The Quick and the Dead and the Stupid.

[FullAuto]

Yes, I really don't have enough to do, do I?

[Space Voyager]

Why no, you don't.

 

Also please neglect your personal life, dating, book reading, sports and all other activities that could hold the next AAR update back.

[Pete]

What SV said

[Crazy Photon]

That was awesome! keep them coming, and do share the save if you wanna share the load

[Space Voyager]

That was awesome! keep them coming, and do share the save if you wanna share the load

 

NO! You'd just get me killed!

[Thorondor]

C'mon, don't let the "Crazy" bit fool you...

 

::

 

[NKF]

Over my years of playing, I've found that sometimes crazy works.

 

- NKF

[chiasaur11]

Over my years of playing, I've found that sometimes crazy works.

 

- NKF

 

So, wait.

 

Are you suggesting robot gorillas with jetpacks?

[FullAuto]

NO! You'd just get me killed!

 

What do you think I'm going to do!

[NKF]

So, wait.

 

Are you suggesting robot gorillas with jetpacks?

 

Yes.

 

- NKF

[chiasaur11]

What do you think I'm going to do!

 

Get everyone killed.

 

More egalitarian.

[FullAuto]

Hey, the tank survived.

 

Thorondor Dos starts off with the short straw. Reaper!

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A quick sprint back to the lift sees him reunited with the others in lift A, sergeants Sunflash and Space Voyager, wielding their autocannons in displays of masculine superiority, NKFTWO and Dragonhawk Jr. waving motion scanners and laser pistols, and chiasaur13, laser rifled up.

 

Captain roosio watches Strike sally forth from the lift with eager eyes. Reaper again, a different one this time.

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Upstairs, everyone readies their laser rifles. Pet3 clears his throat. "If you don't mind, before we start, I have prepared a little something?"

 

The rest of the squad watches as he withdraws a sheaf of notes from a grenade pouch. "Hey! Reaper!" He calls down the lift. "Your mother is deaf!"

 

"They're clones, aren't they?" Mojotronica pipes up.

 

"Yeah, they don't have mothers. Born in tanks." Bomb Bloke v3.0 watches with the air of a man observing a car crash, safely terrified behind the guard rail.

 

"Well, I guess that is why she did not move around very mu- look, that doesn't work now." Pet3 discards his notes. "Let's do it, killjoys."

 

Captain Birdseye is back from luring children onto his boat, the twisted sicko.

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"We'll have to see about linking up with the chaps in the other lift." sir-roosio sketches an L-shape on the map. "Secure anything that looks dangerous with proxies, light those dark corners up with flares, kill anything that's A) big and ginger or B) looks like a purple-helmeted soldier."

 

I laugh in a toadying manner. "Oh, sir, you and your knob jokes."

 

"I like telling them."

 

"I like listening to them."

 

"That's why I tell them."

 

Thor, playing with the lift, descends and spots a Floater, looming in the dark passage very much like some sort of sexual predator in the urban jungle, ready to pounce on an innocent herbivore child.

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The first laser burn merely irritates the Floater into shooting back, a pretty pink projectile that explodes against a wall and sends absolutely nobody to sleep. The second hit sizzles something important, and the Floater dies. Thor resumes playing with the lift, pretending to posess Jedi mind powers.

 

chiasaur13 descends, edges close to an entrance, and spots a Floater in the next room.

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"No line of fire, shame." He draws back slowly, knowing there will be a next time.

 

"Are you sure you're not just a massive coward?" Asks Dragonhawk Jr. helpfully.

 

That dark passage appears to be a meeting point, as a Floater and a Reaper approach out of the darkness.

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NKFTWO drops the Floater with a laser pistol shot (scarring the wall next to Thorondor with the rest of the burst), to reveal another Floater behind it.

 

"It's the painy season!" Space Voyager screams, letting rip. "Does it burn! It should because it is fire!"

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An attempted Blaster launch goes badly wrong and hilariously blows up at least two Floaters, detonating somewhere in the blackness and scouring the corridors with wall-to-wall explosions.

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ulairionx3 spots a Reaper weaving its way between the displays, or storage cabinets, or whatever they are. He opens fire, destroying a case, and wounding the Reaper.

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BB v3.0 and Pet3 set up opposite him, ready to intercept any charging alien boars with ginger fur wearing bondage gear, and Strike, MitsuMishi the 3rd, Mojotronica and FullAutomatic prepare to travel the first leg of the L to lift A.

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SV takes it upon himself to stop a Reaper, and risks burning God knows how many X-Commies with his reaction fire. But with nerves of steel and reflexes of molybdenum, he shoots, he scores, and Thor puts the new hairy mobile fireplace down with laser fire.

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There are Reapers and Floaters aplenty in the big chambers, snapshots of movement as they duck, dodge and dive amongst the cases and tanks and horrible things full of wossnames. One takes a potshot at ulairionx3, and he shifts back into a corner, away from the doorway.

 

SV's second try at reaction fire, this time at a fleeting Floater, is almost as successful as last time, except the alien slips away and Thor is splashed with a fresh batch of flame.

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Sunflash drops a Floater when it comes ghosting out of a side corridor, but succumbs to a long shot from the cloud-choked corridors around the Blaster bomb explosion. An alien grenade, thankfully mis-thrown, goes off outside Lift A, destroying cases full of bits that really shouldn't be outside a human body.

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Thorondor spots Sunflash's killer, and drills him.

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chiasaur13 pops through the doorway and catches the grenade-throwing little shit cold.

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His laser fire splashes everywhere except the Floater, and Dragonhawk Jr. steps up, killing the alien with approximately two million shots from his laser pistol.

 

It's a turn for surviving, as myself, NKFTWO, and SV are all hit by plasma shots, and yet remain miraculously unhurt. The personal armour provides much more protection now they've stopped using old crisp packets as part of the material.

[FullAuto]

A Floater tries to slip in behind B team, but ulairionx3 is still there, waiting, and he does to it what anti-matter does to matter. Or something.

https://i62.photobucket.com/albums/h109/FullAuto_2006/X-Com/b16.png

The alien dies, anyway, and he goes back to being a human booby trap. "I don't sleep, I lie in wait."

 

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B-Team ford on, reaching a tiny room with a central lift, and what looks like an incredibly shitty disco beyond that.

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Thor spots a Floater in the central tower of the hall, and using a storage tank full of what is either tapioca or semen for cover, closes in for the kill.

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Mojotronica, scanning regularly, spots a blob closing in, and moves to get a better view.

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Yes, that's close enough.

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One-handed, first shot, hit, kill. Fried gold.

 

DragonHawk Jr. gets hit by a shot from a Floater trying to flank Thor, and his torrent of laser bolts in reply turns the Floater into a sort of crispy pate that is actually quite tasty but smells like grilled vomit.

 

Strike spots a Floater bopping away in the disco, 100% Travolta, but it's no line of fire again.

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Mojotronica moves up to the little window in the lift room, has a pop, but only wounds it. So it's up to me, and it's murder on the dance floor. Mojotronica staggers back, arm cooked to chicken wing by plasma. Mitsu Mishi pumps him full of drugs and heals the fatal wound, and Mojotronica, blissed out, plays with the buttons on his motion scanner.

 

chiasaur13 is next to be shot and remain unhurt as he runs for cover through the hall. Strike spots a Reaper through a tiny window as he taps his foot to the alien dance tunes, and warns the others. "Ginger pig beast on the other side of that wall to you, guys. Barbeque at your 3 o'clock."

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SV thinks nothing of engaging a Floater at close range with HFD.

https://i62.photobucket.com/albums/h109/FullAuto_2006/X-Com/b25.png

"That is what it means to be awesome!" He cries. "Eyebrows are overrated!"

 

chiasaur13, Thorondor Dos, and DragonHawk Jr. clear a hall, proxying doorways, using tanks for cover. Like their favourite beer, 100% ice chilled professional, crisply efficient, and surprisingly fruity.

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"This must be the command centre!" Captain roosio cries as A and B teams meet up in the small passage circling a room, one side of it destroyed by incompetent Blaster bombage.

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"Why must it be the command centre?" Asks NKFTWO, the only one confused enough to ask.

 

"Gold walls." roosio nods at the panelling. "Sure sign of evil genius ahead."

 

A Floater exists for literally milliseconds after exiting the command room, engaged simultaneously by ulairionx3 and SV, roasted inside and out, cooked to perfection. Not quick learners, another Floater comes out to see what all the commotion is about, and it happens all over again.

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A grenade clears a cowering Reaper out of the way, and that's it!

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"HAPPY NEW YEAH!" Cries Gimli when the 'ranger returns. "With Sunflash dead, I'm a sergeant! And so is Crazy Photon."

 

SV buries his hairless face in his hands.

[NKF]

Hooray, a flaming good mission!

 

- NKF

[Thorondor]

Exits Skyranger singing:

 

When all else fails and you long to be

Something better than you are today

I know a place where you can get away

It's called a dance floor, and here's what it's for, so -

 

::

 

[squad chorus, medium-rare and shaken, not stirred]

 

Come on, vogue

Let your body move to the music (move to the music)

Hey, hey, hey

Come on, vogue

Let your body go with the flow (go with the flow)

You know you can do it !

 

[Matri]

Right, new catchphrase

Eyebrows are overrated!

[Sunflash]

Alas, only fitting the sniper should be killed by one in return!

 

Also: LOL Eyebrows. xD

[Knan]

Charging bravely on! Terror at the Barbecue.

 

(Sounds like a x-com christmas party song)

[FullAuto]

Happy Birthday Knan! You were killed but I resurrected you for your birthday.

[Knan]

Hurray! Back from the great plasma barbecue!

 

I want alien grenade research for christmas. So we can accidentally explode more than one shrubbery at a time.

[Sunflash]

Hurray! Back from the great plasma barbecue!

 

I want alien grenade research for christmas. So we can accidentally explode more than one shrubbery at a time.

 

 

Note to self: Sniper or not, discard gilly suit asap.

[Sgt. Strike]

Note to self: Sniper or not, discard gilly suit asap.

 

Note to self: don't shoot any moving bushes, unless it's a reaction shot through an alien of some sort.

[FullAuto]

So, in the following days, tales are told and retold; around bunsen burners in the labs, over spanner slideshows in the workshops, and between games of Guess the Warhead in the hangars. Tales of heroism and brave deeds, of taking one in the face for good ol' Uncle Earth, of setting fire to aliens and laughing maniacally, of vomiting at the human bodies in tanks broken down like LEGO, of pant-shitting at massive explosions, and yet fighting on to victory. Sunflash is mourned with the usual round of Cremated Ashes Chugging and whisky chasers, but morale is at an all-time high. The Small Launcher and Heavy Plasma fall before the combined might of the eggheads' concentrated thinking, and the overalled apes in the workshops produce enough personal armour for everyone.

 

Three additional bases (UFOpaedia in North America, Sweatshop in Australasia, and White Lines HQ in South America) all come on line, hangars holding Interceptors equipped with Avalanches, and the Large Radars shortly after, scouring the skies for alien scum. The first intercept occurs shortly after, with a UFO chased all the way from South America, to the Arctic.

 

"Smoke me a penguin, I'll be back for breakfast!" Cheered the pilot, barrel-rolling so low that his sonic boom killed a polar bear.

 

Got the money to put down another base. Japan, Antarctica, or South Africa? You lot decide! One poster, one vote.

[Knan]

Getting bits of Japan terrorized is traditional. Vote!

 

ありがとうございます!

[FullAuto]

A ten-man mission. The two new sergeants, a squaddie, and seven rookies.

 

"My nipples are quite hard!" Announces Gimli as the cold air rushes in. "Thankfully, you can't tell under this armour."

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The rest of the squad shudder in distaste. One of the rookies, Zombie IV, is brave enough to mention something a tad alarming. "We don't seem to have brought enough weapons."

 

"Gimli was in charge of the load out." Crazy Photon sank the dagger in to his fellow sergeant quite happily.

 

"Well, those Heavy Plasma things are quite cool, so vets get those. Autocannons, again, very trendy, so we'll take those. You can have what's left." Gimli smooths over the mistake with an airy wave of his hand.

 

Pretty soon everyone is well equipped, apart from Matri Gamma and Slaughtered, who were at the back of the queue, and have to share a laser pistol until Gimli, spotting their predicament, donates his Plasma Pistol.

 

CP and Grossbeer, first off, huddle near the ramp, enjoying the warmth of the 'rangers exhaust. There is no cover nearby, the battlefield is a featureless white plain like a mad scientist's forehead. But the UFO is close by, directly to the east of the 'ranger.

https://i62.photobucket.com/albums/h109/FullAuto_2006/X-Com/a2.png

"Saves us going hunting." Gimli jumps down into the snow, and spots an alien. "Orange slug thing at two o'clock!"

https://i62.photobucket.com/albums/h109/FullAuto_2006/X-Com/a3.png

"Ah, that's okay." St Vier Deux checks his watch. "We've got ages yet."

 

Gimli fiddles with the Heavy Plasma, unused to the alien weapon, but with the helpful labelling skills of the scientists and his recent reading practice, he works it out in literally minutes, and opens fire. Two out of three hit but the Snakeman doesn't die and shoots back, melting a 'ranger landing gear. The whole plane lists as the leg melts, and the troops inside stagger. "The Enterprise is under attack Cap'n!" chortles Skonared as he reels back and forth.

 

Gimli, faith in alien death rays shaken, tries again, and the Snakeman considerately bursts open, spraying foul alien fluids that sizzle in the snow.

 

The only option is to make for the ship as quickly as possible, covering the empty ground without being massacred. Gimli takes one step forward and spots another Snakeman.

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This one is reduced by St Vier, who makes "pew pew" noises under his breath as he shoots.

 

"Plenty of smoke." Observes Grossbeer as he leads the attack.

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"Must have put down pretty hard. What with being shot down, and everything. Y'know. Physics. Gravity. Mass. Pow!"

 

Crossing to the ship is uneventful but tense, entry is eventful and horrible as Skonared enters, survives one plasma blast, and is killed by the second. "My only regret is that I have one life to lose...and this is it."

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Slaughtered takes up the gauntlet, nudging the body aside with his foot, and entering, Plasma Pistol at the ready. Like duellists, the two combatants open fire, getting one hit each, but neither is perturbed. Slaughtered opens fire again and kills the alien, smearing it across the wrecked interior of the ship. He spins the pistol around his forefinger and holsters up, his burnt armour flaking. "Mess with a Viking, you get the helmet's horns."

 

Another win, but that doesn't excuse this insanity:

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