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

Operation Last Gift

Corbin turned the corner to find the two face to face, Svagerko with her sword pushing against Van Dyke's ionic axe. Van Dyke smirked as he stared Svagerko in the eye, "No wonder you were back in the hospital, you are weak.." With all her effort, Svagerko shoved Van Dyke away, sending him sprawling to the floor. Not done yet, he hurled one of his axes right at her, who at the last moment deflected the axe where it buried itself in the door frame just inches away from Corbin's shoulder.

Corbin flinched involuntarily as Svagerko glowered over at Van Dyke. "Exactly how cheap do you want to be?" Van Dyke just smirked as he regained his feet before looking over at Corbin the smirk slowly dropping to a condescending frown. "What you looking at?"

Corbin shook her head to break free of her and looked at the pair. "Commander is finally ready to take a look at the Lost Towers and needs a Ranger." Van Dyke quickly headed to his locker to start getting prepped. "And he asked for Svagerko."

Van Dyke stopped and turned slowly around, pinning Corbin to the spot with his gaze. "He did what?"

Corbin gulped. "He...he asked for Svagerko." She held up the paper.

Van Dyke brushed by Corbin on his way out of the training room, "Oh, we shall see about this paper."

Corbin looked up to Svagerko as Van Dyke left out of sight. "Is he always like that?"

"You caught him on a good day." She looked at the shocked expression on Corbin's face. "Did Commander really ask for me?"

"Uh huh..."

Svagerko smiled a sly smile.

"And we're leaving right away I assume?"

"Uh huh..."

Svagerko went and pulled the axe out of the wall, and picked up the spare one where Van Dyke had foolishly left it.

Corbin looked on, shocked once again. "Won't he be pissed?"

Svagerko smiled triumphantly, "Uh huh....."

***

"What do you MEAN the ammo isn't ready?"

Shen sighed. This conversation had been going on for well over a week now. She understood Gunner's frustration, but there really wasn't anything she could do. "As I told you yesterday, until we find another Elirium core, I can't work on the ammo."

"Why couldn't you do both?"

"The grenades used all of our existing stocks."

"And why didn't you tell us this BEFORE we decided to move forward?"

"We didn't know how much was going to be used. This isn't exactly a known science here." Her GREMLIN shrieked once in support.

Van Dyke looked over at the thing irritated before continuing, "So instead of getting ammo that we'd be able to use ALL the time, we're stuck with grenades that are semi-marginally useful, AND we don't have the ability to upgrade ammo yet until we get more raw materials that are nowhere on the horizon?"

Shen sighed and nodded.

"THAT is the STUPIDEST thing I've ever heard! How are we supposed to NOT get shot if the ammo we have can't penetrate freaking PAPER!"

It was right about then that Corbin walked into engineering. The two women paused looking at the newcomer. Corbin shifted slightly. Handing out assignments wasn't as easy as it was supposed to be. She looked at her paper again and cleared her throat, "Van Dyke, you are wanted for mission briefing. We are leaving for the Two Towers shortly."