Chapter 104: Specter
Ranger
Chapter 104: Specter
By Wanderer D
"I had counselled the Elders to take pity on humanity—as one alien to another," Aria said into the open channel, "but now that you are here, it proves that I was naive. That... patience... will get us nowhere with humanity."
"Does she ever shut up?" Chrysalis said into the comms. "I swear she's worse than Central was back in the day."
"That's a negative, Commander," Sunset said, trying not to grin as she nodded to Laetitia and the pair of them ran into the other room. It was a much bigger room than the other, and Laetitia quickly ran to the right, taking cover at the first corner, while Sunset ran past a central command center of sorts—with several computers in it—and took cover across from her. "Central never shuts up. Even today."
The area where they were was a little wider, with two large columns behind the control center, and stretching up into the darkness ahead.
She gave the all-clear sign to Angel and Annette, who ran (or slithered) to take cover on both ends of the command center, while Jane and Elena followed up, taking solid cover behind the pillars.
Then Sunset and Laetitia were off again, taking point and sticking close to what she realized now, were two long rows of prison cells, the long corridor separated in the middle by a waist-high barrier. Her blood magic revealed nothing in them, although she could see another approaching patrol.
"Bogies coming up… I only see two, but be prepared for mechanical enemies of some sort."
"I see them," Leatitia said, "There's an enemy I don't recognize…"
Angel and Annette were already moving just as Sunset dove for cover, missing the reaction shot from one of the ADVENT agents by an inch. She could see it now, the creature that had spotted them and alerted the others. It looked human, sleek black with green lines, but unlike a human, it suddenly melted into a small cloud of blackish-green energy that sped towards her.
Sunset was dimly aware of the others shooting at the troopers, but her concentration was on the thing that was attacking her. She shot at it, but the bullets went through the cloud without causing any damage. "Oh shit!"
"Sunset!" Laetitia shouted in horror, just as the cloud exploded and surrounded Sunset. She tried to struggle as currents of electricity ran through her body, but it was in vain; she felt herself melt into darkness.
Sunset was confused. She had been attacked, right? So why was she just standing… looking down at her body…
She moved. She hadn't wanted to, she was charging down towards a startled Angel. She felt herself grab her sword.
"No! Don't!
But her body didn't listen. She jumped up and forward just as Angel reacted, moving with the speed of a stricking whip back, but not fully dodging the swords' tip, which cut a shallow, but painful looking line across her arm. Worse still, the sword, although it was made of pure darkness, let out an electric shock that knocked the viper back and onto the floor.
Sunset heard guns being fired, the cries of ADVENT troops, and then Jane was taking cover close by, aiming at her with her rifle.
"Jane! Help me! I'm trapped!"
She tried shouting, but nothing came out of her mouth. Her body was reacting perfectly, though, and with an instinctual casualness, it shot the grappling hook above Jane, dragging her up to the top of the cells, just as Jane fired.
It didn't take her body a second to turn around and shoot down, but Jane had already rolled over the barrier and crouched down, letting it block the shard gun's attack.
"It's gone! It's hiding! Find it! It must be controlling that thing!" Annette shouted. Sunset's current body, made of darkness and green electricity, turned to look down, where the XCOM specialist/Psi-Ops had dragged Sunset's original body into one of the cells, protecting it.
Her body aimed.
"Halt!"
The preposterous shout was followed by her being thrown across the room, slamming hard into the wall. Sunset felt no pain however, as her rippling body slid down the wall and stood up as if nothing had happened.
"I see it!" Jane shouted from cover, "To your left, Annette!"
She could see the creature that had attacked her, materializing at the entrance of the cell where Annette had taken cover, but before the creature could shoot, before it had fully formed, Laetitia had already taken a running leap from the top of the cells across… it had been her that had thrown Sunset across the room… but how?
Psionic energy flashed around the templar, leaving a trail behind, like a pair of huge, purple-blue wings as her hands came up, energy fizzling into psionic blades. The creature turned to face her, and Sunset felt her body raising her weapon to shoot—but several things happened in a second.
A prehensile tail shot out, snagging Sunset and dragging her to Angel, who trapped her in her coils, constrincting down, hard. Had Sunset been in her real body, she had no doubt her bones would be snapping.
At the same time, she managed to catch the moment that Laetitia landed, her blades cutting like a red-hot knife through butter, slicing the creature in half. With a metallic shriek it shook in place, then exploded into a cloud that fell around the Templar, dead.
Sunset felt her body dematerialize…
...and woke up in Annette's arms. "Wh-"
"She's back!"
Sunset sat up, hand to her head, then looked outside, where Angel was moving a little more carefully. "Oh no… Angel… I'm sorry, I couldn't control… whatever that was…"
Annette looked very disturbed at her words. "You mean you were trapped… inside that thing? Seeing everything you were doing?"
Sunset nodded, shivering slightly.
"The aliens are despicable," Laetitia said, "I can barely imagine… a victim having to watch themselves kill their friends…" she shook her head. "Truly, the making of nightmares."
"Still," Sunset said as she examined Angel's arm. "That running leap… was pretty epic."
"Yes," Annette agreed, giving Laetitia a considering look, "Yes it was."
"If we're done congratulating ourselves for surviving another little scuffle out of who knows how many to come, perhaps we can get a move on?"
"You're no fun, Elena," Jane muttered.
"Nonsense," Elena remarked, deadpan, "while at the Reaper camp, I was constantly reminded by my peers that I should quiet down and cease my constant joking around, as it distracted others."
"Really?"
"No."
"Hiss?"
"I'm feeling okay, Angel," Sunset said, nodding at the bandage handiwork. "I'm just glad you dodged that… if you hadn't…"
Angel hissed and gave Sunset a brief hug. Sunset chuckled, returning it briefly, and turning to look at the others. "We should move… I'll be okay, but next time… if it happens again, don't hesitate to shoot the copy as well. I couldn't feel any pain."
"Still… the fact that you could see everything… worries me." Annette spoke up as the group checked their weapons and moved to the next room, where several MECs waited, inactive. Fortunately, this room was empty. "In the end, we don't know if your magic created a link that shouldn't have been there… until someone else goes through it, I'd rather just shoot the thing that started it."
"Have you thought of a name for it, though?" Jane asked.
"I'll think of something…" Sunset said. "In the meantime, let's just keep on going."
"Huh." Elena suddenly said, making them all quickly scan the room again.
"What is it?"
"You didn't fall into a brief flashback coma." Elena said. She almost sounded disappointed.
"Well, sorry to disappoint y—"
"...you?"
Sunset looked around. She was in an apartment building, from old Earth, by the design and materials. She seemed to be alone with a young Aria—or at least human-looking—for the time being, but that certainly did not help her situation.
"Of course," Sunset muttered, silently promising herself to smack Elena when their mission was done.
Aria's voice suddenly spoke up. "Who's there? Who are you? How did you get here?"
Sunset blinked, turning around, trying to see who the siren was talking to.
"I asked who you are, bacon head!" Aria snarled, standing up and walking up to Sunset, looking her up and down. "You're not a siren, and you're not part of me. What are you doing here?"
Sunset blinked, and said the only thing she could think of in reply, "Huh?"
o.0.o End Chapter 104 o.0.o
Stats
Page generated in 0.064 seconds
Total duration
1,105 users online
1,644,121 hits today, 1,822,946 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
Well, that was unexpected
Oh~
This is interesting, so she's been resonating with the gem the whole time, this is good. It means the Aria right now is the real one, the part of her that hadn't truly turned.
I think we're good, you can kill her now
The one outside of course
Expect the Unexpected.
I hate spectre's so much. that copy abillity is a royal pain in the arse.
"one alien to another, Aria said into the open channel, but now that you are here, it proves that I was naive. That... patience... will get us nowhere with humanity."
"one alien to another," Aria said into the open channel, "but now that you are here, it proves that I was naive. That... patience... will get us nowhere with humanity."?
"Boogies coming up… I only see two"
"Bogies coming up… I only see two"?
"the speed of a sticking whip"
"the speed of a striking whip"?
I love how this story constantly manages to surprise me still. Bravo!
But yeah, spectres are a pain. I usually focus them hard, being able to get you one less character while giving the aliens one more reinforcement sucks.
Something I find amusing about specters though, if you use a grimlin’s revive on the victim, they’ll get up without despawning the clone. So then they can kill their own clone.
Wouldn’t that be a trip. Sunset seeing herself kill herself.
8953757 Thanks! I imagine a sticking whip might not be too fast
8953752
scrud.
Yea, and if ther is more then one acktiv your
Ah Aria i you're also into the bacon hair joke.
I fucking hate spectres. They always fuck over sideways.
Let me guess... the real Aria? As opposed to whatever the Assassin is?
Well, I guess that technically it isn’t a flashback...
8953819
Yeah, I thought that that probably wasn't what you meant. :D
So now we get to enjoy the talk with the real aria, buried among what passes for the sin.
She's alive??!!
That possession copy experience sure could have ended a lot worse.
Oh hey, not a flashback this time. A conversation with the Aria inside the gem, I'm guessing?
"Sorry, miss, I'm just here for the cutscene."
In any case, thrilling stuff thus far. Looking forward to more, especially seeing Sunset interact with whatever this entity is.
That Specter's ability look to be quite the handful. Glad they aren't in the base game.
So we are meeting the real Aria, eh. I guess saving her is truly possible.
Well, a lot happened that chapter.
Has anyone asked if the Warlock stole Adagio's gem? I'll have to review the comments later (just caught up).
The bacon jokes are back baby!
That was unexpected.... Aria's there?? Does that mean the siren gem is close by?
That was an intense experience, being able to see everything as your body is controlled by another entity.
8954528
actually they are easy to counter.
And not in base game? They are part of XCom2?
8989036
The Specter was created with War of the Chosen. Unless they were merged into the base game after the dlc came out, vanilla XCOM 2 is just that much simpler. You might be thinking of the Codex, which is a bit similar, but the Specter is a nightmare if you're unprepared for them.
Heh. The one-flashback-per-room thing was getting reminiscent of the Wadjet Eye game "Unavowed", where you pay as a person recently exorcised of a demon having to go around and work out what horrible things your demon-possessed self did in these various locations.
But now this vision is clearly something a bit different... Very interesting.
Whu?
TIIIIIIIME TRAVEL.
-GM, master of TIME.
Wait... Did what happend to Sunset with that enemy for Aria?!
What if... Aria is trapped by that thing or something similar for decades now?
Would explain why losing a living body is only temporary.