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XCOM: Ranger

by Wanderer D

Chapter 79: Chapter 77: Madness

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Ranger

Chapter 77: Madness

By Wanderer D

Elena watched with morbid fascination as most of the plaza collapsed under the chryssalid attackers and her teammates. The whole temple shook as the plaza first sank then broke apart. Chryssalids screeched as they were thrown into the air, and Angel, in a furious display of skill and speed managed to slither onto the nearby steps of a temple entrance.

The others, however, were not so lucky. Elena had to hold on to the wall to avoid being shaken off of her sniping nest, and by the time the rumbling, shaking and debris had settled, the whole plaza was nothing more than a huge, gaping hole.

From her vantage point, she could see part of a basement under the temple, with its wall having crumbled along with everything above. Old underground waterways now splashed into the darkness, with several crushed bodies of chryssalids. Of her teammates, there was no sign, but they had been caught right in the middle of the collapse, where the precipice went so deep she couldn't see the bottom.

Apparently the temple had been built on top of an underground ravine, and the chryssalids had nested right above it. When they had managed to collapse the heavy floor, it had crushed right through the next level, revealing the deep hole.

A shot made her look up.

Angel was shooting at the remaining enemies, who had quickly forgotten about their brethren and attacked the lone viper.

Elena shook her head. "It's not my concern what happens to an alien," she muttered. She needed to finish the mission, despite the loss of her allies, and she worked better alone, even though she had to grant that her teammates had been generally proficient at stealth as well when they bothered to try.

She tried to calculate her position in the temple to the final objective. Being that she hadn't been noticed yet, she could probably climb higher and avoid all conflict. It would certainly not do to leave dangerous creatures here, but on her own she wouldn't be able to hunt them all down now.

She'd have to return with other Reapers and possibly XCOM to finish the infestation off. The shots were distracting her from her thoughts, however. The shooting, the shrieks and the desperate hissing.

Elena shook her head. The Viper was a temporary ally. Unlike Mox and Sunset, it was an alien creature through and through… while her two allies were… well. Sunset's medical tests made her human and Mox had said Skirmishers remembered some of their previous lives. They were closer to her own species in any case.

Shooting the chryssalids now would only reveal her position, and no sane Reaper on Earth would risk sacrificing their advantage—or the mission—for a Viper. Her eyes studied the temple, and she found an easy way up.

Giving a silent thanks for the distraction, she promised herself to remember her companions, and started climbing.

Angel had barely managed to escape the collapsing floor, slithering through the mass of surprised chryssalids before they could react and onto what she immediately sensed as steadier ground.

She whipped around, readying to use her tongue to snatch Sunset from certain doom, but her human friend was obstructed by the largest chryssalid in the cluster. She hissed in dismay when the whole thing had collapsed from under them.

She wasn't allowed much time to regret her lack of celerity, however, as the remaining Chryssalids quickly noticed her and jumped over the gaping hole in the ground and sliced at her with their cruel chitinous scythes.

Her shoulder armor stopped a hit from one of the smaller ones, and she quickly shot it in the head, hissing in annoyance and worry. There weren't as many left as before, but there were more than enough to kill her.

She shot the next, and tried to dodge the next attack from one of the bigger ones. It didn't miss completely, although she avoided being impaled by it. Still, as tough as her scales were, the injury hurt!

She wrapped herself around the creature, tightening quickly, feeling its exoskeleton give under the pressure. Blood exploded from its joints as she slid away, letting it drop to the floor, dead. She shot another one, but it managed to avoid the full blast, still coming at her with jerky movements.

Others were approaching fast.

Angel shot desperately, sliding back until she found herself cornered. A chittering behind and above her warned her of what was about to happen, and despite the situation, she looked up, apprehensive at the chryssalid above her, as it screeched its bestial challenge… and its head exploded.

Angel's instincts kicked in when the chryssalids turned around and spotted the lonely human at the top of the temple. Angel immediately realized Elena had given her a perfect chance. She quickly activated a grenade, cooking it for a second and dropping it right between the legs of the remaining chryssalids before slithering up the stairs and behind a large rock.

The explosion sent pieces of chryssalid flying into the air and a few shots from Elena and Angel made short work of the ones that hadn't been killed outright.

Things quieted down, and Angel tasted the air with her tongue. She couldn't sense anything… even the uneasy feeling from earlier was gone, although… she hissed sadly at the giant hole.

She slowly slithered to the edge, looking down. She could see chitin, what could be Mox's blood… but no bodies. The gap stretched far beyond her sight.

She sensed Elena's approach. She could taste the surprise and regret in the human approaching. If Angel was honest with herself, she was mildly afraid of the Reaper… they ate her kind after all, and being stuck with one made her slightly apprehensive. After all, who knew when the human would get hungry.

That was of course silly… they were allies… for now.

"They are gone."

Angel shook her head. She could almost feel it inside. They had to be alive. Her friends didn't die so easy.

Elena's demeanor was cold… almost defensive. "There is no point in remaining here. They fell in battle. They will be remembered, but our mission lies beyond the ruins. We must complete it."

Angel cursed the fact that none of these people spoke viper. Except Sunset.

Instead she tried her best to convey that they had to at least try to look for them.

Elena did not look convinced, but despite her body language, which Angel had to concede was very well calculated to project disinterest… when they were this close, she could literally taste in the air around the Reaper the same desire to go look for their friends.

The problem was that Elena was very good at convincing herself of the inevitability of death, and with a single, annoyed sigh, she turned and started walking away.

Before she knew what she was doing, Angel's hand shot out, holding the Reaper by the arm. No Viper on Earth would ever do that kind of thing. Except her.

Elena's body tensed immediately and she whipped around, glaring at Angel. "Let go of me, Viper. I am not Sunset Shimmer. I do not care for your kind."

Angel shook her head and whispered softly, motioning with her hand to the hole and hissed, "Please." She hissed again. "Please."

Elena's eyes had softened.

"They're dead, viper."

Angel shook her head, motioning with her hand. Wishing to whatever ancient gods had been worshiped in this temple that Elena could understand her just once.

"We can't give up," Angel hissed. She motioned at herself and Elena. "They wouldn't leave us behind."

Elena gave out an exasperated sigh. "No Reaper on the face of Earth would be mad enough to trust you enough to go with you alone, or ally themselves with you."

Angel winced and looked away, hissing sadly at where her friends had disappeared.

A deep breath from behind her, then, "I'm seriously re-considering my sanity. Come. Let's try and make our way down from somewhere safer."

They had found the way down from within the temple into the basement, and followed that down to the edge, where solid rock and collapsed pillars, rock floor and packed earth made for a hazardous, if relatively straightforward way into the bowels of the Earth.

For now, they had encountered no bodies and no other chryssalids, and so, Angel had some time to think about things.

She had had a tough road when she had separated from her old masters, and if it hadn't been for Fluttershy welcoming her in, and the eventual admiration and acceptance of the Rabbits, the people from the settlement and others like Sunset, she would probably be a feral herself, lost to her instincts roaming the jungles of what humans called India as little more than a mindless predator.

They called it humanity. That… thing that made her different from others like her. That's what Krav and most others had called it. She was "almost human", she had "humanity". Fluttershy had called it something different, something that had resonated within Angel.

She had called it "kindness". Although she bore them no ill will, the others had tried to make her more like themselves in their minds. Thus "humanizing" her. Fluttershy had accepted her as a Viper, her own being, who had the capacity to be kind.

Until she had met, and spoken to Sunset, she hadn't met anyone else who had understood that not being human did not mean that she was a monster. That although she shared some physical aspects with their females, she was her own species, from a long line of warriors, if the Elders were to be believed. But among the lies and fear that they projected, what could any viper truly take for truth?

And yet, despite her battles, despite her countless kills of… enemies, human or otherwise, she had been kind once. Just once, before all of this had become her life. And that single act of kindness, in defiance of the Elder's will, had broken her away from the psychic network… they said that her chip had fizzled out before then, but she knew… up until that moment, she could still hear the Elders.

When she was near an ADVENT projector, she could hear the voices of her sisters. The multitudes of aliens, ADVENT and humans that had been added to the psychic network. She could hear the voice.

All aliens, all ADVENT knew the voice. It walked them through drills. Won them wars. It taught them strategy… or rather shared it, as distance from the network would affect the clarity of the voice's wisdom and tactics.

But there was an aspect to the voice that she, and only very few others that she was aware of, such as Pratal Mox, had heard. It was the whispered echo behind every human kill, every burning building, every fight won for ADVENT and the Elders.

It was the echo that said: "no…". The almost impossible to notice request to hold back. To not strangle the human enemy. To not shoot them. To be kind.

When Angel had broken free, it was when the voice had cried out to stop. Most of the others ignored that echo, if they even heard it, but when Angel had first met Fluttershy, buried under rubble, protecting children with her body, weaponless as she was at that moment… it hadn't been a whisper.

It had come through, loud. Strong. "Stop! Don't be a monster! Don't kill them! They're just children!" And for the first time in her life, Angel had listened.

And it had been as if the voice had noticed. For the first time in her life, she had felt something other than cold calculations, or the echoing despair from the voice. A sense of hesitant relief. And oddly enough, another voice.. and a song.

For just one second, Angel could have sworn on her life that the voice had sent a mental image of laughing in the rain.

The mission had then become different, it wasn't anymore about killing and creating fear in the settlement. It was about protecting this human and the children… and more incredibly, the moment she had broken free and approached Fluttershy carefully, her future friend had noticed immediately that she wasn't going to hurt them.

Things would change for Angel from then on… she found family and friends, even a human who turned out to also be some sort of alien, who understood her language, even if she didn't speak it… and now she was travelling with the boogeyman of most alien races on Earth, looking for said friends.

Maybe Elena was right. Maybe they were all crazy after all.

o.0.o End Chapter 77 o.0.o

Next Chapter: Chapter 78: Naraka Estimated time remaining: 17 Hours, 47 Minutes
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