XCOM: Ranger

by Wanderer D

Chapter 252: Perspectives

Rarity leaned over to Sweetie Belle, who was anxiously shifting in place. "Sweetie? What is this all about?"

Her sister blinked. "Oh… Equestria is where Sunset and Twilight come from. It's another world."

Rarity stared at her.

"Actually, it's another dimension," Estella clarified. After a moment of playing around with the cables, she nodded. "Okay, this should be ready." She pressed her thumb against the base and slid it across it. 

For a moment, nothing happened, then, as Rarity watched, seemingly out of Estella's thumb, lines of brilliant energy expanded across the base, up the cables and into the quartz, which glowed gently before a small, ephemeral cloud formed above it.

After a few more seconds, a unicorn with a cream-colored coat and a mane that had a combination of red and shades of purple tied in some sort of top-knot appeared on it.

Rarity's mouth opened and closed as she fought to find the words to express what she was seeing. "My dear, what did you do to your mane?!" she finally gasped, "and those glasses! We need to get you something less… abrasive!" she stated 

The unicorn stared back at her. "Rarity?"

"What?!" Another, familiar voice came from the cloud and the unicorn was pushed out of the way by another. "Oh my! It is me! Well… other me!"

The unicorn, white with a mane leaning towards indigo, stared at Rarity, who could only acknowledge that, if she was a unicorn, that is what she'd definitely look like.

"You are such a gorgeous creature!" Rarity the unicorn said, eyes wide and glittering with admiration. "A perfect predator! You exude sensuality my dear, and that mane… oh, my, I love it!"

"It's identical to yours!" the original unicorn growled, pushing Rarity unicorn out of the way. "This is serious! Can we please leave that for later?"

"Fine dear, but you can't resent me appreciating the perfect form!" the other answered from outside the… camera? Cloud?

"Whatever." The first unicorn turned to study them. "Greetings, aliens! I am Moondancer, and I've been working with Princess Celestia and—"

"Princess Twilight?!" Sweetie asked.

The unicorn made a face. "...no. Not Princess… Tw—anyway, while maintaining communication with your Commander…"

"All hail the Commandy One!" a voice that could only belong to Pinkie Pie shouted, as a pink pony performed a sparkly, streamer-filled cartwheel in the background.

"..." The unicorn visibility paused and closed her eyes to take a deep breath. "...they informed us that you would be fighting a very specific type of enemy. One that can shift forms continuously?"

Ember leaned in, looking at the unicorn intently. "Yes… she's… sort of a mixture of several aliens we have fought called 'faceless', they can modify their bodies to look like normal humans or even other species."

"Right… now, assuming that this creature… Chimera, was it?"

"Unless you want to call her Twilight," Scootaloo said from the back of the room.

"What?!" Moondancer snarled. "That thing you're fighting is—"

"It's not Twilight," Ember hissed, glaring at Scootaloo. "Twilight Sparkle is our ally and a fellow soldier… that thing betrayed all of humanity from the beginning."

Moondancer studied her. "Twilight must have changed a lot over there."

Ember grunted. "She earned all our respect… the hard way."

"Right." Moondancer took a deep breath. "Returning to this… creature. I have the information that was brought to us from your scientists, and with the help of Estella, I believe I have what you need."

Her horn glowed and from the cloud, a pattern was projected into the table. "With this spell, you should be able to disrupt the energy required for… Chimera to reorganize herself into a different form."

"I don't know if anyone told you, but we can't really use magic," Ember said, "Sunset, Twilight and Estella are the only ones we know that can."

"We've accounted for that," Estella said, speaking up. "These will work essentially like broadcasters. I'm in the middle of making them… we've only got enough resources to make a few, however, and… we don't know how long they'll last."

"Okay?" Deadwood said, speaking up for the first time. He walked around the table to face both Estella and Moondancer. "Are we talking minutes? Seconds? Hours?"

"Minutes at most," Estella replied. "If we had Sunset or Twilight here, they might be able to keep the magic going, but I'm not experienced enough in either combat or magic to join you."

"So at best we're looking at distractions, rather than a kill switch."

"Unfortunately yes," Estella said. "From the report I read it seems that Chimera is mostly invulnerable to your usual weapons because of its ability to reconstruct itself. I think that if you manage to attack her when she's under the influence of one of these, you should be able to damage it."

"You think? We should damage it?" Breaker shook his head. "This thing killed my friends! It'll kill us if we don't stop it for good. What can you guarantee us?"

Moondancer closed her eyes, frowning. Her head twitched occasionally as she concentrated and muttered under her breath. She then opened her eyes and stared at Breaker. "Forty seconds. I can guarantee that, at full capacity, in your environment, without any aid from magic from anyone else… each will last forty seconds once activated. Maybe more… but at the very least that."

"Isn't there another way?"

Everyone in the room looked up as another pony walked into view behind Moondancer. This one was a pegasus, yellow-coated and pink-maned. 

Rarity stared at it, then from it up to her friend, who was staring as well, with eyes wide.

"Pardon?" Ember asked, a very dangerous undertone in her voice.

"I've been talking to Tala… I know you're in a war, but isn't this Chimera also Twilight?" the pony asked. "There has to be a way to… to solve this without killing her. The Twilight sparkle we all know couldn't be a killer like that! We—"

"You need to grow up." Pony Fluttershy hadn't recognized her counterpart, apparently, until then. 

The pony stammered. "But… you know cruelty—"

"This is not cruelty," Fluttershy interrupted. "This is war." Her face turned from a frown to a gentle smile "I know… I know, Fluttershy. I'm sure one day will come when we might be able to reason with all of our current enemies… we've started that, thanks to Angel, Twilight, and Sunset… but right now, we can't limit ourselves to attempt reason with psychopaths when millions are dying."

The pony closed her eyes, fighting back tears, but nodding as she stepped back. 

"Maybe we could talk later," Fluttershy said. "If Moondancer can secure a channel to do so… but right now is not the time, okay little one?"

"And on that note," Moondancer spoke, clearing her throat and glancing at Fluttershy uncomfortably. "Estella, Dr. Tygan and myself are working on that. We'll keep XCOM posted."

She made it as if she was about to go but Ember spoke up. "Wait… how is Twilight?"

Moondancer made a strange face, but it was Rarity the pony that answered. "I've received information that she, Alejandra, Tala and their pirate crew were last spotted entering The Gate of Aiolos." 

At that, Moondancer ran out and Rarity approached the cloud as books flew behind her. Without looking, she caught one in her magic as it was about to hit her.

"It's a magical construct of clouds from ancient times designed to keep invaders from getting to Fleece by air," she elaborated, carefully setting the book down. "It's not impregnable, but it is dangerous… my contacts already have agents waiting for them on the other side, it's too far to go help, but we could send her a message, if you want. Rainbow Dash is with her, and she has a diary."

Deadwood nodded. "Please let her know that the Wolf team is counting on her. And tell Alejandra that I expect her to have improved her sniping skills by the time she gets back."

"Dragon team as well… what's left, in any case… tell them we hope to see them again," Ember added, trading glances with Breaker, who nodded.

"Send our regards as well, from Dr. Tygan and me," Estella said, "and that I've learned a lot more about magic that I'd love to talk to her about."

"Tell her that Angel says hi," Fluttershy said af, with a smile, "and that I hope to have tea with her one day."

As the rest sent her regards to the other agents, Rarity glanced at the room. She had not met this Princess Twilight, but she was apparently held in high regard here. And how did diaries even factor into this?

XCOM was not supposed to deal with aliens, and yet here was an entire species helping them. Angel was a viper, and no one in the ship had batted an eye at her. Adagio was reportedly working with the Commander… She had caught sight of some engineers talking to aliens from the first invasion… somehow.

She gulped, realizing just how much things had changed… were changing. That she still had a place in this world, after all, if XCOM, one of the most xenophobic groups ever to exist out of necessity… had matured and broken past their differences. 

Now those differences in origins, shapes, beliefs and strengths together formed the best bet to stop the monsters that were destroying her world. This was not a group trying to pry the world appart like EXALT. This was a group trying to bring it together.

And she was part of that now.

She heard Ember chuckle once the cloud was gone.

"Now we have a chance."