XCOM: Agent of F.I.X.F.I.C.

[X] I grabbed a high caliber sniper rifle, a submachine gun, five frag grenades and five flashbangs. I also hooked a bunch of chains to my side; given that they weighed at least fifty pounds, I expected they'd been set aside for me.
[X] The soldier had a red cross on their arm, and medical supplies took up more space than their munitions. I wasn't sure if they'd been a doctor or what, but I suspected we could count on them to keep any injured soldiers from bleeding out.
[X] The soldier had a rocket launcher strapped to their back with several rockets along with their grenades. They had an assault rifle, too, but this soldier was clearly geared for bringing down walls.

AA-12 shotguns have been added to the Armory!
M203 under-barrel grenade launchers have been added to the Armory!
FN P90 submachine guns have been added to the Armory!
AS50 sniper rifles have been added to the Armory!
X-9 assault rifles have been added to the Armory!
M249 SAW Light Machine Guns have been added to the Armory!
Glock 19 machine pistols have been added to the Armory!
M1911 pistols have been added to the Armory!
AT4 recoilless rifles have been added to the Armory!
Modified RPG-7 rocket launchers have been added to the Armory!

"Heavy Chains" have been added to the Armory!

[ ] WRITE IN has been added to the Armory!

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Ceathya stared at me as she lifted her helmet up to put it on. I glanced back. I don't know what she had against me, other than that I was an outsider of the highest degree, but I wasn't going to let it interfere with the mission. I hoped she wasn't either.

As part of the Skyranger protocols, everyone was wearing their full kit for the entire ride to Mumbai. The massive sniper rifle on my back only didn't make my ride uncomfortable because my armor allowed me to lock the joints in place, letting me lean back without actually leaning back. What were more annoying were the chains hooked under my left arm. With the ten grenades and Psi-amp taking up a lot of space on my chest around all the spare ammo I was carrying, and with the rifle on my back, there weren't many other places to hold them. They were colored black and I hoped tougher than wrought iron, but they looked like they were almost half an inch thick. If I had to guess, the chains must have weighed more than sixty pounds. That wasn't including the locks that hung off the ends of the chains themselves.

Still, it wasn't likely to be a problem. When I'd boasted that I could flip a car end over end, I'd meant it. I just had to worry about them getting tangled up in all my other equipment.

I considered grabbing a shotgun, or even a sawn-off, but decided against it. I didn't have time to do much more than grab a submachine gun and sling it over my shoulder on the way out, and a member of the support staff shoved a bunch of magazines for it into my hands as I left the armory. I had managed to shuffle almost all of the ammo into various pouches around my exo-suit, but in the end was forced to telekinetically stick a few spare magazines to my back. I was confident they would hold.

Ceathya was still staring at me. I couldn't see her eyes, but she hadn't turned her head away since she'd put it on.

The two soldiers to my right were a study in contrasts. Maybe they hadn't liked running the front lines, because Specialist Teasdale had been switched over to demolitions duty and Specialist Jamball had been assigned as a field medic. Based on how they interacted, I suspected the two Australians might have gotten closer since their UFO assault.

Both of them were looking at me now, too.

"Alright, what is it." I didn't really phrase it as a question.

"You were giving me shit for the gear I'm carrying," Ceathya claimed, her tone flat. "Are you serious? Actually serious?"

I shuffled a little in place. "What?"

"I dunno, mate, but when the teacher tells you to bring enough for everybody, they aren't normally referring to grenades and, uh, shackles," Teasdale said, his Australian accent sounding amused. "Why are you wearing chains again?"

"The brass wants us to bring the aliens in alive," I told him. "I'm supposed to knock one out with my mind so we can tie them up for transport if at all possible."

"If I run out of ammo, mind if I bum some off you?" Jamball asked. Like me, she had a boxy submachine gun, but I suspected hers was meant to be her primary weapon. I also guessed that I was carrying a couple more magazines than she was.

"Of course. I certainly have enough of it," I agreed.

"Hey man," Strike 7, or Aarons, according to his nametag, cut in. "How much does all that crap weigh, anyhow?"

I did some mental math. Call it sixty pounds for the chains, twenty seven for the rifle, plus half again that much for the ammo, maybe eight pounds for the grenades…

"Somewhere between a hundred and thirty and a hundred and fifty pounds, or, uh, between sixty and seventy kilograms?" I guessed. The rest of the team turned to stare at me. "The exo-suit handles most of it," I said, a little defensively. "I won't be slowing anybody down."

"When do those become standard issue, again?" Strike 5 asked quietly from her seat next to Jamball. Silva, that was her last name.

"Just as soon as somebody is free to take this suit apart," I guessed. "The Science Team has been focused on alien alloys and alien corpses so far." I held up my laser pistol. "Once they figure those out, this will probably become standard issue. I don't have tons of ammo for it, but it'll cut clean through steel with a couple shots. No recoil, either. Trust me, by the time the war ends, everything I'm wearing will be considered obsolete."

Strike 4, Teasdale, shook his head. "Aliens. Fuck 'em."

I didn't follow, but I agreed with the sentiment.

"Alright Mujina, you're approaching the drop site," Bradford's voice cut in over the radio. "Be warned, a dust storm is approaching the AO. See if you can circle around and get a view of where the target might be located before visibility drops too low."

"Affirmative, Central," Zhou responded. Everyone ensured their equipment was locked down as the Skyranger started hovering. "Negative. Visibility has already dropped, it is unlikely that-"

The Skyranger pulled back suddenly, and I grabbed onto a handlebar near my seat. Strike 8 was tossed out of his seat.

"Ground forces are firing on us! Taking evasive action!"

The ground turned ninety degrees under me, and Strike 8 was flung around the cabin. I managed to grab him as gravity shifted, but not before his shoulder struck Teasdale in the faceplate of his helmet. I held the soldier close as we lurched around, and suddenly the back of the Skyranger cracked open, flinging dust around as Mujina fought for control.

"Get out!" she shouted, "Get out now!"

The strike team didn't need to be told twice. The Skyranger stopped swerving around long enough for the ropes by the exit to drop down, and in reverse order by number, we got the hell out of there. I was last out with Ceathya, still holding Strike 8 in my off hand as we dropped down.

The mission had begun.

I landed hard on the roof of a building, and it damned near collapsed under my weight, and the jolt forced me to drop Strike 8. Mujina got the hell out of there as we dropped down, using the lip of the building to break line of sight with whatever was shooting at us.

"Come in, Strike One!" Bradford's voice was distorted by static, but it came through. "What is your status, over!"

"Alive and under fire," Ceathya answered him, already edging toward the edge of the rooftop. There weren't many buildings around, as best as I could see through the dust, and this one was a good two or three stories high, a loading bay or repair shop for the trains. Glowing green bolts of plasma flew by overhead, and I closed my eyes and reached out mentally for whatever the hell was shooting at us.

Unlike with the Muton, whatever I'd encountered wasn't happy to meet me. I felt it try to strike back against my mind, but it was a poor attempt, slapdash and ineffective. Sectoids, I realized. The common foot soldiers of the enemy army.

"Strike Two, can you return fire?" Central asked, and I started crawling toward Ceathya to join her in firing down at the Sectoids. "See if you can thin their numbers while the Commander rallies the squad."

"On it, Sir," I whispered back, pulling the huge rifle from my back and swinging it around. The tripod on it was near to the grip, and I didn't want to lean that far out to take a shot, so I balanced it forward in my hands away from my shoulder as I tried to find a target. We might not have had much good cover up here, but the roof's natural concealment seemed to be working well enough. Even in the dust, the green flashes of light were bright and obvious, and it didn't take long before I had the first of the little bastards in my sights.

I was a little too slow. Gunfire had started erupting up around me, and one of the other soldiers had managed to riddle the little grey with bullets before I could. I quickly turned to another target, one that was leaning out from behind a fuel tanker car. My shot took it in the chest, putting it down.

An anguished cry came from somebody to my left, but I couldn't check to see who it was. Somebody went to check on them, probably Jamball. There wasn't anything I could do but keep an eye out and keep shooting, whenever one of the Sectoids crawled out of the trainworks to greet us.

"Fire in the hole!" Strike four shouted, then a missile flew down and blew one of the open and empty box cars to hell. I don't know whether there were two greys inside or only one, but whatever was inside wasn't coming back out.

The plasma fire cut off abruptly, and I tried to catch a fleeing Sectoid with sniper fire as it ran out into the open. No luck. Our gunfire petered out a few moments later as we caught our first moment to breathe.

"Is everyone alright?" I asked, taking a moment to reload. I had enough magazines that I just dropped the used cartridge over the side of the building. I flipped the rifle back over to my back, then pushed myself up and moved back away from the edge. My submachine gun was hanging in easy reach of my right hand if I needed it.

Jamball, our medic, was looking over a small burn on Strike 6's left arm. Vasiliev's left arm, I noted from his nametag. The soldier's armor had been burned clean through, but I couldn't see how bad it was.

"It barely touched you," she was admonishing him as she poured some kind of liquid over the wound. "Barely worth taking the time to look at. You'll be fine, just grit your teeth and worry about shooting the fecker back, eh?"

"Is no problem," he… She? Said in a thick russian accent. "If is not worth the time, we move on."

"No, I just gotta bandage it. Almost done." Strike 3 had it wrapped a few moments later, then added a few little metal clips over the coverings for good measure. "All good."

"How exactly are we planning to get down?" Strike 4, Teasdale, asked aloud. Now that the aliens weren't shooting at us, he was leaned half over the side of the building, looking for pipes or a ladder.

I chuckled, unwrapping the lengths of chain from my left side. "And you guys were laughing at me for bringing a heavy 'rope.'"

"'Course we were," Teasdale agreed, apparently unconcerned with the situation. "Even after we get down, I'll still laugh at you for carrying that thing. You picked up a twenty-five foot length of chain walking out the door. Who does that?"

"Need I remind you that you're on a time-sensitive mission?" Central's voice joined in over the radios, still hissing with static. "Get off the rooftop and find that bomb!"

I shook my head, looking over the team. Strike 8 had apparently recovered from playing a game of pinball as the ball inside the Skyranger, and as I lowered the heavy chain down the side and locked in my legs, he was the first to start climbing down. Nobody argued or offered a better idea, and apparently believed I was strong and heavy enough to stand as their anchor, so the rest of the team followed suit, even the huge Russian. Still, no aliens tried taking pot shots as everyone descended, dropping the last five or six feet when the chain cut out to land on the ground.

"How were you planning on getting down?" Ceathya asked when it was finally her turn. I just gave her a smile and nodded to the chain. She shook her head. "You're going to get yourself killed, and us with you. Try to take a couple of them with you when you die, pretty please?"

And down the chain she went. For somebody loaded down with gear, she moved fast.

Once she was down at the bottom and out of the way, I dropped the chains and leaned down to the edge of the roof, carefully burying the grapnel from my right arm in the architecture. I lowered myself down, then began slowly extending the wire, not interested in finding out how well the suit handled a twenty foot drop.

The rest of the team was fanning out, apparently satisfied that I could get myself down. Strike 7, Aarons, jumped over a train car coupling, and started moving out of sight.

Something shimmered behind him, and a metal figure appeared half out of my view.

"CONTACT! STRIKE SEVEN!" I shouted, pointing with my left hand.

The squad jumped into action while I was hanging around, fumbling to aim my submachine gun with my free left hand. The figure, a floating metal octopus almost as big as a man, had grabbed Michaels from behind, and started yanking him further away from the group, out of sight. I forcefully detached myself from the building and dropped the last ten feet, the spare magazines dropping from my back, and I sprinted the long way around past the train car while most of the squad tried to follow over the coupling.

I heard a loud snap and crunch over the heavy winds while the rest of the squad tried to shoot the damned thing without hitting Strike 7. By the time I got around the back, both Aarons and the Seeker were on the ground, dead. The soldier's last moments must have been quick, if painful. His chest had been completely crushed.

We formed up around him, taking what cover there was in the alleyways between the trains.

"Well that was delightful. Invisible fecking squids." The Strike 3 shook her head. "Are we going to have to worry about these damn things from now on?"

I exhaled. "Yeah. They're called Seekers. They're a pain in the ass, but they should be susceptible to sonar. It shouldn't be hard to build countermeasures now that we know they're a threat. Keep an eye on each other. Move in teams. Keep close."

Strike 8, Michaels, crossed himself while Strike 6 muttered something I missed. Ceathya just kept watch. We moved on; I'd come back for the chains if we needed them.

Checking the train cars for signs of enemies or the bomb was a stressful affair. The wind of the dust storm was still whipping around us, but the whirring sound of the energy pulse was getting steadily louder, was slowly coming in faster and faster as we went. Part of me was utterly convinced that my Luck would ensure we found the bomb in time, but the rest of me quietly realized that if it didn't, I wouldn't be around long enough to know it.

"This damned wind is distorting the sound," Strike 8 muttered, fingers tapping on his gun, leaning out to check over couplings as we walked. "Can anybody see-"

His head vanished in a glow of plasma fire, and he dropped like he'd been switched off.

"Sectoid!" Strike 6 shouted, opening fire. The little bastard started running as soon as it had shot 8, and I reached up with my left hand to gather up Psi energy from my amp as quickly as I could. The energy shot out toward the alien, and it stumbled, slowing down. Strike 5, Silva, dropped to the ground and fired her assault rifle between the wheels of the trains, catching the walking figure and pouring bullets on until her gun ran dry.

"Son of a bitch!" I shouted, then slammed my fist into a nearby train. The force of the exo-suit-reinforced blow rattled the train car, denting where I'd struck it, and the door fell slightly open. "Does anybody know how many more Sectoids got away?"

"None," Ceathya said confidently. "There were seven when we fought them on the roof, and we killed six. That was the last of them."

I gripped my P90, hard, then stopped when the metal starting groaning. "Where the hell is that bomb!?"

"Is right here? I think?" Strike 6 asked, pointing to the train car I'd hit.

I blinked, and the rest of the squad also paused for a moment. I grabbed the sliding train car door, and shoved the thing open. Sure enough, the glowing, pulsing bomb was inside. It was taller than I was, and it had next to no wires or obvious interfaces for us to shut it down with. I jumped up into the train to get a better look at it, walking around the device.

Teasdale pulled himself up after me, while the others started trying to find cover as best as they could in the killing fields. "Uh, Central? Commander?" He asked. "Do you happen to have an alien bomb defusal expert on hand?"

There was no answer.

Strike 4 reached out and touched the glowing green casing with his hand, and all at once, the glow and sound wound down. Before long, the casing was dim, just another oversized paperweight.

We exchanged a look.

"It can't be that easy," I muttered, but the Commander disagreed.

"Prepare for incoming aliens, there's every reason to believe this was a trap," he spoke over all our coms. "Brace yourselves and keep your eyes open for more of those Seekers."

Something landed on top of the freight car we were standing in, just above the bomb. Teasdale and I exchanged another look, and by silent mutual agreement, we pointed our guns up at the sound and opened fire.

Our bullets tore through the freight car while more gunfire sounded outside, and we ran out of ammo as we backed away from the holes we'd punched in the ceiling. I had to reload first, slotting the next 50-round magazine into place, but by then whatever it was didn't seem to be moving. A green and purple liquid mist started bleeding through the bullet holes, and a small gas cloud started forming on the ground near the bomb.

"Thin Men!" I called out, "watch out for their poison spit!"

"Their what?" Strike 6 shouted back.

"Forget it," Ceathya insisted. "Science Project, there's only one left! You wanted this bastard alive, you better hurry up and knock it out!"

I didn't have to be told twice. I jumped around the poison forming in the air and into the open, all but demanding my luck give me this win. The alien's plasma fire flew past me, and I knelt down to make myself a smaller target as I drew the energies in, keeping my P90 on target with my other hand as I focused. The first time I'd done it, I had spent a full minute or two preparing the energies. Now? I had it done in under three seconds.

I narrowed my eyes and hurled the Psionic energies forward toward the Thin Man making almost no effort to take cover from the top of his train car as he fired into our position. When they reached him, he lowered his gun and staggered, clearly affected. I focused the energies together again, stronger, as the alien tried and failed to lift its gun. I hit it again, and it fell, then slid off the railcar to the ground, plasma rifle still clutched in its grip.

I gathered the energies up in my hand and hit it again. I wasn't taking any chances.

"You got it?" Strike 4 asked, peeking out of cover. "Anybody see any more of them out there?"

"I see nothing," Strike 6 responded.

"All clear," Ceathya agreed.

Strike 5, Silva, didn't bother talking, instead doing something to make a green dot appear on my HUD, then disappear.

"Alright," Strike 3 checked his gun, then pointed it back at the bomb offhandedly. "So what the hell are we gonna do about that?"

"You let us take care of it from here, Alpha Team," the Commander's voice rumbled over the coms as the dust finally started to settle. "See if you can't secure that alien, and find out if the self destruct went off on anything it had. Do not let up on it, Strike Two. I want that thing in a coma if you can manage it."

"Yes, Sir," I agreed.

I looked down at Strike 8. Michaels. I'd remember him, and Aarons. Damn.

What a mess.

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Central asked us to meet him in the Rec room, rather than any official meeting chambers.

"I'll meet you guys there," I told them, my hand still sitting on the thin man(woman?)'s head, keeping it knocked out. "We have to find a way to lock this thing up before I can do anything else, or it'll spit poison at everybody."

"Nah, forget that," Strike 4 disagreed as we landed. "The mission isn't over until every job is done. I'll stick with you, if you like."

We'd all taken our helmets off, after we'd gotten back on the Skyranger, so I got to see him give me a grim smile. He had a well-kept blonde goatee, and a buzz cut.

Strike 1, Ceathya, I'd already seen. She shrugged at the new development, neither agreeing nor disagreeing. I suspected she didn't really care.

Strike 3, Jamball, gave me a tired smile. I was surprised to find that she had brown hair that ran past her shoulders, after she'd let it down. She nodded. "Yeah, I'm in. A few extra minutes won't hurt anybody."

I didn't think Strike 5, Silva, was quite old enough for her hair to have turned white from age, so I guessed it was a pigmentation thing, or a dye. She didn't say anything either, but gave us a small smile.

Strike 6, Vasiliev, a huge dark-skinned Russian with no hair whatsoever, was louder in his- or maybe her? ...their agreement. The large Russian's features were androgynous enough that I honestly wasn't sure. "Yeah. We stick together in battle, we drink to the fallen, we go out again. Maybe you even have chance to use ten grenades next time?"

"Yeah, maybe we'll actually get into a fight that lasts that long," I agreed tentatively.

Two more voices didn't answer the unasked question.

I focused my energies, just like I'd done every five minutes since we'd caught the bastard, and ensured once more that the damned thing would stay down. Not dead, not yet, just down.

"Central was listening in," Zhou let us know from the cockpit. "He says they're readying a sealed chamber in the Brig. It will hold."

I nodded. "Hey, Zhou?" I made sure she was still listening. "Thanks for getting us down safely. It was a shit show, but you did your part."

"Thank you." She didn't say more.

I went to grab the Thin Man, but Vasiliev got there first, hefting the body and chains over a shoulder. "You carried monster to Skyranger. I can carry to Brig." Vasiliev gave me a wink and started walking, whistling along the way.

The rest of us followed.

Sure enough, Shen had prepared some kind of screen over the bars, sealing the cell next to the Muton's. It wasn't perfect, but it would hold more than long enough if the Thin Man managed to unchain itself from the wall. Finally, the mission was done.

Central was waiting while we hooked the thing's chains to the wall. "Good job, Alpha Team," he said simply. "If you're all ready, we'd like to debrief you in the Rec room. Is everyone ready?"

[ ] Yes.
[ ] No (explain why)

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Our first mission could be called a success. We lost a few soldiers, that's a part of war. We knew more about the enemy we were up against, even with them turning the fight over a city into a sick game of capture the flag. We managed to take a Thin Man alive, and got his weapon intact. Our allies handled getting the fragments and corpses sent our way in short order, and they'd handle cleaning up the trainyard.

I wouldn't know until later that the bomb was large enough to take out a significant chunk of the city. It hadn't mattered at the time.

After all was said and done, I had a few choices of things to focus on until the next mission came down the pipe, or until the Commander needed me.

[ ] My Psionics failed me almost three times over. Not only did I need to improve on my current abilities, but I needed to start doing research of my own, to widen my ability pool. If I'd been faster, stronger, then I might have been able to shut down those aliens all at once. (CHOOSE ONE Psionic ability to seriously train, E.G. Telekinesis, Sleep, Mind Probe OR randomly roll a new ability and receive minor training in all Psionic abilities).

[ ] If we had more suits like the one I'm wearing, or an early start on laser weapons, or anything else, then the mission might have gone differently. I knew how to maintain my equipment, how to put it together and take it apart in moments. It was time to go down to see Dr. Shen and get all of my equipment taken apart, including the Gremlin he was already working on. He could build almost anything? I wanted to put that to the test. (Receive medium to large bonuses in all early equipment, finish Gremlin project instantly).

[ ] I didn't know my fellow soldiers until after our boots hit the ground. I was going to spend my spare time in the rec room, the bar, the training rooms, whatever, until I was close enough with my teammates that working with them was second nature. Without a team, I was nothing, and step one to being a member of a team is building up trust. (Receive some additional military training and a random boost to team cohesion).

[ ] Write In.

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For the purposes of dice throwing, would players like to:

[ ] Throw their own dice on SV or via another system
[ ] Throw dice for specific events and/or participation rewards
[ ] Have the Quest Master throw all the dice
-[ ] ...and show the results.
-[ ] ...and don't bother posting every single dice throw.