"Did you hear about the Slaughterhouse Nine disappearing?" Asked Eidolon. Legend nodded.

"I wonder what happened to them?" Alexandria wondered.

"Five bucks says Contessa did it." Said Legend.

"Suckers bet." Replied Eidolon.

Jack opened his eyes.

What happened? One moment, eh was watching Bonesaw carve up Mouse Protector, and the next, he was staring up at a big-headed alien.

...Wait, alien?

The grey being hissed at Jack, raising a gun.

Hostile.

Jack stabbed it in the throat. It screeched in pain, and Jack pulled his knife out.

Getting up, he looked around.

The town around him was in ruins.

"Did I miss the party?" He asked himself.

The answer came in the form of another alien shooting him through the window.

Jack fell onto his back as the plasma bolts smashed through the window. The glass shards penetrated his skin slightly, but Bonesaw's adjustments meant that they barely scratched.

Rolling to the window, Jack stabbed. An alien died, as a knife-wound appeared in it's chest. It's partner looked at it, then decided to run in the opposite direction.

Jack watched it go out of sight, then heard it scream.

A moment later, The Siberian walked into view.

"Jack." She said, upon seeing him. "Where is Bonesaw?"

Jack shrugged. "Dunno. Just woke up. Got attacked by aliens. I'm as confused as you are."

"What should we do?" Asked Siberian.

In the distance, there was a singing sound, followed by a shattering sound.

"We go this way, first." Said Jack, pointing towards the noise. "We'll work out something after that."

Siberian nodded, then ran in that direction. Jack vaulted though the window and followed.

Some distance in, they encountered another group of aliens. The Siberian ran in to shred them, and Jack raised his knife.

He was stopped when a hovering tentacle monster appeared from no-where and attempted to strangle him. Sighing, Jack stabbed it, Bonesaw's enhancements allowing him to ignore it's attempts to suffocate him.

After a few stabs, one of which grazed his check slightly, the tentacle thing died, and fell off.

Siberian finished killing the aliens, then began munching on one. The two continued their search for their teammates.

Shatterbird wasn't too far off. She was experimenting with a group of aliens, finding the quickest ways to kill one with a single shard of glass.

"Oi!" Called Jack. Shatterbird turned to him.

"Any idea where the others are?" Asked Jack.

"Nah." Replied Shatterbird. "I think I saw Crawler earlier, but he's boring, so I didn't follow."

"Where was he?" Asked Jack. Shatterbird waved her hand north. "Over there."

Jack started following. Shatterbird paused, sighed, and followed.

"I wonder how Bonesaw is?" Wondered Siberian.

"Well." Said Jonas 'Warlock' Murphy, XCOM Sniper. "This is... Uh... Sis?"

Lily 'Momma Bear' Murphy, XCOM Heavy, observed the sight.

In front of them, a little girl, no older then nine or ten, was cutting apart and stitching together Sectoids. Behind her stood a faceless thing, which could be mistaken for a store mannequin, had it not been moving to pass the girl tools.

"Hm... Need to program loyalty..." She muttered. "Which limb did I put my screwdriver in?"

"I think Bulldog might be able to work this out better."

"Someone call me?" Asked Ellen 'Bulldog' McCormick, XCOM Assault. Then she saw what the others were looking at.

"Oh god, what the fuck."

The girl stopped, then slowly turned to glare at Bulldog.

"No swearing!" She demanded, before turning her attention back to the now four-armed, six-legged Sectoid with three faces.

The three blinked.

"Hey!" Called Jonas 'Doc' Patricks, XCOM Support. "What are you three doing?"

"Uh..."

Doc walked over. "We have aliens to kill, what could possibly... Oh."

They stared a bit longer.

"I'm not nearly drunk enough for this." Said Bulldog.

"She's probably just waiting for us." Replied Jack. "Now hurry up. I hear aliens."

It took them another five minutes, and three aliens, to get to Crawler, who was standing in front of a crashed UFO.

"HIT ME!" He roared, mauling an alien.

There was a pause, before another three aliens, lead by a humanoid thing, charged out, blasting him with plasma.

Crawler ran at them, tanking the plasma head on.

"That hurt." He said, a smile on his face.

Three seconds later, and everything was dead.

"They hurt me!" Chirped Crawler, once he saw Jack.

"I saw." Replied the leader of Slaughterhouse Nine, mentally counting off his roster.

Shatterbird, Siberian, Crawler. And himself. That left Bonesaw, Mannequin, Burnscar and Cherish.

Still, that would have to wait for the moment.

An armoured figure, carrying a shotgun, came towards them.

The gun was raised, and aimed at Crawler.

Jack did some quick thinking. The figure- Probably a she, judging by the figure- Had made themselves visible, but hadn't immediately opened fire. So she didn't know who he, or the other members of the Slaughterhouse Nine, were. Additionally, she was in an area full of aliens, and didn't seem to be panicking. She was probably government or something like that. Which meant, given that she didn't know who he was, that something very strange was going on.

As fun as it would be to break her, that could wait until Jack knew what the fuck was going on.

Walking forward, Jack raised his arms.

"We mean no harm." He said. The other looked at him in confusion, and he looked back at them, glaring.

They kept quiet, and Jack continued.

"Please excuse my friend, miss. We'll explain, but we just woke up here, and have no idea what's going on."

The woman kept her gun raised, and opened her mouth to talk.

She didn't even get to start before she was interrupted.

"Jack!" Called a girlish voice. Bonesaw ran out, followed by a soldier with a rifle of some kind.

The soldier stopped once he saw Crawler, and began discussing with the woman with the shotgun.

After a minute, during which Bonesaw explained her experiments with creating a new minion out of dead aliens, the woman called out.

"Alright!" She yelled. "You're coming with us. We're going to see the Commander."