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

Operation Dying Thunder

The following barrage was probably one of the worst I'd seen. The Rookie got marked by the commander who then turned around and clipped her. The mech did what we expected – it moved into firing position and then fired a grenade sending both Svagerko and my sister to the ground. Svagerko couldn't handle the pressure anymore, and she broke and ran further up the ditch. I almost feel sorry for her. If she can't handle the fight – we may need to start looking for another Ranger. Hopefully she'll be able to pull it together soon. We can't be working with an inept Ranger all the time.... The grunt jumped into better position and had a clean shot on the Rookie – but it actually missed! Wow....there's actually something that misses worse than Campbell!

But then, the worst of the worst happened. It was déjà vu all over again. This citizen, sitting right in front of me, suddenly morphed into this faceless monstrosity and can rumbling right at me. I tried to pull out my sword, but I wasn't quite quick enough. Ok, I am absolutely sick of this! This will NOT happen again! I will learn to rip apart ANYTHING that gets in the range of this axe. And I will beat it, and beat it again, and then beat it some more just to make sure everyone understands you do NOT mess with me! Needless to say, the freaking animate ball of sand picked me up and slammed me to the ground. I'm not sure what it did, but my entire mid-section hurt.

So here we are, now sitting with four untouched enemies at this point, and we are trying to coordinate our attacks. Svagerko was panicked at this point, with Campbell trying to calm her down. We needed to even this a little bit, so my sister got up and fired her frost grenade right into the middle of the group, turning the commander and the mech into mechsicals. That just left the grunt and the bag of sand. It was time to glass it.

I jumped to my feet (ok, to be truly accurate – I probably hobbled to my feet), grabbed my other axe, and ripped into the thing. I'd like to take credit for my unerring skill but... It's really not that hard not to hit a big ball of sand that's sitting right next to you and not doing anything to try to dodge. I slashed the thing right through the gut, but it still wasn't quite enough. I briefly surveyed the field and shouted at Campell to take the thing out. She shifted slightly towards me, aimed and fired.

And missed.

Are you freaking kidding me?!? Why do we have snipers again?

That left the Rookie and one of two choices. She could shoot at and take out the bag of sand, or she could fire at and take out the grunt. She charged up the bolt-caster and aimed at the grunt. I would have done the same thing. The grunt had a clear shot on her and she thought I could handle my own problem. Then at the last second, she turned and aimed my direction hitting a nice shot on the towers ball of sand.

I will admit, it was a clean shot. And the weapon? That weapon is just mean. I felt every hair on my skin stand on edge. The ball of sand wasn't amused. It dissolved right in front of me and didn't get up. I was ok with that and kicked it.

The grunt sitting behind her took the opportunity to line her up. I didn't even have time to shout before the Rookie bent down to reload her caster. The grunt's shot went over her head as she bent down to temporarily fix her shoulder wound. I can't even tell you how lucky she is sometimes

But now that we had our bearings, it was our turn to reply. And we ripped them apart. We used everything we had, but we ripped them apart. Sis pumped out another grenade, hitting both the commander and the mech, removing cover and armor off of both of them. That's always a nice thing. Svagerko got her head back in the game, she dropped in next to Campbell and fired really messing the mech up. The Rookie reloaded and fired back at the mech. I've said this before – but mechanical and electric do not mix. The Rookie took down her second big guy this battle. The thing went into hysterics trying to calculate the last digit of pi before finally dropping to the ground useless. Campbell trained her rifle on the grunt that somehow had managed to avoid attention. She FINALLY managed to hit something. She killed it too! It was a nice change! That left just the commander that was sitting on the far side of some rubble. I really couldn't get a shot on it, so I jumped up to the near side of the rocks and just tossed the commander a nice little present. The present blew him to pieces.

We saw some flashing from inside a nearby house followed by some more screaming in pain and panic. Based on the raids we'd done so far, I figured we had one group left with maybe a pair of aliens? That was the hope.

The hope was dashed when we checked out the house and spotted a trio of aliens in there. A Sectoid, a lancer, and a mech.

A Mech? INSIDE the house? What the heck?!?

It was a good thing we were prepared. Svagerko ripped into the lancer. I...well, we just won't talk about how well I hit (or did not hit) on this particular occasion. The team, as much as I think they're incompetent, actually CAN come together at times.

The Rookie, her caster already loaded, trained on the mech and ripped into it. Campbell actually found a nice angle through the side window and ripped through the mech's power core taking it out instantly. It was a pleasant surprise. My sis went into Rambo mode and DARED the lancer to move. It did. It didn't like the results. That left the Sectoid. I hate these things when they are in the middle of too many combatants. By themselves? It's not too bad and I pegged the thing. Svegarko didn't have an angle, and smartly stayed in cover, waiting for it to move. It didn't matter and she missed as the thing came into cover just inside the door to the house. It also brought the newly dead lancer back to life. It's a trick we'd seen a couple times before now, so it wasn't all that impressive.

With only the Sectoid left, we all allowed Svegerko the chance for revenge and she ran at the thing. She was at some funky angle, and I was wondering what she was going to do, but she ran straight at the wall and stabbed the wall. There was a wailing from inside the house, and then we all heard the slump of an alien hitting the floor as Svegerko actually pierced the thing THROUGH THE WALL. Even *I* was impressed with that one. That took a bit of style.

However, this had the unintended consequences of letting loose ANOTHER ball of sand. Svagerko had already been hit, and although the Rookie had healed herself, nobody else had been healed at this point. We were all too busy trying to save civilians at this point, and couldn't spend the time healing everyone up like we should have been.... However, in this case, it was actually possible we'd lose Svagerko if we didn't take this thing out.

And danggit, like I've said before, we are NOT losing someone on MY watch!

The rookie and that weapon of hers...or Pubentz's rather, shocked the snot out of the thing. Sis finished it off. It was a tough shot through the window to hit it, but with enough bullets, you could hit it. And that exactly what she and her gun had – PLENTY of bullets....

Mission Success. And good thing too. That bag of sand really messed me up. I'm still feeling it. When it was all said and done, everyone but my sis got a promotion – which is rather a shame. I know how much she hates being left behind. I'll be sure to lord it over her for as long as I can.

On the bad side, she really did get messed up a little bit. That grenade shot really hit her in the psyche. It's going to take her a bit to get her out of it. Svagerko needs some work as well. The hope was that this mission would snap her out of her funk. Apparently the grenade blast didn't help. We really need to keep her out of the line of fire. And finally there's Pritchett. She didn't come with us on this mission, but she's messed up in the head as well. I mean, she's a SNIPER. How on EARTH does a sniper continually manage to get hit?!?

If we're going to be effective, we really need to clean our acts up here...