/* A/N:

So I've just posted the last chapter before writing this a/n, and y'all probably are not expecting where last chapter has led my brain to.

The best part is, you won't have to guess anymore since you can just read on!

I will say briefly though that the first part may seem a little roundabout, but it does have a place in this story. */

It was faint, but they could all collectively feel it. A faint disturbance in the network, normally indicative of a species ready to be uplifted after their first awakening. Out of curiosity, and directive, a single detachment was sent to investigate. By the time they arrived the first time, there was nothing to be found aside from some primitive feudal-style and colonial civilisation.

And yet, it was still there.

So the detachment stayed in wait, watching the primitives accomplish one social requirement after the other. It was reminiscent of the times that they raised their own young, watching them learn. The executor of the detachment was, in fact, old enough to remember such a time.

It was kind-of adorable.

When their own kind finally started to realise their growing frailty, they were hesitant to approach the newfound race, content to attempt a cure through the biological information of the already uplifted species, and from looking for others that were on the way to a fruitful uplifting.

Throughout the search, they did try to find whatever was responsible for the faint disturbance they could still feel was there, but not able to pinpoint. Their technology was useless in the endeavour, as they could feel there was something there, however all of the scans and readings could not replicate it.

Eventually they deployed the thin men, not as an attempt to infiltrate the governments as the residence learned to believe, although it was a nice side-effect. However, it was to narrow down the search for the secret that the planet was hiding.

It was when they lost their first to the weakness in millennia that they finally gave in to test the genetic material for compatibility. It… was not their best bet, they decided, since it would likely take far too long for them to actually grow the required amount of genetic material, engineer a cure, and then finally implement the cure. So, they continued to look for alternatives.

But it remained within their minds.

Finally they could take no longer when they had a half-baked solution before them and three million were already lost to their weakness, more lost than in the last sixteen thousand years combined. However, when they went through more routine pickup of some more 'genetic material' for testing purposes, it took an embarrassingly long time before they realised that their crafts were being tracked across the skies they entered.

Even worse was when they were shot down for the first time.

How they grow up so fast!

At least they picked something that was obviously hardy enough to withstand the psionic potential that is an ethereal mind.

They expected the resistance, of course, as they've had to pacify a species or two before, but they were not expecting it to be so effective. They were certainly not expecting them to snub most of their efforts to fracture them, and incite some fear within the major 'nations' they kept. They thought that a species that was so obviously fragmented would easily fall from the fault lines they called boarders.

It was humbling, that they were wrong.

Then, to add a level of unexpected difficulty, they felt a sudden spike of the same kind of disturbance that they felt all those years ago, localised in the northern hemisphere around where they called 'Scotland'. It was gone before they were able to find it, though. At least they were able to confuse the rebels and possibly bring attention away from their next attack and make the Xcom fighters waste resources questioning an apparent ruin in the Scottish Highlands.

On another unpleasant note, the first human psionic combatants started appearing, which was not ideal. They were hoping they would stay as ignorant about their psionic potential. It was not to be. On the left inferior hand they were impressed with the humans, on the left superior hand they felt a twisted sense of pride, and on the right superior hand they felt utter chagrin for it would only mean that their work was cut out for them. They quickly sent a request for reinforcements over the psi-link.

That had never been needed before, and so they were equally unprepared for it. Due to the increased logistics, and the closes nonessential temple-ship was in another galaxy, it would take about a year for it to arrive.

The executor of the Earth detachment gave a reverberating sigh, felt by all of the uplifted within the temple ship.

"So, why are we out in the middle of nowhere, snow-flavoured?" Sargent Gaza Glorminel asked their resident CO.

"There've been reports about the aliens becoming even more interested in this area of late, and command has also picked up something about some arachnologist finding a 'really big spider' out here." Although within each of their branches of Xcom they were both the same paygrade, Sargent Specialist Maxine "Call me that and I will give you the mother of all headaches" Black was a commissioned officer and thus the one in nominal control of the operation.

When the Xcom project was put foreword, all of the special operatives from their home countries were stripped of their previous rank back down to the rank of Corporal, signifying that they weren't untested rookies, but they had yet to face a threat other than human monsters.

It worked fine, promoting up the non-commissioned officer tree within their field operations. However, when they asked for volunteers to go through a potentially life-altering procedure that may cause death at the end of a long list of unsavoury side-effects, they wanted something to signify that sacrifice. So, when the first person that went through the psi lab with psionic powers that put themselves at risk before they could figure it out, they gave him the rank of a Specialist – the first rank of Commissioned Officer within Xcom.

It was through testing the abilities of the first person that went through it that allowed them an understanding why a Specialist should be in command of a squad; a specialist is able to mentally connect with their squad mates up to five others depending on the skill of the psi operative, and increase their combat effectiveness to well past three hundred percent. The unit would seamlessly focus fire on threats to each other, and sometimes things they couldn't directly see, or use each other's abilities in conjunction to their own without the real need to having worked together before.

It was an incredible boon with the shadow war they were fighting, attempting to keep the presence of aliens out of mainstream media to prevent either widespread panic or for people to start helping the enemy.

The last thing they needed was to fight against the worst kind of monsters around – themselves. Hell, chryssalids will infect you, and then when you die a new one will pop out, but even that isn't as terrifying as a mother sacrificing her child in the name of their religion. At least the chryssalid was doing it because it's part of their reproductive cycle.

"Do you think that the 'spider' is a crys?" That was Corporal Mito Ventra, the 'baby' of their squad with only one other mission under her belt. She was alright in Max's book, though, as she was able to calmly shrug off a potential Mindray from a sectoid without ever encountering one before, and without Max's intervention. Max would bet on her becoming a Specialist later on with that kind of willpower.

"No, he was picked up by command and checked over, made it look like they were making sure he was still sane considering the things he was saying. He wasn't infected, or mind-controlled to cause trouble. you'd both know all of this if you'd read the brief." Master Sargent Kim Chang chastised Gaza and Mito lightly. "You'd think that coming from special forces, you'd do your homework."

Max got the feeling that they did, they just liked to rile Kim up a bit. She let the boys have their fun. It was probably needed, since a Master Sargent normally didn't go out on routine or easy missions often. It could be just insurance since everyone else was only two levels in, but still. He could be considered overkill with even a scoutcraft landing instead of crash.

MSgt Kim Chang was in a special position within the squad, because while SSp. Max Black technically outranked Kim, Kim was also above Max's 'paygrade' as it were. Ideally, it's true that while the CO's are in command and do the planning, it's equally true that the NCO's are the ones that execute the orders, as well as make sure that everything works. A CO that doesn't listen to their NCO's valuable experience never win a battle. At least, not without unacceptable losses.

Max was distracted slightly when the last person in their squad let out a huff of amusement, "Careful what you think around a Psi-op. They pick up on everything, though they say that they can't actually read minds." Apparently while Max was cleaning her service rifle – one of those flashy new magnetic accelerator variants R&D cobbled together using alien tech or some such, had relayed the Cpl.'s urgency from dropping something so that Sargent Larry Smith caught it, while facing the opposite way. She watched him hand it back – it was part of the mag rifle's clip. Understandable, since it took her a while to re-learn muscle memory from her preferred weapons.

She had to give it up for the sheer accuracy and damage output of the new stuff though.

"We don't. Although, I've heard that the more skilled ones, the higher-ups can. I heard that Left-tenant Reese can pick up on specific things, and Captain Green can even start to control animals for a time." Max cut in. Might as well, it was a longish flight from London to the Scottish Highlands.

/* A/N: so this is a bit of a shorter one, but I thought that since I'm introducing so much stuff that I'd leave it there.

I will say that I don't see a lot of Xcom/pretty much anything crosses. So I'd thought that I'd do some. 1) because it fits with the narrative, mostly. There will be some explanations for psionics and stuff later, but I mean the zerg and the protoss already called it psionics. Then Harry Potter business so…

I've found that Harry Potter is a fictional world that lends itself easily to a lot of potential crossings.

Anyway, Xcom now, because I don't really wanna spend the next hundred or so years in the story with almost nothing going on, or mess with the timeline too much. 'Course, I have to change some things with Xcom to make it work logically b/c I'm not sticking with complete cannon timeline with Xcom or anything cause it doesn't completely stick with the narrative.

Leaving it here, because I've stayed up too late and I need to stop. */