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

X-COM 2: Welcome Back

Svagerko watched from the doorframe as the Ranger went about his paces, cutting, slicing, and piercing with his practice sword. The well-orchestrated clackity clack of the sword against his opponent would have ended the life of any alien, had the sword been real, and the dummy been a real opponent.

The Ranger paused a moment, taking a quick breather, stretching his arms before readying himself for another bout. The next flurry occurred even quicker than before, ending with the sword inches from the dummy's head, the Ranger not wanting to decapitate yet another practice dummy. He stood up and stretched again. Without looking back, he called over his shoulder, "Like what you see?"

Svagerko, slightly startled out of being discovered, quickly covered it up, "Just watching to see if there's anything I need to worry about." There was a slight pause, "There's not."

The Ranger merely smirked. "Any time you want a REAL match little girl, you know where to find me."

Svagerko squinted her eyes. This was one challenge the Ranger would not win. She'd made it to her locker when Corbin, out of breath came bursting into the training room. "IT'S TIME!" Svagerko looked back over at the Ranger, "Lucky you, I guess your humiliation will wait for another day."

***

Campell and Hugh sat at a monitor, watching the transmission. The anniversary celebration would be happening soon, just like the simulation indicated. The two looked at each other as they watched the ADVENT soldiers march across the screen in an endless parade.

Pugh stared at the monitor, a worried frown on her face. "What are we going to do?" She was answered with a sharp crack and a shower of sparks that sent her scrambling to the ground. She looked up at the monitor, the smoking ruin of what was left of it, before turning to Campbell. Campbell looked back unabashedly, her pistol sitting calmly in her lap, "I think we'll just shoot them one by one until there aren't any left. How's that sound?"

Pugh just stared at her as Corbin came running up, "It's time. Everyone to the conference room!"

***

The Commander looked over his assembled team. There were still a couple of empty seats. He went through his mental checklist and sighed.

"Where's Halverson?"

The assembled group looked around questioningly. Nobody really had a good answer on that one. Halverson hadn't really talked to anybody since the simulation ended, and she was not exactly one to reach out to people.

"Alrighty, I'll grab her in a few minutes, in the meantime, I want..."

"WAIIIIIIT!" Everybody stopped as an unwelcome and familiar screech came from down the hall.

Pritchett face-palmed herself. "You have GOT to be kidding me! There is NO way..."

She was cut off as Zalewski came bursting into the room. Bastion 2.0 hovering uneasily behind him. "Am I late? I didn't mean to be, but I was making another improvement on..."

An earth shattering screech drowned out the rest of his sentence. After the deathly scream died down, the silence was all the more noticeable. Kirstoff piped up, "What on earth was that? Is the ship ok? Was that an alarm? Are we about to die? Where's the escape pod!"

The Commander finally opened his eyes again ignoring the questions. Seeing that Pubentz had the only other bot in the room, the Commander started up, "Alrighty – new rule, all bots except Pubentz's will need to stay in engineering until loaded onto the shuttle for departure."

Shen looked back angrily, "No, you are NOT keeping this piece of metal in MY engineering hall!"

Zalewski looked between the two of them, "That's ok, I'll just keep him in my room."

The Commander and Shen looked at each other and nodded. Gunner leaned over to Kristoff, a slight grin on her face, "I believe he's your next door neighbor is he not?" Kristoff looked back up alarmed, then to the floor dejectedly. He knew there was no way to change minds at this point.

"Ok, as you've all heard, it's begun. Bomber, Pubentz, Svagerko, and Pritchett. You're up. The rest of you, rest up. It's going to get nasty, and we're going to need all of you."

There was surprisingly little grumbling as the team marched out.

***

Bomber stood at the base of the staircase leading to the upper platform. She paused and looked back to Svagerko, crouching right beside her. "There aren't any up there, they must have moved on."

Corbin called in, over the comms, "There are three signatures just north of your position, maybe 20 feet north of you, you can't miss them!"

Bomber shook her head back, "There must be something wrong with your sensors. Watch, I'll prove it," Bomber walked confidently up the staircase. She barely noticed the trio of grunts that were chattering away just past the top of the staircase.

It took both parties a second of confusion before the chaos began. Bomber immediately began firing her mini-gun into the area, sending one of the grunts into early retirement. The pair of ADVENT grunts dove into cover. Svagerko and Pubentz tossed grenades proving that their cover wasn't effective against high explosives.

They jumped from cover to cover as they approached their destination, a large ornamental statue with particular importance to ADVENT. As they prepared to clear the final area, Corbin chirped back in over the comms, "Shen asked you to....how do we say this politely, stop blowing the....snot....out of the enemy. We can't recover anything if you blow it all up."

Pubentz huffed, "Tell that one note engineer that if she wants the stuff so bad, she can come down with us and GET the blasted...

The rest of the sentence was cut off as Pubentz was tackled to the ground. Gunfire blasted away the column she'd been taking cover behind, covering her with dust and chips of what remained of her previous cover. Pubentz paled ever so slightly as she looked over to Pritchett, giving her a nod of thanks. The pair rolled to either side, sending a hail of fire back at the attacker's position.

The fight was short but brutal. The last grunt, having paid too much attention to Pubentz and Bomber, lost track of Svagerko who slipped in behind it. With optimal position, Svagerko gutted him like a fish using one of the moves she'd learned earlier that day watching the Ranger. She'd never tell him that.

***

Prithcett patted her handiwork as she jogged over to the rest of her squad, the timer methodically ticking down on her watch. Pubentz watched for the incoming rendezvous as Pritchett trotted over, "That's actually really impressive. Where did you learn that?" Pritchett looked back at the setup and smirked, "Let's just say there were some people at home that I wasn't particularly fond of."

As the ship headed off, the status exploded, sending stone pieces in all directions as the first human victory was logged in the books.

***

The bits and pieces of the mini-gun sat strewn across the table. Shen sat there analyzing them with her critical eye, picking the varying pieces up, turning them around, then setting them back down again. Gunner sat back and watched as Shen smiled slightly after each piece.

After thirty minutes of watching in silence, Gunner finally got frustrated, "WELL?!?"

Shen immediately looked at her watch and stopped the timer. She looked up to Gunner, "You did better than I expected. I figured you'd burst right around 20 minutes, you lasted... twenty-eight minutes and forty-two seconds."

"WELL?!?!"

"Yes, yes, I can do it. I actually had the prototype prepped from the simulation and was in process of perfecting it. Your fancy new gun will be done next week."

There was silence.

"Yes, see me in a week, I'll see you then."

Gunner left engineering with a unfamiliar feel. She didn't know what it was like leaving engineering with satisfaction.