X-Com's Finest (An X-Com 2 play through)

Operation Frozen Pyre (Elsa)

Meanwhile, the landing pad on the roof had begun to glow, and after just a second of indecision, Pritchett yelled out, "Defensive positions! GO GO GO!"

Just as the squad dove behind cover, an alien support craft came hovering down and a trio of grunts hit the roof and immediately ran for cover. Prichett popped the leader's leg as he moved for cover severely injuring it. Its breaths were coming out labored and it would bleed out soon enough if they didn't get it first.

[For those following along in the picture – the orange box is where the grunts landed. The orange lines are where the grunts moved to. The green lines are friendly shots and the red lines are the enemy shots. Note the commander with half health sitting at the top of the screen that was hit during overwatch.]

And while the squad wasn't exactly in perfect cover, they were in much better position than the aliens who hadn't had time to prepare. Van Dyke mowed down one of the nearby troopers with little effort, sending it to the ground in a hail of gunfire. Pubentz lined up the officer and fired, finishing the job that Pritchett had. Pritchett pulled out her pistol and fired at the last one, and in an uncharacteristic manner, missed.

Down on the ground floor, Zalewski, had found an alien data jack. Somehow, Bastion had actually been able to access it, and there were options there to distract the aliens through the software interface. "DO IT BASTION! YOU GOT THIS!"

The droid bipped and booped for a few minutes before sirens began blaring an alert signal. Zalewski looked around tentatively, "NO BASTION! That's not right, let me look..." Before he got close, the panel exploded, sending Bastion several feet away but not quite hurting it.

The final grunt, hearing the additional alarm took some heart knowing that additional help may be on the way. It stood up, lined Pritchett up, and fired.

Pritchett watched as the determined alien looked around and picked her as the target. Pritchett watched as the alien lined her up. Pritchett very calmly side-stepped the shot. She didn't flinch as the laser slightly singed her left shoulder. Her eyes glared with absolute hatred. "You did NOT just fire at me! I am going to rip your arm off and BEAT you with it when I get a hold of you! DO YOU HEAR ME? Then I'm going to stick it down your throat, and when you're choking on it, I'm going to rip off your OTHER arm, and..."

Pritchett was interrupted by Van Dyke, who had simply unloaded her entire clip at point blank range into the guts of the poor sod who'd incurred Pritchett's wrath. Van Dyke figured she was performing her one act of mercy for the year.

As the din of combat calmed down and the aliens garbled their last, the squad looked around. Pubentz actually had to give Pritchett a slight sedative to calm her down. She'd worked with Pritchett before and knew this was sometimes necessary, so she always carried some around.

The GREMLIN screeched once more, then made a non-sensical series of beeps and whines. Zalewski looked at it a second, pulled out a datapad, pushed a couple of buttons, then looked back at the team.

"Bastion wants to know what happened to the other one?"

Pubentz muttered under her breath before looking at the rest of the team. "Not done yet folks, gotta finish this bug hunt!" Spread out, not sure where this one is hiding!"

You would THINK an 8' alien would be easy to spot. Apparently, it wasn't. The squad searched around the entire meat processing complex to no avail. They didn't find it around the complex, on top of the complex, or in the complex. They searched buildings across the street. They searched the corners of the block.

It was Van Dyke who finally found the thing, hiding in some bushes in an outer corner of the area. She quickly shouted into her mic, "EYES ON TARGET!" The Sectoid, unsure as to what to do and smart enough to realize it was outgunned, began scrambling to escape. Van Dyke was having none of that and loaded her frost grenade. It actually popped the alien in the head where it exploded, freezing it in place. Zalewski quickly came for support and fired into the thing, the rounds penetrating the iced over Silicoid. Just as the thing was thawing out, Van Dyke finished it off with another nearly point blank shot.

Van Dyke looked over at Zalewski as she toed the dead alien, "Well, THAT sucked."

Zalewski looked back, "I actually thought it was kind of fun!" Bastion suddenly stopped in mid-air dropped to the ground, bounced, then began hovering awkwardly again. "SEE! Bastion agrees with me!"

Van Dyke just shook her head as the Skyranger landed in the distance.

***

The ride back seemed longer than usual. It might have been the fact that the squad had searched the area for HOURS looking for that last alien. They got there that morning. They'd missed lunch. They'd missed dinner, and they were hungry, tired, and irritable. The good news was that nobody had been hit. Coming back from a mission with nobody heading to medical was a good day – but they'd realize that later. For now, they were tired and hungry.

And it would get longer. Debriefing was always the first thing after coming back from a mission. The Commander sat back, took notes, and listened to what happened. Yes, the mission could have gone better, the squad didn't necessarily NEED to blow a hole into the factory, and the fact that an alien had evaded the team for hours was not something to write home about. But the squad succeeded in their objective with the bonus of coming back in one piece, so the Commander only gave them a little grief rather than a whole plate full.

Promotions were given all around.

Pubentz was promoted to Seargent with the ability to bring even more healing onto the battlefield. She hadn't really needed it up to this point, but she was very quickly becoming a valued member to any mission.

Van Dyke was promoted to Corporal and learned the ability to shred armor off of aliens they encountered. While the ability was cool, she wasn't all that happy to learn that aliens actually wore armor.

Zalewski and Bastion were promoted to Combat Hacker. There were only two choices here, combat medic, and combat hacker. NOBODY wanted Bastion anywhere NEAR their bodies when they were wounded, so they figured the lesser of two evils was combat hacker.

And finally, Pritchett was promoted along the Sniper class. She was ok with that. Shooting things from a long way away and removing limbs from their body without knowing from where.... That was ok with her.