Chapter 156: Backstab
Ranger
Chapter 156: Backstab
By Wanderer D
Julian's Sectopods were massive. Almost twice as big as a regular one, silver instead of black and red, and they emerged from the factory with definite purpose. Their movements weren't impeded by any barrier, as they simply strolled right through walls and ignored exploding cars as they stretched up and advanced on the enemy.
And the enemy itself was in chaos.
As soon as Julian had emerged and the boosted hack from Lily had hit the area, every single MEC in ADVENT's current army had paused. Even if the Elders were more biologically-inclined, they were not stupid. The moment the mass hack started, a race against time also began.
Each successfully hacked unit, increased the chances that the next wouldn't be overtaken by Julian or Lily. The likelihood of temporary disables vs complete overrides increased, but also the chance to fail the hack.
The moment hacks started to fail en-masse, ADVENT would take notice. If Menace had done their job, then there would be no additional troops coming over, or if there were, they wouldn't include the Chosen, at least.
Both Julian and Lily knew this, and knew their time was very limited. This was why, the moment he had control, Julian razed the area around the factory indiscriminately, trying to destroy as many ADVENT units as possible, whether they were currently on his side or not.
Thankfully the barrage was taking place far from Dragon's location, since the sheer amount of Damage being incurred would have probably taken a couple of them down without too much effort.
Lily winced as explosions shook the ground and rattled the windows of the buildings they were at; salvo created a cacophony that drowned individual shots completely, and demanded she increase the volume of her earplugs, and lasers and plasma crossed the field and smoke like a lightshow of some sort, almost reminiscent of the amusement park she had a vague memory of visiting a long time ago with her father.
It was almost pretty… if it wasn't a massacre. Thanks to the distance, Lily couldn't see pieces of ADVENT troopers flying, but her imagination more than made up for it.
ADVENT hadn't taken long to respond in kind, and the whole area had become functionally apocalyptic. Anyone stepping in there was bound to get killed, regardless of whose side they were in, and only Julian's excessive amount of armor allowed him to wade into the chaos and mayhem.
There was no way Dragon could even assist if they wanted. The sheer number of enemies was ridiculous, and their sniper was currently with Menace. Their weapons would do little, if any damage at this distance, even if their occasional shots could hit their targets.
She really needed to work on more powerful grenade launchers.
The whole spectacle was almost enough to stop her from hearing the Commander.
"Shen! Are you seeing this?!"
Lily snapped awake, forcing herself to look away from the carnage and down to her pad, where an unexpected video feed had suddenly appeared. Her eyes widened, and she felt bile rise up her throat.
"Shen! What the hell is this shit?!" Ember asked through the comms.
"You're seeing this too?!" Shen gasped. The video feed she was being shown was a huge, concrete and metal room, the type that would usually be used to store large crates. However, the images showed an uncountable number of dead human bodies, all piled up as if dumped in there like trash.
"But this… what is this?" she whispered, eyes wide.
"The loss of human life…" Tygan whispered, sounding equally horrified. "Never since I left ADVENT did I ever anticipate saying this… but this atrocity… not even the Elders would waste so much human life."
"Tygan, watch it."
"Don't misunderstand, Commander, I am not implying that they are in any way better… it's just that in their case… as horrifying as the experiments we have seen so far have been… there has always, at least… been a purpose. This is simply genocide, for its own sake."
"Let's not make our overlords sound benevolent in the face of some other monstrosity," Chrysalis hissed. "The moment you start thinking "they're not as bad as this other thing", that's when you've lost half the battle." She paused as the video blinked out of everyone's screens. "Shen, what was all that?"
"I'm not sure commander, it was a different frequency but—"
"Those are the citizens of New Appaloosa that were taken into the factory by Julian."
Shen stared at the pad, her ears hearing the words, but her brain refusing to believe it. "W-what?"
"Who are you? How did you hack into our signal?" Chrysalis asked.
"Ah'm Apple Bloom. Or AppleSeed, Ah guess. Ah survived Julian's betrayal and hid from him in my AI code. He does not know that Ah'm aware."
"Aware?" Shen mumbled, "But… we heard you were shot!"
"Yes. My human body was irreparably destroyed…"
"Then—"
"I will explain. But you must mobilize. Julian will not content himself to the destruction of ADVENT. He bears deep resentment towards XCOM."
"In case you haven't noticed," Security cut in, Our options are limited."
"Noted. But y'all don't need to head straight. Go 'round the battlefield and through the west entrance. Ah will allow your access to the factory. You must get me and Scootaloo out."
"Why should we trust you over Julian?" Shen asked. "For all we know, you were the one that killed them all."
"Understandable, but it was I who contacted you in the first place, past Julian's firewalls with my understanding of your fathers code. I attempted to establish visual connection, but Julian was in the process of cutting off communications."
Lily's eyes narrowed. "I will make up my mind when we get there."
"Understood. But perhaps this will serve as a gesture of trust."
A file was downloaded into Shen's pad, and with a grimace, she opened it upon discovering it was nothing else than a log file. She scanned it. "This is several months old."
"Yes, it is," Apple Bloom said, "More specifically, March 20th. That's the log from the night Sunset and Jane hacked into the factory with my help. Y'all are specialists there, correct? You know what that logged transmission means."
"Mother fucker… Ember's growl made Shen frown.
"What is it?"
"Look at the log from 01:18AM."
Lily scrolled down and her eyes widened. "Julian… he's the one that countered Jane's hack… he informed ADVENT of her location… but why?"
"He wanted both her and Sunset dead. They were aware of his existence. If they died, he would be not only free, but an unknown factor."
"Commander?" Shen asked, feeling a bit faint.
"I'll get you to the factory," Chrysalis said, her voice hard. "And if this is all true…"
"Ah might not be my sister, Commander," Apple Bloom said into the silence after the implied threat. "But Ah was raised to be honest."
"Your sister, if you are who you claim… died to protect the future of the very people that now lay there dead. Chrysalis' voice was hard. "If you're not Apple Bloom… if you're lying… I will make sure to carve Applejack's name into whatever you store your databases in before I blow you up."
"Duly noted, Commander…" the voice was slightly hesitant. "And thank you, for honoring her as you can."
The communication cut off.
"Then we're going?" Shen asked.
"Not much of a choice, Shen," Chrysalis responded. "Either Apple Bloom is lying, or Julian is. But whoever is responsible for those deaths must pay."
"Understood, Commander."
"Good. Now gather your gear, Dragon. We're heading in."
o.0.o End Chapter 156 o.0.o
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maybe do apple seed/applebloom's text in red or green? Also loving the interaction so far.
Julian's true colors are shown at last! No more ambiguity at least...we can hope.
It slices, it dices, it JULIAN FRIES
Julian time to die
I'd like to think Julian isn't all bad. His character is one which begs for so much more exploration, even if he's got the initial personality depth of an mlp villain (except perhaps Discord). Being as fragmented as he is it's entirely possible that if he's restored he could absolutely be a valuable ally, similar to the X1 faction (the old aliens) or perhaps as a hack expert for some later missions. It's clear he was recovered given his appearance in the voice selection for XCOM 2 SPARKs, and I hope he gets recognition here that he didn't get in the game.
He just can't help himself can he. I guess he upholds last chapters name just a bit too well.
I'm guessing we are going to get AppleSpark shortly (odd that it's not Sweetie as the Robot) and Julian is going to handle that about as well as he does in game, if not even worse.
9101076
You know Dash going to be destroyed by this right? apple Bloom is dead, she never got a chance to redeem herself a little even in the end,.
The price for an eye, and the pound of steel here in.
Oh crap, looks like Julian is unrecoverable. There's not really a rational way back from his actions at this point.
Robotic Apple Bloom would be a pretty sweet addition to XCOM, I hope they get her out safe.
The "code" become doesn't count towards the total? That would make my fic appear deceptively short...
Julian, you will pay for your betrayl!
"of temporary disables vs complete overdrives increased"
"of temporary disables vs complete overrides increased"?
Or is an "overdrive" here something I'm not familiar with?
"and she felt bile raise up her throat"
"and she felt bile rise up her throat"?
"Julian does will not content himself to the destruction of ADVENT."
"Julian will not content himself with the destruction of ADVENT."?
You were almost home Scot free, but your focus blinded you to what's really important. There's still hope for Julian yet, if he can exceed his programming...
Well this definitively cuts any kind of sympathy with Julian.
Moral of this chapter: Never trust a toaster.
9101440
orig00.deviantart.net/b343/f/2006/359/2/d/demonic_little_toaster_by_metalik_fairy.png
Welp. That's damning evidence in just about every sense of the phrase. Time to see how well the team can work around the mechanical mayhem.
Well, so much for redeeming Lilly's kid brother.
This is suiting up to be one seriously messy breakup.
Snek?
9101597
i whould go with my go to method which is leroy jenkins
9102237
Snek?!?!? SNEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEK!!!!
Snek waifu? :(
Wat snek?
Oh well
Meanwhile I'm still on the Android side of Detroit BH
but I kinda saw this coming in a way
The rogue AI trope is great here, Julian managed to trick everyone, even me.
So it was Julian who destroyed AB's body huh? I'm not saying that he's incapable of feeling, but rather he has a one track mind, in his hatred of... I guess Humanity at this point, even if he doesn't hate humans per se, it's obvious that to him the carnage was a means to an end, in a way. They were in the way I guess? Or he just plain wanted to blame ADVENT, like he did and it almost worked.
besides, did we really need a Robot Apocalypse beyond the Alien invasion? Nah, so no wonder Julian's plan ultimately fails whether here or in Canon. (mind, I never heard of this game before I started reading this story, the few times I was curious about a certain aspect of the story, like names and references and visuals, were the times I really had to research stuff)
either way I'm glad AB isn't dead but I am worried about Angel and I will cry loudly with my hands if you kill her ._.
Well Shit... Julian is beyond saving. But we get Applebloom 2.0 in return...Kind of?
The fuck... one did hope that Julian tried to shelter the civilian population or use them somehow.
But collecting them to slaughter and dump them like trash?
No wonder he refuses to see reason, he has walked so deep into shit he is drowning in it.