With the aliens attempting to lay waste to Mega Primus with a force larger than I had thought possible for them to create, I was forced to divide my forces into two groups: one group dedicated into defending the city, and one that would go to the Alien Dimension and defeat the Micronoids for good. I was heavily banking on the idea that killing destroying the Dimension Gate Generator would take the Alien Dimension with it. I mean, that's what it did in the game, but I didn't know what would happen here. Still, I didn't have any other options for solving this problem, so I like it or not, I had to go with this idea.
Apparently, my allies had also this idea, because while most of their forces were busy securing the city, a few transports were already heading toward either my teleporter gates or the Dimension Gates. Joining them were hordes of my bots, ready for battle. Hopefully, we'd win before our foes completely leveled the city.
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The forces we had entering the Alien Dimension through the Dimension Gates did not encounter any resistance, as they only went through the gates that weren't spewing out alien ships. In fact, this was one of the other reasons I was worried about our attackers: their forces hadn't come from anywhere I could see with my forces in the Alien Dimension, so how many reinforcements they had was beyond me. For all we knew, they could have hundreds of battleships and motherships ready to invade, and I didn't have any clue if they did. That made taking out the Generator all the more important.
As the transports descended through the entry tunnel, though, I found my question answered rather quickly: as we neared the bottom, the tunnel expanded until it emptied into a cavern. Filling the air I the cavern were hundreds of different ships, all of types that I recognized as belonging to the aliens. In front of us (at least, relative to where the fleet was) was a large source of light, obstructed by the underground portion of the Dimension Gate Generator. It wasn't hard to figure out what the light was, though: given our location, and the fact that ships that neared the light eventually seemed to disappear, along with their shadows, the light was most likely a dimension gate. While there only appeared to be one gate that the ships were exiting through, given how many portals had opened, I assumed that there were more that we couldn't see, at least at the moment. Additionally, the light the portal was providing also showed exactly how large the alien fleet was: pretty big, all things considered. Given how some of the ships seemed to have only partially fixed dents on them, I assumed that they were old ships that had been decommissioned for whatever reason. Lack of resources, perhaps?
And there are aliens shooting at us now from the entrance to the dimension gate generator. Oh joy. A few alien gas grenades removed them as threats, but something told me that this wasn't going to be easy.
As my forces advanced on the alien structure for the final battle, I pulled up the feeds from several of my bots still on Earth. Defeating the aliens in their home dimension was my main priority, but saving as many people as possible was a close second.
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Alexis retreated behind the exploded remains of a hover car. Nearby, Megapol officers exchanged fire with the aliens, but it was already clear that they were losing this battle. In the distance, she could see a MARSEC tank battling some kind of giant alien.
She'd just gotten out of school when the attack had come, and in the ensuing chaos she had been separated from her friends. Unsure where to go, she had decided to try and head to her house first, get her emergency equipment, and, hopefully, retrieve her sick younger brother, who hadn't gone to school today due to a cold. Now, though, she could see her house, but unfortunately, it was right between the engaged human and alien forces. If she tried to run into it, she would likely die, but if she ran, she'd be abandoning her brother. Neither option looked promising.
An alien grenade detonating on the other side of the street brought her attention back to the ongoing battle. As she took everything in again, she noticed that she could hear the sound of some kind of aircraft approaching. A minute later, said aircraft opened fire, mowing down the aliens, then moving on. After staring on in stunned silence for a moment, the Megapol officers moved up, while Alexis took the chance to enter her home. Inside, things were a mess: plates were scattered all over the floor, the remains of a vase and one of the windows covered the carpet, and a table had given out.
And underneath the dining table, covered in blankets, was the shivering form of her brother Stephen.
Relieved that he was still alive, Alexis quickly grabbed her brother and, after reassuring him that everything would be alright, got him to grab onto her, freeing up her left arm for more important tasks, such as grabbing her supply bag. After taking a moment to be sure everything she needed was in the bag, Alexis left her house, desperate to reach one of the disaster shelters in the city. From there, the siblings could whether out the storm, and once the conflict had passed, find there parents.
Barely ten seconds after they left, though, they found themselves spawned out over the ground following an explosion at a nearby building, only just avoiding the rubble that now covered the ground. After she regained her senses and determined that her brother was both alive and unscathed, she hoisted him up onto her shoulder, retrieved her dropped bag, and returned to trying to seek shelter. Above her, a brown alien ship covered in red veins was engaging some kind of spaceship she'd started seeing around the city. People had called it an explorer, but right now, it was putting up a good fight. Unfortunately, the battle was reducing the neighborhood to rubble, forcing Alexis to constantly weave and dodge around rubble, while her brother was crying in fear.
"Alexis, I'm scared!"
Taking one moment to look at her brother, her expression softening as she did so, Alexis wrapped her arm around him tighter.
"It's okay, we'll be fine. Don't worry."
Overhead, the Explorer scored a direct hit on the alien vessel, sending it crashing to the ground some distance away. With its foe defeated, the explorer flew off, leaving the ruined neighborhood behind.
With the immediate danger gone, Alexis and Stephen continued on their Exodus, watching closely for anymore aliens.
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After the short engagement in front of the entrance to the dimension gate generator, followed by a second one just past it, we finally laid eyes and optics on our targets: a set of green pylons that acted at anchoring points for a laser grid web. Destroying this web was imperative to our success, for taking it out would shut down the building, which disrupt its control of the antimatter powered dimension gates. Said antimatter would convert the Dimension Gate Generator into pure energy, and the resulting explosion would probably level have leveled the entire alien city at the very least, if the city was still standing, of course.
My forces took aim and opened fire on the nearest pylon, which quickly went up in flames. My allies followed suite, and soon, half of the pylons had already been destroyed. It was at that point that the alien finally responded, with Megaspawn, Spitters, and Skeletoids opening fire on us, desperate to stop us from destroying this structure. The sheer volume of fire managed to down several of my units, forcing me to send the remainder into cover while my allies did the same. I had my grenadiers respond to the attack with alien gas grenades, which swiftly down most of the opposition. Unfortunately, the skeletoids could fly higher than the gas could reach, allowing them to continue attacking my forces. Luckily, the Zudjari chose that moment to open fire, downing the skeletal aliens rather quickly.
Just then, much to my surprise, something big moved in front of us. It was far bigger than any of the aliens, and it looked purple-it's a transport ship.
Without warning, several aliens dropped out of the ship and began opening fire on us, as did the ship. In response, the Zudjari deployed several Titans, XCOM used several guided fusion launchers and devastator cannons on the ship, while the colonists and my own forces opened fire on the aliens, resulting in the transport falling back to where it came from as a burning wreck, while the aliens swiftly died.
Then an assault ship emerged and deployed its own troops.
Oh joy.
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On Earth, unnoticed by the humans, Zudjari, or the forces of the Commander, a small fleet of aliens broke off from the assault on Mega Primus, attempting to find a safe place to set down. If they could not conquer the city, perhaps they could take somewhere beyond its limits, amass their forces their, then expand. Admittedly, this would require the dimension gates to remain open, something that was now not guaranteed, but that was not a good enough reason to not try.
They traveled at speeds that matched the UFOs and USOs from the previous war, careful to avoid straying close to any human crafts that could recognize them. They passed mountains and valleys, hills and rivers, all in search of a suitable landing site. If they wanted to go about unnoticed, they would need to be far enough away that the local XCOM forces could not notice them until it was too late.
Eventually, their journey led them to the shores of the Atlantic. It had only taken them a matter of minutes to reach this area, something that was, ultimately, not that hard to believe, given how fast XCOM vessels could travel in atmosphere. They had travelled several thousand miles, and with no foes in sight, the ships took a moment to rest and allow their pilots to choose the next destination, where they could set up a suitable base.
A moment later, a giant object shot out of the water, taking out an alien destroyer in one hit. Before the others could process what had happened, several more of the objects broke through the surface, tearing the fleet apart until it was reduced to a huge assortment of wrecks. Only a battleship remained, but the damage it had sustained was ultimately too much for the ship to take, and it soon crashed down into the water.
As the fleet sank, strange yellow shapes approached it when the shapes were close enough, smaller shapes emerged from them and entered the wrecks, and when they returned to the great yellow shapes, they carried weapons and cadavers from the wrecks, as well as a few captives.
Further down, in the remains of T'leth, the great dreamer felt some satisfaction. The new interlopers had trespassed on its territory, and had been destroyed. Now, it would watch and wait. The humans had been winning this new war so far, but what happened next would decide their fate...at least in its eyes.
Around it, machines began to whir to life. The majority of the ocean floor where the great ship's wreckage had rested was now barren, the wreck having been slowly repaired into working order. Soon, it would be fully operational. What happened after that, though, was up to mankind.
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With a cross between a groan and a screaming sound, the alien destroyer fell out of sight, an explosion following shortly. That was the fourth ship that had arrived to stop us, and I was really hoping it would be the last - the battlefield had been shredded, but a few of the dimension gate stabilizers remained. Plus, the pit these ships were coming out of was rather large, so I was worried that we'd have to fight a mothership or battleship if this kept up.
It seemed that luck was on our side now, though, as no alien ship arrived to fight us. As the aliens had been greatly depleted in numbers during our battle, we were able to destroy the rest of the stabilizers with ease, until only one remained.
Then, to my surprise, one more ship emerged from the pit - bomber, if I was correct. Its doors soon opened, releasing several micronoids...a lot of micronoids...how many micronoids were in there? Did that bomber have a crew composed entirely of micronoids?
Apparently it did, because the minute the last of the micronoids left it, the ship fell away into the pit it had come from.
'You humans and your allies are brave, we will give you that.'
...what?
'But our world is dying, and we will not go with it. We will not meet our end here, humans! You will not win!'
I finally realized it was the micronoids that were talking to us, using their psychic powers.
"Um, how?" responded one of the colonists. Examining the list of colonial military forces sent too Earth, I learned that he was named Henrique Blackfire. I wondered if his family had ever heard of a Song of Ice and Fire. That was something to think about at a later time, though: now was the time for battle. "Your armies are devasted, you're down to your last building, and however mightier your fleet is, will never stop fighting. You have lost."
'NOT YET!'
Then, to my surprise, hordes of micronoid puddles began to approach the large one that bomber had spit up. I was at a loss for where they came from, until I caught the sight of several micronoids emerging from the corpse of a spitter. It moved all the way to the giant micronoid mass and fused with it, as did all of its compatriots, until the largest mass was all that remained, now the size of a small UFO.
'WE WILL STOP YOU! You SHALL NOT WIN! WE WILL PREVAIL! PREPARE TO DIE!'
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AN: Well, it is, the final battle of the Earth mini-arc.
I'm going to split this over two chapters, need time to plan out the rest of the battle. Also need to add theme music for it.
Read and Review! This is Falmeal15k, signing off!