XCom: Future Unknown

by CobaltMasquerade

Prolouge

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He was Victor Volinov, know as 'Bulwark' to his comrades in arms, and he was concerned. He and his comrades in arms were currently on a modified Skyranger and they were speeding towards Central Command, which was somewhere in the United States. Apparently the Enemy had somehow managed to slip in sleeper agents to open the base to their forces, of course Central had managed to hold the line but they had lost some personnel in the attack and now European Command had sent a squad, his squad, to Central as reinforcements and to help deal with Enemy strikes in the surrounding area along with any major operations that needed to be done. He flexed his fingers slightly, feeling the servos move the metallic fingers into a fist and back as he thought about the augments that he had volunteered for so that he could fight the Enemy better. Across from him sat his Mechanized Exoskeltal Cybersuit, the MEC-1 Warden, the weapon he had sacrificed his orangic limbs for, the one weapon he would gladly sacrifice his limbs for again because it gave him and his comrades an edge in combat against the Enemy.

Victor stood up slightly and rolled his shoulders slightly before he stepped across the craft and grabbed onto the safety bar next to his MEC and watched as the side of the craft rippled for a second, which was the sensors and cameras creating an outside picture for the soldiers since there were no windows. The view was spectacular...if you liked watching the Atlantic Ocean fly by at unbelievable speeds. He turned his head to the left slightly, watching a landmass quickly approach...America, he wondered what it would be like for a brief moment with it's rolling green hills and beautiful meadows and warm temprature...He snorted slightly, he would rather be in Siberia in the middle of winter. To him America was the land of Plenty which encouraged slouth and yet they were still strong, they had outlasted the Soviet Union during the cold war. He sighed slightly, it didn't matter anymore anyway, their petty differences, not while the enemy was still out there.

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Daring Do, Explorer, Archeologist, and Humanologist took three steps back and shook her head slightly, returning to herself after using a Memory Shard was always jarring, mainly because her mind had to get used to the fact that it 'Remembed' something new. She took a couple deep breaths before she looked up at the floating 'crystal' that sat in the middle of what was left of the 'Skyranger'. It looked almost sky blue...except for the fact that it had dark edges that seemed to both suck in and expell Color into the surrounding area. Memory Shards were strange in that, nopony, or any other creature, could figure out exactly what created them. There were theories that they were made when magic flooded the world and as such should be disregarded while others thought they were acual memories of Those Who Came Before, who were also known as Humans to those who studied them, and that they were just given form when magic arrived.

Daring slowly backed out of the decrepit craft, keeping her eyes on the Memory Shard as she did so since they had a habit of moving if you weren't watchnig them, and then examined the rest of the hanger, half of which had collapsed because the metallic supports that held up the ceiling had rusted away over time and what supports were left looked skeletal and liable to crumbled any moment now. She made her way slowly across the rusted flooring as she looked at the collapsed part of the hanger, wondering just what could be hidden under those rocks...though she knew she would never find out. She sighed slightly as she stepped gingerly over the skeletal remains of a fallen support I-beam that had rusted out. She wished she had the ponies and materials to clear and strengthen to explore the rest of the base, but she doubted that many of the Diamond Dog Clans that called her 'friend' would enjoy a large amount of ponies moving through their territory.

Daring shook it off as she exited the hanger into a short hallway that connected the area with the main hub of the Base, an area she called 'The Command Chamber', an unoriginal name to be sure but she liked it none the less. It was fairly large or would be if large sections of it hadn't collapsed as well, but she could tell that it was based around a large, chest-high half sphere set in the middle of the room, half of which was covered in a large boulder. Several panels surrounded the half-sphere in a circle, though most of them were destroyed and Daring couldn't tell if it was from recent collapses or from battles of long ago. She shivered slightly as she examined the shattered remains of the Command Panels, as she called them, and wondered exactly what they did that would warrant such destruction, before she examined the rest of the room. It's large stone-like pillars had sustained a lot of damage, probably from some long ago battle, and those that were partially destroyed showed large amounts of erosion damage while those that had little to no damage showed almost none...Another thing that both excited and scared the Adventurer.

Daring frowned slightly as she arrived at her final destination in the base, a small access lift that must have been for base personnel. She pressed the arrow that pointed up with her hoof and felt the platform shudder into life and begin rising back to the surface, along with various creaks, groans and moans of the ages old metal. She fluffed her wings slightly as she listened to the complaining metal, concerned that she could suddenly find herself plummeting back down to the earth and end up broken among a pile of twisted, rusted metal, but thankfully the lift pushed on, slowly returning her to the surface, where the crisp, cold Mountain air awaited. A deep breath was all it took to tell Daring that she was close, that and the growing slivers of light that began to pierce into the lift tunnel.

The lift shuddered to a stop and Daring quickly jumped off the lift and onto the ages old brick that made up the floor of the bases above ground cover. Sadly, the only thing that had survived of the building was one wall that held up the door that would keep out intruders and a small piece of one corner that kept the entire thing up. The brick had been swept clean of any posters or decorations except for one symbol that had been etched into the very brick, an upside down Pentagon that had been stretched slightly, it had the top of a globe done in lines in the lower middle part of the pentagon, with a large X that sat right in the middle. Three stars were spaced out within the top part of the X and above all of that was the groups motto, done in a language she had not 'Remembered', which read 'Vigilo Confido'. She nodded to the the symbol once before she stepped away from the ruins and took flight, she had two days of flying until she reached a friendly town that also had a train station.

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