AN: FINALLY THE NASTY ONE HAS COME BACK WITH A NEW STORY! Hey guys! I hope everyone is doing well, and as mentioned above I'm posting a second story. Now this story is a novelization of my recent play through of XCOM: Enemy Unknown for the Xbox 360. I'll do an individual chapter for each mission and I'll see if this series is well received or not by you guys. If it is I'll update new chapters after every month of the game until I either win or fail. If not this will be discontinued after Chapter 5. It's all up to you guys so please leave reviews and comments on it so I know where you guys stand on it. Thanks again and I'd like to introduce you to "XCOM: The 69th Attempt at Human Victory."

Chapter 1: Operation Enduring Pipe

The aliens were once again up to their old tricks, trying once again to take over the Earth by launching simultaneous attacks on strategic city locations around the world. And of course it came down to me to stop this alien threat. Has the world really fallen that far to ask for me to lead them? Anyway allow me to introduce myself I am PRAKNASTY otherwise known as "The Nasty One" and I'm leading Earth's first and last line of defense against the alien threat.

Today at 12:00 AM, March 1st, 2015 an unknown alien race struck at multiple cities hoping to catch us off guard and make us surrender quickly. However, they made the fatal mistake of attacking my hometown of Baltimore, MD, USA. Now those fuckers must pay for what they've done, commencing Operation Enduring Pipe.

== On Board the Skyranger ==

The four selected soldiers were currently commencing their last equipment checks before landing at the drop zone in Baltimore. The four selected soldiers would make up the aptly named Strike One and would be rotated out with the other eight soldiers at XCOM's disposal when the need arose. They would be landing in what appeared to be a gas station and convenience store with a connecting rest area for big rigs with a couple still parked with the driver's corpses in them.

The four soldiers had finished the briefing and were currently lost in their own thoughts as they were sizing up the other squad members. First up, we have acting squad leader Rk. Tatyana Zaytseva, 23 years old from St. Petersburg, Russia. She stood at 5' 10'' and had Auburn colored hair that was stylized in a bob cut that parted on the left side of her head. She was equipped with the standard rookie gear of XCOM which included the M4A1 assault rifle, the Five-Seven semi-automatic pistol, an High-Explosive (HE) grenade, and the standard XCOM Body armor.

The second member of Strike One was Rk. Caden O'Connell a 25 year old native of Belfast, North Ireland. He had reddish-blond hair that was stylized in a flat-top hair style complimented with a medium moustache, soul patch, and thick mutton chops. He was also equipped with the standard rookie gear and was currently talking to Zaytseva about the flanking possibilities, and height advantages of their projected drop zone.

The third member of the squad was Rk. Encarnacion Flores a 21 year old recruit from Buenos Aires, Argentina. She was of Latin decent and was fairly tanned with black hair tied back in a spiky ponytail at the base of her neck. She was currently reassembling her assault rifle as she listened to the other two discussing battle plans.

The fourth and final member of Strike One's inaugural mission was Rk. Zoe Mikos a 23 year old recruit from Athens, Greece. She had a bronze complexion that was complimented by her brunette bob cut which was parted of the left side of her head similar to Zaytseva. She was currently shaking and attempting to calm her nerves before the mission as she wasn't prepared to go toe to toe with the aliens quite yet in her opinion.

At this point, the Skyranger began its decent into the rest area, as the ramp descended revealing the world to the newest members of Strike One.

== On the Ground ==

The squad disembarked and surveyed the area where they landed. They had two eighteen wheelers directly in front of them complimented with box cover and a forklift smack dab in No Man's Land. There was two more eighteen wheelers to the right that provided an alley to surprise any enemies that would appear in front of them. Th first one's back was open and the top was open which provided a great perch for someone to provide death from above. Finally, on their left there was another open 18 wheeler which allowed for someone to attempt and flank the enemies that should dig in to suppress the center area.

Finalizing their plan, Zaytseva made the first move as she moved to the crate cover behind the first 18 wheeler directly in front of Strike One. She immediately noticed movement and identified two Sectoids that had been in between the two trucks hoping to ambush the poor soul who entered No Man's Land. Realizing their foiled ambush, they scurried behind the two cabs of the trucks hoping t hit from long range.

"Contact! Execute the plan we talked about earlier!" she ordered as she set up on Overwatch in case the two aliens attempted to run the gap.

O'Connell moved next as he sprinted up the back of the open truck on the right and Hunkered down in his spot waiting for them to rush at Zaytseva's position. Flores took the initiative and moved around the leftmost truck going for the enemy's flank. Seeing as she couldn't make the shot until next turn she stayed back to avoid being spotted while signaling Mikos to move. Mikos moved to Zaytseva's left and took up an Overwatch position on the left of the truck, in case they attempted to flank.

The Sectoids then made their move, the first one behind the left truck took a potshot at Zaytseva and missed striking the forklift causing it to burst into flames. The other Sectoid disappeared from Zaytseva's view as it dashed down the right side of the truck hoping to flank next turn. Just then two more Sectoids made an appearance and attempted to flank Zaytseva and Mikos. One took cover behind an alien artifact and prepared to fire its Plasma weapon as the other one took position behind the truck attempting the same.

"Look out!" shouted O'Connell as he blasted the alien behind the artifact with his assault rifle striking it in the temples and causing green blood to stain the ground as it fell over dead. This gave Zaytseva enough time to move to the other truck and take cover behind the crates there as Mikos ran behind the truck's side away from the shots. Flores then made her move as she moved up to the cab of her truck and had a perfectly exposed flank shot on the Sectoid that hadn't moved last turn. Her volley of bullets entered the alien's spine and immediately severed it from his brain signaling a quick death as the life left its wide eyes.

The two remaining Sectoids took shots at O'Connell and missed both as he fell off the back of the truck to escape the volley. Using this as a distraction Flores moved across the gap and surprised the Sectoid who attempted flanking and ended him with four bullets to the chest and head. The final Sectoid attempted to run, as Zaytseva shot through the gap in between the trucks and finished it off with her own volley of bullets.

The squad regrouped and secured the area, informing the Commander of the success and brought the bodies back for examination by the Research Labs.

== Back at Base ==

The four soldiers were debriefed and sent off to the Barracks to rest and recuperate before the next attack. Zaytseva had one confirmed kill and was promoted to Squaddie with a preference towards Heavy Weapons. O'Connell was also promoted to Squaddie thanks to his strategic planning and his one kill which translated to Sniper training. Flores thanks to her two kills and her preference towards Medicine gave her a promotion to Squaddie and the Support class specialization. Mikos unfortunately went without a promotion due to not killing any aliens meaning she would need a second deployment before a promotion could be issued.

"That was really bad Mikos, you could've charged ahead like us but you chose to cower in fear." chastised Zaytseva as she was enjoying some chow in the Mess Hall.

"Lay off Tatyana, you know she did her best given the situation. It was either move or be killed." scolded O'Connell as he could see the hurt in Zoe's eyes as she felt as if she let the team down with her performance.

"Look on the bright side at least no one was hurt." said Encarnacion in an optimistic tone.

"Bah that doesn't matter one day panicking is either going to get her or someone else killed just you watch!" replied Tatyana as she stormed off towards her room.

Zoe also ran off towards her room as she cried silent tears as she looked at herself in the mirror. 'Never again will I let the team down. I'll prove to them that I can fight, just you wait you bitch.'

== In Mission Control ==

The Commander had just finished his rounds around the base and had asked for the Research teams to work on Alien Materials to provide the soldiers with stronger body armor against the plasma rounds, as well as purchasing a new Medical Kit for Flores' training from Engineering. He then ordered excavation to begin to the right of the base's control room, opening up a second open space for future buildings. Currently he was scrolling down the Barracks' roster and familiarizing himself with the dossiers of the soldiers the project had managed to recruit. (AN: I'm only placing their names in here. I'll put up a more detailed list after the next chapter.)

In addition to Zaytseva, O'Connell, Flores and Mikos, the project had also recruited:

Rk. Anne Collins

Rk. Daniel Cohen

Rk. Ekwuenme Bapela

Rk. Cheng Chen

Rk. Alex Smith

Rk. Juliette Durand

Rk. Katsume Goto

Rk. Wendy Gardner

'Interesting, a perfect 50:50 ratio of male and female soldiers. I wonder how this will play out with the teams I plan to send in for later missions?'

His musings were cut short however when the alarm sounded indicating another attack on the Earth. Bringing up the map, he noticed the three locations being in Australia, Russia, and Nigeria. Noticing the difficulty of the missions, he chose the one Easy Mission in Russia as it was the perfect opportunity to train a fresh squad of four rookies. Finalizing his decision, he ordered Bradford to gather up the four selected soldiers and have them in the air within the hour.

'This is an Easy mission, what could possibly go wrong?' Famous last words.

AN: And Cut! That's a wrap on the first chapter to a new story. What do you guys think? Love it? Hate it? Let me know in the reviews or PMs. Remember the fate of this story rests solely on your guys' shoulders. So make sure to review and read. I'm not going to put the effort into this story if it doesn't meet your guys' standards and interests. Anyway, I'll have the updated cast list on this story up on my profile after Chapter 2 so stay tuned for that. This is "The Nasty One" signing off.

-PRAK