Chapter 233: Wipeout
Ranger
Chapter 233: Wipeout
By Wanderer D
Apple Bloom grabbed Julian's chest-piece and, servos whirring, raised him up before slamming him into one of the alien alloy structures next to them. Julian's arms came up, holding her in place before it rotated violently slamming her frame hard against the same structure, then, his wrist bending ninety-degrees back, he slammed her, face first onto the ground.
On another level, past the physical bodies, another battle was taking place. Neural pathways flashed around both opponents, one a flat screen, eye-like, red and black sentient AI; the other, a young-looking woman with long, bright red hair, tied back with a pink bow, a green shirt and jeans glared right back at the baleful eye.
Both opponents stood immobile, flashes of light occasionally sparking between them.
"How peculiar, that you would abandon me to join the losing team."
"Ah have to say, them's pretty ironic words comin' from the hard drive of a production AI that got blown up three times when it had all the advantages."
"I am not a production AI!"
"Sure, sure, y'all keep sayin' that."
"It is only a matter of time before I destroy your defenses," Julian stated, "Avoid deletion, Apple Seed, choose life."
Apple Bloom laughed. "Come on Julian, you could do better than that."
"Like I would waste my time pondering better replies for an inferior software," Julian huffed.
She smiled. "There's the Julian I know." Her smile faded. "Ah'm warning you, Julian, if y'all value your lives, you should be headin' for the mountains."
"I really don't understand how you can sound so… smug, given that I have just cracked access into your core."
Apple Bloom blinked. "What?"
Julian laughed as their physical bodies outside their cyber-battlefield stopped their dance of destruction and stood still among the debris.
Ember rolled around her cover, weapon aimed high. Immediately, the Archon King turned to face her, roaring in that strange, half-organic, half-metallic voice of its race and shot down from the sky towards her.
But the moment he did, Fridge took his shoot, the heavy weapon focusing on the advancing creature. The barrage missed—the Archon King's inhuman reflexes allowing it to stop and dodge the surprise attack, with the bullets barely grazing him… but that's all they needed.
"Now!" Ember shouted into the radio, and in response, a loud, potent shot echoed in the valley and a bullet went clear through the Archon King's chest, spreading glowing blood into the air. The creature sagged, clearly injured and nearby a glowing, spiraling purple-blue portal opened.
"It's making a run for it!" Ember shouted, pointing her weapon up. "Fridge! Shoot!"
"Yes ma—" Fridge's response was cut short, drawing her attention.
Ember's eyes widened as Fridge spat blood from his mouth and convulsed between Chimera's coils.
"Oh, you thought that little grenade trick would be enough to put me out of commission?" Chimera laughed. She ripped her claw sideways, almost tearing Fridge's body in half, blood splattering all over her scales and uniform, but she didn't let the body go, coiling more tightly around it, until Ember could hear bones snapping. "What is it, little lady? Your friend couldn't make it to the next event?"
Ember couldn't find her voice, she felt her arms go slack as the thing with Twilight's face picked up the heavy weapon casually with a single arm (which looked very much like a Berserker's right now) and aimed it at her.
Something smashed into her, just as Chimera opened fire and the rocks behind her exploded into pieces. A grenade rolled between her and the creature, exploding into a cloud of smoke.
"The fuck are you doing?!" Gilda hissed, grabbing Ember roughly by the armpit and pulling her downhill. "We need to get the fuck out of here!"
"Shit!" Trojan hissed. He moved his rifle, to and fro, trying to see what had happened to Ember, but the cloud was too dense. There was too much static on the radio, and he had already lost track of Security after the weird Sectoid had made its way towards his location.
"Coyote, I can't see the captain, but I don't know what happened to Security!"
"I will check, I've taken care of the mutons. You find the captain and cover her, okay?"
"Will do!" Trojan answered, training his sight on the last known location, but the only thing he could see now that the smoke had cleared was Fridge's broken body on the ground in a pool of his own blood. "Fuck… if I ever see that snake bitch…"
Just as if his voice had been heard, he saw her emerge from the ground—much like chrysalis did when burrowing—, near the place where she had appeared originally. He took aim for her head, that familiar purple and magenta hair twirling in the air as she turned to face… him?
His eyes widened as, even at this distance, she waved at him and smiled. Then she pointed up.
Before he could move or even follow her motion, his chest exploded in pain, just as he heard the jet-like propulsion of the Archon king, who viciously twisted its spear to crack his back. It proclaimed its victory to the air, shaking the weapon enthusiastically, like some sort of triumphant savage.
Trojan, however, couldn't see that anymore.
Ember ran, her hand held tightly by Gilda, who pulled her through the mechanisms and weird structures. "...must get to the Crusaders and get the fuck out of dodge!"
She didn't know where Garble was, the GREMLIN was probably destroyed back there. She had no communicator, she didn't know who was alive or dead.
"Come on," Gilda shouted into her handheld radio, "answer, dammit!"
A strange, shrill sound emanated from the speaker, and it took them both a moment to realize it was laughter. Some sort of laughter. An imitation, full of hate and contempt.
"Shit!" Gilda growled, throwing the radio to the floor. "Come on! We need to reach the others!"
"B-but Fridge—"
"He's gone!" Gilda hissed. "I'm sorry! But you need to get your shit together!"
Ember bit her lip and nodded, some sort of semblance of intent and focus returning to her as she dragged her feet less and started trotting along with Gilda. She had lost a soldier—a friend. But she was damned if she was going to defile his memory by being killed by these assholes!
The pair ran towards the center of the valley, where the Scootaloo, Sweetie and Shen were feverishly working on something.
"Girls!" Gilda shouted, then choked as she saw Security emerge from behind one of the nearby columns, his rifle aimed already at Scootaloo. "No!"
The shout seemed to shake him and he blinked, looking down in confusion from his weapon to the others. "What…"
"Security! What th—" Ember stopped when Security fell to his knees, a glowing red blade cleaving from his shoulder down to his stomach. "Jerry!"
A boot pressed against his unresistant back sliding him mercilessly from the edge of the blade.
"C-coyote…" Shen gasped, but there was no recognition in the rangers face as she turned towards them. For a moment, Ember thought she saw some sort of shimmering, nebulous energy around her subordinate, and in that second she understood.
"Girls!" Annette shouted over all the confusion, back bending under the constant pummeling of the Berserker Queen against the energy she had wrapped around her. "Whatever you're going to do…"
Ember and Gilda were pulled in by Shen, just as two metallic figures landed in front of them, next to Coyote.
"Are you going to do it now?" Julian teased. "How typically human."
The voice was barely a whisper, but it was heard clearly by everyone in the dead-silent communications room. "What to you mean, wipeout?"
Rainbow Dash stood in front of Central, her hands on the table displaying maps and figures. Her fingers dug into it, distorting the images, but she didn't care. "I asked, what the fuck do you mean WIPEOUT?!"
"Lieutenant!" Chrysalis snarled. "That's your superior officer!"
"I don't care!" Rainbow Dash shouted, sliding her hand over the table and sending pads and papers flying. "I don't give a fuck! What the hell does he mean by wipeout?!"
"At nineteen oh twenty two... three hours ago... we lost all communication with all the teams at the Ghost Location," Central said slowly. "When we were able to hijack a satellite…"
Rainbow Dash didn't want to look. But she did.
The destruction was everywhere, vehicles were upturned, even some of the structures had been damaged.
"No…"
"I'm sorry, Lieutenant," Central whispered. "But they are all gone."
o.0.o End Chapter 233 o.0.o
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A hard mesage to Take....but i Doubt its True
This is the s
t i hate about X-Com.
much like chrysalis did when burrowing
Chrysallids, possibly?
Please let them just be captured
Have only seen the chapter title, please don't let this be a code Black!
shit! Well at lest it seems the CMC and, hopefully, Ember and Gilda are only captured. However, this is crazed SciTwi so that could be far worse than death.
How in God's name did Apple Bloom get hacked though? She still has her brain! He just hack past her brain and take the body?
Well... that escalated rapidly.
Aw, damn! I liked Trojan and Security!
See, this is why I never bum-rush the objective if I can possibly help it. You clear and secure the site first, and then you fiddle with the thingamabob. And you certainly don't get your people stuck out in the open under enfilade fire!
I mean, the only way that last conversation between Dash and Scoots could have had more imminent death implications would be if one of them was bragging about being three days from retirement. And then Gilda showed up with her “we’ll all get together again when this is over and celebrate” stuff. Talk like that, and any coroner is going to call it a suicide.
They were already dead girls walking weeks ago.
THAT'S X-COM BABY.
Correction: presumed wiped out. But, the alternative ain't that much better...
"Fridge took his shoot, the heavy"
"Fridge took his shot, the heavy"?
"the Archon king, who viciously twisted"
"the Archon king, which viciously twisted"?
"where the Scootaloo, Sweetie and Shen"
"where Scootaloo, Sweetie and Shen"?
9555525
Having all that drop on me at once, I wouldn't even bother trying to fight. Well, maybe a couple times if I felt like save scumming. But otherwise, straight to evac, get the whole team out. But since they couldn't evac by air they didn't really have that option.
But hey, THAT'S XCOM, BABY!
9555530
That was too obvious.
Well, I doubt Annette or the crusaders are dead, maybe Gilda and Ember survived too. But if they did then XCOM's bound to receive some heavily modded soldiers.
Or more likely equestria's going to receive some traumatized refugees.
I feel like this is where I would be suddenly very scared for my campaign. XCom just went from 3 (maybe 4) Active Teams to 1 (maybe 2, if you still count Viper). Add to that that you've given high-value intel assets to 2 hostile factions, and this is shaping up to be a hard campaign to continue.
Without psionics, which are overpowered if allowed to get enough of their abilities, I'm not sure what the answer is here.
My best guess is hope like hell Twilight comes back soon with a solution to the Sunset problem, and mass produce those magic grenades and bluescreen rounds. The possibility of the enemy developing a countermeasure is worth the risk now as you need an answer to both Julian and these psionic super-aliens of Sci-Twi's.
I’m geuessing most of the team has been captured.
9555336
It’s likely that her body was subverted, but her brain is till aware and forced to watch the battle.
Not
Garabaldi!Security!Is it wrong that I'm a bit let down that it wasn't a plasma round to the back by an "ally"
That, is supect, is, as so often, a matter of definition. Julian has gained control ... now to see if he can keep it ... my money is on 'probably not'.
face first, onto the ground
I don't think that belongs there
the ranger's face
At 19022? are you sure you don't have a number too much there?
On paper and from the perspective of Command that went badly, sure, but there's no way that's the end of Ember, Gilda, and the CMC.
On a metanarrative level, this could really go either way. On the one hand, there's a lot of potential development for several characters here. On the other, this just did one heck of a job of establishing Chimera's threat level and raising the stakes for the surviving members of XCOM. I'll just have to wait and see if the wipeout's confirmed.
That's the big oof.
9556020
Having them captured by Chimera would surely accomplish both?
This is because I said that Chrysalis was doing a pretty good job a few chapters ago, isn't it?
So... Providing the survivors in Dragon are captured, Who's really let in XCOM itself that we know outside of the command structure? Sunny's a Siren, Twilight's crew is side-storying in Equestria, and now Dragon's captured/cut off. Of who's left there's like... Elena? Yikes.
Man, when a mission goes to hell, it goes straight to the ninth circle.
No body, that means the CMC and others are still alive.
Welp, there's usually one or two missions, in any of my playthroughs, that ends like this.
Recently though I've gotten it down to either a few casualties and the rest with minor wounds, but still completed. Or one untouched and the rest either dead or out for the rest of the month, completion optional.
This is usually where I will drop the game for the day and go do something else. I've got quite a few complete whipeouts behind me, some of them rather embarrassing to talk about.
Let's hope Twilight can finish her sidequest in time, lest it goes from a mission whipeout, to a fullblown playthrough catastrophe.
Now at first I wasn't going to speak up here, but honestly. . . So many Comments assuming they're either all dead or captured, with how fond Wanderer D is of subverting expectations at the most unexpected times, I feel perhaps we should explore a third option i.e.: perhaps whatever they were attempting was indeed successful in allowing them to escape.
Personally I would speculate that they were readying some sort of makeshift teleporter or portal, though odds are the former rather than the latter and that their comms were either damaged or simply have no signal, though chances are their comms are both damaged and unable to get a signal.
Lastly, let's be honest if they were all dead, not only would their deaths here be rather a cheap cop-out, but it would be too obvious, and of course there would be the problem of Waaay too many Supporting Characters dying at once offscreen, even from just a narrative standpoint alone, killing off this many Supporting Characters Offscreen would be stretching it a little far even for an XCOM fic, especially with the CMC (and Shen at the very least) being so integral to the plot. Even Mox died onscreen. . . kinda, and as cool as he was he didn't have enough characterization (outside of XCOM 2 itself and the mutual backstory he shared with Sunset) to truly hold Supporting Character status.
- Thunder
Figures this would be the chapter I catch up on...
-_-
9567345
Got to red ch 2, and figured it out after seeing mox, thanks though. Awesome story so far
9567804
The Skirmishers are from the War of the Chosen.
That's a bad thing, right?
Okay, this situation is near as bad as it can get. Two KIAs already, and so much more that can happen.
While I doubt that they're all dead, I don't doubt that what did happen to them is much better.
Delete "the"
"rangers" -> "ranger's"
"to" -> "do"
Yeah, everything I could say about the story has been said already. Terrifying monsters; it obviously isn't really actually a full squad wipe; it's nonetheless looking grim for our friends; that's XCOM, baby.
In the words of Ayy Lmao 2: /xcg/ Boogaloo; Rainbow is about to lose all her jelly.
Jesus, they didn't stand a chance. The biggest hope now is they were captured... and whatever Chimaera has in store isn't too gruesome.
9918362
Yeah, kinda like I thought. Apple Bloom was the target, because she abandoned him. Not without reason, though.
Pre reading: The title is making me reconsider my life choices. I happened to read the League of Sweetie Belles crossover by accident; I remember reading it before without actually understanding what is going on... And well, let's just say I got spoilers I think. I wouldn't put it past Wanderer to do this but... It's hard to read knowing what might happen right now.
Either way. Please please please I-
Post-Reading: FUCK
That is bullshit
I call for a mission rewind 
Seriously about every reader will be the mirror image of Rainbowdash.
Note to all Cyborgs, don't use Wi-Fi outside save areas. Hackers will use every opening they can find...