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

Operation Earthly Daze

Anyway....

Fortunately for us, we were assigned to a new mission – I think just to get us all out of the Avenger for a little while.

We actually had a solid team. Myself, Gunner, Pritchett, the Newbie...Day I think, Zalewski and that blasted screeching robot of his, and SPARK, the BIG robot to round it out.

Our job? To land in this city and protect the transmitter device.

We really weren't expecting TOO much resistance, but I've heard that before and been surprised. VERY surprised.

So we land in this residential neighborhood looking area. But it's been transformed into a more of a military type area. A couple of turrets have been placed in the middle of the street flanked by a couple of grunts. I signal the start and the shooting starts.

It's amazing how much our team has grown. SPARK opened up with a rocket, taking out most of the cover in the area. From there, we pretty much take out everything but the commander (Day missed his shot of course...) Zalewski even managed to program the stupid droid of his to do something useful for once. Ok, maybe more than once. Twice. The alien commander did the only smart thing he could do. He ran.

He ran across the street and behind a destroyed turret and two layers of protective glass.

I hit him straight between the eyes. Stupid aliens. Don't they know they can't hide?

We knew where the objective was, but not totally sure about the rest. We just assumed that the aliens would be in that direction. It's always been that way before. The objective always seems to be like a magnet. Everything bad seems drawn to the ONE thing we happen to want to find.

Coincidence? I think not.

So Pritchett jumps to a roof to take a look around and finds the next contestants to "WHO DIES NOW?" It was a sparker and a pair of brainers.

Day started off by tossing a grenade at the grunt and brainer. He missed.

With a grenade.

Missed.

How on earth do you MISS with a grenade? It's a GRENADE. They BLOW UP. He's not earning his stripes THIS mission, that's for sure...

Van Dyke launches an acid grenade at one of the brainers. The screams from that thing are actually pretty cool – if you're into that kind of thing. Nobody seems to share my tastes.

SPARK goes into overdrive, running into the center of the zone and starts shooting off rounds everywhere, making a huge mess. It was pretty impressive all in all, except it didn't hit anything.

The Sparker teleported into the front of all of us, and produced one of those cool purple null zones that explode if you sit in the too long. The last time I saw one of these, I was put in the hospital for THREE BLASTED WEEKS. Yeah, the thing must die. Unfortunately, I was out of ammo, and out of position, so I climbed up next to Pritchett.

We watched as one of brainers re-animated one of the dead grunts. The other seemed to try to get into Pritchett's head. That was the stupidest thing ever... I think the last place you want to be is Pritchett's head. Well, Zalewski's head may be worse, but in a different way, and Ranger Van Dyke's head? Yeah, not EVER gonna go there either, but Pritchett's head? Yeah, no thank you. Needless to say, the brainer either did not get in there, or didn't stay there long, not sure which. I like to think the former, but the latter is ENTIRELY possible.

We then go into Codex protocol. Gunner sends an ice grenade on the Codex giving us time to take out the trash. Pritchett turns and kills the...dead thing?

"Really?"

She looked up at me triumphantly.

"But why!??!"

"I didn't like the way it looked at me."

"But it was dead!"

"That's probably the reason I didn't like the way it looked!"

It didn't matter much anymore. The thing no longer had a head.

It was pretty routine for the rest. Gunner destroyed one of the brainers from right next to me, the other brainer died of acid inhalation (a thoroughly nasty way to go). And the Codex became a magnet for everything that wanted to head that direction. Zalewski finished it off.

I was ready to call it a day. But we weren't done yet. Hmm... seriously? It was supposed to be light opposition, and we had more to go? I was not amused. I had planned on making it out of there without having to waste time healing people. I like to shoot things, not heal things. It's so irritating listening to people moan and groan about little things like getting shot, not being able to feel parts of their body, and coughing up blood.

So we figured if the objective was to protect the signal device, the aliens would want to destroy the signal device, so we got inside the room, prepped up, and waited.

It wasn't too long before a codex entered the room. I was always curious what would happen if the codex was hit but not killed in a surprise situation. Well, apparently if everybody shoots it at once, it doesn't have the ability to split. Errr, it DOES have the ability, but not in a way that is supportive of long term health for the codex. We split it into many, MANY pieces.

Feeling good about ourselves, we prepared for whatever came next. And what came next was a pair of snakes. And this is what I don't understand, everybody kind of looked at the snakes, and began arguing about who was going to shoot it. We simply let the snakes into the middle of the room, and let them breath that dastardly poison all over everybody.

When we finally got our wits about us, we started firing wildly around everything. Day FINALLY ended up hitting something and killing it. The thing slithered around some more, breathing over more of us before finally grabbing Zalewski and squeezing. HARD. It looked painful.

I'm glad it wasn't me.

Gunner tells me she could barely hear him, "shoot. It."

I had a perfect shot on it, but Zalewski's biscuit robot got in the way of my shot. Next time, I shoot right through the thing. RIGHT THROUGH IT. I don't care who's robot it is... Ironically enough Day was the one who brought the second lizard down. I might have to start calling him snake-eyes.

Gunner and I quickly vacated the residence with its poison gas. I know some of the squad got hit hard with the stuff and were looking a bit green. There's no way I'm going back, and I think Gunner is the same.

We got back from the mission with the new Enginner in tow. The Doc was front and center, pulling out the sickies into med-bay. I think he ENJOYS his collections.. he looked at us briefly but we just waved him away. We were fine! Really. There was NO way I was spending more time in that place any time soon...

Zalewski looked at the doctor as he was being led away, "But...but...THEY GOT HIT TOO!"

I just shook my head. Nope. Not this time...

We could distinctly hear down the hall a whine followed by "IT'S NOT FAIR...."

I was just about to leave when I heard.. 'OOOOOoooo, he's SO CUTE!"

I just rolled my eyes.

"Can we keep him!"

"I tell you what Gill...why don't you show him down to Shen. Shen can show you where to put his bowl ok?"

Gill jumped and clapped briefly before grabbing the confused (and rather alarmed) engineer and dragging him down the hall.

I looked over at Gunner and grinned. Done and done.