Ranger
Chapter 1: Lost
By Wanderer D
o.0.o Three Years Ago o.0.o
Sunset Shimmer had emerged from the mirror into the vegetation-covered remains of a large building. The mirror on this side was a half-collapsed statue of what could have been either a pegasus or an alicorn, if she went by the marble wings that lay next to a broken-off horse head.
She grimaced at the state of the thing. A jagged crack had split it from corner to corner, and the magic that shimmered in her wake slowly faded away from the statue, leaving it dull and dead. Clearly her immediate return to Equestria was out of the question.
She took a moment to look down at herself. Gone were the hooves and her soft, orange-yellow coat. Now she had some sort of appendages, long and thin with no real claws at the end… similar to the minotaurs, in fact, except her whole body had changed.
The portal had provided her with clothing, which was convenient, given the lack of fur or coat, although her mane was still as long and luscious as ever before. Even her saddlebags had transformed into a black, orange and red backpack, with thankfully everything else intact as well.
Her diary was in one piece, as well as the book on forbidden magic she had snuck out of the library, and it seemed the purse containing her gold and gems was also in good condition.
She noted the position of the Sun, mentally comparing it to when she had arrived. It was clearly late afternoon, with the sun setting slowly over the trees. She still had some hours of light, but that wasn't her main concern at this time. Her surroundings demanded her attention, as the gut feeling that she had made a huge mistake grew within her. She hugged herself and looked around. A creepy feeling had begun crawling up her spine, and the vague sense that she was being spied on slowly started to dawn into her mind.
She looked around, carefully assessing the area, but found no sign of anypony around… it was just a feeling. She forced herself to shake it off as much as possible and took a deep breath.
There were signs of something big and bad having happened there—there were some sort of wagons or vehicles strewn around, rusting and broken, with strange machines being the apparent cause of the destruction. The building itself had a solid path carved through all three stories of it right through the middle and across… if there had been any more to of the building besides what she could see, it would have been behind the main structure... but whatever had stood back there, it had been completely obliterated by a blast of such potency that little but the occasional piece of concrete survived.
"Well." Sunset looked around warily, keeping her voice down, but still wanting to hear a normal pony voice. "This is not exactly as I had planned."
Granted, she had more than one plan to show up her former mentor, but at least one involved her being at the head of an army large enough to threaten Canterlot. However, it would be hard to raise an army to take over her home if the whole place was like this.
Still grimacing, she approached one of the machines. The sense of dread and wrongness grew with each step up until she was just a few meters away from the device. It was almost solid metal, and it had embedded itself into the concrete like some sort of metallic flea, creating a small crater upon impact.
Some sort of dark green material—dried out and mold-like—had grown and expanded around it, glowing faintly green in the sunlight, and several creatures, looking disturbingly similar to how she did now, had obviously attempted to flee the point of impact, only to somehow be petrified in place.
Sunset picked a branch from the floor and poked one of the still creatures, watching as it crumbled into ashes. Scratch that. Not petrified. Pretty much destroyed.
She shivered, the machine itself was giving her an unearthly, disturbing feeling, not too different than some of the dark magic she had encountered during her studies and the permeating feeling of being watched. Fighting down more shivers, Sunset turned instead towards the building.
Investigating the place provided no real information to Sunset other than that the locals had fled and left the dead behind. The first skeleton, bipedal like herself and holding what seemed to be a red electric guitar in better days, lay forgotten among others, most facing the interior of the building, but still close to the entrance.
Most likely they had gathered to witness whatever had transpired, and then tried to escape without success, ending up dead and at the mercy of the elements and possibly carrion eaters. Their clothes so far didn’t mean anything to her—they could be made for males of the species or females, for all she knew… although her own garments gave her an idea of what presumably some females wore as it was. The skeletons themselves gave her little additional information. A quick study of their jaws revealed canines and molars… which gave her an idea of their diet.
Vegetation had crawled through the broken windows, creeping up the walls and growing freely in the rooms within. It took her little time to figure out the purpose of the building itself—after all, she had been to school plenty of times and the desks were a dead giveaway. Bags containing useless, rotted and moldy books, technology beyond what she was used to and also useless with the lack of whatever it was that powered their devices.
A lot of them had held little flat rectangular things... roughly the appropriate size to be held in their claws, and these were strewn among the bodies, almost on a one-to-one ratio. There was a cafeteria, but the food had rotted away or been consumed by animals at some point or another. A large fridge to the back had revealed ribs and bones of potential meals confirming her earlier thoughts… these bipeds were carnivores… or at least omnivores. And now, so was she.
She had often wondered what that would be like... eating meat. She had attended many meetings and diplomatic events with beings such as griffons or minotaurs, both species well known for being carnivores. It had been strange. They had brought their own foods when visiting and when Celestia and she had visited the Griffon capital, had offered them both cuts of meat. Surprisingly Celestia had eaten some—not much, but enough to be polite—and although they had glanced at Sunset with some curiosity to see if she would eat at all, they had been perfectly fine with providing her with a salad.
Celestia had later revealed that, although it wasn’t palatable for ponies to eat meat, it was something they could eat. Sunset had been curious, yet slightly repulsed by the idea of eating meat regardless… but now that she thought back on it, the thought was not repulsive at all, in fact, it was somewhat appealing.
She frowned, sitting on one of the stairs leading to the second floor. It was odd that she would think favorably about meat eating so quickly after coming to this world. While it was conceivable that she would grow accustomed to it, the natural expectation would have been to have some initial reservations. She wondered then, if her transformation was not only biological, but also mental. Surely, if she could accept that concept so readily, or walk firmly so quickly and even use appendages she'd never had before so proficiently in the space of a few minutes, other things that she might have found not-so-appealing as a pony would now be viewed differently.
Morally speaking she didn’t feel different at the prospect. Nor had her objective of growing in strength and power before heading back to Equestria changed. She still felt her magic flow within her, although subdued, as if the source for her powers was much weaker, but otherwise unimpeded.
It was entirely possible then that this world had a different, weaker magical field to tap into, making her rely entirely on her own reserves, which were thankfully extensive. This was, however, worrisome as it would limit her interactions by putting her in a less-favorable position in comparison to what constant access to her full power would have been like. Once more the gut feeling that she had screwed up came in in full force.
Sighing, she thought back to her comfortable room and bed, her stomach grumbled at the thought of hay fries and salads... just before anger flooded her veins once more at Celestia’s temerity in implying her inherent destiny would be denied.
She stood up and proceeded to examine the building more thoroughly, finding a few blankets—kept in plastic bags and therefore sealed and protected from the outside—in the mostly intact infirmary.
Sadly, she would have to scavenge for food and truth be told, her foraging skills were not all that great.
She pressed the blankets flat and stored them in her backpack. Not knowing whether it would be useful or not, she grabbed the cleanest, least damaged of the small rectangular devices—it had been inside of a purse—and threw it into one of the bags. Perhaps she could fix it, or at worst trade it in, if she found somepony alive. There were no useful books in the library, which had mostly rotted away, but she did find an office.
To get to the second floor of the building, split in half as it was, had required some rather creative jumping and scrambling. The stairs had been completely destroyed in parts, and it really spoke to the architect's skill that the place still stood solid after the damage it had suffered.
She wandered around the hallway, avoiding the rooms that had been burned through by whatever had split the building in half, and found the office intact. After prying open several cabinets, she discovered a trove of useful things, including a large knife of some sort (certainly not something she expected to see in a school), and a slingshot. A quick look around, finding several magazines of questionable content as well as even more devices of unknown purpose, gave her the idea that this was perhaps things taken by teachers from students and stored here.
The office itself was in pretty decent condition, and seemed to be a dedicated one with a smaller room to the side. It didn't take Sunset much time to figure out that it belonged to someone important here, and this being the school… it had to be the Principal's office. She wondered briefly how the Principal here would have compared to Celestia's management of her unicorn academy.
Making a note of the location and state of the place, she proceeded to investigate the building. The school had the usual rooms. A lab, a (rotting) library, a room full of strange equipment, a workshop and a gym.
Finding the gym had been fortuitous indeed—she had discovered several other interesting things. The school seemed to have a healthy sports curriculum, as rotten wooden bats (and some metallic ones in surprisingly good condition) were stored along with rusted-out foils, and sturdy bows were kept.
She grabbed a bat, giving the rusty foils a forlorn look, remembering the introductory lessons in fencing she had insisted on taking while at court… it would have taken some practice, but she was sure that the principles of fighting with a bipedal body would be similar enough to adapt. As it was, the swords were in too bad a condition to be of much use even as piercing weapons.
In any case, a bludgeoning tool such as the metallic bat would have to do for now.
Sunset stepped out of the building and onto the cracked concrete steps that had led into the school. It was finally night time, and the moon illuminated most of the area clearly. Just a few meters ahead, what little remained of street and buildings became a wild jungle… something she'd have to face soon, but it was probably not ideal to do so at night.
Grimacing, she went back into the building, and up to the only room in decent condition she had found… the principal's office. On the way there, she noticed a small room behind the stairs and quickly glanced inside. Several machines with glass windows showed snacks of some sort inside, some of them even humming and still apparently working. Those were inevitably cool to the touch, and didn't show any sort of vegetation growth inside. There was plenty of stuff there that clearly contained a lot of sugar.. something that would take a long, long time to go bad.
Sunset considered her options, on the one hoof, she should eat something... but on the other hoof, her breaking the glass and attracting (possibly hostile) attention was definitely not appealing. With the feeling of anticipation and being watched she had been sensing since she arrived, it was clear her instincts were telling her trying to get food from there would be a very real risk… and her instincts were seldom wrong.
After a few moments ruminating her options, she decided she wasn't hungry enough yet to risk it, and proceeded upstairs into the office, pushing the desk firmly against the door. She covered the windows as best she could with what remained of the curtains, then rolled the carpet over, revealing a much cleaner floor under it, where she lay down her blankets.
The owner of the office had some (mostly ornamental) candles around, so it was a simple matter to light a few and position them in a convenient location for her to make herself comfortable.
She rummaged through her backpack, pulling out her stolen book and carefully opened it. Might as well get some studying done. She'd have to leave in the morning… the portal wouldn't open for a while and the feeling that she was being watched—that she was in danger—had not faded at all.
o.0.o
Sunset sat up with a start, her eyes wide, and her breathing heavy. She felt cold sweat running down her new skin, making her shiver. Something had woken her up, and she dared not turn the candles on again until she figured out what it was. The moonlight so far was enough to illuminate the office room she was in, and she took advantage of that to carefully move about.
Crawling on all fours to the window, she parted the curtains slightly; just enough to be able to peek outside.
The moon—which oddly enough didn't have Nightmare Moon's silhouette on it—was already on its way down, but high and bright enough to cast its white-blue light on the street across from her. The machines that she had noticed glowed and pulsated now in ways they hadn't done a few hours ago, and walking on the streets… or rather stumbling and dragging their feet, bipedal creatures shuffled around in a small pack. One of them cried into the air, and she realized it was that noise which had woken her up.
In the distance, the sky lit up orange, as if a huge fire had started suddenly, and a strong booming sound—an explosion—made the windows rattle.
She held her breath, watching as the creatures gathered and ran, some slower, some really fast deeper into the vine covered buildings.
Sunset shivered. At least that had made up her mind in which direction to head: a straight line in the opposite direction.
After making sure she couldn't see or hear them, she made her way back to the backpack and pulled out her bat. It seemed like a poor weapon of choice now, considering the speed of those things.
Still, it gave her some comfort to have a weapon at hoof. Claw. Thing.
Taking a deep breath, she lay down once more, gripping the bat tightly, her ears straining to hear any sounds around her and trying to decide whether the bumping sound was just her heartbeat in the silence, or something else creeping towards her.
It was going to be a long night.
o.0.o End Chapter 1 o.0.o
DID YOU BRING SUNSET IN DURING THE "MEET THE REAPERS/TEMPLARS" MISSION?! Oh, I can't wait to see how she interacts with the Assassin.
I'm not sure who I feel worse about: Sunset, for the horrors she is going to witness/experience, or Advent for getting in her way.
8691957 Not exactly, but that will come up eventually
Well, color me intrigued. Interesting to get a sense of the state of the world; places are in ruins, but the power's still running. Definitely looking forward to more. Sunset may get that army, but she won't be the one in command.
And here I was, failing to properly read the tags and expecting her to land in Andromeda.
It'll be interesting to see how one alien invader reacts to another.
8691964
Ok, interesting. Also, I see the portal still came out in front of CHS. Pity that Principal Celestia's career was cut short.
I haven't read a X-com / mlp crossover yet, so might start now.
And ooh boy this one is giving already a great start. Also RIP Flash.
*space missing*
8691990 Thanks, fixed!
8691990
Another X-com/MLP crossover I really like is this one. https://www.fimfiction.net/story/361513/the-harmony-initiative
I read the description as:
Looking forward to reading it.
I'm looking forward to Sunset being recruited by XCOM. I'm also hoping that the author will ignore the assumption that Earth has no magic.
8691957
I think your refering to the reaper/schrimisher meet mission.
8692411
That's what I meant.
I think this might actually be the first Resistance!XCOM fic I've seen on the entire internet. The only other one I could find that isn't either dead or crap is a one-shot. I'm looking forward to reading this.
8692353
Same
Well, colour me interested. Tracking.
Also,
>using a fan art depicting Sunset Shimmer as an ODST soldier from Halo in an MLP/XCOM 2 crossover
I SEE WHAT YOU DID THERE!
The great lord has returned to us and he has given us a new fic to read and anticipate
Nice, a crossover with XCOM 2. I see XCOM, I read the first chapter. If good, it's an instant favorite.
This earned that favorite, for it shows great promise.
I wonder how much this will benefit XCOM. I mean, Sunset is probably the most powerful psyker on Earth, right now. Or at least the one with the greatest potential. Not only that, she knows magic well beyond the powers exhibited in the game simply because she has formal theoretical knowledge on how Magic works.
And also a forbidden magic tome. That's bond to help.
She, however, is screwed. I wonder what happened to the other girls, did they die in the invasion? Are they part of XCOM? Mere civilians of untapped magical potential? Is principal Celestia a member of the resistance? What about the sirens, that still have their powers?
And isn't Psy operative a class? Why would Sunset be a ranger, then?
Spoilers for the sake of those who didn't play the games .
8691990
The best is Stardust ( https://www.fimfiction.net/story/100455/stardust ), XCOM Enemy Unknown/MLP.
I hope that this one will be at least half as good as Stardust. :)
Only one thing: chapters with 2,5k words... I just like them with about 10k words, but, well, if story will be good... ;)
It contains two of my favourites: XCOM and Sunset, so yea, can't wait. And for Sirens, as they being kind of ageless they should be alive. And they for sure have enough been hiding or fighting with Elders.
One question though: is she a "equestria girls" type of human, or normal humar with... unusual hair color? Please be later type. :)
Me : Ohh boy enemy reinforcement coming next turn better kill that codex real quick
Game : Codex teleport to the other end of the map
Me : *All team have less than 4 HP* Come on! F*** really?
Game : few turns later codex pops up and kills 1 veteran guy
Me: Well sh***
That was fun memories not to mention other moment where I escaped with just one guy or that faceless just stood on a freaking table and destroyed the floor my best sniper was standing and fall dmg killed her.
Right from the cover art I can see she's got the ODST armor mod installed. And now, the Batmod... Beware the mod abyss, for first it will consume your framerate, and then your soul! And you will still want more.
Oh? Does this mean that Sunset is going to be a Ranger class? Definitely excited if that's the case, considering my current longest streak is 9 kills in one turn with a single Ranger, though I'm going to see if I can't break that in a new game, lol.
Who was the dead guitarist?
8692724
Stardust
Read it!
8700057
Guess Flash?
8697543
*Installs Transformers Voice packs*
I FEAR NO MOD, FOR I AM MEGATRON!
So, are we supposed to read anything into the fact that Sunset has apparently come out twenty or so years later? What with Flash having died in the original invasion? Or is it just a cool thing?
Anyway, cool story. I can imagine Sunset becoming one of the elders' Chosen although that's probably not where this story is going.
8693586
I can just imagine XCOM's encounter with the sirens.
Sirens: *start singing* You will serve us.
Rookie: I...will serve...
*Grenadier fires flashbang, breaking the spell*
"Avenger, looks like we've got a new enemy type. Psi active. Keep those mind shields handy."
8697912
Just 9? /jk
But with War of the Chosen, my best Ranger had a 25 Kill streak... stupid idiots running into the Assassin's blade, wether they be Vipers, Lost or Mutons
Haven't actually played the game, but so far that's not needed since Sunset will be learning alongside us.
Oh what fun we're going to have!
8755458
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This pretty much summed up the entire XCOM Franchise as a whole.
8760730
I had a moment like that a few days ago. The soldier literally just turned 90 degrees to the right and fired.
"Damn it, Target is still alive!"
*Drunken Screeching*
8817612
first xcom? that one had nasty prerolled pool... whatever you do, this roll will fail.
and no it was problem only with Firaxis XCom. Original Microprose games and Aftermath hadn't that plague.
Oh is this war of the chosen or base if it's war I'm going to sqee happily into the night xcom2 is my obsession because that's xcom baby!
8836609
Squeeeeee Xcom Baby also a bat vs a chryssiliss no way this is going to end badly nope
*Savage grin* This is gonna be gooood.
Say hello to the lost lol
Welp, here goes nothing. *Dives in*
Finally got around to reading this another one I was not sure of but so far so good.
Intriguing! Setting descriptions told us everything we needed to know without lore-bombing the reader. Always a plus in my book. And the end left me wanting more. I’m only casually familiar with XCOM, but can’t wait to see where this goes.
Is the corpse with a red guitar Flash Sentry,
:dicaprio:
It's tough to start such a complicated story AND elaborate on the finer details of Sunset's awkward transformation at the same time, but I suppose it's far better than spending ten chapters accomplishing what you have done in one.
Also I'm glad that this is evidently based on XCOM 2 and not 1. Let's go.
9207733 That seems to be the general consensus, also, hope you like the story!
Now this, I'm liking already and I just started reading. Going straight into a Lost City in a variant of the usual world? I love it!
Awesome start, even though I don't exactly know anything about X-COM.
Though if Sunset knows about minotaurs, she should know the term for "hand," since they have hands, not hooves in Equestria. And they don't seem like the minotaurs would call them claws, I think.
Still, that's a minor detail. This is very engaging, even though I don't know about the source material of the crossover series. (I know they are video games, and about aliens, but that's about it.)
8691957
Which level is that? Is that WOTC?
I love xcom 2 with all my heart, it really is a great game. But fuck me if it isn’t annoying and frustrating if you put the difficulty on anything above normal, not even talking about Ironman enabled.
And I have only read the first chapter of this, but very well done, I find this rather unique and interesting. I’ll get this done and read.
At some point in the future.
9345462
Not necessarily. Just becuase you know what a tool looks like and is used for, doesn't mean you automatically know what its called. It might have never occurred to her to ask or look it up.
Take the rope you use to hoist a sail. I personally do not know what it is called in boating term, but I know what it is, and what it is used for, hell I even know how to use it. But want me to say what it is? Might as well ask me to explain quantum physics.
So far the story is interesting and I can tell which game this is, but to be certain is this Xcom enemy unknown or the sequel?
9567339 XCOM 2: War of the Chosen
I have a sneaking suspicion you know why I'm here...
I know absolutely jack-diddly-squat about XCOM besides "ALIENS INVADING." So I hope that I won't be stumbling around in the dark without a torch while reading this curious story that has popped up in recommended, featured, and any number of other places all the time.
At the very least, your writing does not disappoint. Already the world feels... well, I don't want to say 'alive', but perhaps 'vibrantly dead' will work. What we have here is a case of bacon-villain-hair coming across a world with much worse problems than Equestria - problems Sunset will no doubt have to solve.
...Unless that 'three years ago' thing means this chapter is just a prologue and we get to return to Twilight later. I don't know. All I know is that I like where this is going so far. I'll be trucking through this for a while...
-GM, master of Sweeties.
236 chapters and counting....
Scratching this one off ye olde to-read list is going to take some doing. Archive panic is in full effect.
Seems more XCOM 1 than 2 so far,
not sure if it was out when this startedscrap that. Apparently, I cannot tell the difference between one year and three.Looking forward to finding out when and where sunset arrived.
9626597
I hear you. I'm a little daunted by the size, but I like it so far. Really great descriptions and world building.