Chapter 240: Monsters
Ranger
Chapter 240: Monsters
By Wanderer D
The screams were barely muffled by the thick glass container, but they didn't bother Chimera. She hummed happily, twisting levers and injecting new properties into the gasses and liquids she was using to fill out the tube of her latest experiment. Once it was done, she would have a brand new addition to her growing army of loyal subjects.
A ping alerted her of an incoming communication, and she sighed, pressing another button to muffle the screams altogether. "It doesn't matter," she mumbled, "she'll be completely covered in mutagenic goo soon. I wouldn't be able to hear her anyway."
She groaned and turned around, ignoring the desperately pounding and silently screaming woman in the tank and turned on a screen. The blue-skinned face of Sonata appeared, smiling viciously at her. "Did you feel it?"
Twilight blinked. "Feel what?"
Sonata snorted. "I guess you still haven't found a way to make yourself psychic."
Twilight pouted. "I'll get there. So, what was I supposed to feel anyway?"
"XCOM has freed Dagi."
"Dagi?" Twilight leaned back and tapped her chin with a claw, then her face brightened. "Oh. Adagio?"
"Yes! I'm so excited. Right now Fugue and I are about to storm the Warlock's hiding place. We're just waiting for the Elders to leave."
Twilight made a face. "Why doesn't Fugue just you know… splat… everything living in there and then you guys can be done with it?"
Sonata shrugged. "Why didn't you just tear every single XCOM member you saw there into chunks after they had set up their equipment?"
"Where's the fun in… oh… snaky." Twilight grinned, forked tongue testing the air, and eyes gleaming with mischief.
"Yeah, we need to work on your puns."
"But it's good that your family is back, right?" Twilight said, ignoring the comment. "Family is good."
"They are. How are Cadance and Shining?"
Twilight's smile turned into a grimace. "In development. But I won't give up! I'll bring them back." She twirled her seat. "In fact, this last battle gave me a great idea~! I know what species they'll be." She giggled. "Can you imagine what it'll be like for them to wake up after decades of being dead into the bodies I created?"
Sonata smirked. "It will be madness."
"Oh yes!" Twilight barked a laugh. "They will love their new bodies. They will love me. I will have my family back and we'll never be apart!"
"You go, girl."
"So really, what's the point of this call?"
"We just want to make sure your precious children stay away from the Warlock's base. There's going to be a lot of… noise. But this is our show tonight."
"Hmm… mating season will be soon…"
"Twilight?"
Her head snapped up. "Sorry! I'm totally not thinking about Shining and Cadance." She pointed over her shoulder at the figure in the goo, who had stopped banging on the glass. "And I have this experiment going on right now. So you don't need to worry about me. I'll be occupied." She mutated her arm into a large, mud-like appendage with five thick fingers, which she balled into a thumbs-up. "Have fun!"
Sonata grinned. "Well then. We'll talk soon."
The screen went black and Twilight sighed, turning around to put a now-normal looking hand flat on the surface of the glass, while she used her other hand to transmit. She knew the woman inside could hear her.
"You know, I normally don't speak to my experiments until they're done," she said wistfully, "but isn't it nice when sisters find each other? I wonder what will happen now that Adagio is free? Since Sonata adopted me, I've never seen her so… happy. Even when Auntie Aria died, we knew we could bring her back… and when auntie… or is it cousin? Well, when Fugue was born, she was so happy! And now you'll be part of our family, and I'm this close to bringing back Cadance and Shiny! We'll all be together… we'll live forever and be with each other and our family will never grow apart again!"
She blinked at the woman in the container. "Oh… you're asleep. Don't worry… when you wake up, you'll be my new daughter." She smiled. "And you will be beautiful."
Fugue looked down at the base, an inscrutable look in her face. "It is time."
"Yes," Sonata said, closing her eyes. "The Elders are gone. It's just Tirek and his army."
Fugue's gem glowed with inner energy as she stretched her claw, and Sonata saw the residual magic of Earth twist just so as the guards patrolling the outside of the structure simply collapsed where they stood. A second later, blood emerged from their bodies in thin, steady streams, crossing and twirling, covering the base with glowing symbols.
"And now, they cannot escape," Fugue said.
"Oh, this is going to be great!" Sonata giggled, her gem glistening with magic, just like Fugue's. "Just make sure not to kill the aliens and soldiers inside!"
"No… I want the pleasure of ripping them apart myself." Fugue took to the air and flew down from their perch, while Sonata shot her grappling hook to follow. They landed in front of the main entrance, and immediately two turrets activated, whirring into position to aim at the pair.
Side-structures opened, revealing and allowing several squads of MECS to emerge, and even one Gatekeeper.
"It looks like Tirek was waiting for us," Sonata said as a large antenna slowly extended into the sky, literally sucking the power of ADVENT's Psychic network out of the air.
"Good," Fugue smirked. Wisps of blood-red energy leaking out of her pores into the air in a miasma of power. "Let him build power. Let him steal from his masters. It won't do him any good."
As if her words had been the signal, the turrets opened fire, just as the MECS bombarded the area where the two sirens stood. The Gatekeeper's external armor opened, revealing the monstrosity under it. In an instant, a mass of purple, crackling, psi-energy shot towards them exploding on impact and bathing the area in psionic energy.
The dead soldiers slowly twitched, then stood, groaning and stumbling towards the epicenter of the attack. When the barrage finished and the smoke cleared, Fugue stood alone in the center of a small crater, bloodwings wrapped around her, smoking from the intense heat and attacks. Her blood armor slowly regenerated, covering exposed skin, and her gem glowed eerily.
She grinned. "Boo."
She was gone in an instant, covering the distance between her and the robots and zombies in less than a second. Spikes of blood emerged from her smashing through the tough armor of the MECs; her claws decapitated the nearest zombie, just her thin, devil tail punctured the optics of another MEC.
The Gatekeeper moved as if to join the attack, but it was suddenly hit by a powerful shot, sending it skidding back, its armor collapsing back to encase it completely once more. The turrets whirled up to aim at Sonata, who laughed from the top of one of the structures where the MECs had come from. She aimed at one, blasting it to pieces and then grappling her way to its previous position just as the remaining one took its shot. Before it could correct its positioning, she shot it point blank, raining pieces of electronics and metal down below them.
A beam of plasma melted half the roof where she stood, missing her by inches, and she turned and shot the Gatekeeper, making it spin in place. "Stupid thick armored piece of eldritch shit!"
The Gatekeeper started to shudder as it prepared another blast, but then it stopped and shook violently, it's glowing single "eye" widening and shrinking almost in surprise before dark-green liquid exploded out of the joints where the armor separated, and it crashed onto the floor with a dull thud.
Sonata turned to look at Fugue who had her head tilted in the direction of the creature. Pieces of MECs and zombies littered the floor around her, but it didn't distract her newest sister. The blood of the abomination she had destroyed slid through the floor and into the air under the siren's gaze and then became a spike, which slammed through the closed doors.
Fugue stepped forth sliding her claws into the indent the blood had created and with incredible strength forced the two apart, denting them further and peeling them back until the entrance stood open, like a gaping maw into darkness.
"I hope you have more ready, Tirek," Fugue said smiling at the video camera pointing at the entrance as she licked the alien blood off her claws. "Or this won't be fun at all."
o.0.o End Chapter 240 o.0.o
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Oh dear, I am suspecting Princess twilight can't get back soon enough... Also local counterpart twilight is starting to give me Fabius Bile vibes...
I'm afraid of who's in Chimera's tube... dare I fear it's Dragon? Could one of her team have been replaced with one of those clone things? Less, it maybe a survivor, or someone else we've seen before, and will soon see again, in a warped form.
Okay ... this is getting out of hand ... rapidly ...
I feel like you're missing a word there. 'and', specifically.
Well, now we know why SciTwi is as nuts as she is. I can dig it, even if I want her very, very dead.
Fugue still scare the crap out of me. I can't even imagine how bad it is for the Warlock right now! Couldn't happen to a nicer guy.
You did an amazing job differentiating these alter ego’s. It’s hard for me to remember Fugue was ever once Sunset.
9677178
Well, Chimera was talking about family, so maybe a version of Nyx? It could be almost anyone.
She's insane.
Oh well.
I'm putting five bits on Moondancer being in the tube.
So all her family died and was take in by Sonata. No wonder Sci-Twi became bonkers.
Also Tirek dies next chapter.
Daww, Fugue and Sonata sharing in the magic of friendship and blood.
🎶 I vaporized the competition 🎶
🎶 nobody understands me. 🎶
🎶 it's not.... Evil! 🎶
"slowly twiched, then stood"
"slowly twitched, then stood"?
Ah. That's the way of it. Aiet.
Poor Shiny and Cadance if this Twilight really does manage to bring them back.
9677568 9677184 fixed! Thanks!
I imagine that a mod that allowed you to play with Fugue would be fun. Not for the challenge, but for the pleasure of revenge against all those cheep shots and lost soldiers.
That was an interesting look at SnekTwi's motivations. She's a classic mad scientist wanting her family back.
Well, if she survives and is reformed she might be the answer for snek pone babies. So I say, let sci Twiggles live!
Herbert West would be proud.
Fascinating to get a sense of mad Sci-Twi's motivations. And capabilities, given that on-the-fly mutation. That she sees Sonata as a mother figure explains a lot about her. And this daughter of hers... Well, we'll see in time. Same with Fugue's infiltration.
9677743
You're welcome!
Yeeikes. That was extremely disturbing. Particularly the first half, actually: demented Zerg Twilight is horrifying, especially the insight into her broken psyche and the prospect that she's Zerging some poor innocent in that tube. (Far too reminiscent of the bad ending for Ariel Hanson.)
For the second half... It's curious to see Fugue being treated as sortof like a protagonist, albeit a horrific blood-wielding one. Particularly with Sonata in tow, she's more sympathetic than Tirek (S9E8 notwithstanding) so we're sortof on her side in this fight... yet she's still absolutely terrifying and we really want someone to find some way to reverse what's happened to her.
The bullets of soul destruction are a magnificent plot element: the backstop which we know our heroes like Chrysalis will use if they need to, but which we really don't want them to have to. Their existence makes the stakes feel higher than if they didn't exist even though the goodies would be more doomed without them.
I remember gatekeepers,.. I remember stacking my squad loadout so things like that got an extra special surprise from me.
9681314 I'm much more amused at this than I have any right to be. Thank you.
Well, this is a cool story. Started reading a while ago, couldn't get through the first few chapters, then muscled through to see what all led up to the LSB chapter. I'm loving just how in-depth and detailed all the lore is-- something might happen in an early chapter that doesn't make sense, but it'll inevitably get explained, or you might foreshadow something that doesn't become relevant until dozens-- or, hell, hundreds-- of chapters later. It's all wonderfully interconnected, and I can't help but wonder just how much you've planned everything out. Also enjoying the diverse cast of characters, the fascinating way you've meshed the XCOM and EQG worlds together, and the plentiful jokes at the game's expense.
The side-story is also just as cool. It's a good bit of Equestrian sneakiness and shenanigans to take the mind off of all the alien sneakiness and shenanigans.
Now I've gotta go see if anyone's modded this in yet...
EDIT: I am disappointing by the lack of Sunset "Bloody" Shimmer mods. Maybe I should get into modding...
9684486 Hey, thank you for giving it another chance!
Finally caught up. Holy hell what a read.
"just her thin," was probably meant to be "just as her thin,"
So it seems like SciTwi's DNA is mostly faceless then. Cadence did show up earlier, so I assume from her dialogue this chapter that it was just her disguised.
It would be up to the author, but I hope this Twilight would die painfully
9775368
When did this happen? The only Cadence I remember is the Equestrian one.
This will be a bloodbath... Literally...
You know... upon rereading this... I just had a chilling potential realization about who Chimera's newest victim may be.
While we kinda got confirmation on Coyote's death last chapter, the last time we saw her she was one controlled. Now, I can't remember much about her. For all I know, she might be a he. But if I am indeed rembering her gender correctly... well, this could very well have been her.
I wonder if Twilight is doomed to die or not...
Meeting her counter part might be very interesting!
Maybe she just need to chill and meet her Equestrian counter parts to regain sanity?