Let’s Play XCOM2…with a twist.

[Mastershake]

Let’s Play XCOM2…with a twist.
-
So, It’d be fair to say I’m not as down on XCOM2 as I was at one point, but some of the features are still bugging me a bit. That being said, I wanted to do something interesting with the game. While writing a narrative can be pretty fun, it gets more engaging when you’re not entirely sure what’s going to happen (a lesson I learned from D&D GMing). That in mind, I set out to write a story. The protagonist was going to be whoever the RNG decided was my first Grenadier (should get one on the prologue mission) and the narrative would follow them to the end of the story…or not. You see one of the ground rules I came up with going in to the game was that, even though it wouldn’t be on Iron Man, I wasn’t going to reload a save just to try and keep the protagonist from dying. Whatever happens, happens. The big reason for not doing Iron Man mode was that I found at least two game breaking bugs that forced me to reload an old save to continue, so I didn’t want to risk losing everything just because the game bugged out. That being said, here we go…

http://s177.photobucket.com/user/Blaisdell309d/media/20160313143916_1_zpsgxaabvdr.jpg.html

Mission 0- Gatecrasher
-Squad-
Rookie Helen Brown
Rookie Karin Nilsen
Rookie Nkosana Mafolo
Rookie Jesus Garcia
-
Helen let out a sigh as she looked over the plaza below. The team had made it covertly to the top of one of the stores overlooking a statue of the Elders. The statue was a massive and imposing sight, a true sign of Advent’s dominance of Earth…and it was the team’s target. She motioned for the rest of the team to take a look, and the other three squad members came out from the stairwell. She pointed to the base of the statue, “That’s where we’re placing the charge. Central and the veteran soldiers are running another op that should have Advent busy, so we’re only expecting light patrols, but that does mean a Skyranger evac is out if everything goes tits up. Civilians should be mostly clear due to curfew. Me and Jesus are going to approach from the left while Karin and Nkosana are going towards the objective so hopefully, if we do hit a patrol, we’ll have them in an L-shaped ambush. Questions?”

Nkosana, an imposing South African man, nodded before speaking, “Nko, everyone calls me Nko. While we’re on questions, why are you in charge again?”
Helen just nodded and looked back to Nko, “Because Central felt I had the most experience and he didn’t want someone who rams an Advent checkpoint on a whim and gets arrested calling the shots.”

As Nko leaned forward about to speak, Jesus, a Brazilian man with a calming demeanor, stepped between them, “Same side guys. Let’s get this done and get home. Que?”

Karin, a Norweigan woman with long blonde hair, had been studying the plaza the whole time. She didn’t turn her gaze before speaking, “Not much cover. Could be bad if Advent is in force.”

Helen just gave a shrug, “Then let’s hope they’re not in force.”

Helen climbed down the side of the building and immediately sprinted to a nearby van. No Advent troops visible for now. She made a quick gesture to the rest of the team and they proceeded to descend the building and take their positions. Helen could feel her heart racing as the team made quick, leapfrog moves from one piece of cover to another. It didn’t take long to spot the first Advent patrol of three troopers. The patrol hadn’t sighted the team yet and seemed to be talking about something among themselves. Helen looked over to Karin and whispered on the comms, “Do you think you could get a grenade over there as a greeting for our friends?”

Karin just nodded. She pulled the grenade off her vest, primed it and lobbed it into group. The Advent troopers looked confused for a moment, then tried to move away, but it detonated before they could clear the radius. Two of the troopers were dead, but another was far enough away to escape and moved to cover. Helen just called out over the comms, “I’m not taking any chances. I’ll get this one, start moving to the objective. Frag Out!” Another explosion rocked the plaza. It was a sure bet any other Advent in the area would be on alert, but the first patrol was all dealt with. Nko moved to the statue as Jesus took up a cover position. Nko looked around nervously, then shook his head and placed the charge, “Should be one hell of a bang.”

As soon as the charge was set, the explosive alarms started going off. They were standard equipment on all Advent facilities. It didn’t take long for another patrol of an Officer and two Troopers to show up. The patrol immediately fanned out and took cover positions. Helen motioned around, “Jesus, Nko, get grenades on those Alphas, I’ll see what I can do about this one!”

Two more explosions rocked the plaza as grenades killed the troopers, Helen took a deep breath and took aim at the officer. She squeezed the trigger. The four round burst peppered the officer’s cover, but none of the rounds connected. Karin couldn’t see the officer, so she watched for movement as she covered Nko. All of a sudden, a blur of movement caught Karin’s eye. The officer was trying to flank Nko. She fired off a good burst that connected with the officer, but his armor stopped the worst of it. Clutching his side in pain, the officer fired a burst at Nko and a spray of red erupted from him. Jesus was already moving to a position to get a shot on the officer and put a burst of four rounds through his skull. Helen was frantically calling over comms, “Nko, you with us? Are you hurt?”

Nko groaned, “I can walk. I wouldn’t say ‘no’ to a quick exit though.”

Helen gave a sigh of relief, “Alright, that looks like all the Advent in the immediate area. Let’s get moving to our contact before reinforcements show up.”

The contact was waiting in a windowless, non-descript, van a few streets over. The back and front of the van were separated by a divider so that the agents and contacts never had to meet. Once the whole team was in, Helen knocked on the divider and the van immediately lurched into action. Karin was putting a field dressing on Nko’s wound. He had been shot through the arm and was bleeding badly, but Karin was apparently familiar with field dressing and stopped the bleeding in only a few moments. Helen took a deep breath, “Mission accomplished and everyone gets home. A good day.”

Nko grunted, but said nothing. Karin didn’t even acknowledge Helen’s comment. Jesus smiled, “Yes, good job everyone.”

Helen just shook her head. Even with all the time she had spent working with the resistance, she had never lost her military approach to situations which sometimes led to friction with the less formal resistance agents. This would be different though. The resistance was now working with the newly established XCOM project which would hopefully turn the tide of the war.

A few hours later a knocking noise echoed through the van. That was their cue to exit. They stepped out of the windowless van into the frozen Russian countryside. As soon as Helen closed the doors, the van sped away. She pulled a blue electroflare out of her vest, popped it, and tossed it into a nearby field. The electroflares could signal a waiting Skyranger both visually and electronically. She wasn’t sure how long they’d be waiting for pickup, since the other team had been using the Skyranger for another mission, but only a minute had passed before it was hovering overhead and deploying ropes. The team members each locked their ascent rigs onto the ropes and, one-by-one, rode them up to the Skyranger.

Helen had spent so long working with the underfunded resistance, she had almost forgot what it was like to have a real military transport available (even if it was somewhat cramped). Karin spent the entire ride back to XCOM HQ checking on Nko’s wound. Jesus was smiling and nodding as he looked around the Skyranger’s interior. Helen couldn’t help but ask, “Alright, what is it Jesus? Why are you smiling?”

He held up a finger as if to make a point, “I heard the new XCOM HQ was a massive ship called the Avenger. Maybe just a rumor, who knows. Resistance fighters talk about all manner of crazy stuff like shapeshifters and giant flying baseballs, so who knows, but could you imagine all the tech on something like that?”
Helen smiled, “So you like tech I take it?”

Jesus let out a boisterous laugh that echoed through the cabin, “Oh, I grew up in a small village in Brazil and I took apart anything I could get my hands on. This Skyranger alone is pretty amazing, but I don’t think they would appreciate it if I took it apart.”

Helen shook her head, “No. I don’t think they would. At least you’ve got a good outlook on things.”

Jesus shrugged, “No point in dwelling on the bad right? Look to the future. Look to who you can help, not who you’ve lost.”
Helen was about to respond when she could feel the Skyranger descending. The descent was fast and the ship quickly plopped on the ground. The back ramp opened after a short moment to reveal an astonishing sight. They were on the deck of a massive ship, but not a naval vessel, some kind of flying ship easily the equal in size to most naval vessels. The platform they had landed on was already descending further into some kind of hangar bay arrangement. As the platform came to a stop, Helen looked back at her team. All of them seemed dumbfounded, like they had just stepped through a portal to another world. All of them except Jesus, who was now grinning from ear to ear.
A familiar face appeared from the main exit to the hangar. It was an older man that Helen knew as Central officer Bradford, or simply Central. He was the man who recruited her for XCOM. His Expression was abnormally dour, even for him. He waved at the team, “I’m going to need you all in the briefing room ASAP. Follow me.”

The team quickly fell into line behind Central with Karin helping Nko. When they got to the briefing room, four other soldiers were looking at them expectantly. Central motioned for Helen’s team to take a seat. As her team walked in, she could see from the other soldiers that they wanted to ask questions, but were holding off until Central was finished. Once everyone was seated, Central began, “The good news is that the operation with Colonel Otto Zander and myself to recover the Commander was a success. The Commander is now back in charge of XCOM,”

The soldiers went for a cheer, but Central made motioned with his hand for them to stop, “Unfortunately, Zander and the rest of his team…didn’t make it. You…you eight soldiers now represent the entire field force of the new XCOM.”

Central paused for everyone to take in the announcement before continuing, “This is not the old days of XCOM where we had our pick of recruits from militaries around the world. We don’t have the resources to train new people from scratch. You were all selected because you had experience or natural skill…and with the loss of our veterans, you’ll have to show off that potential…or die trying. One thing I can promise is that we won’t give up on you, if you don’t give up on yourself. As it stands, the most experienced soldier among you, Helen Brown, is being promoted to Squad Leader and I expect all of you to show her the utmost respect regardless of your background.”
It took a minute for Helen to process what Central had just said. She was now the ranking officer for XCOM field personnel. Her mind was racing so much, she barely snapped out of her reverie in time for Central to finish, “We’ll be holding a memorial for the fallen in the bar later. For now, Squaddie Brown, the Commander would like to see you in his office. Don’t worry I’ll show you the way.”

Central motioned at the door and Helen quickly moved to follow. Neither of them said anything the entire walk to the Commander’s office. Central finally stopped at the door to the Commander’s office and knocked. The door opened. Central gave a brief smile to Helen and mouthed “good luck” as he left he alone in the hallway. She took a deep breath and stepped inside. The room was incredibly dark, with the only light coming from a large array of monitors in the back displaying everything from Advent news to the ship’s status. The Commander was seated in his chair with his back turned to Helen. It was hard to make out any of his features. A deep voice echoed through the room, “It would appear fate has decided upon a cruel joke for us both Squaddie Brown.”

Helen shook her head, “Sir?”

The voice continued, “I have been woken up after 20 years to fight an enemy I barely recognize and you just joined XCOM and found yourself leading all of our troops in the field. I’m going to need your help as much as you’re going to need mine if we are to succeed where everyone has failed for the past two decades.”

Helen straightened up, “What would you need from me?”

The figured steepled his fingers, “I know very little about the current extra-terrestrial threat, this Advent, so you’re going to have to make a lot of judgement calls on the ground that I won’t be able to help you with. However; I can promise I will do everything in my power to get the equipment and resources your ground teams will need to emerge successful. Are you up for this fight?”

Helen thought a moment, “Sir, I kept fighting even after the UK capitulated. I don’t have a problem with hopeless causes, but I…I would like to know one thing from you.”

The figure’s head tilted slightly, “And what is that Squaddie Brown?”

Helen had been anticipating the question, “Do you think we can beat Advent?”

The commander took a minute to think before continuing, “If we simply try conventional methods, no, but we have the greatest minds of humanity on our side and a number of agents within Advent itself providing us with intelligence. If anyone can do it, we can.”

Helen nodded and turned to walk out, “Thank you, Commander.”

The voice replied, “Do not thank me yet Squaddie Brown.”

Helen joined the rest of the soldiers and Central in the bar later. Jesus was walking around pouring everyone drinks as he spoke, “In the old days, centuries ago, they would cheer ‘The king is dead. Long live the king!’. They would do this because, even in the worst of times, there always had to be a king. There always had to be someone willing to take up the mantle and continue leading the way. So I propose a toast to all the brave soldiers who died for the old XCOM and all of the poor new bastards who have to keep going. XCOM is dead. Long live XCOM!”

The gathered soldiers replied in unison, “Long live XCOM!”
-
After Action Report
Rookie Helen Brown- Promoted
Rookie Nkosana Mafolo- Promoted/Grievously Wounded 24 days
Rookie Karin Nilsen- Promoted
Rookie Jesus Garcia- Promoted

[Mastershake]

Mission 15 – Hellborn Laughter

-Squad-
(Sharpshooter) Maj. Karin “Widow” Nilsen
(Specialist) Lt. Jesus “Teardrop” Garcia
(Ranger) Sgt. Brittany “Predator” Duncan
(Grenadier) Cpl. Eva Petrova
Acolyte Lucy Woods
Acolyte Lisa Woods


Karin looked around the richly appointed apartment and admired all of the nick knacks and baubles littering the counters and bookshelves. She hadn’t seen such luxurious accommodations in years. The rest of the team was poking around the place, trying to not make a mess of things. Whoever their contact was, they weren’t hurting for money. Brittany was looking at an ornamental doll when she mumbled, “67 percent.”

Karin dropped her head, “Are you STILL on about that? That was like, what, five days ago?”

Brittany’s gaze snapped over to her, “How upset would you be if I bet your life on a 67% chance?”

Karin laughed, “That’s probably happened at least three times since I joined XCOM.”

Brittany shook her head and continued poking about the apartment. The team had been waiting for the better part of a day for their contact to deliver the package, some kind of VIP. The surroundings were at least better than what they were used to. As Karin was in the middle of reading a motivational poster on the wall the door opened. An older man, with plenty of wrinkles to show for his life, entered and said the code phrase “Hellborn Laughter”. Karin walked up to him and extended a hand, “So where is this package?”

The man shook her hand and said, “It’s right behind me, but you’ll have to verify it. It could be an Advent plant.”

Karin shrugged, “Okay, what the hell am I supposed to do to verify…”

She stopped mid-sentence as a familiar face walked through the door. It was Helen. Karin’s face lit up as she pushed past the contact and embraced Helen. Karin was almost in tears as she spoke, “I thought we’d lost you!”

Helen patted her on the back, “I like you too, but this is getting kind of weird.”

Karin pulled back, “Sorry. Sorry.”

Karin checked Helen’s right arm and found the tattoo made by Nko. She looked back at the contact, “Consider the package verified.”

She walked up to the contact and started discussing plans for their exit when Central came over the comms, “You have a problem. Advent suspects the VIP is in the area. They’re conducting a cordon and search for the entire city. The Skyranger is already on its way, but you’ll have a limited exit window before the noose gets too tight.”

Karin motioned for the team to exit, “That’s our cue ladies.”

The extract point was on the second floor roof of a nearby car dealership right across the plaza from the apartments they were in. The cordon and search had almost completely cleared the streets of anyone but Advent troops. The team proceeded out the main door and immediately ran into a patrol of a Lancer, Trooper and Shieldbearer. The Advent troops were dispatched with practiced ease.

As they made their way across the plaza, they encountered a second patrol of two Vipers and a Lancer. Eva demolished the cover the Lancer and Viper were hiding behind and the team picked them off while one of the twins froze the other Viper with a stasis. Bethany moved into a position to strike the second Viper when it recovered, but she was spotted by another patrol of two Vipers and an Archon. She immediately popped a mimic beacon to try and provide a diversion while the rest of the team caught up.

The Archon and a Viper were distracted by the beacon, but the other Viper looked over at Karin and fired it’s tongue out at a supernaturally high velocity. Karin heard a distinct snap as it whipped straight past her head. The Viper glared at her and spat a concentrated dose of poison. Jesus yelled, “Get out of the cloud and I’ll fix you.”

Karin sumbled out of the toxic miasma and was immediately med by Scout who gave her a quick jolt from its medkit. Karin then drew her pistol and aimed at the viper, “Oh, so you think it’s funny to spit on people?”

She fired two shots in rapid succession, ending the creature. Bethany put a point-blank shard gun blast into the Viper that been locked in stasis as the twins put the Archon in stasis and, with the help of Eva, dispatched the last Viper with extreme prejudice. As the Archon recovered from stasis, it was greeted by a hail of bullets.

The way looked clear to the extract. Bethany took point and found a clear spot on the first floor roof next to the extract. As the team assembled and prepared to leave, Jesus held up a hand and whispered, “I think they’re below us.”

Karin shook her head and whispered back, “I don’t care. They’re not our mission.”

With the faint sound of movement in the building below them, the team, one by one, ascended to the Skyranger until everyone was on board and then left the area. Karin was still coughing after the poison, even with the medkit from Scout. She put up the best smile she could and looked over to Helen, “I am so glad all of this crap is your problem now…and you better not expect any time off after your little vacation with Advent.”

Back on the Avenger, Karin was getting treated in the Advanced Warfare center for the Viper poison while Helen had a talk with the Commander. After about half an hour, Helen returned. Karin smiled, “I had to go through two missions with a bunch of idiot rookies and no Grenadier. There were aliens just in cover…and they got to stay there. It was friggin terrible.”

Helen let out a laugh, “Well, I’m back with all the explosions, so no worries. On that note, the Commander and I had a long chat.”

Karin rolled her eyes, “I bet he scolded you for getting captured.”

Helen shook her head, “Nothing like that. We just talked about the future of the squad…and we both decided you’re going to stay in command.”

Karin violently shook her head, “No, no, no. That’s not how it’s supposed to go. You’re supposed to come back and be all responsible and crap and I get to go back to not caring about anyone but me.”

Helen put her hand on Karin’s shoulder, “If it makes you feel any better, I completely sold you out. I don’t want that job either.”

Karin tried to laugh, but it ended up as cough, “bastard.”

Helen looked down for a moment, then turned her gaze back to Karin, “Also, why are all the rookies calling you Widow?”

Karin shrugged, “Apparently I have a reputation for being bad luck on account of everything bad happening on missions when I’m around.”

Helen nodded thoughtfully, “You know, I could totally see that.”

Karin gave Helen a friendly jab, “You’re like the world’s worst motivational speaker.”

-After Action Report-
(Sharpshooter) Maj. Karin “Widow” Nilsen- Wounded 4 days
(Specialist) Lt. Jesus “Teardrop” Garcia
(Ranger) Sgt. Brittany “Predator” Duncan
(Grenadier) Cpl. Eva Petrova
Acolyte Lucy Woods
Acolyte Lisa Woods

[Mastershake]

Mission 16 – Knife Tower
<<<Spoiler Alert: Story Objective Completed this Mission>>>

-Squad-
(Sharpshooter) Maj. Karin “Widow” Nilsen
(Specialist) Lt. Jesus “Teardrop” Garcia
(Grenadier) Lt. Helen “Boom Boom” Brown
(Ranger) Sgt. Brittany “Predator” Duncan
Acolyte Lucy Woods
Acolyte Lisa Woods

Jesus entered the armory and was somewhat taken aback by the sight that greeted him. He was expecting Karin and possibly Chen, but Helen was also there. He looked around a little before sheepishly entering, “You said you needed me for something?”

Karin put on an absolutely fake smile, “Jesus, buddy, I got good news and I got bad news.”

Jesus shook his head, “How screwed am I?”

Karin produced a device that looked like some kind of wrist mounted apparatus, “This is your new toy. Try it on for size.”

Jesus reluctantly put it on and started playing with it. One of the buttons immediately caused a pair of claw-like prongs to fire out of it. He looked at Karin confused, “This is not really my thing. Maybe Bethany?”

Karin shook her head, “Nah buddy, this is for you. You see we need to hack the Advent psionic network and in order to do that, we need to hack an Advent officer while he’s still hooked in. So you need to take this, ram those two prongs through an officer’s chin and take advantage of the brief access before brain death to initiate a hack.”

Jesus was dumbfounded, “That’s insane.”

Karin nodded gleefully, “Oh, it’s absolutely insane, but it’s also the only way we can get access to their network. Congratulations buddy!”

Jesus solemnly shook his head, “I hate you.”

The start of the next mission went smoothly enough. They were going to protect a resistance transmitter in an urban slum in India. Advent intelligence had led them to the device and they were trying to destroy it. The team made covertly made their way to a rooftop overlooking the building the transmitter was in and could hear the distinct sound of weapons fire. As they were getting set to assault the building, they spotted a patrol of an Advent officer and Trooper. Karin looked over at Jesus and smiled, “This is your chance buddy.”

She fired a quick round, instantly killing the Trooper and the officer dove for cover. As he did, Jesus was already sliding down a pipe and when the officer went to raise his weapon, Jesus rammed the skulljack up through his chin. Jesus instantly had access to the entire Advent network. It might very well have been the greatest intelligence coup of the war…and then something unexpected happened. A weird gold-colored entity materialized, its form constantly shifting like it was some kind of computer program manifestation.

Central was buzzing in Karin’s ear to destroy it and recover what they could so she directed one of the twins to freeze it and sent Brittany to greet it with a shard cannon. While they waited for the stasis to wear off, she pinged Jesus on the comms, “Is that creature appearing a good thing or a bad thing?”

Jesus just looked up at her and shook his head, “Maybe both?”

The instant stasis ended, Brittany levelled her weapon on the back of the creature’s skull, “Let’s see if it can survive a point blank shard cannon.”

She pulled the trigger and the creature fluctuated violently…then created a copy of itself further away. Brittany looked up confused, “It totally can survive a point blank shard cannon.”

Karin fired a quick pistol shot into the one near Brittany and it disappeared, leaving only some sort of skull. She motioned for Helen to move to other side of the roof, “The clones appear to be pretty weak. Do you have a shot on the other one?”

Helen just nodded and let fly a fusillade of gauss rounds, tearing the other one to pieces. Karin pointed to the skull-like device the creature left and flashed Jesus on the comms, “I’m betting Shen and Tygan will want to look at that.”

Suddenly, the twins came over the comms in unison, “The transmitter is almost gone.”

Karin looked back at the building. She had completely forgotten why they came here. There were no doors or windows on this side of the building, the aliens were almost certainly inside. She called out to Helen, “Hey sexy, I need a hole in that wall two minutes ago.”

Helen nodded and ran back to Karin’s side of the roof before popping a grenade into the wall. The two Mutons and Archon inside the room seemed very surprised by this development as they scurried for cover. The squad was able to easily dispatch the Mutons and one of the twins put the Archon into stasis. They finished him off as soon as the stasis expired, then combed the area for the last of the hostiles before extracting.

-After Action Report-
(Sharpshooter) Maj. Karin “Widow” Nilsen
(Specialist) Lt. Jesus “Teardrop” Garcia- Promoted
(Grenadier) Lt. Helen “Boom Boom” Brown
(Ranger) Sgt. Brittany “Predator” Duncan- Promoted
Acolyte Lucy Woods
Acolyte Lisa Woods

[Mastershake]

Mission 17 – Witch Tomb

-Squad-
(Sharpshooter) Maj. Karin “Widow” Nilsen
(Specialist) Cpt. Jesus “Teardrop” Garcia
(Grenadier) Lt. Helen “Boom Boom” Brown
(Ranger) Lt. Brittany “Predator” Duncan
Warlock Lucy “Voodoo” Woods
Warlock Lisa “Psycho” Woods

The team deployed to an Advent convoy that had been halted by resistance forces. Convoys like this were the best way for XCOM to acquire specialized alloys and the rare element Elerium. They approached along a ridgeline overlooking the road. As they moved from cover to cover, they spotted a patrol of 2 Mecs and a Trooper. Karin whispered over the comms, “Didn’t the twins say they picked up some kind of area attack?”

The twins replied in unison, “Yes.”

Karin shook her head, “Well, let’s see what it does. Lob it into that patrol.”

After a brief moment, a whirling vortex of psionic energy consumed all three of the enemies. Parts of the Mecs were being ripped off through their armor. The trooper started yelling something and immediately opened fire at one of the Mecs which, coupled with the damage from the psionic attack, destroyed it. The team quickly dispatched the last Mec and the terrified Advent trooper. When they were sure the area was clear, Karin turned to Helen, “Did they just drive that trooper so crazy he shot and destroyed his own Mec?”

Helen, looking back at Karin wide-eyed, just nodded. Karin shook her head, “These two are starting to terrify me.”

The rest of the mission was uneventful as the remaining Advent forces had no defense against the psionic attacks and never appeared in enough numbers to be a problem. As the Skyranger set down on the Avenger and the team started offloading the supplies, the alarms started flashing. Karin directed the team to continue the offload as she headed up to operations. When she arrived, she saw the doomsday counter going yet again. She looked over at Central, “Didn’t we just do this? How did Advent recover that quickly?”

Central shook his head, “They’ve been working diligently on this. We just have to keep hitting them.”

Karin looked down at the map, “Is there anything for me to do?”

“Not for the time being. We still have to make contact with local resistance forces near some of the other sites. For now, just keep your team’s readiness up.”

Central pointed in the direction of the Commander’s office, “Also, it’s time for your monthly debrief.”

Karin rolled her eyes, “Great.”

The Commander’s office never really seemed to change, but he did appear to be typing something on a tablet this time. He didn’t look up or turn to her as he spoke, “Even with some of our set-backs, we appear to be on track. We have a number of research and construction projects that must be completed in order for us to move forward with a more…direct interdiction of the Avatar project, but rest assured, those matters are being attended to. We also have research projects in the works that will be directly affecting your squad’s performance. That reminds me, what are your thoughts on the new additions to XCOM?”

Karin nodded a little, “Well, the twins are pretty terrifying and I’ve been reliably informed they’re not even at full power yet. Brittany is proving to be an excellent soldier. Eva did a solid job, but with Helen back, I’m not sure how much we’ll need her. Overall, the team is definitely getting to the point where Advent has to consider us a serious threat.”

The Commander lightly tapped the tablet, “Outstanding…you are dismissed Major Nilsen.”

Karin was relaxing in her bunk reading reports from other resistance groups while getting ready to hit the rack for the night. The squad hadn’t had a mission in a while and they hadn’t quite gotten to point where they were able to launch a raid against one of the Avatar facilities, so they were more or less in a holding pattern. It was nice to have some downtime for a change. All of a sudden, the Avenger jerked sharply sending loose items falling off of shelves and Central came on the intercom, “All key leaders, report to operations.”

Karin went back to her report. A moment later, a book hit her in the head. She looked in the direction it came from to find Helen staring at her, “I think he meant you.”

Karin ignored her. Only a moment later, Central came back on the intercom, “Major Nilsen, report to operations.”

Karin sighed and headed up to operations without bothering to put on a pair of pants or a shirt. When she arrived, Central did a double-take before pointing to the screen, “That UFO finally caught up to us. We’re having to do evasive maneuvers to try and shake it.”

Karin bobbed her head a little, then shrugged, “Okay.”

Central glared at her, “You might have to get your squad ready to…”

Before he could finish, one of the officers in ops called out, “Contact lost. Sky is clear.”

Karin looked around for a moment, “So does this mean I don’t have to do anything?”

Central shook his head in disapproval. Karin just nodded, “Sweet. I’m going to sleep.”

A few days later, Karin was down in the armory watching Shen’s demonstration of the first Plasma Rifle fabricated by XCOM. The weapon showed an impressive amount of firepower for its size. Shen was beaming with pride, “It’s going to take a while to get designs tested and produced that will match the performance characteristics of some of our other weapons, but the biggest obstacle of simply figuring out how to make plasma weapons in the first place is now gone.”

Karin gave a brief applause, “That’s fantastic. It really is. Is there any way you could make a scope for my rifle?”

Shen looked really confused. So much so, that Karin felt the need to clarify, “I mean, you made optical sights for it, which are great, but could I get something with magnification so that shooting distant enemies isn’t like playing the most dangerous game of Marco Polo?”

Shen shook her head violently, “I can’t make a scope, that’s way too complicated.”

Not being too familiar with the finer points of engineering and fabrication, Karin wasn’t in a great position to argue, “Uhh, alright. Can you at least make an extended magazine. I’m burning through ammo way too fast.”

Shen again looked absolutely baffled by this request and, again, Karin clarified her intent, “You know the thing that you made to hold bullets. Could you make it to hold more bullets?”

Shen shook her head, “Impossible.”

Karin leaned in a little, “Why? You can already make it; why can’t you just make a bigger one?”

Shen turned away, “I understand you’re the squad leader, but I don’t have to endure you patronizing me.”

Karin let out a deep sigh and walked off. She met up with Helen in the bar for drinks. After taking a quick shot, she couldn’t help but vent, “I’m not sure Shen knows what she’s doing. I mean she can make Plasma Rifles from raw materials, which is awesome, but she seems completely at a loss to make even basic weapon upgrades.”

Helen laughed, “You should talk to some of the engineers. Apparently they spend most of their days cleaning up trash in the lower levels of the Avenger.”

Karin shook her head, “Also, is it just me or is Tygan not telling us everything.”

Helen looked around for a moment to see who else was in the bar, “I’m not sure about him. We have contacts that will vouch for him, but he just doesn’t seem like the kind of guy that would ditch Advent for us.”

The two stewed over their drinks for a second before Helen snapped her fingers and pointed at Karin, “Which one of the twins is Voodoo and which one is Psycho?”

Karin gave a half-hearted shrug, “I just call them both Voodoo…although Psycho is starting to seem more and more appropriate.”



-After Action Report-
(Sharpshooter) Maj. Karin “Widow” Nilsen
(Specialist) Cpt. Jesus “Teardrop” Garcia
(Grenadier) Lt. Helen “Boom Boom” Brown- Promoted
(Ranger) Lt. Brittany “Predator” Duncan
Warlock Lucy “Voodoo” Woods
Warlock Lisa “Psycho” Woods

[Mastershake]

Mission 18 – Dead Man’s Stranger

-Squad-
(Sharpshooter) Maj. Karin “Widow” Nilsen
(Specialist) Cpt. Jesus “Teardrop” Garcia
(Grenadier) Cpt. Helen “Boom Boom” Brown
(Ranger) Lt. Brittany “Predator” Duncan
Warlock Lucy “Voodoo” Woods
Warlock Lisa “Psycho” Woods

Now that XCOM no longer needed to see what was going on with the blacksites, the objective was a lot more straightforward, blow the places up. The particular location the team was heqaded to this time was in Eastern Europe. The team identified a patrol of an Archon, Lancer and Trooper fairly quickly, but killing Advent wasn’t a mission priority, so Karin opted to skirt their patrol route instead. While keeping observation on the group to make sure they didn’t do something unexpected.

As the team reached the outside of the facility, they identified another patrol of an Officer and a Shieldbearer walking the perimeter and a turret looking over the side entrance. Karin whispered over the comms, “Brittany, we’re going to have Jesus hack the turret to shut it off, then I want you to get inside of the building and try to get into a position to plant the bomb.”

Brittany quickly replied, “What are the odds on the hack?”

Karin snapped back, “Better than 67%. Now shut up and get ready to move.”

Jesus gave the all clear on the turret and motioned it was clear for Brittany to move out. She walked up to the door and immediately found herself face to face with an Advent Shieldbearer who started yelling and pointing. A Shard Gun blast rang out and Brittany yelled, “We’ve been made! Go loud!”

The Archon and his friends immediately turned their attention to the team. Karin unloaded her entire magazine of plasma pistol ammo, tearing the Archon apart. Over the comms, one of the twins said, “This one is ours”

A purple haze enveloped the head of a Lancer and he moved to one of the Troopers and started beating him down. The other twin dropped a rift onto an officer and another Shieldbearer. The officer then bolted back to cover and started wildly firing at his teammates. Jesus was yelling that the turret was about to come back online, but Helen fired a plasma grenade collapsing the roof. Somewhere in the confusion a magnetic rifle shot ripped into one of the twins, causing them both to scream in pain.

Karin yelled at Jesus, “Get her a medkit!”

Karin fired a quick volley of plasma pistol shots at everyone she could see and then she was met with complete silence. She came on the comms, “Are we clear?”

One by one, the squad returned a call of “all clear”. Even the Advent Lancer called something she was pretty sure translated to “all clear” to which she responded, “Wasn’t talking to you.”

Brittany started placing the charges as the team got ready to leave. Karin waved her hand in front of the Lancer’s face. He showed little response. She shook her head, “That’s just creepy. You pull security over there.”

The Lancer moved across the street and scanned with his weapon. Brittany finished with the bomb and the team extracted leaving a very confused Lancer behind them. Back on the Skyranger, Karin checked on the twins. Only one had been hit, but they both appeared to be in pain. Bringing only one on mission was definitely not an option.

-After Action Report-
(Sharpshooter) Maj. Karin “Widow” Nilsen
(Specialist) Cpt. Jesus “Teardrop” Garcia
(Grenadier) Cpt. Helen “Boom Boom” Brown
(Ranger) Lt. Brittany “Predator” Duncan
Warlock Lucy “Voodoo” Woods
Warlock Lisa “Psycho” Woods- Wounded 10 days

Mission 19 – Brutal Future


-Squad-
(Sharpshooter) Maj. Karin “Widow” Nilsen
(Specialist) Cpt. Jesus “Teardrop” Garcia
(Grenadier) Cpt. Helen “Boom Boom” Brown
(Ranger) Lt. Brittany “Predator” Duncan
(Specialist) Sgt. Sophie “Rift” Martine
(Grenadier) Cpl. Eva Petrova

The mission seemed somewhat simple, then again so did every mission where something went wrong. The team was trying to recover a resistance cache scheduled for demolition by Advent. They would have to disarm the device and clear the area of enemies for it to be safe to recover the materials.

The first enemies the team encountered were just an Archon and a pair of Vipers. The Archon and first Viper the team quickly dispatched. The other viper immediately fled after being severely wounded. Karin debated chasing him, but they were on a timer. They pushed to the package and Jesus managed to get into a position to disarm the device remotely.

The only task left was to clear the remaining enemies. The device was in a small house in a suburb and Jesus had hacked it from the window with the rest of the squad across the street. Karin directed him to push into the house to see if Advent were hiding. As soon as walked into the first room, she heard, “Oh crap.”
Jesus had found the Viper along with an Officer, a Trooper, a Lancer a pair of Sectoids and another Archon. The fight quickly degenerated to an absolute mess as the Advent forces started moving to flanking positions and a Sectoid caused Eva and Helen panic. Karin was trying to hold the team together, furiously firing her pistol on all directions, when the advent Officer landed a burst that tore into her leg. Sophie immediately went to administer aid as Britany flanked and killed the officer and, in turn, got poisoned by the viper.

After the dust settled, almost the entire team was wounded and Britany and Jesus had to desperately flee from the burning and crumbling target house. The objective had been achieved and nobody was dead, but the mission certainly wasn’t something anyone involved would be proud of.

Five out of the Nine remaining squad members were now in the Advanced Warfare Center being treated for Injuries leaving only four mission ready squad members, one of whom was a twin who wouldn’t go on mission without her sister. XCOM wasn’t going to be conducting field operations for at least the next 12 days.

At one point, Karin was nursing her wound in operations when an emergency call for aid rang out from a resistance camp. Central glanced over to her and she just shook her head, “If we send a team, we’re just going to be adding more bodies to the funeral pyre.”

The calls for aid were frantic and desperate…for a time. It didn’t take long before they slowly faded away and all communications were lost with the resistance in the region. Karin stayed in operations the whole time. She didn’t have to watch what was happening, but she felt like she should.

-After Action Report-
(Sharpshooter) Maj. Karin “Widow” Nilsen- Wounded 12 days/ Promoted
(Specialist) Cpt. Jesus “Teardrop” Garcia- Wounded 10 days/ Promoted
(Grenadier) Cpt. Helen “Boom Boom” Brown
(Ranger) Lt. Brittany “Predator” Duncan- Wounded 10 days
(Specialist) Sgt. Sophie “Rift” Martine
(Grenadier) Cpl. Eva Petrova- Wounded 12 days

[Mastershake]

Mission 20- Hammer Beast

-Squad-
(Sharpshooter) Col. Karin “Widow” Nilsen
(Specialist) Maj. Jesus “Teardrop” Garcia
(Grenadier) Cpt. Helen “Boom Boom” Brown
(Ranger) Lt. Brittany “Predator” Duncan
Magus Lucy “Voodoo” Woods
Magus Lisa “Psycho” Woods

Karin was back in the armory again checking over a new piece of tech. Shen had finally perfected the designs for powered armor. She was helping Karin into one of the suits to try out. Shen seemed especially proud of this development, “So as you can see, the armor doesn’t compromise the wearer’s freedom of movement, but it will offer substantially better protection than all previous armor models. We’re also producing a few more specialized suits of WAR armor with a built-in heavy weapon platform and heavier plating, but those suits will require substantial modifications over existing designs, so they won’t be ready for a little while…what do you think?”

Karin was pretty impressed. The Warden armor, as they were calling it, was remarkably flexible and comfortable, although she couldn’t speak to the durability…and hoped she wouldn’t need to. She nodded and gave Chen a thumbs up, “Good job. After the last few missions, I’ll take any armor that can survive more than one hit without folding.”

Chen smiled and gave a little clap, “Good. I hope you guys won’t need the protection too, but at least you’ll have it if the worst happens.”

The team had been suffering from a bad case of cabin fever lately. After the missed retaliation mission, they were all itching for a chance to get some revenge on Advent, but they had been quiet and the Commander seemed focused on achieving a number of research projects that he was assuring everyone would pay off eventually.

When the next mission finally came up, it was underwhelming. Just a mission to destroy a piece of Advent tech or something ambiguously bad would happen. Karin wasn’t a huge fan of these missions. They were normally pretty straightforward, but it was hard to see any real direct impact of the team’s efforts outside of a pat on the back and a “good job” from Central.

The initial drop into a dense Australian slum in the middle of the night went smoothly. Advent wasn’t aware of their presence, but the streets were heavily patrolled. As the team ghosted a patrol that happened to be heading the same way they were, they ran into another group of enemies with an alien type they had never seen before. It was some kind of humanoid creature in a large and bulky environment suit and it was flanked on either side by Mutons. Karin checked the mission timer, shook her head, then came over the comms, “Can’t afford to wait around. Vodoo, give me a rift, everyone else get ready to go loud.

The Rift outright tore apart a Muton and damage the other two. The weird creature, an Andromedan as they would be known, panicked under the effects of the rift and fired on the other Muton, killing it. Helen and Jesus gunned down the Andromedan…and then it happened. The Environment suit reanimated itself. Its weapon appeared to be non-functional and the pilot was dead, but the suit was still somehow wandering around trying to smash things.

One of the twins put in Stasis while Brittany sidled up. When the stasis ended, she blasted it with her the new plasma shotgun, ending the suit in a single shot. An odd creature, but no real obstacle from what Karin could tell. As the team arrived at the building with the relay, they ran into another patrol with an Officer, Lancer and Shieldbearer.

Karin drew her pistol and put the entire magazine into the Lancer as she called, “Can someone get the officer’s cover? I can’t see him.”

The twins just said, “Done.”

As she did so, the grenade on the officer’s belt began to beep until it exploded, destroying his cover and wounding him. The other twin then immediately killed him with a plasma rifle shot. Before Karin could even say something about the Shieldbearer, a flurry of heavy plasma shots from Helen tore him apart. She motioned for Jesus and Brittany to take down the transmitter.

The mission was almost over, they just had to find the rest of the Advent forces in the area. The process was made thankfully short, when the last Advent found them. Amidst the last group of Advent troops was one of the most infamous alien weapons of the war, the Sectopod. The massive walking bipedal robots were common sights in the first few days of the invasion, but as Advent moved towards addressing matters of civil unrest, they became increasingly uncommon. It was possible their reappearance was a response to XCOM’s successes in recent months.

Karin quickly directed the team to kill the escorting troops and got the twins to put the Sectopod in stasis. She was used to these monsters being virtually immune to small arms fire, so she had the other twin prepare another stasis. The build-up was anti-climactic. Helen’s Heavy Plasma severely compromised its hull plating and the rest of the team’s plasma weapons easily tore through its chassis. Sectopods were a boogeyman for many resistance groups and seeing one go down so quickly was a clear indicator to how far things had come.

-After Action Report-
(Sharpshooter) Col. Karin “Widow” Nilsen
(Specialist) Maj. Jesus “Teardrop” Garcia
(Grenadier) Cpt. Helen “Boom Boom” Brown
(Ranger) Lt. Brittany “Predator” Duncan- Promoted
Magus Lucy “Voodoo” Woods
Magus Lisa “Psycho” Woods

[Mastershake]

Mission 21- Dying Gods

-Squad-
(Sharpshooter) Col. Karin “Widow” Nilsen
(Specialist) Maj. Jesus “Teardrop” Garcia
(Grenadier) Cpt. Helen “Boom Boom” Brown
(Ranger) Cpt. Brittany “Predator” Duncan
Magus Lucy “Voodoo” Woods
Magus Lisa “Psycho” Woods

Karin had been called into operations by Central. He was looking at a screen off to the side. She made her way up behind him slowly and suddenly tapped him on the shoulder. He jumped and then looked behind him. Upon realizing what was happening, he shot her an angry glare. She returned a playful smile, “So you had something for me?”

Central turned back to the screen, “You remember that UFO tracking the Avenger a while back?”

Karin briefly stuck her tongue out in disgust, “This again?”

Central smiled, “We’ve identified it on the ground. They could be taking on supplies, trying to reacquire us or simply waiting for new orders. Either way, we’ve got a chance to hit them back. What do you say?”

Karin smiled, “Finally. When do we leave?”

The team seemed abnormally motivated on this mission. Advent had tried to hit XCOM where they lived and now XCOM was about to hit them back for it. Advent’s UFOs had cleared the skies of the Earth militaries conventional aircraft in only a few weeks with little effort. Much like the Sectopods, their rarity had increased dramatically after organized resistance to the invasion collapsed.

Outside the UFO, the Patrol only spotted a team of an Archon and two Troopers. Karin’s best guess were that the rest of the crew were still inside. She called for one of the twins to drop a rift into the exterior patrol force and both of the troopers were instantly killed while the Archon was wounded. As the Archon screamed in surprise, she rapid fired four pistol shots into it, killing it.

She started directing the team to stack on one of the UFO’s doors when Central came over the comms, “That ship is trying to send a distress call. You need to disable it quickly or we’re going to have a problem.”

The team quickly finished stacking and opened the door. The ship looked almost empty. Immediately after they opened the door, they were in a small room with a window leading to the central bridge. Karin and Helen got on either side of the window to provide overwatch for Jesus. Jesus gingerly moved into the bridge…still no hostile contact. He looked back at them and shrugged.

Karin made a tapping gesture on her wrist indicating that Jesus should start hacking to disable the signal. He sent out Scout and a moment later his display turned green. He shrugged. There were still no Advent present. As Karin was debating what to do, the door opposite the window they were looking through openend and an Advent Officer, Shieldbearer and Lancer walked in. After a moment of surprise, they started moving to flank Jesus.

Karin was formulating a plan when she saw one of the twins looking at the wall of the ship and summoning psionic energy. She was about to ask her what she was doing when a lance of psionic energy went soaring through the wall, killing the trooper and Shieldbearer and wounding the officer without so much as scratching the paint on the wall. Brittany took the opportunity to jump through the window and put a plasma shotgun blast into the officer.

Karin turned to the twin, “How the hell did you do that?”

Both of the twins smiled and said in unison, “Jesus could see them, so we could see them.”

Karin tried to shake off what just happened. The UFO still had crew wandering around somewhere and they had to clear the vessel to claim their prize. It didn’t take long to find the next group. As the team had formed a perimeter in the bridge and Karin was debating what direction to search next, a Sectopod came crashing through the wall flanked by a Shieldbearer and Trooper.

The whole team was on watch for enemy activity, and the Sectopod’s dramatic entrance was promptly greeted by plasma fire which left it notably weakened. Karin put down the Trooper under a flurry of plasma pistol fire and Helen with the rest of the team unloaded and destroyed the other enemies. Karin looked around for a minute, “How the actual hell did that thing fit into this UFO? It was practically scraping the ceiling and couldn’t fit through any of the doors. Why the hell did it barge in through the wall?”

The whole team just shook their heads. Karin directed the team to quickly reload and get ready to search for the other aliens, when, on cue yet again, an Adromedan escorted by one of the Codex monsters crashed through another wall. As Karin was directing the team to engage she couldn’t help but yell, “What is it with these idiots and doors?”

As the rest of the team tore apart the Adromedan and put down it’s exo suit that animated when it died, Brittany rushed and tried to put down the codex before it could react, but the shotgun only wounded the creature causing it to clone itself. Brittany cried out an obscenity as she tried to line up another shot, but before she could, a rush of psionic energy moved her hand to throw her mimic beacon. She was tempted to investigate, but instead just executed one of the codexes as Karin finished off the other one.

When the all clear came from Central, Brittany looked back at the twins, “Was that you?”

They smiled in unison and said, “Yes.”

Brittany shoved her finger in one of their faces, “Don’t ever do that again!”

Karin slapped down her finger, “That might have saved your life. How about a compromise? The next time the twins want to help you by making you do something, they give you a heads up…like a code word or something.”

Brittany recoiled a little, “All right. I guess.”

The twins looked at Karin inquisitively, “What should we say?”

Karin just shrugged, “How bout ‘assuming control’?”

The twins nodded in agreement. Brittany had already wandered off, but the rest of the squad just bobbed their heads in general agreement. Karin looked around. The UFO was an impressive piece of technology and as they waiting for the salvage team, Jesus was looking at everything like a child in a toy shop. It was a good prize and it sent a message to Advent about messing with XCOM.

-After Action Report-
(Sharpshooter) Col. Karin “Widow” Nilsen
(Specialist) Maj. Jesus “Teardrop” Garcia
(Grenadier) Cpt. Helen “Boom Boom” Brown
(Ranger) Cpt. Brittany “Predator” Duncan
Magus Lucy “Voodoo” Woods
Magus Lisa “Psycho” Woods

[Mastershake]

Mission 22- Knife Killer

-Squad-
(Sharpshooter) Col. Karin “Widow” Nilsen
(Specialist) Maj. Jesus “Teardrop” Garcia
(Grenadier) Cpt. Helen “Boom Boom” Brown
(Ranger) Cpt. Brittany “Predator” Duncan
Magus Lucy “Voodoo” Woods
Magus Lisa “Psycho” Woods

Karin was sitting around in operations spinning aimlessly in one of the chairs. She stopped herself abruptly and pointed at the, yet again ticking down, doomsday clock, “Central, are we supposed to be worried about that…again?”

Central gave a small laugh, “The Commander has a plan in the works to address that. As it stands, just keep doing what you’re doing on the ground. On an unrelated note, apparently Advent didn’t like our recent misadventures. We have another UFO trying to track us.”

Karin nodded, “Good times.”

Central looked down out of the corner of his eye at her, “How’s all the new equipment working out?”

Karin gave two thumbs up, “The plasma weapons make me happy in an unhealthy way. The armor seems pretty good. Jesus has been rambling over the updates Shen made to Scout for the last few days. I have no idea what any of it means, but apparently it’s better than before in some way. Helen likes causing lots of explosions with her new grenades…and I mean that in every way it can be taken. Overall, we seem to be at least on par with Advent in almost every area on the ground…or at least our guys do any ways. The rest of the resistance is probably still struggling. The twins are also…probably evil, but good enough I’m willing to not care.”

Central gave an abnormally genuine laugh at the last remark, “Yeah, the engineer supervising their psionic training said she was ‘incapable of expanding their capabilities further’ which I’m taking as their done with training. From the reports you’ve sent up, they also seem to more than pull their weight in the field.”

Karin nodded in an exaggerated fashion, “Yeah, they’re pretty powerful. I’m not sure why we bother issuing them plasma guns, they rarely ever use the stupid things. Probably just to make them feel included.”

Central motioned to Karin, “Speaking of rarely used weapons, how is the plasma sniper treating you?”

Karin shrugged, “Really slow. I don’t think I’ve even bothered using it yet.”

She thought to herself before proceeding, “So the Commander doesn’t discuss much of the strategic stuff with me. What’s going on? Are we actually making progress or just marking time?”

Central smiled, “Oh, we’re making progress. It was something of a drain on resources, but we put together a facility called the Shadow Chamber to help decrypt Advent data and transmissions. We’re about to have some leads on Advent installations…ones much closer to the Avatar project than the ones you’ve previously gone after. It’ll be soon, so try to avoid getting anyone injured while you wait.”

She nodded and gave a pseudo salute, “Can do boss.”

The next mission was a strike in an Indonesian suburb to destroy an Advent transmitter. The first patrol the team ran into was so little of an obstacle, they didn’t even register on the team’s mental radar. The transmitter was in the last house on a row of houses. Part of the team was advancing flush with the houses and the other was advancing along a fence line. Brittany was the first to spot the next patrol of an Officer, Trooper and Lancer. The last house was further back the rest and the team didn’t have good shots past the house in front of the target house.

Brittany called out, “Can anyone help me out here? I got three hostiles huddled near a propane tank. Any explosives would be appreciated, but I can’t throw that far.”

Helen called out, “Keep your head down, I’m gonna try a shot.”

Karin watched the trail of the grenade as it flew through the air, bounced off the roof next to the target house and into the window next to the propane tank. The resulting series of explosions sent the corpses of all three Advent soaring through the air in an absolutely spectacular fashion and opened a giant hole in the wall revealing the transmitter. Helen, after seeing the series of explosions asked over the comms, “Good effect on target?”

Karin laughed and gave a small clap, “Great effect on target. That was sexy. Brittany, get that transmitter for me real quick.”

Right after Brittany finished off the transmitter, the last group of hostiles came out from the other side of the building. That was when Karin saw one of the oddest enemies of the war. It was a floating thing that looked like a car-sized baseball. Karin looked over at one of the twins, “Hey Voodoo, is that alive?”

She appeared to concentrate on the creature before turning back to Karin, “Yes.”

Karin followed up the question, “Can you control it?”

A shroud of purple enveloped the thing they would come to call a Gatekeeper and again the twin turned to Karin, “Yes.”

After dispatching the Gatekeeper’s friends Karin and the rest of the team gathered around the bizarre creature. She looked back at the twin controlling it, “So, what is it?”

She smiled and just said, “This.”

As she said that, the creature’s shell opened up showing weird tentacle mass inside the armored shell. Karin recoiled, “Holy balls, it’s like the love child of Cthulu and a baseball!”

Karin shook her head, “Well whatever, we can’t take it with us. Keep the shell open for a minute. Boom Boom, it’s all yours.”

It took a surprising amount of fire to down the creature. To everyone’s surprise, when it was destroyed it plummeted to the ground and exploded. Karin was immediately taken aback, “What the hell? It’s just tentacles in a shell! How does that make it explode when it dies?”

Helen shook her head, “Because, reasons. At least we didn’t find out the hard way. C’mon, let’s go.”

-After Action Report-
(Sharpshooter) Col. Karin “Widow” Nilsen
(Specialist) Maj. Jesus “Teardrop” Garcia
(Grenadier) Cpt. Helen “Boom Boom” Brown- Promoted
(Ranger) Cpt. Brittany “Predator” Duncan
Magus Lucy “Voodoo” Woods
Magus Lisa “Psycho” Woods

http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w215/Blaisdell309d/20160317170616_1_zpsvwrxrpbi.jpg

[Mastershake]

Mission 23- Dread Shadow

-Squad-
(Sharpshooter) Col. Karin “Widow” Nilsen
(Specialist) Maj. Jesus “Teardrop” Garcia
(Grenadier) Maj. Helen “Boom Boom” Brown
(Ranger) Cpt. Brittany “Predator” Duncan
Magus Lucy “Voodoo” Woods
Magus Lisa “Psycho” Woods

The Skyranger dropped the team off in an Egyptian city. An Advent convoy escorting a prisoner, some scientist collaborating with the resistance, had stopped for the night. The convoy was on the other side of an office building from the team. They made their way through the lobby and identified the Advent security forces out the windows on the other side of the building. Karin checked the time. They weren’t in trouble, but there was no reason to risk it.

She motioned for everyone to get into position and they sprung the ambush on a group of Advent soldiers and a pod of three Archons. Karin walked one of the Archons into the gorund with her plasma pistol while Helen killed three of them with liberal use of plasma grenades that created a number of secondary explosions off of the convoy’s vehicles.

The area looked clear, but intel indicated nine enemies were in the area and they had only seen six. Karin motioned for Brittany to get to the target vehicle. Brittany went all the way around the van and…nothing. Still no sign of the last hostiles. Brittany looked back and shrugged as Jesus used Scout to remotely hack the lock. Brittany pulled open the door and motioned for the scientist to follow. Then, out of nowhere, loud stomping sounds echoed through the area.

The last enemies, a Sectopod and some Troopers had stumbled on the team. Karin pointed at the Sectopod while looking at one of the twins, “Voodoo, take care of that thing.”

Both of the twins line up lance shots which simultaneously tore asunder the heavy Sectopod and obliterated the troopers. Brittany took point to the extract just to make sure the area was clear, but the team didn’t encounter further opposition. VIP recovery missions were always more fulfilling simply because they had a direct and immediate impact on someone’s life even if they weren’t the most impactful strategically.

-After Action Report-
(Sharpshooter) Col. Karin “Widow” Nilsen
(Specialist) Maj. Jesus “Teardrop” Garcia
(Grenadier) Maj. Helen “Boom Boom” Brown
(Ranger) Cpt. Brittany “Predator” Duncan
Magus Lucy “Voodoo” Woods
Magus Lisa “Psycho” Woods

Mission 24 – Ghost Shriek
<<<Spoiler Alert: This is a Story Mission>>>

-Squad-
(Sharpshooter) Col. Karin “Widow” Nilsen
(Specialist) Maj. Jesus “Teardrop” Garcia
(Grenadier) Maj. Helen “Boom Boom” Brown
(Ranger) Cpt. Brittany “Predator” Duncan
Magus Lucy “Voodoo” Woods
Magus Lisa “Psycho” Woods

Nobody quite knew what to expect from this operation. Central and the rest of the command staff were calling the facility in South Africa “The Forge”. Supposedly, it was a significant piece of the Avatar project and would likely be heavily defended. To complicate matters, the command staff wasn’t entirely sure what the team was looking for at the Forge. The plan was to infiltrate the facility with Central, Tygan and Shen observing for anything of value to retrieve or destroy.

The Forge had a main lab facility that was on the opposite side of a gorge from a landing pad with only a narrow bridge to cross the gorge. The bridge would probably complicate matters, but there was no way to avoid it. When you can’t go around, you go through.

The team approached the landing pad and quickly identified a small patrol of just a trooper and officer. Karin directed the team to start moving around the patrol, but the Advent soldiers’ route was taking them right across where the team needed to go. She thought for a minute before whispering, “You’re up Voodoo. Let’s see what a rift does.”

One of the twins summoned a whirlwind of psionic energy that enveloped the two hostiles. The Trooper was outright killed, but the Officer, who was heavily wounded from the attack, turned to Karin and flashed a thumbs up. Karin looked over at the twin quizzically. The twin smiled and whispered, “I have control, but he’s fighting me.”

Karin nodded, “Well I guess he just volunteered to be our scout.”

The team pressed forward with the enslaved Officer leading the way and ran into a Sectopod patrolling the perimeter of the landing pad. The twin controlling the Officer looked over at Karin, “He’s about to turn on us.”

Karin shook her head, “Then I’ll guess you’ll have to show him the pretty flowers. Put him between you and the Sectopod and line up a lance.”

The officer moved to attack Sectopod and after unleashing a burst from his mag rifle, the twin put a psionic lance through his skull and into the Sectopod, finishing off both. The team proceeded to take up positions around the bridge. Karin motioned for Brittany to move across first. Brittany got half-way across before turning to the team and giving a thumbs up. The team set up positions and again Brittany moved first getting all the way to the far side. She looked back, somewhat confused, and gave another thumbs up.

Karin was starting to get worried about the situation. The Shadow Complex had identified a security force of fourteen enemies and they had only encountered three. The entrance of the main lab was to their right. Karin looked around and, on a hunch, asked Brittany to check out their left. It didn’t take long after Brittany had started moving before she started yelling “Contact left” on the comms. She had identified and Archon and a Codex and the rest of the team was out of position to offer support. Karin barked out, “Drop the mimic beacon and we’ll move to help you.”

The Archon and Codex both moved to get flanking shots on the mimic decoy which exposed them to the team’s fire. Brittany moved behind the Codex and took a shot with her plasma shotgun, putting the creature down in one hit before it could split itself. She gave a brief cheer over the comms as the rest of the team were pouring fire onto the Archon. Karin was always baffled at how durable Archons were considering they were little more than floating torsos, but the concentrated fire of the whole team tore it to pieces.

Karin made a gesture for the team to rally, “Alright, get reloaded and get ready…”

Before she could finish, a patrol inside the building of two Troopers and a Mec sighted the group and took cover against the exterior wall. Karin pointed at Helen, “Boom Boom, make a hole.”

Helen rocketed a plasma grenade demolishing the entire exterior wall along with all the delicate machinery and security barricades. The rest of the team gunned down the now exposed enemies. Karin shook her head and starting motioning for the team to rally again when another patrol from the inside of the building spotted them. This time it was an Andromedan and a pair of Sectoids who took cover behind the machinery a little further into the facility.

Without waiting for the order to do so, Helen rocketed another plasma grenade nearly demolishing the entire front of the lab. A fusillade of gunfire later, and that group was also dealt with. Karin gave a sigh as she looked at the approach to the facility, “Boom boom, sexy, you know I love you, you know that, but there is now zero cover between us and the lab.”

Helen just returned a shrug. Karin shook her head, “Stay close, move slow, keep your eyes and ears open and call any contacts.”

The team had to creep to the interior of the building at a snail’s pace to not get surprised in the open by the sudden appearance of hostiles. Fortunately, the remaining hostiles didn’t greet them during the crawl forward. One thing that did greet them, was a startling realization. The Forge was some kind of cloning facility. There were some kind of stasis tubes with, what looked like, fresh Advent reinforcements. Karin poked one of the clones in an exposed tube, “Certainly explains why there are always more of these bastards.”

As the team started to stack on the main lab room, they could hear movement inside. Once everyone was in position, Karin gave a silent three count before opening the door. As soon as the door opened, a pack of three Archons starting racing towards them. Before Karin could even start giving orders, one of the twins launched a lance across all three Archons briefly staggering them and the other twin dropped a rift, damaging them all and driving one so insane it huddled in the corner firing wildly at his comrades. After a brief and bloody flurry of plasma fire, the room was now silent.

In the middle of the room was another stasis tube, very different from the ones with the Advent troops. The command staff was barking for the team to see what was inside. Karin, suspecting a similar system was in place to the one at the blacksite directed Brittany to stand next to the stasis chamber and used a grenade to put an exit in the nearby wall. She gave Brittany the signal to open the chamber and a creature in a stasis suit similar to the one the Commander was found in, slid out. Karin started yelling at Brittany, “Grab it! Grab it!”

Brittany caught it before it hit the ground and was bracing it against the pod. She shrugged, “Alright, what the hell do I do with it?”

Karin listened to the command staff yelling in her ear for a moment before shaking her head, “I guess we’re taking it with us. Hope you know the fireman’s carry.”

Brittany looked annoyed, “Why do I always get the crap details? It’s ‘Rangers lead the way’ not ‘Rangers carry trash’.”

Karin didn’t acknowledge the remark and directed the team to move towards the extract. It didn’t take more than a moment before alarms were blaring everywhere and the familiar sounds of Advent dropships were barreling towards the team. Brittany was calling out obscenities as she lugged the heavy, limp, body to the extract point as the squad dealt with the initial wave of reinforcements before meeting her at the extract. Brittany gave a brief cry of pain as the ascent rig drug her and the body up to the Skyranger.

When Karin got back in the Skyranger, she saw Brittany rotating and massaging her shoulder. The command staff was harassing Karin for a status. She just responded with, “Squad present and accounted for plus one vegetable.”

-After Action Report-
(Sharpshooter) Col. Karin “Widow” Nilsen
(Specialist) Maj. Jesus “Teardrop” Garcia
(Grenadier) Maj. Helen “Boom Boom” Brown
(Ranger) Cpt. Brittany “Predator” Duncan- Promoted
Magus Lucy “Voodoo” Woods
Magus Lisa “Psycho” Woods

[Mastershake]

UFO Attack

-Squad-
(Sharpshooter) Col. Karin “Widow” Nilsen
(Specialist) Maj. Jesus “Teardrop” Garcia
(Grenadier) Maj. Helen “Boom Boom” Brown
(Ranger) Maj. Brittany “Predator” Duncan
Magus Lucy “Voodoo” Woods
Magus Lisa “Psycho” Woods
(Specialist) Sgt. Sophie “Rift” Martine
(Grenadier) Cpl. Eva Petrova
(Sharpshooter) Sq. Klaus Wiess

Karin walked into operations, still her in combat armor, and moved over to Central, “Brittany is dropping the new toy off down in the Shadow Complex. I think she threw her shoulder out trying to carry the stupid thing, but she should be fine in no time.”

Central was looking at a monitor and didn’t turn as he responded, “That’s good, unfortunately we may have stuck around South Africa a little too long. We have another UFO chasing us and he’s getting much closer than last time. We’re trying evasive maneuvers, but he’s currently matching us.”

Right after Central finished speaking, the electronics began to flash and Karin felt much lighter all of a sudden. The crew around operations were yelling and Shen and Central were having a conversation about losing power that Karin had a hard time following. She grabbed hold of a nearby railing and tried to stay as stable a she could. Central yelled something about using their gravity manipulation drive to soften the ascent.

All of a sudden, Karin felt much heavier and could barely move. Shortly afterwards, the ship settled in, what she could only guess was a semi-successful landing. She looked around, “So…we’re not dead. Can we leave?”

Shen rushed up to the bridge and pulled something up on the screen, “The UFO dropped an EM device that’s keeping us from taking off. We can maintain emergency power, but not enough to fly. Advent also has a lot of dropships and a battleship in route. We need that device gone, now!”

Both of them looked expectantly back at Karin before Central spoke, “If we don’t get that device, we’ll lose everything. They’re using an EM device because they want to take the Avenger intact.”

Karin laughed at the last remark, “Intact? They’re going to pay for that one. The team from the last mission is still suited up, but the rest of the troops will have to get their equipment before they can join us.”

Karin was running down to the hangar when she ran into Jesus and Helen. Before either of them could speak, she said, “Advent shot us down. Need to break the thing that’s messing up the ship. Get Brittany and the twins down to the hangar and prepare to defend the ship.”

After only a few moments, all the soldiers were in the hangar. Klaus, Eva and Sophie were suiting up in their armor and checking weapons as the Avenger’s ramp dropped. As soon as the squad hit the bottom of the ramp, they were greeted by a wave of enemies. Karin yelled at Helen, “Boom Boom, make me some craters. Don’t leave them anywhere to hide.”

An earth shattering series of explosions rang out, clearing all of the enemies and vegetation in the immediate vicinity of the ramp. Karin led a team forward to press through the enemy reinforcements to get to the EM devices. Even as they were clearing groups of enemies, more reinforcements were dropping in only to get quickly cut down.

Karin moved to take cover by one of the last remaining trees and finally got sight to the EM device. She prepared her rifle and, out of the corner of her eye, noticed an Advent Officer raising his weapon. She started to turn to meet him when a plasma sniper shot ripped through his skull. She turned back to the ramp briefly, “Hell of a shot, Klaus.”

She looked back at the device. It was already sporting damage from a plasma rifle shot from one of the twins. She levelled her rifle and put a shot clean through it, destroying the device. As soon as the shot ripped through it, Shen started cheering over the comms about systems coming back online. Central called Karin, “We should be ready to leave by the time you get back to the ramp. Hurry up, all of Advent is heading to this fight.”

She turned to make her way back to the ramp and was greeted by an Advent Mec. Before she could say anything, a plasma sniper shot tore it insides apart. She started running towards the ramp where the whole squad was laying down plasma fire. An Officer approached from her left and, as she considered stopping to fight him, Sophie landed a shot in his head staggering him. Karin quickly drew her pistol and blasted the officer without missing a beat.

Karin yelled over the comms, “Boom Boom, remember that talk we had about destroying all of the cover?”

Helen replied in a mocking tone, “’Boom Boom, I don’t like them having cover’, ‘Boom Boom, destroy their cover’, ‘Boom Boom why did you destroy all the cover?’. Because you ****ing told me to!”

The squad mad migrated to the top of the ramp and were laying down withering covering fire. As soon as Karin hit the bottom of the ramp, she called up Central, “All soldiers on board! Get us the hell out of here!”

She could feel the ramp raising under her feet and the Avenger lifting off. As she was almost at the top of the ramp, Helen and Jesus grabbed her and pulled her in. Karin was taking a knee and breathing heavily. She was laughing as she looked around at the team. She walked up to Klaus and hugged him, “That was fantastic shooting. I should take you one more missions…I won’t, but that was great shooting regardless.”

She released him and looked around the hangar. She smiled as she looked at the gathered troops, “Not so much as a scratch. Out-freaking-standing everyone.”

-After Action Report-
(Sharpshooter) Col. Karin “Widow” Nilsen
(Specialist) Maj. Jesus “Teardrop” Garcia
(Grenadier) Maj. Helen “Boom Boom” Brown
(Ranger) Maj. Brittany “Predator” Duncan
Magus Lucy “Voodoo” Woods
Magus Lisa “Psycho” Woods
(Specialist) Sgt. Sophie “Rift” Martine- Promoted
(Grenadier) Cpl. Eva Petrova
(Sharpshooter) Sq. Klaus Wiess

[Mastershake]

Mission 25- Cryptic Tongue
<<<Spoiler Alert: This is a Story Mission>>>

-Squad-
(Sharpshooter) Col. Karin “Widow” Nilsen
(Specialist) Col. Jesus “Teardrop” Garcia
(Grenadier) Maj. Helen “Boom Boom” Brown
(Ranger) Maj. Brittany “Predator” Duncan
Magus Lucy “Voodoo” Woods
Magus Lisa “Psycho” Woods

Karin sidled up to Jesus in the bar with a wicked smile, “Hey buddy.”

Jesus’ expression immediately turned sour, “What?”

Karin produced the Skulljack device, “I need you to hack someone one last time.”

Jesus shook his head, “No. No. The last time I did this, some weird enemy we had never even seen appeared and started teleporting around.”

Karin’s smile widened, “Funny you should mention that because the creature we need you to hack is the Codex, the thing that spawned when you hacked the officer. Tygan and Chen seem to agree that we need direct access to one of those to continue our work against the Avatar project.”

Jesus took a quick drink and didn’t respond for a moment. Karin patted him on the back, “Look buddy, we’ll have the entire team including the twins. We’ll play this as safe as possible. You have my word.”

Jesus nodded reluctantly, “Last time?”

Karin slapped him on his tattoo, “Last time. I promise.”

As Karin and the rest of the team sat in the Skyranger headed to the next mission, she couldn’t help but think the term “ambiguous” was woefully inadequate. Shen and Tygan had only gotten one piece of information from their last attempt to hack a codex, a set of coordinates in Argentina. The team didn’t even know what they were looking for, just anything out of the ordinary. The nature of the mission, both the mysterious aspect and the fact that the codex self-destructed to protect the coordinates, had everyone more one edge than normal.

The team dropped in the middle of the Patagonia Desert, a truly desolated spot. As they arrived on the ground, Jesus turned to Karin, “So do you think Advent knows we’re here.”

Karin gave a small laugh, “We don’t even know we’re here. I guess just stay low and move out.”

There was another nagging feeling in the back of everyone’s minds. The Shadow Complex gave them mostly reliable intel for the Advent forces on a given mission, but this time, one of the enemy types was unknown. Whatever it was, XCOM hadn’t encountered it previously, so they couldn’t translate its type. The team as a whole definitely seemed more alert than normal.

After some walking on a plateau, the team ran into the first Advent forces, two Archons and the prize, a Codex. Karin whispered over the comms, “Voodoo, when we kick this off, take over the two Archons. I’m going to throw a mimic beacon to keep the Codex busy while Jesus moves to get into position to hack it.”

The team took deep breaths as clouds of psionic energies swirled around the twins and enveloped the Archons who both immediately turned to the Codex. As soon as the twins gave Karin the thumbs up, she tossed the beacon. Then the situation got complicated. The Codex, upon realizing it was now completely surrounded, broke contact, fleeing off to the north and out off of the plateau.

Karin looked at Jesus and they traded a shrug, “Alright, I guess it didn’t want to play. Well, we have a pair of volunteers for scouting duties, so we’ll send them out and see what they see.”

The team moved up behind the Archons and Karin had the twins send the Archons forward. The first Archon identified a group of three multi-limbed monsters known as Cryssalids. Cryssalids hadn’t been seen at all since the alien invasion, they were little more than bio-weapons incapable of any higher thought processes that just killed and reproduced. The three Cryssalids had been joined by the Codex the team was pursuing. Karin motioned for the other Archon to move forward and the instant it hovered low enough to the ground, three other Cryssalids that had all been hidden beneath the sands leaped out and started clawing at it. The Archon only survived because of its noteworthy durability.

Karin looked back at the twins, “Any ideas Voodoo?”

The twins nodded aggressively, “Yes.”

As they spoke, both of the Archons flew high up into the air firing a rocket volley at the ground. The Cryssalids had a mixed reaction to this behavior. A few jumped up on the plateau with the team and got torn to pieces. One of the creatures was in the middle of a jump high into the air when Jesus sheared its tiny little head clean off its body. The rest of the Cryssalids stood under the Archons looking skywards with, presumably, baffled expressions about how to approach this tactic. The Codex, on the other hand, quickly decided better of attempting this fight as well and immediately fled again.

The clustered Cryssalids beneath the Archon were heavily wounded by the volley and the twins immediately had the Archons fly off as Helen finished them all with a well-placed grenade. At that moment one of the twins turned to Jesus, “He’s badly injured and was poisoned. Please send Scout to help him.”

Jesus shook his head, “Are you asking me to heal that thing?!”

The twin replied, “Please.”

Karin intervened, “You know it’s the right call Jesus. A medkit used to keep them alive lets them stop bullets for use that much longer.”

Jesus gave a small yell and punched the ground before sending Scout to help the Archon. The twin smiled at Jesus, “Thank you.”

Jesus just shook his head and kept moving. Karin looked around and gave a shrug, “Well, the Codex went north. Hopefully that’s also where whatever we’re here looking for is. Let’s use the new friends the twins made to trip any more Cryssalids waiting to throw us a surprise party.”

The team cautiously advanced behind the Archons for a little time before running into an astonishing sight. Before them was some kind of psionic gateway surrounded by alien flora. After they arrived, a Gatekeeper emerged from the gate. Karin pointed at it, “Voodoo, it’s another one of those Cthulhu baseball thingies. Hit it with a pair of lances.”

The psionic lances ripped the creature asunder and it fell to the ground in an explosion of parts. Karin looked around confused, “So…where did the Codex go?”

Helen shook her head, “Ya got me, but if it went through that gate, I’m not following it.”

Karin sighed, “Well, let’s at least secure the gate. Send our new friends ahead to see if we have any more hostiles.”

As the Archons moved up, they solved the mystery of where the Codex went. It was good ways behind the gate with a cluster of Cryssalids. Karin moved forward enthusiastically yelling, “Put that piece of crap on ice before it flees again! Boom Boom, do something about the Cryssalids.”

Helen nodded and fired off a quick grenade, killing all three Cryssalids and leaving the Codex unharmed. Before the Codex could react, it was wrapped in a sphere of psionic energy. Jesus and Brittany ran towards it to be ready when it recovered. As they sprinted, Brittany called to Jesus, “Don’t worry, I got your back whatever happens. Let’s get this done.”

The stasis field wore off in mere moments and Jesus was waiting. He planted the Skulljack squarely under where the creature’s chin would be. The display was showing everything was working. Jesus looked back and Karin with a smile and was about to say something when a psionic gate opened in the sky and creature they had never seen before appeared near Jesus. Jesus was frozen and unsure what to do, but Helen immediately fired off her last grenade. As soon as the grenade went off, the creature, visibly quite injured, immediately teleported a short distance away. Helen dropped her grenade launcher without even thinking and unloaded a volley with her heavy plasma, putting large holes in the creature. This time, instead of teleporting it slumped over and the shadow of some psionic entity behind it seemed to implode.

Jesus hadn’t moved since he hacked the codex, “What the hell was that?”

Karin seemed to be listening to the command staff on her comms as held up finger to the squad. She looked up, “The bosses back in the Avenger think that is one of the Avatars. They want us to bring it and the gate back home so they can study it.”

-After Action Report-
(Sharpshooter) Col. Karin “Widow” Nilsen
(Specialist) Col. Jesus “Teardrop” Garcia
(Grenadier) Maj. Helen “Boom Boom” Brown- Promoted
(Ranger) Maj. Brittany “Predator” Duncan
Magus Lucy “Voodoo” Woods
Magus Lisa “Psycho” Woods

[Mastershake]

Mission 26 – Witch Mother


-Squad-
(Sharpshooter) Col. Karin “Widow” Nilsen
(Specialist) Col. Jesus “Teardrop” Garcia
(Grenadier) Col. Helen “Boom Boom” Brown
(Ranger) Maj. Brittany “Predator” Duncan
Magus Lucy “Voodoo” Woods
Magus Lisa “Psycho” Woods

Karin walked into operations and tapped Central on the shoulder, “So what’s the good word?”

Central had an uncharacteristic smile, “Shen and Tygan both think we have all the pieces we need to stop the Avatar project and hit the aliens where they live. We just need a little time to figure a few things out…. that and for you to keep your team ready to go.”

Karin shot Central a thumbs up, “No problem there, just tell us when to go.”

Central motioned around the room, “Is there anything you need for your team? Equipment, tech, training?”

Karin’s face fell a bit, “Well, there are two things…but I’m not sure we’ll find them before we hit Advent.”

Central nodded, “I know it’s hard having people missing. We’ve done everything we could to find them, but the truth is, we were lucky to find Colonel Brown. At this point, the best hope to end the war as fast as possible. You also may need to accept that…”

Karin immediately cut him off, “No, I don’t need to accept anything, because if I do, I might fall apart again. After we lost everyone, the only thing that kept me going was the constant motion just trying to keep operations afloat. Then we found Helen and that gave me some hope of finding Nko and Kumiko. I don’t know. It might’ve been easier if they were just killed like Hiroki. He died like a hero, trying to save Brittany’s life.”

Central put a hand on her shoulder, “If it’s humanly possible to do so, we’ll find them.”

Karin gave a half-hearted smile, “That’s a pretty hollow promise…but thanks all the same.”

The team spent the first part of the next mission covertly moving over the rooftops of a Nigerian slum in the middle of the night. As they walked along, Jesus was mumbling to himself, “Another hack mission. I love hacking Advent terminals. It’s always such a joy going through code while being shot at.”

Karin whispered over to him, “Just because we’re waiting for command to give us the final target, doesn’t mean we’re going to stop helping resistance efforts.”

Jesus’ head snapped back to Karin, “Why the hell is the terminal in a gas station?”

Karin just shrugged, “Hell if I know. Advent are weird. Go ahead a little and see if you can spot any of the patrols.”

Jesus nodded and picked up his pace a little. Karin started to turn around to say something to Helen when Jesus whispered on the comms, “You guys are going to have to see this.”

Everyone moved up to the edge of the building and looked across the street at the gas station. There were a group of two Advent Lancers and an Archon on top of the awning over the gas pumps and they were directly on top of one of the gas pumps and a car. Karin looked back at Helen with a huge grin, “Boom Boom, I think this one has your name on it.”

Helen looked at the Advent patrol and then back to Karin, “Are you going to cry at me for destroying all the cover again?”

Karin shook her head, “Don’t do that. Don’t be Brittany, we’ve already got a Brittany and I don’t need another one.”

Brittany punched Karin in the shoulder, “I’m right here!”

Karin shrugged and nodded, “I know.”

Helen was laughing a little as she pulled out the grenade launcher. The resulting spectacle was absolutely marvelous as the grenade collapsed the awning causing the patrol to fall into the exploding car and gas pump. The Archon’s was barely able to levitate itself through all of its wounds. Karin just drew her pistol and put it down with a quick shot. She looked back at the team, “Well, we’re on the clock, let’s get moving.”

As they moved at ground level to the end of the gas station, they ran into another patrol of a Lancer, Trooper and a Mec. Helen and Brittany gunned down the Mec while the twins took over the Lancer and Trooper and had them pull security for Jesus as he deployed Scout to hack the terminal. Karin looked around, “Well, the terminal is down, but central is still saying we have hostiles. Let’s send our two new buddies to check out the back side of the station.

The Trooper spotted and opened fire on the last patrol of a pair of Archons and a Gatekeeper who all rushed the party in a convenient line setting them up to get torn asunder by a pair of psionic lances from the twins. Karin just gave a quick shrug, “Mission accomplished.”

-After Action Report-
(Sharpshooter) Col. Karin “Widow” Nilsen
(Specialist) Col. Jesus “Teardrop” Garcia
(Grenadier) Col. Helen “Boom Boom” Brown
(Ranger) Maj. Brittany “Predator” Duncan
Magus Lucy “Voodoo” Woods
Magus Lisa “Psycho” Woods

[Mastershake]

Mission 27 – Shambling Shadow

-Squad-
(Sharpshooter) Col. Karin “Widow” Nilsen
(Specialist) Col. Jesus “Teardrop” Garcia
(Grenadier) Col. Helen “Boom Boom” Brown
(Ranger) Maj. Brittany “Predator” Duncan
Magus Lucy “Voodoo” Woods
Magus Lisa “Psycho” Woods

Helen walked into the bar on the Avenger and found Karin looking at some of the plaques from the memorial. She sat down next to Karin, “What are you doing?”

Karin didn’t look up, “Did you actually look at some of these?”

Helen shook her head in confusion, “Should I have?”

Karin started pulling out the plaques and showing them to Helen, “This is Otto Zander’s. It has some Latin phrase that probably means something cool ‘Sic Transit Gloria Mundi’. That’s kind of normal, but the other three team members that were on the rescue team for the commander are just freaking weird. This guy, Roar, just says ‘Not being psionic sucks!’. Then there’s this other guy, Terrashell, that says ‘Shot in the butt…again!’. Lastly we have a dude called Some Internet Guy with the phrase ‘Best flanking soldier ever!’. The old XCOM soldiers were really weird.”

Helen laughed a bit. Karin put down the plaques and looked over at Helen, “So is it just me or is Brittany really high strung?”

Helen gave a brief shrug, “I thought it was just because she was an American.”

Karin wagged her finger at Helen, “Yeah, I thought about that, but the twins are American as well and they’re not high strung at all…just crazy…and possibly evil.”

Helen laughed a bit, then snapped her fingers, “That reminds me. Tygan wanted to see you. Something about the twins.”

Karin gave an exaggerated sigh and left the room. Tygan and his research lab were all the way in the back of the ship next to the reactor. As Karin stepped in the reactor that was full of all manner of equipment she couldn’t even hope to understand, she noticed Tygan pouring over some data. He didn’t seem to notice her at first, so she walked into the room and plopped both hands on a nearby table, “So, you wanted to see me?”

Tygan turned his gaze to Karin without a hint of surprise, “Yes, I wanted to ask what you knew about the twins.”

Karin nodded and stared at Tygan. Tygan leaned in expectantly. After an awkward moment, he rolled his eyes before asking, “What do you know about the twins?”

Karin smiled, “Not much. They’re definitely psionic users and I’ve been reliably informed they’re both twins and female.”

Tygan motioned to a screen, “The resistance picked them up from a holding facility. They assumed it was a prison, but the more information we get, the more unlikely that assumption seems. They had no memory of their time in the facility and little memory of the time before. It was only the facilities records on its captives that led the resistance to the realization of who the twins were. I’ve hypothesized that the facility may have been the progenitor of the current Avatar project.”

Karin shrugged, “And that means exactly what to me?”

Tygan shook his head and continued his train of thought, “I’ve also hypothesized that they are actually one psionic entity that splits its physical presence across two bodies.”

Karin tapped her fingers on the table, “That’s an oddly specific thing to hypothesize about…wait. The Avatar project is about creating a physical form for psionic creatures. Does that mean…”

Before she could finish, Tygan held up a hand, “No, nothing like that. Their genes show no signs of tampering, but two beings joined like this could provide important data to Advent in regards to creating the Avatars in the first place.”

Karin looked lost again, “Alright, so back to the beginning. Why does any of this matter?”

Tygan shrugged, “I was just hoping you had the same sense of scientific curiosity I did. I’m also toying with some theories about why they can’t remember anything. Given their intrinsic connection to one another and their powerful psionic potential, it may not be in our best interest to attempt to restore their memories…it could end very badly and their skills will likely be needed for some time to come.”

Karin nodded her head in a patronizing fashion, “Good talk. I ‘ll let you get back to…hypothesizing.”

The next mission took the team back to the sunny and frozen tundra of Siberia. The resistance had disabled an Advent convoy, but the security element had turned back the resistance’s poorly equipped forces. As usual, the resistance called XCOM for help. Karin was breathing in an exaggerated fashion just to see her breath in the frozen air, “You know, nothing against Russians, but this place blows. I was getting really into the locales in the southern hemisphere and coming back to this frozen turd just reminds me how far we’ve come.”

The rest of the team seemed to largely be ignoring her as they made their way across the wastes and arrived at a position overlooking the highway. Helen looked back at Karin as they walked, “Wait, are you STILL talking?”

Karin shot her an obscene gesture, “Are we at the convoy or not?”

Helen pointed to a series of smoke clouds not too far away. The team was able to identify two of the Advent security details without being spotted. There a total of Two Andromedans, two Shieldbearers and a Lancer. They took up positions on the edge of the ridgeline as Karin whispered over the comms, “Voodoo is going to make some us some new friends and when everyone else figures out what happens, light them up.”

The twins took over an Andromedan and a Shieldbearer as the team tore into the rest of the Advent forces. Unfortunately, a nearby group with an Officer and Trooper noticed the purple haze around their friends and moved to join the fight. Karin popped her mimic beacon to keep the few enemies that might survive the ambush occupied. As the team moved to take down the Officer and Trooper, the mind-controlled Shieldbearer put up shields on the entire team.

Karin drew her pistol and walked the Officer into the ground as she said, “This is fantastic! Why don’t we have this shield technology?”

Helen identified the last enemies, a Gatekeeper and Codex and tore into them as she replied, “Because, much like scopes and extended magazines, shields absolutely baffle Shen.”

Karin couldn’t help but laugh as a pair of psionic lances tore apart the Gatekeeper and caused the codex to split into a pair of weekend clones. She fired two quick shots with her pistol, executing the weakened Codex clones, before turning to the team, “All clear. Let the resistance know they can pick up their order anytime.”

-After Action Report-
(Sharpshooter) Col. Karin “Widow” Nilsen
(Specialist) Col. Jesus “Teardrop” Garcia
(Grenadier) Col. Helen “Boom Boom” Brown
(Ranger) Maj. Brittany “Predator” Duncan- Promoted
Magus Lucy “Voodoo” Woods
Magus Lisa “Psycho” Woods

[Mastershake]

Mission 28 – Wolf Walker

-Squad-
(Sharpshooter) Col. Karin “Widow” Nilsen
(Specialist) Col. Jesus “Teardrop” Garcia
(Grenadier) Col. Helen “Boom Boom” Brown
(Ranger) Col. Brittany “Predator” Duncan
Magus Lucy “Voodoo” Woods
Magus Lisa “Psycho” Woods

Karin was in operations waiting for Central to finish with something on a nearby console. He nodded and turned to her, “We’re almost ready to launch the final strike on Advent and end this war once and for all. We just have to finish constructing some…elements we need. As soon as that’s done…”

Before he could finish, alerts started blaring. Advent was conducting a retaliation raid on resistance camp in Western Russia. Central seemed briefly lost in thought before addressing Karin, “We don’t have to do this and if our people get badly wounded and we have to postpone our final assault a lot of innocent people could die.”

Karin looked up at the screen with the resistance distress call, “We don’t have to, but I can promise you the team wants to.”

She patted Central on the shoulder, “Don’t worry, we’re not going to do anything stupid. I won’t let them trip on their shoelaces before they get across the finish line.”

Central laughed as Karin headed out of operations and down to the armory. The whole team was in good spirits for this mission. Retaliation missions gave them a chance to both kill Advent and save lives, so everyone was motivated and the knowledge that they were getting closer to the end gave them that much more incentive.

As the team arrived at the outskirts of the shanty-town the resistance had been occupying Karin motioned for the team to take up positions and pull security, then turned to Jesus, “Have Scout do a quick scan, let’s see what he finds.”

Scout flew up in the air as Jesus stared intently at the display. After a moment, flashing red lights started dotting the display as a number of Cryssalids and a Faceless were all revealed from their hiding spots. The melee-oriented enemies rushed into the team’s fire. Helen looked over to Karin as she saturated the area with heavy plasma fire, “Are going to have the twins pick up any of these?”

Karin shook her head as dumped a series of pistol shots in the faceless, “Nah. You saw what happened with the mission in Patagonia, they just stared up at the Archons voicing their frustration at not having any form of ranged attack. Just cut these down and let’s move on.”

The team continued to push forward and ran into an Advent Officer and Shieldbearer. Helen pointed at the pair and gave a suggestive shrug. Karin nodded, “Voodoo, our reinforcements just arrived. Make them feel welcome.”

The twins took over the two Advent soldiers as Jesus initiated another scan. He pointed up to a ridge in front of the team, “There’s a Cryssalid up there, but we can’t see it and Scout’s scanners are burnt out for this mission.”

Karin sighed a little, “Alright, we’ll see if we can bait it out without getting charged. In the meantime, those Advent are doing a good job pulling security on those civilians. Go pick them up, real quick, and get them to evac.”

Jesus gritted his teeth a little. Karin shook her head, “Just do it alright. We all hate these bastards, but we’re still going to use them to achieve the mission.”

He shook his head and ran over to the civilians. Karin raised her head a little in Helen’s direction, “Do you think we could have the Advent guys escort the civilians?”

Helen laughed a little, “That would probably just terrify and confuse them.”

Brittany was looking at the ridge above her, “So what’s the plan?”

Karin smiled, “Well, since you acquired that unauthorized blast padding from the armory, you seem pretty well equipped to handle anything you run into.”

Brittany glared at her, “Seriously? You knew I took the blast padding and instead of saying anything about it, you’re just going to throw me in harm’s way?”

Karin snapped her fingers and pointed at Brittany, “Bingo champ, now move it. We don’t have all day.”

Brittany climbed the ridge and before she had even gotten all the way to the top, the Cryssalid was already charging. It dug a claw into her leg and she reflexively fired a plasma shotgun blast, ripping it to pieces. She pulled the piece of the claw out of her leg and was about to tag Jesus on the comms when she looked up and saw Scout already applying a medkit. She smiled, “Thanks Jesus. The armor stopped most of the hit.”

Karin called up to Brittany, “All clear up there?”

Brittany returned back the ‘All Clear’ and everyone but Jesus and his escort of Advent troops ascended the ridge. Once they arrived at the other side of the ridge, the team spotted some Troopers flanking a Gatekeeper in a warehouse. Karin came over the comms, “Voodoo, that thing is ugly. Put it down.”

The twins sent a series of lances into the Gatekeeped that crossed the troopers as well, killing all three in short order. As soon as they fell, a Faceless and Cryssalid that were still in hiding emerged and charged into the team’s fire. Their suicidal charge ended predictably badly. The mission was over and most of the civilians had been saved.


-After Action Report-
(Sharpshooter) Col. Karin “Widow” Nilsen
(Specialist) Col. Jesus “Teardrop” Garcia
(Grenadier) Col. Helen “Boom Boom” Brown
(Ranger) Col. Brittany “Predator” Duncan
Magus Lucy “Voodoo” Woods
Magus Lisa “Psycho” Woods

[Mastershake]

Mission 29 – Star Slap
<<<Spoiler Alert: This is a Story Mission>>>

-Squad-
(Sharpshooter) Col. Karin “Widow” Nilsen
(Grenadier) Col. Helen “Boom Boom” Brown
Magus Lucy “Voodoo” Woods
Magus Lisa “Psycho” Woods

Karin was listening intently to the plan Tygan and Chen had cooked up. When they finished with the explanations and asked for input, Karin looked around at everyone, “Why doesn’t anyone else think this a bad idea? The entire point of the Avatar project was to create the Avatars and the aliens went out of their way to put the Commander in a stasis suit to connect him to the network. How is it not a bad idea to create an Avatar, seal the commander back in the stasis suit and connect him back into the network?”

Central put his hand on her shoulder, “Having an Avatar is the only way to access the gate and if we just build one without connecting it to anything it will just be lump.”

Karin nodded, “Good, let it be a lump. We’ll throw the stupid thing through the gate in front of us.”

Shen shook her head, “without an animating force, the gate won’t let the Avatar and the rest of our troops through. Without this…well we don’t really have an end game. This is the only way to access wherever it is on the other side of that gate. I don’t like it either, but we need to do it and the commander is the only one who has previously interfaced with the Advent network on that level.”

Karin was shaking her head, “I don’t know. Everything you’re saying seems to make sense, but it just sounds wrong.”

Central held up a hand to Tygan and Shen, then took Karin off to the side out of earshot. He leaned in and whispered, “I don’t like it either. The Commander’s judgement may get compromised. You’ve pushed back against him in the past when you didn’t agree with him…which is the only reason why I gave them the ‘okay’ for this plan of theirs. This may be our only chance for a real victory…. please, we’ll need you for this one.”

Karin was lost in thought for a moment, then walked back to Tygan and Shen with Central in tow. She sighed, “Alright, what do you need from my team?”

Shen smiled and beamed with pride as she went on, “The speaker is about to address all the people of Earth about a gene therapy. The therapy is a trap to finish processing all non-essential humans. Our agents have made arrangements to get a few of our people into the transmission tower. I’m going to provide you with a hack that will both broadcast everything we’ve learned about Advent’s activities and scramble their network leaving their forces in disarray. Once Advent is distracted, we open the gate and…see what’s on the other side.”

Karin held her hand up, “Wait, what are we doing on the other side of the gate?”

Tygan chimed in, “While Advent hasn’t completed the Avatar project, any of the Avatars they have produced will likely be called in to defend their base once they realize we’re there. Advent are reliant on psionic control, so disrupting the network and the Avatars should be a killing blow.”

Karin looked intensely focused on the floor for a moment. She let out a small sigh, “Alright. How many people can we get into the transmitted tower?”

Central held up his hand, “Four and even getting that many required pulling a lot of strings. You’ll have to decide who you want to take with you.”

Karin shook her head, “No need, I already know. When do we launch?”

Central looked at the other two, “Whenever you’re ready Colonel Nilsen.”

Karin, Helen and the twins were riding a service elevator to the roof of the Advent relay tower. Karin was inhaling and exhaling deeply as they waited for the elevator to get all the way to the top. The interior was incredibly cramped, barely enough room for the four of them and their equipment. Once the tower was disrupted, they would be able to call the Skyranger for pickup and would immediately be going through the gate.

A thousand thoughts were racing through Karin’s head. The mission, the team, the Commander, what to expect on the other side of the gate. Any and everything mission related was in her thoughts all at the same time. Helen leaned in, “You have to relax. Treat it as just another mission.”

Karin shook her head, “I can’t. If anyone is wounded here, we’ll be in worse condition to go through the gate and the gate is our chance to win this thing once and for all.”

A dinging sound rang through the elevator to indicate the doors were about to open. Enemy resistance was expected to be light or at least comparatively light because Advent likely weren’t expecting the resistance to get this far. As the doors slid open the team looked out ahead of them. The could see the very top of the psionic network transmitter beaming purple energy to awaiting satellites. They were two buildings away from the control center with a series of catwalks going between the rooftops of the structures.

It was going to be next to impossible to avoid being spotted with such an open approach, but there was thankfully not much ground to cover. They moved to the edge of the first roof and approached the first catwalk. No sign of hostiles so far. Karin had the team proceeding with an almost excessive level of caution. The second roof had a small structure on the far right side. Karin motioned for her and Helen to get on top of the structure as the twins moved through the structure.

The mission escalated at light speed as three separate patrols all ran into the team all at once. The enemies comprised three Archons, a Codex and a pair of Adromedans. As the hostiles closed on the team Karin called out over the comms, “We’re going hot, Voodoo, pop a mimic beacon and see if you can get control of one of those Andromedans, I’ll pop the another mimic beacon. Boom Boom, make things disappear.”

The firefight was frantic with shots tearing apart the mimic beacons and the other twin popping the last mimic beacon. Helen was taking full advantage of the distractions to unload a fusillade of plasma grenades and heavy plasma fire. At one point, the Archons made the terrible error of forming a line and the twins instantly capitalizing on the opportunity to lance the entire group. Karin took a quite pistol shot to get the codex to split, then fan fired her pistol killing the two copies. The Andromedan the twins were controlling took cover on an overhang for one of the catwalks and rained fire on the other Adromedan.

As the dust settled, Karin looked around, “Everybody good?”

They had managed to scrape through the encounter with no injuries. Karin motioned for the team to start moving to the edge of the roof and the next catwalk. As the team was moving, one of the twins whispered over the comms, “He can’t move.”

Karin looked back with a baffled expression, “What?”

The twin pointed back to the Adromedan who couldn’t get back on the catwalk. It was just standing there confused. Karin facepalmed, “Seriously? They can crash through walls, how is stopped by the three-foot barrier separating the catwalk from the overhang? Wait, if it can’t move how the hell did it get there in the first place?”

The twin just returned a shrug. Karin shook her head, “Fine, I guess he’ll be watching our six.”

They got across the last catwalk to the entrance for the structure with the relay control room without encountering further hostiles. They could hear Advent troops, but couldn’t see any. They opened the door to an empty room. Karin motioned for everyone to stack on the door for the main control room. Everyone waited with baited breaths around the door as Karin slid it open and…nothing. She looked around at the team and they just returned shrugs.

She whispered, “The panel is right over there. Move slowly and stay quiet.”

She was practically within reach of the panel and they had still seen no more enemies. She looked around at the group, “Anything at all?”

Everyone shook their heads and one of the twins whispered, “Our friend doesn’t see anything either.”

Karin slowly moved to the console and uploaded the hack from Shen. The psionic relay started pulsing erratically and alarms began to blare throughout the entire facility. She motioned for the team to run to the pickup point. On the way out they saw a patrol of Mutons who appeared to be having serious issues dealing with the psionic disruption. With the Advent troops in such disarray, the Skyranger was easily able to get to the pickup and take the team back to the Avenger.

-After Action Report-
(Sharpshooter) Col. Karin “Widow” Nilsen
(Grenadier) Col. Helen “Boom Boom” Brown
Magus Lucy “Voodoo” Woods
Magus Lisa “Psycho” Woods

[Fuhrer]

Let's Not.