Part 26: Alien Base Assault WITH MY MIND!
Xcom Part 26: Alien Base Assault IN MY MIND!
Laser Delta Shard Attack! GO!
Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah! Stop destroying alien resources! You’ll never amount to anything at this rate!
Why is Vahlen scolding me like my mom? What the FUCK is happening?!
Cam! Man, I thought I’d never see you again. How do you like my jetpack? Wheeee! Oh, God, I know what this is. This is my other worst nightmare. No matter what I do, Allen will always be way cooler than me… What? That’s not it at all.
This is a mental battlefield. That’s why it looks like Earth being invaded by aliens. It’s half your mind, half the Sectoid Commander’s. Then what the hell are you doing in here? You’re dead! The Sectoid mental network was sucking out information from my head ever since they hypnotized me. Thoughts, memories, personality traits; they copied all of it. I remember everything…right up until I died. I guess I’m like a mental clone of the real Allen…
Like Harvey from— Like Harvey from Farscape! You’re definitely the real Allen. Oh, my God…Allen…I… we all missed you so much!
No time for weepy reunions! Octopi! Blast ‘em, girls!
FUCK I hate those things!
Then you’ll love this.
Oh my God it’s an alien Bar-Lev. How are you liking the mental battlefield, Cam? There’s more where that came from. BASTARD! Cam, if we can kill him I think we can get you out of here! Will that work? I don’t know what’s real! Well, it’s worth a shot! Magical robots, GO!
Jesus that thing has giant plasma cannons for hands! Yeah, which begs the question, how the hell does it pick things up? …What? FIRE!
Hah! You’ll never be anything but a pathetic freeloader, Cam. This won’t kill me.
Try harder. God damn it, you’re fucking naked, why do laser cannons only lightly toast you? You will is weak, Carol Allen. It always was. It’ll take more than your imaginary friends to harm me or my mental avatars. Wait a minute…
This is all in my head, right? If I concentrate, really hard, maybe I can try to destroy the illusions…
Hrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!
Hahahahaha! Is that the best you can do, Cam? Bar-Lev, make them feel pain. Of course. Because unlike Cam, I’m a real badass. Hey! You’re nothing, Cam. An idiot getting by on luck and a lot of inherited genes from much better warriors than yourself. If you hadn’t made the switch, you’d still be a rookie… or dead.
You will is mine, Cameron Watkins! Your body, and even your mental avatar, belong to me! N…NO! GET…OUT…OF…MY…HEAD!!!! GET… OUT!
HRRAAA!!! AAAAIIIGGHH! FEEDBACK! Holy shit! I couldn’t do that!
And fuck you too, Fake Bar-Lev! The real Naomi is grumpy and awesome but she never rubs our faces in it. Deep down, she loves us all!
Grraarr! No! You’re pathetic! You’ll never amount to anything! I…I…
AUUUGGHH!
Holy shit, Cam. That was great. We’re still not out of here… I guess we need to kill more mental demons first… So, do you really think you’re inadequate? Allen… you were a better soldier than me, and then we switched, and the very next mission out, you died. How do you think I feel about that?****
BACK AT THE BASE
****
Grahh…grrrarhhh!
Cam? Cam, respond!
Cam’s still not responding… Well, crazy or not she’s blowing away any aliens that get close… but she might not be able to tell friend from foe, so we shouldn’t get close either. Just follow the trail of alien bodies.
Ngguh…guh… You’re doing fine, Evie. Just breathe deeply and let us do most of the work. Remember, we love you. We all love you. It’s in my head… I remember everyone who ever hated me for anything… it hurt so much, like I was dying… Where the hell is Princess?
Right behind you. And it’s not princess anymore! It’s QUEEN!
HOLY SHIT! Don’t do that! You were right behind me the whole time!? No. The alien got inside my head too. I spent about five mental centuries fighting an army of spiders. But then I turned invisible and it lost control of me. For whatever reason, this thing can’t attack me mentally when it loses sight of me. It must be watching all of us on alien security cameras or something. …whoah. Are you… are you okay? I’ve been better, but I’m not new to this. There was this one time my dad and I fought an evil Venezuelan hypnotist… anyway.
Mmm… huh? MIMI! You’re hurt! I need to patch you up, now! You’re better? It… it let go of me. Like it was trying to focus on someone else.
I got another drone spying on us in the distance, anyone got it? No problem!
Drone down!
What’s in these pods? It looks like ground-up meat mixed with milk and blood. …oh, UGH. My sensors say it’s human meat. They’re turning people into meat smoothies! Oh, God. Maybe that’s what the giant meat tubes in the distance are for. They’re melting people down to create a giant robot skeleton! Yuck! Let’s just… just keep pushing forwards… maybe we can try to give the pods back to the countries that owned them later…
I count at least six kills we aren’t responsible for…oh, there’s Cam. …let’s be careful…
Cam? Shh!*******
BACK IN THE BATTLE OF THE MIND
*******
Aww, it’s not your fault I died. Actually, I’m pretty sure it’s mine. Wasn’t the last thing I said “TESTOSTERONEEEEE!!!” ? Yeah… heh. Haha. Figures. One week with a dick and I was already letting it make my decisions for me. And no, that wasn’t your fault either. So, uh… what’s with the jetpack? And the robots? I watched a lot of anime as a kid and always wanted to be the star of one! In my own mind I can be my true inner hero!
Oh, hey, boys! Look what decided to show up to the prom! I thought we told you what would happen if you came, Watkins. …oh my god. Mutons with the personalities of my high school bullies. This will be the greatest mental battle ever.
CAROL SUPER SHOT!
…fuck! Even my idealized dream self sucks!
NO! Gorgeous Betty! Ha ha! Your droids suck, turbo nerd. What did you imagine them out of, aluminum foil?
Pretty Shelly, VENGEANCE SHOT!
RARGH! I’ll kill you for that! He’s coming right for us! Roger Green, you were a racist piece of shit in high school. You’re not strong. SHIV, blow him away!
Let’s see if I can use the power of imagination to destroy another one… MUTON BILLY UPTON! If X is 5 and Y is 9, how many X are needed to equal four Y?
ARGH I HATE MATH! It makes my head explode! GAaauuuggh!
This is for Gorgeous Betty! …ahhh, SHIT why can’t I hit anything?! I dunno… hey, you, other SHIV! Rolly Paulina! Get around that cover and avenge your sister!
Muton Ramon Grayson… man, I don’t even hate you anymore. You were just kind of a wimp deep down, and you wanted to be loved, but you lashed out at me to look tough for your shitty friends. So… you’re going to forgive me? Well, I’ll forgive the REAL Ramon Grayson. You, though, can go right to hell. Rolly Paulina, Super Fantasy Revenge Cannon Blast!
Whew… this is more fun than I thought it would be.
So, I guess you must like the new DNA if you never swapped back. Yeah, well, it’s definitely an improvement, performance-wise. I’d have to reinstall all my gene mods if I got my old body back, which would waste more meld than necessary. I’d be giving up more than I’d be getting back. Including your lesbian girlfriend? Including my — HEY! She's bi! Ha ha ha ha ha! I told you! Well, I’m waiting until the war’s over. I don’t want to roll the dice on getting my old body back just yet. For all I know I’ll get turbo cancer or just look funky, like when you get a character looking good in a character editor in a game, and then mess with it some more and suddenly it looks like ass and you never get the good-looking one back. Good point. …ah, hell, MORE ALIENS!***
BACK AT THE BASE
***
More drones! These guys aren’t so tough, though. All the meat tubes in this place seem to be converging… anyway, open fire!
Got one! Missed mine… we’ll get it later.
This looks like some kind of command center! The thing getting inside your heads must be in there somewhere! Cam…I know you’re still out of it… but, uh, what are you looking at?
Videogame… What? Aliens have videogames too? I guess. How’s everyone else doing? Not good, my skin’s still crawling from what it made me see… I feel hundreds of years older than I actually am, but otherwise, alright. I… I’m fine! …gonna need a lot more hugs when this is over, though…
There! The alien commander is there, by that strange pylon!
Gonna have to wait, we have CHRYSALIDS! AAAH!****
Within The Mental Battlefield
*****
Eat my dream plasma cannon, alien motherfuckers! YAAAAAH!
Phew… that’s all of ‘em for now. God these nightmare-floaters are way nastier than the real things. Let’s catch our breath before we push on. Say, Carol… are we… what’s our endgame, here? You destroy the last of the Sectoid Commander’s mind, free yourself from the illusion world and wake up, while he goes braindead. If you fail, you’ll be like me, stuck in HIS head forever. But I mean, like… is there a way for you to, I don’t know, hide in my subconscious so I can get you out of here too? …dunno. Might make your brain explode if we try. And you’d go crazy even if it worked. Who wants to have ME nattering on in their ear for life? But that means—
HERE WE ARE! The bridge of the UFO. He’s hiding inside there, the real one this time. Open the door! Right. On three. One, two… 
Three?!
HAhahahahaahahahahAHAHAHAHAHA! Which one’s real, Cam?
Which one’s real? Doesn’t matter! You ALL DIE!
RAAAAAA!
Chromia, GO!
Now! ALLEN!
YES! Finally! I finally got something! Of course you did. Those were all the decoys.
Aaaa… AAAAAAUUUGH! Allen!
Carol, you’re pointing the gun the wrong way! Don’t you see, Cam? Allen isn’t as independent as she pretends. She may rebel, but she’s a part of my mind. I was using her to pump you for more information. Caaam… And killing me means killing her. I know you can’t face that a second time. You never wanted to let go of Allen, that’s why you couldn’t even let go of her DNA. No…
Cam… listen to me. That’s not my face you’re wearing. It’s yours. I was born looking like this, not like that. You’ve had that DNA a lot longer than me, and you’ve done a lot more cool things with it than I ever did. You’ve owned it. You got promoted all the way up to Colonel by being cool-headed and strong, not because of the genes you’ve inherited. Now… shoot this motherfucker. Allen, you’ll die if I kill the Sectoid Commander! Heh. At least this time I’ll die for a good cause. No!
My stash is behind the second locker on the left. And hey, if you ever settle down with Princess, just name one of your kids after me. If it’s a girl, name her “Allen.” And if it’s a boy, name him “Carol!” …heh. Okay, buddy. Thanks for everything. It was amazing. Thank YOU. No. NOO! *sniff* Goodbye, Allen.
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REALITY
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Last bug down! Where’s Cam?
*sniff* Goodbye, Allen.
Cam, you did it! You killed the alien commander! How the hell did you manage to kill the commander when it was fucking with all our heads? Well… I had help. Cam… are you crying? I’ll… heh… I’ll tell you later. *weak smile*TO BE CONTINUED!