//------------------------------// // Chapter 208: Reflection // Story: XCOM: Ranger // by Wanderer D //------------------------------// Ranger Chapter 208: Reflection By Wanderer D Present Day "I don't remember much of what was happening, I barely understood what was going on, I wasn't aware of the passage of time. How long I was plugged in. How the world changed around me. Being plugged into that system was mostly darkness… with occasional "dreams"." "Dreams?" Princess Luna asked, raising an eyebrow. Chrysalis nodded. "Or visions. I thought of them as dreams… even nightmares. I could… see aliens fighting our soldiers." She shuddered. "I would scream at the top of my lungs, shouting for them to… to stop, just as I recognized flaws in our troops' strategy. But the aliens didn't stop. "I saw them murdering, I saw ADVENT troops destroying settlements… sometimes, I saw it from a higher position, when it was urban combat, like from a camera. When in the field… I sometimes saw through the eyes of Mutons, or sectoids at times… sometimes, I swear they could hear me. They would stop and look over their shoulder." She chuckled, leaning back on her seat and looking at the ceiling. "A few times they listened. A muton here would pretend he didn't hear a noise that was clearly just an innocent civilian… an ADVENT Captain would 'feel' angry at their actions, or even just downright drop their weapons and leave if they were lucky… a viper helped a group of children…" she looked down at her hands. "Dreams." The others shifted uncomfortably. "What you're saying…" Annette said after a moment, "is that you're responsible for the Skirmishers even existing." If Chrysalis heard her, she didn't give any sign. "These dreams were the only way I even understood the world was moving past me. But, I was still stuck on that day… for me it was still November 22nd, and Sunset had just gone off to die… every thought, every strategy, every question, scream, plea… my thoughts were on her sacrifice. On Sunset Shimmer… and one day, I heard the music. "I don't know if it started for a longer time than I noticed. Or if it was the second the music filtered through. But the moment I became aware of it, the world just zoomed around me and I was staring at the wreck of the Skyranger 1… there was a path of flames and destruction and skid marks behind it. The cockpit was sunken in, the glass broken. "It was just there quiet for a second… and then the Phoenix Cannon attached to it twirled towards the front and… it shot a blast that cleared everything in its path. It struck the walls of the ship… it had to be the Temple Ship… and burst through them. "From my vantage point I saw sectoids, chrysallids, floaters, mutons and berserkers, just fry into nothing but dust, others being thrown or torn to shreds by explosions. The shot seemed to last for a lifetime and it slowly died. Nothing happened for a few minutes, and I-I thought… "this is it. She's dead. They're all dead. They didn't survive.". But… someone kicked the emergency door on the right wing open. It was Zhang. And then… Sunset came out. And the rest of Stardust." Luna glanced around. Everyone seemed completely enthralled by the story. "Commander, if you agree… I could share your memory with everyone here. It would be a reflection of your memories of the event, Commander, nothing more." "You're not going to make my head explode?" Annette asked. "Dream magic is very similar to your psionic powers… it is in part how I am able to help Laetitia without killing her." A moment of silence followed her statement. "Commander?" Bradford asked gently. "Chrysalis… sharing this might help you move on," Dr. Luna said, equally gently. Chrysalis groaned and ran a hand down her face. "I-I just… fine. Let's get this over with." Luna nodded, standing behind Chrysalis and gently putting her hands on her shoulders. She felt the Commander tense. "Be at ease, Commander, this is not an intrusion of your thoughts, merely a projection. Central, if you could turn off the lights?" Bradford gave her a steady look before standing up and nodding, walking over to flick them off. A moment later, the room was dark, only lit by the distant monitor of the computer. Slowly, misty tendrils emerged from Chrysalis' head, swirling on the table in front of the others, until they had flattened onto a single, slowly spinning cloud. The group could see the same birds-eye view as Chrysalis had in her dream. The scene of devastation was breathtaking, including the cooling melted wedge the Phoenix Cannon had carved onto the floor. Pieces of loose equipment were still raining around Stardust. They could see Sunset fiddling with something. "And then I heard it. The music." "Runaway Train?" Shen whispered, leaning in to look at the magical display. "No…" Chrysalis said with a smirk, "It was something… very Sunset Shimmer in nature to play at that moment." Twenty Years Ago "This is what we're going to invade the Temple Ship with?" Irvine asked, ignoring Elaine nodding to the rhythm. "I had in mind something more…" "Yee-haw?" Bors asked. "Epic." Irvine growled. "Yee-haw isn't a genre." "Neither is Epic." "That's debatable." "I like it!" Elaine said, looking at them askance. "Yes, but you wear black all the time and like the moonlight and staring at the rain." "Why, Irvine," she smiled, "You've been spying on me?" The cowboy winced when Zhang gave him a disapproving look. "Cut it out, you don't get to question my choice in music." Sunset smirked. "Trust me, this will be relevant twenty years from now," she added. "Alright guys. We know the drill. This is still just a spaceship. Those are still idiots. Let's honor Spitfire by killing them all." The others nodded, smiling viciously. Sunset took off to the left, ducking under what remained of the Skyranger, and taking cover behind one of the surviving pieces of alien alloy. Down the middle, Elaine jumped into the crevice from the earlier shot, with Bors and Lionel always her knightly guardians on either side. "Muton, 9 o'clock, second level," Bors radioed over the music, taking cover just as a plasma shot flared past the place his head had been a second ago. Elaine sprinted forth, taking cover closer to the muton, side by side with Zhang, while Lionel slid into place to their right and above, back straight against the remains of the first wall. "Got him." Irvine's shot was little more than a whisper, with the laser rifle discharging. Blinding fast, the laser burned a hole through the muton's head. Immediately the cowboy ran forth, taking cover just as Sunset's own shot took a berserker on the shoulder just as it ran past Elaine's cover. The beast didn't even have time to turn before Elaine's scatter laser blasted its back. It stumbled, screeching and went down on a knee, only to be finished off by the repeat fire of Zhang's Heavy Laser. Bors was already on the move before the creature had collapsed completely, jumping up to the next level and taking cover where the muton's body had fallen, his moves echoed by Lionel who took down a sectoid that had leaned out of cover. The Phoenix cannon had decimated several aliens that were waiting in apparent ambush. Their bodies were sprawled all over the place, and it seemed safe, so he signaled the others to move, but just as she stepped into the large room in the ship, Sunset reeled back in shock at the psychic invasion of her thoughts. "You see our failure. They had powerful minds, these sectoids… these mutons had powerful bodies… but they would not do. They were not sufficient. They also fought us. They also lost. You… you evolved. Join us. We can sense your power, so similar to ours, so… overwhelming, so beyond the petty little creatures around you." Sunset grimaced, but kept moving climbing a set of stairs to the left, she knelt down, with the higher position allowing her to cover the area better. It took mere seconds before Zhang's voice came up in the radio. "Floaters!" "Not for long!" she whispered into the radio. Her rifle's blast cut through the air like an angry, red comet, frying the cyborg-like abomination on contact. A second one exploded soon after, courtesy of Irvine, and a third and last one's chest was blasted into pieces by Elaine when it flew right above her, the body crashing and rolling on the metal floor in a shower of sparks. "Reached another door!" Lionel reported. "The Phoenix Cannon did a number on it, but it seems to have stopped the rest of the blast. The music was dying down as Sunset took off again. "Bors, flank Lionel, Irvine, you and I are covering each side. Nobody move until we're there. Elaine—" "Right in the middle, as always." "Best place to have fun." "Shut it, Bors," Elaine grumbled. "I'm sharing the middle with Zhang." "Yeah, I'll pass on that one," Lionel added, just as the whole team arrived at the burnt, and half destroyed doors. Present Day "These guys are amazing," Shen whispered in awe. "Stardust was our most experienced group," Central said, looking down sadly at the synchronized moves and trust between the members. "We've never seen the like before or since." "Just give Menace some time," Annette said, a small smile on her lips as she gazed at her old friends. "They're getting there." "They seem to be doing well…" Tygan said after a moment. Chrysalis shook her head. "Spitfire made that first part easy. What came next wasn't." The others grimaced at the ominous foreshadowing as they turned their attention back to the scene. o.0.o End Chapter 208 o.0.o