The Thief and The Doctor
Never thought part of my duties in the Dusk Guard would involve garbage removal, Nova thought wryly as he telekinetically shoved another burning hulk out of the way to allow the humans and Dusk Guard to pass. The group had been forced to go to one of the corners of the parking structure to find a section of road that hadn't been completely covered with the fused and tangled wreckage of human vehicles. Nova had offered to simply blast them out of their way or use his ice beam to create something passable for them but Steel had vetoed the suggestion.
The path he had created was narrow and would likely have been quite unbearable with the proximity of the flames nearby, but the group was able to slither through and into one of the relatively clear alleyways.
The tension slowly began to rise as the group filed through the alleyways without a single enemy spotted. Reports from Sabra and the golem tickled his ears, and Nova couldn't help but look to the rooftops for any potential enemies descending from above. The formation came to a halt as the alleyways terminated at a large four-lane street that was miraculously uncongested save for a few burned-out hulks scattered along the roadway.
“It's a long run to the other side of the street and I don't want us all out in the open. Mel, Will, you're on point.” Captain Uther said, and the humans who had been introduced as 'Briand' and 'Roland' nodded nodded. “When they reach the other side of the street, they'll cover Steel and Dawn. Once Steel and Dawn are across, I'll follow with Nova. Bolt, Yuri, you two are tail position.”
“Da, Captain,” Yuri nodded, Nova couldn't help but note Sky Bolt fidgeting with her plasma pistol. Once she noticed the attention she stopped and assumed a watchful stance.
Nova couldn't resist the dire expectation of raining plasma fire or some other mishap from befalling the two humans as they leap-frogged their way across the street. The predictions proved to be incorrect as the humans reached the other side without so much as a shot fired. The two took positions at the mouth of the alleyway on the next block before giving a quick signal for Steel and Dawn
The pair shadowed the humans steps as they crossed the street and again there was no reaction from the city. As though any further tension was needed, Steel turned and looked back into the street after he was safely in the alley. “Be advised, there's something big out there. I can feel its footfalls in my hooves.”
Just as the captain finished his warning, Nova heard what was likely the source of that warning: A rhythmic sound of metal striking stone, followed by what sounded like a collision and metal being torn asunder. You just had to say it, didn't you? Nova dearly wanted to snark through the radio, but it was now his and Captain Uther's turn to cross the expanse. Every galloping step that Nova took, he could swear the sounds were getting closer until the pair had reached a destroyed wreck in the center of the road.
Both Uther and Nova turned instinctively as a flicker of motion could be seen amongst the wreckage at the far end of the street. A bass hum reached Nova's ears but before he could comprehend the significance the human Captain planted a solid kick in the Unicorn's barrel to send him stumbling a few body lengths away. Nova turned to ask just what the attack was for but Uther cut him off.
“SCATTER!” Uther screamed before disappearing in a flash of crimson light.
Nova's reaction time with his spells was extremely sharp due to the action he had faced plus the hellish training that the Dusk Guard had put him through. Less than a quarter second after the crimson light appeared, his strongest shield spell flickered into focus around him. Despite the protection, his visor polarized into almost complete opacity and he felt the heat of the attack through his armor and the shield. The visor slowly returned visibility to reveal a molten trough cut through the street that had completely vaporized the cover that Captain Uther had taken cover behind. Of the captain, all that remained as a single melted boot and the faint smell of ashes.
And at the far end of the street, Nova caught sight of the attacker. Sectopod. The alien golem looked like a nightmarish metal toad as it stomped forward. A hooffull of black-eyed gray aliens swarmed around it like pilot fish around a shark.
Nova didn’t hesitate for a moment as he faced the golem and fired his signature beam spell. A column of pure freezing energy lanced out of his horn and crossed the distance with blinding speed... only to impact against a second golem that stepped into the line of fire. The beam collided with a flickering shield around the second golem and ricocheted and scythed through the smaller aliens, freezing them solid. As the beam faded both the Sectopod and other golem, the Mechtoid, charged at the Unicorn while paying no heed to the Sectoids that were shattered in their charge.
The radio exploded with shouts and reports as both the humans and Dusk Guard opened fire on this new threat but Nova paid them little attention. What did demand his attention was the fact that he was now in what was essentially a flat plain with no means of protecting himself from a direct hit from a Sectopod. He needed a better position.
In his mad rush to find cover, he spotted a rope dangling from what appeared to be construction scaffolding just inside an alleyway nearby. Nova ran straight for it and did his best to ignore the torrent of plasma fire that sizzled nearby him. He ascended the rope almost as quickly as most Equestrians could run along the ground. Once safely on the roof of the building, made his way to the edge of the building and peeked over the edge to get a fix on his target's position.
He caught sight of the monstrous metal toad but before he could form his beam spell from his new vantage point, a turret atop it whipped to face him and began to shower his position in plasma. Nova ducked down and began to inch away from the rooftop's edge until he caught sight of several missiles streaking upwards from the Sectopod. “That's not even fair!” Nova groused as he turned and ran.
Okay. So attack from the front and the sides is out. Same for above. So what now? Think, Nova, think. No defense is impenetrable.
Nova received his answer as he caught sight of the destroyed street, and he vowed to thank whatever human god held jurisdiction over luck.
------
“Oh shit, the captain's gone. He's gone.” “Confirmed Sectopod, four Mechtoids, too damn many Sectoids.” “Missiles incoming! Scatter! SCATTER!” “Reloading!” “Where's Yuri?” “Fall back, fire and movement!”
The next few minutes were simply a blur for Dawn as they ran through the alleys, between buildings and wrecked vehicles. She hadn't gotten a good look at what had attacked them, but she did see the demise of Captain Uther. One moment the human had been there and the next there was nothing. The healer in her had cried out at such...instantaneous and total loss of life, but the rapid retreat from the scene gave her little time to dwell on it
Briand kicked open a door and waved for those following her to go inside. The door opened up into a darkened hallway illuminated with just the light from the doorway before that vanished as the door closed behind them. For nearly a minute all eyes and weapons were on the door and the only sound was their own labored breathing.
“I think we lost them. Do either of you have problems with low light?” Briand asked as she glanced to Steel and Dawn. Both shook their heads so she continued. “We should probably look for another way out.”
“Where's Sky Bolt? And Nova?” Dawn asked as the group slowly filed into the darkened building.
“The pegasus is with Yuri still so they should be safe,” Roland answered. “As for the unicorn... sorry, your guess is as good as mine. They--” Any further speculation was interrupted by an explosion in the alley that rattled the door they had just passed through. “Okay, talk later, move now. If we exit out the other side of the building we should be on track again.”
The group filed further into the darkness with Briand in the lead and Roland in the tail position. The gloom was absolute, and Dawn thanked Celestia for Sky Bolt’s hard work on their helmets. The visors amplified the no light conditions to enough that she could see bits of broken glass and trinkets that the humans apparently discarded when the attack began as well as what looked like a bloody drag mark leading from the hallway into one of the side rooms. Briand and Steel had just passed the doorway when Dawn came parallel to it before stopping. A pain-filled moan came from the other side of the door and the unicorn immediately turned and peaked past the ajar door and into the room.
Just on the other side of the door was a charnel house. Human bodies littered the floor in various states of mutilation and their blood covered the floor like a morbid lake. Sun above… Dawn said silently as she caught sight of a male human limping along the far wall and leaving a bloody trail along it as he leaned against the wall for support.
“Captain! There’s a survivor!” Dawn finally spoke as she pushed the door fully open and galloped inside while being mindful of the bodies along the way. Do not focus on the tragedies you cannot fix. Focus on the lives you can save, she steeled herself as she prepared her scanning spell to determine the extent of the human’s injuries.
“Where’s she… oh shit. Ma’am, get back here now!” Roland swore, and Dawn turned back to see the soldier hadn’t entered the room but was standing in the doorway. His weapon hung from his shoulder by a strap, and in his hands was a device she vaguely recalled as a grenade.
“What are you doing? Put that away!” Dawn snapped at the soldier before turning back to the survivor. The injured human had apparently sensed he was no longer alone and slowly turned to face the others in the room. Horrified comprehension filled Dawn as the human’s condition was now clearly apparent, and she didn’t need to complete her medical scan to diagnose the issue.
The injured human lurched forward and reached out to Dawn, and with a wet crack the limbs split open to reveal claws. He fell to the ground as his torso began to bulge. The meaty sounds of flesh tearing and bones shattering filled the room and what could only be described as a monster emerged from the pulverized body. Four blade-like legs lifted the creature out of the gore, while two claw-tipped arms picked the last remaining bits of its human host off of it before it turned two glowing eyes at the Unicorn.
Dawn Triage had been a field medic for the Rangers for many years, and had seen more horrors than she ever cared to recall. Ponies burned to death by dragonfire or torn to pieces by the many predators that still roamed the untamed wilds of the Badlands were some of the things that chased the doctor when the nightmares came to haunt her, and she knew at that very moment that another one would come to her in the nights to come.
The monster’s howl brought Dawn back to the moment and she switched her medical scan spell to another in her repertoire: Paralysis. The monster tumbled forward into a twitching ball of claws and gore-stained chitin, which she dispatched with two precise shots with her plasma pistol. These things, these Chryssalids are not living creatures. They’re a disease, a virus, but on a much grander scale. With her immediate work done, she turned and galloped back to the doorway. She felt several hands reach out to try and find purchase as she passed, and a chorus of moans followed them.
The moment she had cleared the doorway, Roland rolled the grenade into the room and slammed the door. “Don’t stop! RUN!” He shouted, and the group sprinted away from the room just as the grenade detonated. They didn’t stop even as they approached a door clearly labeled ‘EXIT’ in human. Briand shoulder-checked the door and barreled into the alley before sweeping both directions before turning back to the hallway she had just exited.
Anything she might have said was lost when one of the monsters fell upon her from above. Her rifle was twisted beyond usefulness by one claw, and the second drove through the chestplate of her armor as though it were nothing more than tinfoil. The monster tossed the now lifeless corpse down the alleyway and turned to block the rest of the team’s escape.
“Get BACK!” Steel shouted as he charged the monster and activated his shockwave mod. A wave of force blasted ahead of him and ejected the Chryssalid from the doorway and into the alley. The captain didn’t hesitate for a moment as he charged after it and rose to strike with his spiked gauntlets. The monster scuttled back up onto its claws and leapt out of range before committing to a counter-charge itself. Dawn and Roland exited the building and each raised their respective weapons but neither could risk a shot into the melee.
“Get clear, sir! We’ve got no angle!” Dawn shouted into the radio as she prepared another paralysis spell in addition to the plasma pistol on her foreleg. Both her horn and her foreleg tracked the monster but no shot presented itself despite Steel’s best efforts to disengage from it.
The Chryssalid itself was massive, dwarfing the juvenile that Dawn had shot in the building and it was easily as big as or bigger than the barrel-chested Steel Song and never allowed him a moment to set himself or achieve the right angle for a hoof-strike. Claws screamed as they tore gouges out of his armor and more than once Steel growled as they slipped in between the armor plates and drew blood. Steel’s skill won out of the monster’s ferocity as he planted a hoof-strike that sent the Chryssalid several feet down the alleyway. Now with enough room to maneouver, Steel set himself in the Stone Wall stance while Dawn and Roland lined up their shots. She had just lined up her shot when a bobbing blue circle appeared in her peripheral vision.
A split second later that blue circle identified itself as Beowulf’s IFF tag as the golem charged through the wall right beside the Chryssalid. The two collided and the monster’s claws scraped along the golem’s armored shoulders and arms but succeeded in doing little more than tear the belt feed that attached the golem’s weapon to the drum on its back. The golem tossed the Chryssalid down the alley with a swing from its weapon while brought its left hand back. The armored sections on the forearm slid into place around the hand to form a massive fist which began to glow with lavender energy.
The golem’s strike was aborted when the killing blow struck the Chryssalid from an unexpected angle. It had just recovered from the golem’s attack when Sabra’s fimbo shot downwards like a thunderbolt and impaled it vertically. A second later the Zebra followed and planted a strength modded kick with his hind legs. The kick drove the staff through the rest of the Chryssalid’s body and pinned it to the ground like a nail. Once certain of the kill, Sabra clamped both of his hooves on the end of his fimbo and backflipped. The staff tore itself free and landed in the Zebra’s waiting hoof after spinning through the air.
“Samahani, we came as fast as we could…” Sabra apologized as he relaxed his stance and trotted over to Briand’s body. Dawn had already moved to the woman’s side but it was apparent before she had even got there that she was dead. The zebra looked at the collected survivors before speaking again, “May I ask… where is Sky Bolt?”
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Chryssalids, disgusting things. I remember the mission from the first X-COM game when you encountered them. I got careless and had no idea what they were capable of. One moment I'm pecking at them from a moderate range, the next they're tearing out my soldiers throats and turning them into shambling corpses.
Missing period.
humans'
These should be two different sentences.
also missing period.
Wha- How? I'm assuming I'd need to read Dusk Guard to know. Or we're just using the "pony hooves have remarkable dexterity" interpretation. I forget.
That's racist! Also, aren't diseases and viruses technically alive? I'm not sure.
Oh, a kill-steal chain! Interesting. I'd call Sabra out on his kill-steal if Beowolf was not also kill stealing.
Thoughts on the chapter:
1. Chrysalids and Sectopods and other goodies. Ah, terror missions.
2. The X-Com troops got red-shirted and the ponies got off without a single casualty... The power of plot armor.
4082505
Yes, technically they are.
EDIT: No no, I was wrong
"When researchers first discovered agents that behaved like bacteria but were much smaller and caused diseases such as rabies and foot-and-mouth disease, it became the general view that viruses were biologically "alive." However this perception changed in 1935 when the tobacco mosaic virus was crystallized and it was shown that the particles lacked the mechanisms necessary for metabolic function. Once it was established that viruses consist merely of DNA or RNA surrounded by a protein shell, it became the scientific view that they are more complex biochemical mechanisms than living organisms."
4082505
Nope. Sky Bolt just got impaled... oh, wait a second, that's Briand, isn't it.
You might be right, then... I dunno.
*keeps reading* I WANT TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENS NEXT! @D@
4082505
It's not racist. Chrysalids are a species, not a race.
And about diseases being alive, bacteria definitely are and viruses might be depending on how you define life. They are kinda in the grey zone for that one.
'Briand' and 'Roland' -> Redshirts #1 and #2.
I'm not sorry.
Ouch. Zombies. Also means another Chrysalid is in the area. Not good at all. Samba is awesome. He needs to meet the Australian in Strike One. Will Dawn Guard get their first casualty? Find out next time!
4082505 plot armor?........sounds like something molly would be interested in!
Okay, a couple of days later, as the action picks up, I am beginning to enjoy this.
4082505 I have to agree, the author is making the humans a bit too disposable. It would've been much better here if he'd allowed Dawn to show off her healing skills on Briand rather than just having a second instant death right after the previous one. I understand Stardust was always depicted as "hardcore/max difficulty" mode in terms of casualties, but here, this is a literary mistake that can kill the readers' investment in the story.
It's making a huge disconnect between showing off what you want to portray as the Dusk Guard's impressive skills, and watching the 'joint' part of their task force get slaughtered like redshirts.
cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/594778719051351861/EBDE12F2319A67D3993972C52D9B428772CCF547/
I'm gonna be so sad when I beat Enemy Within this time around, because I love this lineup.
4082505 Yes, viruses are a very basic form of life
That woudl be Fortuna, a Roman Goddess.
4075723
They're especially bad in Terror missions when they get dropped off at the back end of the battlefield. They can go from two or three to eight or nine in just a few turns, and in the meantime you're busy unloading your ammo magazines into the other aliens. When they show up en mass you need to waste a turn each to reload, and that's when things really get ugly.
4105355
yeah, interested in how to get around it.
4105355 I forgot who Molly was. Unless you mean dresden files Molly
4353441 does Sokolov's first name happen to be Alexzander?
Ahh, I feel bad for being able to predict things so well. Just as I thought, the ponies are "too cute and cuddly" to die. It's something that you could have prevented, but I understand it is someone else's idea. I hope for some good old pony death in MM.
On second thought, these ponies seem too OP for the game. I mean, they just don't seem to die.
The Goddess Fortuna favors the bold!
4410500 False!!! I had a very long argument on this, but i was proved wrong. Viruses are not considered living as they cant replicate there own DNA and are little more than Protien shells. And some other contrived reasons.
Saw these and I thought I should point them out so you can fix them.
And now Dawn has another thing to scar her for life!
4410500
Sorry for the 4 1/2 year necropost, but I want to clarify that.
Viruses are not considered to be alive, or even in the evolutionary tree. It gets very complex very fast, but a gross oversimplification of it would be that viruses do not meet the definition of an organism (IE Being alive.) The biggest biggest problem is that they do not reproduce under their own power, but instead hijack cells and essentially turn the cells into more copies of the virus. In this sense, viruses are closer to a complex mutagenic chemical compound than anything else.
If you want a more in depth explanation, than it is very easy to find scholarly articles on it with Google Scholar.
Source: I am a biotechnologist, have discussed this topic in depth with several doctors of molecular biology, and have read about a dozen papers on the topic and am in the early stages of writing a basic paper on it myself.
Chrissalyds, the only alien as annyoing as the sectopods.