• Published 25th Jan 2018
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XCOM: Ranger - Wanderer D



Sunset Shimmer escapes Equestria... with unforeseen consequences.

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Chapter 15: Chats

Ranger

Chapter 15: Chats

By Wanderer D

"Ugh, where am I?" Sunset moaned, pressing a hand against her forehead. "Mox? Jane?"

She coughed, pushing up into a sitting position and wincing at the pain. Her whole body felt like it had been used as a punching bag.

"Well, this is certainly interesting," a female voice she didn't recognize said. "It seems like subject 1 has somehow found it in itself to have some modicum of… mercy." The voice sounded displeased. "If I didn't want to keep its current habitat intact, I would go in myself to eliminate you."

"Wha-who are you?" Sunset asked, groaning, as she stood up and looked around. She was in a small cave, connected either to an exit or another cave through a small tunnel to her left. Her weapons lay around her. The sword was mostly intact, but her shotgun had been crushed to pieces.

In the silence after her question, she could hear distant hisses, and slowly her memory of what had happened earlier came back. The strange Viper had entrapped her, and then opened a portal and then—

"Crap… I've been teleported."

"Oh, so you do have a brain! Interesting. I would have expected a grunt like yourself to not be able to figure it out for a few hours."

"Who are you?" Sunset asked again, her eyes roaming the place until they settled on a video camera with a small, blinking red light. "How long have I been here?"

"I'm certain you would love to know, resistance scum," the voice replied. "But I have neither the interest nor the inclination in sharing my name with the dead." Sunset could almost hear the voice shrug. "As for how long… a few hours. I didn't pay much attention until I saw you move. I thought you were just a dead snack. Like something the cat dragged in."

"I'm still pretty much alive," Sunset pointed out.

"Well, I'm sure that will be remedied soon, when the Viper King returns. I do not know what could have possessed him to bring you here alive and not crush you into a thin paste so he could feed you to his females, but I'm fairly certain that will change soon."

Sunset grimaced. That Viper had not been something to sneer at. While they could all be deadly enemies, she had gotten used to their movements. She checked her equipment, noticing her grappling hook was still in one piece, and her grenades were there as well. Only her shotgun had been destroyed.

"Yes, I too noticed the grenades," the voice sighed. "I wish he were not so… arrogant. But I guess it is to be expected, as the single male of the species. He is still young, and will learn better."

"Well, I don't intend to stay here to find out," Sunset spoke up. Her magic reserves were low, but a simple spell like her blood-vision should be doable. She slowly molded her magic, allowing it to flow, and faintly, the beating red lights showing the location of the beating hearts of the vipers appeared around her.

Sunset's eyes went wide and she looked up, down, and around her with growing concern. She was surrounded.

"What was that?!" the voice asked. "You did something… I… I detected some sort of spike on the edge of the psychic spectrum." It turned angry. "What did you do?"

"I have no intention of telling you," Sunset said, narrowing her eyes. Now that she was calmer, she could see that most of the surrounding vipers were smaller than average. Maybe recently born? Of the large one, there was no sign, but two of the younger ones were getting closer.

Sunset moved to the side, back against the wall, sword ready, right under the camera.

"Step into the video!" The voice grew increasingly angry. "Tell me what you did!"

Sunset didn't answer. Soon, two vipers slithered into the room, and the moment they did, she was on them, slashing down at them. Blood splattered all over the floor and Sunset's armor as the first went down. The second viper reacted quickly, spitting a green cloud onto Sunset's face. She recoiled, backing away and coughing, but had enough presence of mind to run the viper through the chest before rolling away from the noxious cloud.

"What are you doing?!"

"Getting the hell out of here," Sunset coughed.

With no more vipers in the immediate area, she ran up the passage, her breath ragged. The magic was taking a toll, but worse, she could see her own blood was contaminated with viper poison. Hating the additional toll on her stamina, she focused on her blood processing the venom.

"How did you know the two vipers were coming?" the voice asked, still frustrated, but also curious. "Was it part of your psychic boost? How are you moving so efficiently while poisoned?"

Sunset ignored the voice. She could see she was getting closer to other vipers and slowed down, not wanting to alert them. Especially not while fighting down the raspiness in her throat.

The cave she emerged into was large, with many holes around the walls, that probably went down deeper into lower caves. The atmosphere was warm and humid, ideal for such creatures, but that was not all—there was plenty of scientific equipment strewn around, along with discarded human bones and torn clothes.

Large containers with glass as thick as her hand—if it was glass—stood almost proudly in the center of the cave, but, like relics, they had been breached, and whatever had been inside was long gone.

"Welcome to the lab," the voice said, evoking several hisses from nearby. "Truly, you are blessed to witness greatness. The experiments performed here exceeded the abilities humans have ever had to play with life… but it was done! Genetic modification of the deficient alien units… resulted in the creation of my pets… the Alien Rulers."

"Shut up, would you?" Sunset hissed, seeing several curious vipers heading her way. Her lungs felt like they were on fire, and she felt bile raising up her throat, which she forced down. The poisoning was much worse than she had anticipated. She needed a place to get cover and maybe regain some magic.

Looking around, she quickly spotted a natural balcony, out of immediate sight. The grappling hook shot out, and she was scrambling over the edge and on her stomach just in time to avoid the vipers, who were now testing the air where she had been moments ago with their tongues.

They hadn't seen her yet, but…

"They know you're here. Roaming their kingdom," the voice said, echoing in the cavern and eliciting several hisses and much slithering.

"Shut up, shut up, shut up," Sunset mouthed, eyes scanning the area. The woman's voice had drawn the attention of many, many vipers.

It was then that she heard the distant shots. Sunset blinked, looking up, and across the room, where she could see several human heartbeats taking cover as they came into the cavern.

"What?! No!" The voice screeched, making Sunset wince with the feedback on the speakers. "They're killing them! They're going to destroy everything!"

Sunset looked around, finally noticing the active antenna.

"I see you," she hissed, making a quick, mental calculation. It was close enough. She pulled out a grenade, prepped it and tossed it.

It arched gracefully, going far, and landing into a roll right under the antenna.

"Damn you! You're not going to get away wi—"

The explosion shook the cavern, and the antenna's base was shredded. It groaned, the metal bending under its weight, although the transmitter itself was destroyed. Now that her position had been revealed, the vipers below immediately started shooting their plasma rifles at her.

Sunset scrambled back and pressed herself to the floor. Thankfully her cover was sufficient for now, and could withstand the barrage. It was not to last, however, when she noticed with worry that one viper had slithered into one of the small holes and was making its way up to her.

Bracing against the wall, she tried to prepare for it, but several shots from below kept her from moving quickly enough. The young viper didn't even pause, springing out of the hole and wrapping itself around Sunset. The pair rolled on the balcony and fell several feet onto the ground below, landing painfully on their side.

The blow stunned the viper long enough for Sunset to stab up with her sword, slicing the viper's head in two from the neck up. The viper's body started spasming, arms flailing, but slackening its hold on her. Sunset's body felt like it had been run over by a truck, but she forced herself to crawl out from the viper's coils and onto the muddy-with-blood-and-dirt cavern floor.

The nearby vipers didn't waste a second, rushing towards her, but several shots mowed them down—the blasts powerful enough to go through one viper's body to impact the stone in a shower of gravel, and completely exploding the second viper into a shower of blood and meaty pieces that rained all over Sunset—before they got too close.

Sunset rolled onto her back, coughing and weakly trying to brush away a particularly sticky bit of viper on her arm, just as Jane came up to her and looked down with a smirk. "That's what you get for going out on a date with a guy you barely know."

Sunset blinked, looked down at herself as best she could, and started chuckling, but stopped with a grimace when her ribs ached and her lungs constricted. "Don't make me laugh," she managed to rasp out. "It hurts."

Jane shook her head, waving at someone nearby while she kneeled next to Sunset, her GREMLIN hovering by. She pulled out a medkit, and started applying medicine and stimulants. "Don't move, I've got you."

Sunset coughed again. "What's that?"

Jane smirked. "It's the new standard issue magnetic rifle, hot off the forge."

"Nice," Sunset said weakly. "But you have to be careful… the Viper King…"

"It escaped," another familiar voice interrupted her.

Sunset looked up, smiling tiredly at Bradford, who also kneeled down next to her. "Oh. Hey, long time."

"You had me worried, kid."

"D-don't get sentimental," Sunset managed. Her eyelids were feeling very heavy. "Just… just you know... "

Everything went dark.

Blurry tunnel vision. Strong lights, echoing voices.

"...one big bruise…" Bradford's voice sounded distant. Why was he so worried?

Warm, comfortable darkness, and suddenly a loud beeping noise, seemed to drill into her head.

"...Poison… metabolism working…" This voice was familiar too. Laetitia? "..ive up, you hear me?"

Sunset started coughing, and each cough felt like something was scraping the back of her throat with a rusty spoon.

Tygan's voice was next. "Never seen anything quite like it…"

"Will she make it?" A voice she didn't know. Familiar, but she couldn't quite place it. Sunset drifted into sleep again.

"Yes… yes… her heartbeat is slowing down… she's metabolizing the venom… the antivenom is doing its job."

The hum of the machinery lulled her back into the waking world. The lights in the infirmary were not too bright, but they still stung when she opened her eyes, making her wince and raise her arm to cover her face.

The movement seemed to draw the attention of an engineer, who was busy working on several monitors.

"Corporal," the engineer said, walking up to her and checking the various devices. The technology had been adapted from several alien components that, to Sunset's understanding, had been put together by Dr. Shen and Dr. Vahlen, before the later had disappeared and required little input from medical experts once a patient was declared safe enough to be brought there. "I'm glad to see you're awake."

Sunset tried to speak, but her throat wouldn't make a sound. Her lips and throat felt dry and all she could get out was a small wheeze.

"One moment," the engineer said, pressing a button and making the bed fold until Sunset was in a reclined, seating position. "Here," he added, giving her a cup with a security cap and a plastic straw coming out of the top. "It's a solution to help you rehydrate faster."

Sunset nodded, taking a small sip. It felt like a magical balm going down her throat. She took several more sips, letting her throat feel less dry before she spoke. "How long?" she managed to croak out.

"Four days," the engineer said. "At least here. They had you in the lab for almost a whole day."

"I feel like I was hit by a truck, only to be hit by another, bigger truck, and then forced to drink sandpaper."

"Yes, well, probably for the best if you don't speak much right now. Let your throat heal."

"That might not be possible." The voice was one Sunset had heard… it was familiar, yet she couldn't really place it again. She looked up at the woman who had walked into the infirmary. She didn't just sound familiar, but she also looked familiar.

"Commander," Bradford spoke up, walking in behind her. "Are you sure this is necessary right now?"

"I'm afraid so, John," the Commander replied, giving a look to the engineer, who stiffened, saluted and hurriedly left the room. As soon as he was gone, Bradford locked the door and the Commander took a seat next to Sunset's bed.

Bradford gave them both a worried look before strolling across the room and grabbing another chair.

The room was completely silent for a moment and then the Commander spoke again, "I think it's high time that you and I have a chat... Sunset Shimmer."

o.0.o End Chapter 15 o.0.o

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