Update 5: Welcome To Hell
Jan 27th
Oh no.
On January 27th, nearly a month after X-COM's official formation, aliens launch a ruthless assault on a major human city. As the premier defense forced tasked with the protection of all of Earth, we have no choice but to respond in force to this outrage.
Especially since I have a feeling where that large UFO we failed to catch went to.
Well fine. If they think they can just drop in on one of our poles, mosey on down to our equator and start terrorizing whoever they please, we'll show them what happens to hostiles that stick around too long.
Even if it is at night.
At 3:09, nearly ten hours after this insult began, our team arrives at the location on the other side of the world.
Fortunately, 3:09 is apparently well past dawn in Jakarta, and we have none of the visibility issues I was so dreading.
Maxclone is the first one off the Skyranger, and plops down to the side right in front of a strange purple alien. He blasts it and the wall it was standing in front of to hell. Three plasma blasts respond from behind, striking the wheel strut between him and it twice and the loading ramp once.
Informed that we have company, Miranda comes off to the other side and offers some ill-aimed fire from a bad angle; the alien is, not surprisingly, hiding in an alley. Xenio does the same from a better angle, and McCannonFodder finally disposes of it with a series of explosions that take out much of the surrounding walls as well. The damage reveals a different alien, which appears hostile but mostly just putters around aimlessly in and around the structures. Miranda readies a grenade as a solution.
Xenio takes point, exploring the building the first alien was in front of using its spacious new doorway. He notices a civilian, and leaves to go around instead so as not to send the wrong message. This leaves him facing and very close to a different civilian near an original door, but the fact that he doesn't shoot him hopefully conveys an important difference between him and normal aliens.
A plasma shot from across the street kills the civilian still hiding in the building. Great. I'm sure that will be labeled our fault somehow.
McCannonFodder moves back in to get access to the street without cramping Xenio, only to encounter a plasma blast streaking past him from the northeast. He wisely retreats for now.
Kilroy, seeing an opportunity for his unique skills, begins moving into position. Unfortunately he has some difficulty moving under his own power, being laden down with explosives as he is, and fails to get into position in a timely manner. The known alien takes out its frustration on the building's corner, presumably aiming for Kilroy. Kilroy shuffles his heavy load into place and opens fire, but unfortunately misses.
Realizing that Kilroy is completely in the open, Sir Kahn jumps directly in front of him and opens fire on the alien. The resulting explosions kill it and level most of the northeastern wall. And a bit of the northwestern wall.
Stone Cold begins moving to the southeast, only to find himself the target of a plasma bolt. A quick glance around reveals no attacker, and he ducks back under the Skyranger until it's safe. Dr. Euchre is on it, priming a smoke grenade, then moving into position and throwing it into the alley the shot apparently came from.
Back in the house, McCannonFodder sights an alien; whether the one that murdered the civilian or not is difficult to say, as it seems too far to the southwest. Having an explosive weapon and some intervening, very close walls, McCannonFodder allows Maxclone to have the first shot, which goes wide. I hope nobody minds errant explosives sailing off into the sky around here.
O'Malley has the next shot, as the civilian is still blocking Xenio. Predictably, his cannon fire kills the alien, blows apart the wall it was standing behind, and detonates amongst whatever was behind the fence. Which indeed appears to be a home. Well, the inhabitants were probably dead or aggressively far away by now anyway.
Meanwhile, Miranda tries to get a good angle for her grenade. She can't, though she manages to see the beast hiding behind the slightly on fire shed (I guess those barrels were full of chemicals). Unfortunately, she lands the grenade on the roof in her efforts to get it over, since getting it straight through wasn't an option.
Xenio scouts across the street while McCannonFodder watches from a nearby window. He quickly discovers that adjacent to the somewhat ruined home the alien was standing in front of is an open space with another building on the other side. While scorch marks on the ground make me suspicious, Xenio assures me that the living civilian standing right in the middle of said wall is definitive proof that there's no aliens over there. He and most of the rest of the squad begin slowly advancing down the street.
Meanwhile, GlyphGryph and Bob Bunny begin slowly advancing through the smoke, while Miranda advances similarly cautiously through the alleyway where the alien that shot at Maxclone was. She abruptly notices an alien trying to shoot a civilian as he hides in a smaller building next to a gas station, and reflexively nails it in the back with her laser pistol.
Miranda then notices the strange beast from earlier right next to the civilian she just saved. Wary of the laser pistol's inaccuracy, she attempts a carefully aimed shot, which hits but does not kill it. A small burst of automatic fire later hits the wall right next to her twice and sends the third host safely into the air, and a more casual final shot simply misses harmlessly. Bob Bunny and GlyphGryph attempt to charge into the smoke to help save him, but are entirely too far away.
Sure enough, the beast soon rips the hapless civilian apart. GlyphGryph and Bob Bunny arrive and open fire on the beast, but fail to kill it. Miranda attempts to toss a grenade, but finds the pumps covered by a roof, preventing a clean overhand throw. Instead she moves back a bit and tosses it through the entire length of the short alley, landing it near enough to the beast to kill it.
Xenio enters the house whose wall was ripped open by O'Malley's cannon fire, and immediately spots another purple alien. He opens fire, killing it instantly.
The rest of the team continues moving down the street, noticing two more of those strange orange brutes hiding amongst the myriad buildings to the southwest. They also manage to notice an alien hiding in a tiny house to the southeast, which GlyphGryph and Bob Bunny were headed towards. The street team's solution is to move out of line of sight of the windows for now.
GlyphGryph also encounters a second beast near the house, but it is gunned down surprisingly easily by GlyphGryph's valiant efforts.
Unfortunately, a civilian soon appears at the top of the stairs. Nevermind that there's a corpse on the ground floor already, clearly it's time to come down. With no time left for a careful assault, several explosive members attempt to crack the building without harming the civilian, just a stones' throw from the alien. Stone Cold even gives his "sniping" skills a shot... which actually hits dead on, but fails to kill it. Eventually very well-aimed explosive fire succeeds in downing the creature without killing the civilian.
Meanwhile, the orange brutes begin taking fire from those members not concerned with the little house, which they respond to by continuing to amble around. Commissar Bane even lights both of them on fire, which still fails to convince them to vacate the area, either in attack or retreat.
The murderous assault is punctuated by a plasma bolt flying through a doorway, between the trays of a rack of some sort, and killing a nearby civilian, confirming a more intelligent nemesis amongst the structures. Soon our soldiers' approach reveals it: another purple one hiding behind its orange beasts. Commissar Bane moves into position, firing into one window near the corner, out the other, and striking it directly twice.
Needless to say, it's roasted to a crisp, and its bodyguards don't last much longer.
That should have been the end of our efforts, but something still felt off. As our soldiers commenced their sweep of the area, they discovered a sealed-off room in the second story- the only staircase having been damaged beyond use at some point. Unfortunately, the walls were apparently made of iron, withstanding
several explosive rounds and a grenade in a different region. Even more unfortunately, Dr. Euchre attempted to assist by cracking open the room from the ground, enabling visibility from the ground. This resulted in an errant laser blasting a nearby civilian.
God damn it Euchre.
Fortunately, the source of our unease is eventually discovered- the very first alien we slew had apparently only been dazed, and had recovered. Which is actually rather unfortunate, as a live specimen would have been most fascinating. As it stood, Miranda shot it with little fanfare.
Turns out we did recover an alien alive after all, however. One of those orange brutes, which apparently someone's decided to call Reapers, apparently survived the conflict. My guess would be it's the one gunned down by GlyphGryph, as all the others were taken out by explosives and/or fire, but who knows. Well, I guess the lab techs or recovery team does, but enough of those guys.
Research on alien alloys is completed soon after. Turns out this stuff could be fashioned into body armor, which makes me wonder why nothing we've seen so far has done so. Maybe it's too expensive for the likes of them, or maybe it just didn't occur to them?
In any case, I reluctantly put this fascinating new approach on hold to investigate our live Reaper. I'm not sure how long he'll keep, if nothing else.
Commissar Bane has slain a Floater! Commissar Bane has slain 2 Reapers!
Miranda Galena has slain 2 Floaters! Miranda Galena has slain a Reaper!
Sir Kahn has slain a Floater!
Urist McCannonFodder has slain a Floater!
Brian O'Malley has slain a Floater!
Xenio Nebugolon has slain a Floater!
Commander GlyphGryph has slain a Reaper!
Someone has slain a Floater!
Dr. Euchre has slain a Civilian!
((I'm guessing I should have taken more than a single screenshot this mission. Oops.
Also, frankly shocked that everyone wasn't slaughtered. The fact that it counted as daytime obviously helped immensely with that.))
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