

Colonel? Well shit, he's definitely in charge. I probably should have saluted then. Before I have time to dread my poor first impression any further, Duchess takes it upon herself to spare me any more time lingering with my hand hanging in the open. I smile as my handshake is accepted, though I feel like it still shows on my face when I'm almost literally thrown by the sensation. For someone so smooth and pleasant to the touch, she was awfully powerful. Though that made sense. Vipers were known for constricting their enemies and such a strategy only worked if they had a lot of muscle power to rely upon.

Though it is a bit dizzying to almost feel my feet leave the ground just from shaking someone's hand. Duchess certainly seemed amused by it, not that I could blame her. The difference in power between us would have been quite obvious with how my glasses needed adjusting once the handshake was over and how the already naturally bouncy parts of my body took to being shaken. The girls should have been quite tightly packed in by my new uniform, yet Duchess' arm managed to put some wiggle in them yet. I suppose you haven't truly known embarrassment until a simple handshake makes your tits do the can-can in front of your new boss. While the motion was enough to leave them swaying after the handshake ended, hopefully the uniform kept me looking somewhat professional... although my bra might need adjusting once I get somewhere private.

Duchess' introduction is followed by an explanation from the Colonel, or Castle as he wants to be called, as to why we were all using callsigns at the moment. That made a fair bit of sense. Helped keep things professional, didn't alienate anyone. Hearing about some people not having any names almost made me feel bad about having three - although that would be a silly thing to feel bad about.

Although Castle had one more piece of information conveyed with his last sentence. It would make sense he would be XCOM. He certainly has the right vibe for it. But on top of that, you would want one of the most experienced people available in charge of a team like this. I wonder if he got to fly around in that super cool repurposed alien ship the remnants of XCOM used to run their end of the Resistance out of.

"Sure. I don't really have much in the way of personal effects anyway." I say, my arm held to my side is it recovers from the feeling of being shaken about by Duchess. "Just my laptop, some clothes and all the gear you guys gave me. But I can use a chance to shake off the trip."

I find myself smiling bashfully as Duchess eagerly volunteers to show me around. She certainly seems fun, and it'd be nice to be working with someone that I got along with. I wait for her and Castle to conclude their little back and forth before I take a distinct and pointed step towards Duchess.

"I think I could use someone showing me around. If I don't, then who knows what could happen? I might get lost. End up in a completely different city altogether. And that just won't be good for anyone."

[Ze Blitzkrieg]

"If you could wander out of this city and into the adjacent one unmolested I'd have you transferred into the rangers. Stick with Duchess until you know your way around the base," Castle's gruff statement is at least a green light for you to go off and have some fun, "If you'll excuse me, I've got to see all these supplies accounted for. Dismissed."

By the time you've gathered your sparse belongings, a few androids come meandering over from their charging posts to begin the work of unloading the transport and whatever miscellaneous bits and bobs were sent over to the HQ alongside you. While they do the heavy lifting, Duchess gestures for you to follow along behind her. Or, rather, to follow along diagonally from her, given the way her long trail slithers to and fro behind her as she makes her way across the warehouse's loading bay to a mechanical door on the far side of the room. A quick flash of a keycard kept on her belt sees it opening, and the two of you meander deeper into the base that would go on to house Chimera Squad.

"So, let's cut to the chase. What did you do to get put here? Kill somebody important? Save somebody important? Maybe serve as eye candy for grumbly old men? I think you're just the Colonel's type; but he only has one eye, so you might be too much candy for him," She titters on for a time as she snakes her way down the corridor with a surprising amount of dexterity for a being who is propelled entirely by muscular gyrations, "Or maybe he will be too much for you? I have not seen his bratwurst, but I think it must be quite the sausage, with how much confidence he has. Or maybe he's got no sausage at all! It might have been blown off, just like his arm. Could you imagine? Trousers down and out comes a hunk of metal?"

She seems to cackle to herself at the thought, though you question how much of a human's anatomy she's seen, given her turn of phrase. Not that you were especially familiar with sausage given the state of the world while you were coming up. You're still pretty confident you know more about human reproduction than she does, for however much seniority she has over you. Another pair of doors open, and she leads you forward into what looks like a repurposed storage room, with a few bunks lined up on either side of the room, a few communal tables in the middle, what looks like a kitchenette settled on the far wall away from the door. Pretty sparse, but there are a few privacy dividers set haphazardly in front of the occupied bunks, and what looks to be storage space beneath each bed.

"I suppose it'd be as big as he wants it, then. Maybe not so fun to play with. You play with them, don't you? I know Red plays with his a lot—I saw him doing it, right over there!" She stops to point towards the right side of the room, "But he is only half a human. I cannot say which part of him requires such a vigorous sausage-shaking."

[Lazy Kitsune]

Parting ways with Castle for the moment to follow Duchess on my little tour, I bid my commanding officer farewell with an awkward half merging of a salute and a bow - neither followed through enough to really count, but hopefully he can see that I'm trying. With that I turn around on my heels and scamper off to keep close to Duchess, carefully avoiding stepping on her tail as I trail along behind her and start examining my surroundings. Though admittedly its hard at first to look around rather than at Duchess, especially with her long tail sliding along right by my feet. Having interacted with her kind in such a different manner for so long, its still sometimes odd to be so close to one of them in such a casual context.

Though with how high tech this base of operations seems to be, it doesn't take me long to start checking out even the hallways as we pass through them. I let out a bit of a whistle as we pass through a set of security doors and watch them move automatically. "This is a nice change of pace from the kinds of places where I would work for the Resistance. Cramped caravans and shelters where they packed us up like sardines - I'd have to cobble together my equipment from salvaged parts and an old microwave that had been lying around since before the invasion. There was this one place I was at for a bit where they didn't have enough power to run my computer and the aircon at the same time. That was a rough summer." I shudder at the memory, nose wrinkling as the smell comes to my mind once more before I shake it off and get back to following Duchess as she begins asking her questions.

Before I had a chance to answer any of them, she had moved on to talking about "sausages" once again, though not without mentioning that I was Castle's type. Which wasn't exactly the impression I got from my brief time speaking with him, but there was probably a story behind what would make her think that. Though before I could ask about that she moves on again, her following comments leaving me with the most peculiar image of Castle with rather large vibrator stuck to his crotch.

"Ooh, oh, I have one of those!" I say, taking her laughter as a chance to chime in. "A... uh, a metal sausage. Used to have a few actually, but just the one right now. Oh, not attached to my body, its..." my voice trails off as I press my lips together, grumbling the last bit out more quietly just to be on the safe side. "I think it might be in my suitcase actually."

I take a look around the room she eventually leads me to. Certainly practical, but not exactly high in terms of personal privacy. Well, seems like I won't have a chance to unpack that metal sausage given... wait what did she just say?

"Hold on, you saw what now? Right here, in this room?" I ask, my voice raising drastically in pitch compared to the more mellow tone I had been using so far, pointing also in the direction she had gestured to. "Is that... Red you say? Is that Red's bunk over there? Okay, okay, I'll..." I turn and start lugging my belongings over to the left side of the room. "Are one of these bunks free? I think I'll set myself up over here."

[Ze Blitzkrieg]

Duchess seems to perk up at the mention of your possession of such a strange 'sausage'. However, your hurried retreat from the right side of the room causes her to titter in amusement before she can inquire further into the vibrator you've stashed in your personal belongings. The reptilian slithers her way over to the left side of the room after confirming that most of the bunks are still unattended. Once you've chosen your bunk and started unpacking your belongings, she glances over your shoulder in curiosity. Something not especially difficult for her to do, given that she can stand quite far up on her tail to tower over just about anybody if she so desires.

"Ohh? Does this sausage-stroking bother you? Maybe this is more an alien thing than a human thing—I will have to ask the others," Mischievous as she tends to be, it's hard to tell whether she's just trying to get a rise out of you, or if she genuinely doesn't understand the finger points of how humanoids pleasure themselves, "I wonder if they can explain why the soft human girl who fears such sausages has such a fearsome metal one in her bags. I am sure one of them will know."

Well, maybe failing to salute your commander wouldn't be the most embarrassing thing to happen on your first day. Having a babbling viper inquire around the base as to why you might have brought a vibrator to the barracks certainly ranks higher than that in terms of memories to haunt you long into the night.

[Lazy Kitsune]

"What? No!" I blurt out, suddenly alarmed by how very badly this could go. Ugh, I didn't even think about it being in there, I was just so used to leaving it packed as I travelled around. The last thing I need is the kinds of guys who just jerk off in shared living space to know I have a sex toy in my bag. "I can tell you that! Just..." I look around the room, making sure there was no one else sitting around quietly in some spot I had missed or about to walk in. I lean in close, lowering my voice. "Just promise me you won't tell anyone, okay? It's private. Girl stuff."

I reach into my bag and pull it out. Large, bright pink, with an extra protrusion for more... specific stimulation. "This is my sausage. Vibrator. Not sausage. Damn, I'm going to have a hard time stopping saying that now." I say, as I hold it out for her to inspect. "I use it to relieve stress... and massage very private... internal parts. But its use is very personal, and I don't like letting anyone see it so... seeing as I don't have a room to myself here, it's probably not going to get used for quite a while. So we're just going to tuck it away here." I slip it back into my bag, burying it under a pile of my clothes. "And pretend it doesn't even exist." I say, closing up the bag and tucking it away before I turn back to Duchess, setting my hands on my hips.

I puff out my cheeks after a couple of seconds pass, before exhaling deeply. "You're just fucking with me, right? And I... I just totally fell for it, didn't I?" I sigh, shaking my head before shrugging it off.

"I'm not even mad. I'm mostly impressed. You're pretty cool." I admit, stepping away from my claimed bunk. "So, is there more to this tour or are we just going to talk about sausages all day? Because if we keep that up, I'm going to start getting hungry. Oh, hey, by the way, what did you mean when you said I was just the colonel's type? Was that just more fucking with me, because he didn't seem too impressed when he saw me earlier."

[Ze Blitzkrieg]

The viper reacts with an audible 'ooh' as you produce your vibrator for her to see. It's pretty hard to see how genuine her amazement is, given the entirely inhuman nature of her face. Racial poker face aside, she listens intently as you explain its various use cases and why you have it with you even now. At one point, she makes little grabby hands at it, but you're pretty sure you wouldn't be able to wrestle it away from her once she got her scaly mitts on it, given the difference in your stature and general strength, so you think better of it and quickly stash it back away before pivoting the conversation to something that isn't meant to be pumped in and out of your pussy.

Like the Colonel.

"Fucking? I do not do the fucking; this is why you have your pretty pink sausage, no? Mayhaps I can ask the Colonel how to attach such a thing to me. Then, maybe I can do the fucking for you."

You imagine the way her jaw parts to expose a glimmer of hypodermic, needle-like teeth is meant to be a cheeky smile, if a bit disconcerting. Considering your questions, she works through them in her head first, then decides to answer in order.

"Many other places, yes, but not too many. There is an armory, and a range, for the shooting of guns. A place to do the lifting of heavy things, for those who are not so lucky to hatch big and strong, and a place for washing. All very important, I am told."

Confidence in her assessment, and perhaps assured that your inquiries mean you would like to actually see those places for yourself, she begins to slither towards the doorway to the dormitory and leads you back into the halls, which seem to wrap around the perimeter of the loading bay that you had entered through, just based on their orientation. As she slithers and snakes, she continues chatting away.

"As to why you are the colonel's type? Your Duchess is the type that is very good at sneaky-sneaking, you see. An infiltrator! She goes places where she is not meant to be. And while going through the colonel's office, she found a picture, of a much less metal colonel, with a very pretty woman, in a much different time. But not too different, because this lady looks much like our little Gospel, I am certain."

She seems to beam at her investigative prowess, utterly convinced of her little theory.

"If the colonel does not like such women, why pose in such a photo? Why keep it for so long? Me thinks the colonel will be sweet on you if you remind him of this lady as much as you remind me."

[Lazy Kitsune]

Her additional teasing throws me off a little, the imagery it evokes certainly tricky to wrap my head around. Just how would that work... it probably wouldn't be too tricky to rig up a strap-on for her anatomy, but how would... I suppose she could wrap me up in her coils and then... hmm... wait, no, this is getting too vivid and explicit. Wincing as I shake the thoughts out of my head, holding out a palm to the air as if to push them away further, I need to take a moment to recompose again before continuing our conversation, flexing my shoulders to shake myself back into focus.

For as cheeky as she was, Duchess' unique way of speaking was rather fun to listen to. Something about her rhythm and the way she described things certainly helped her sound enthusiastic about what she spoke about, even when she spoke with less than clear detail on one or two matters, and that enthusiasm helped hold my attention. Its not that I try not to listen, but in the past I have struggled with some instructions simply due to my mind being inclined to wander, but if anything Duchess' speech pattern seemed to move in a way not entirely dissimilar to how I thought. Just a bit more outload and snaky.

I cast one last look towards my stashed bag to make sure there was no sign of what was hidden away inside before quickly following behind Duchess as she resumes the tour once more and proudly confesses to snooping through Castle's things. So, Castle has a picture of someone who looks like me, huh? Depending on how much like me she looks, she could be his daughter, rather than a lover. Although if he was 'much less metal' then it could be long enough ago that it would be his lover... and of course there's the issue that even if it is his daughter, then he still presumably slept with someone else who looks like me for that resemblance to matter in the first place.

Not that that should matter either way. So I resemble what would be at some point in time his type, and possibly even someone very important to him. But he seems professional enough to not let that cloud his judgement. Besides, this is Duchess' impression. I'm not sure what physical qualities vipers focus on to distinguish between humans. Maybe all I and this mystery woman really have in common is neck length.

"What about the others here, what are they like?" I ask, thinking back to the names she's mentioned so far. Red... who I might have to worry about publicly masturbating every so often... and the other one was... Gator, I think.

[Ze Blitzkrieg]

Your reptilian tour guide continues her methodical slithering as she brings you toward one of the locations she had previously described. The door she unlocks slides open with a mechanical hiss, and she leads you through the entranceway to what appears to be an armory. There are lockers lined along the walls with a variety of weaponry the likes of which some resistance cells would salivate over, racks and shelves full of ammunition and grenades of varying kinds and calibers, body armor, the works. Most of the offensive kit resembles the more refined magnetic tech that XCOM proper got its hands on towards the war's end, upgraded with insights gleaned from the fallen ADVENT regime. There are some heavier weapons too—though you imagine with plasma's tendency to chew through everything in its path, police work like Chimera Squad's rarely has a use for it.

"The others? I do not know so much about them, but they are not so soft and smooth as you."

You imagine this means they're both aliens, which would make you the only human on the squad so far, unless Castle decides to make his way to the scene despite his position as director.

"I speak with Red more than Gator. I think he quite likes Duchess. Of course, what is there not to like?" She grins her predatory grin, fangs glimmering in an approximation of a human smile, "He is, how it was put... crowd-control? When ADVENT still ruled, he used his stick to beat the naughtier humans into behaving. Now, he just rubs his other stick and makes a biiiiig mess in the dorms. Very sticky."

You get the idea she's poking fun at you and your discomfort about the potential wanking, more so than making fun of Red, although with Duchess, it could certainly be a little bit of both. Still, at least you have an idea of who he is. Probably a hybrid, if you have your facts straight. Pretty much every trooper under ADVENT's umbrella had some alien DNA spliced into their genome. The fact he's with Chimera Squad now must make him either a defector from the cause or someone considered adequately deprogrammed after the administration's fall.

"Gator does not talk so much. Maybe this is why they name him Gator; Duchess has seen these gators, and they look more like Duchess than this Muton. Very handsome, they are," She nods her head sagely, as if convinced of the matter, "Since he is not so much for speaking, Duchess does not know where he comes from. But he is very big and spends much time in the lifting place. Maybe you will meet him soon."

So you've got a Viper, a Hybrid, and a Muton on your team. Certainly not the kind of squad you're used to working with, but you suppose Chimera Squad was always supposed to be a rather unconventional group of individuals. For as subtle as the chimera in its name was, you're sure that the patchwork of operators will only continue to get stranger as time goes on. At the very least, there shouldn't be too many more breeds of xeno to get used to. They're only really missing a Sectoid, after all. Unless they've somehow managed to get the weird flickering things to play ball.

"What about you? Gospel says precious little of herself, beyond her preference for plump, pink plastic that goes bzzzzzzz between her little human legs," You realize with some horror that your little discussion might yet manage to work its way into her introductions going forward, and you envy Gator for having kept his mouth shut and his eyes open with the mischievous snake slithering about, "Why are you here?"