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The Viper & the Man

Part one of three

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Written by Arian Mabe (Amethyst Mare)

Commissioned by Thebodyswapeur

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James hunkered down, cursing under his breath, though he kept his voice low, being the rubble of the facility at the outskirts. As a young XCOM recruit, it was pretty standard practice for him to be sent out on a mission to simply gather intelligence on the aliens at that specific Advent facility, though not even he could have anticipated just how wrong that day was set to go. Amongst the other recruits, of course, he was nondescript and would not have honestly stood out in any way, though his brown hair was plastered flat to his head, damp with sweat, under his helmet. His red armour was more of a muted shade and already dented in places, though no one new to the recruits got the best equipment. Guns, yes, boots, yes, but not armour. That went in the matter of priority and hierarchy, but the one thing that they did not skimp on, of course, was the efficiency and accuracy of any weapons utilised.

The Advent facility rose before him, not set in the city, but a tall, grey building that looked foreboding, something that hid nefarious secrets. He clenched his jaw, amongst the others, the captain to the side of them, taking it all in. It looked like it had only been recently occupied for a second time, from the rubble surrounding it, though the walls of the main building, without windows lower down that they could look through, which was why they had to investigate what it was that Advent was up to.

He tensed, a door sliding open, though the stream of Advent soldiers, vipers included, were not expected.

Shit.

“Heads up, ladies, we’ve got company!”

He sweated, clenching his jaw, the visor of his helmet flipping down, though everyone knew that even their full-body armour was not enough against some of the weapons that the enemy had in store – they had ones with similar firepower too, of course. A rain of bullets was nothing under normal circumstances, yet there were many designed to burrow through armour, to penetrate it deeply, even with a corrosive, acidic effect that meant they could reach the sensitive, tender human flesh beneath.

As ever, they were reminded of their own humanity daily. And yet he ducked and dodged the rain of deadly fire, diving behind rubble, acting strategically, putting his training to the use that it had all been intended for. His lips twisted in disgust, the aliens turning him rotten to his core, the hatred of them ingrained, something that, not after so much time believing them to be the enemy, for all the attacks and more, that could be turned back.

So, he fought and he fired, following his captain’s orders and persevering ammo (whether that was bullets, energy beams or more) from his weapons where necessary. The fight was on, shouts cutting through the air, an explosion shaking the ground, the ringing in his ears intensifying as James staggered. It was all James could do, even as the biggest viper, or so it seemed, of all of them slithered to the front of the lines, a gun in her hands, her body the usual naga body type that they had come to expect from the enemy.

Lyissass, who more usually went by Lyss, observed the exterior of the facility that she was assigned to defend, as their officer in charge. She hissed, tongue lashing inside her mouth, her head framed by a cobra’s hood, her body patterned in shades of orange, stark and striking. It was not the best for camouflage, but, even though she did not want to be where she was, forced to submit to the Elders in control, a diamond-like pattern running down her back. Her underbelly, on the other hand, had a more plate-scale-like pattern, locking together, though vipers did not slither down on their bellies like simple serpents. Regardless, the toughness of her scales rendered armour, especially with the flexibility her sinuous body demanded, a moot point. Lyss did not wear it beyond her torso, covering her chest and the more sensitive scales there, the rounds there that posed as her venom sacs.

Regardless of her feelings on the matter, however, she had the new psionic device to test out and the viper did not anticipate

“Sssee them flee,” she hissed, pointing, the gun levelled, psionic device strapped to her back. “Sssend them back in piecesss!”

She sent her soldiers forward with a hiss, her jaws hanging open, exposing her fangs, tongue flickering within with a purple sweep, though the interior of her mouth was pink, eyes a dark green. Those eyes had garnered her many admirers amongst the forces over the years, but that was not something that Lyss could focus on, not even then, not as she fired at the soldiers, beams of energy, like manufactured lightning, lancing from her weapon, choosing the modified ones that she favoured more strongly.

The fight was a mess, soldiers scrambled on both sides, though James gritted his teeth together, fighting, determined, even then, not to give in. It wasn’t in his nature, oh no, not something that he felt he could at all do, pressing on into the fray. He gasped, shoved aside by a viper, though he turned in time and caught them at their vulnerable spot, where their armour had shifted across their chest, allowing him to jam his gun into their underarm.

The rattle of bullets filled the air, though the viper did not even get out a hiss as they whipped around, gun levelled at him, hatred in their eyes. He followed it up, their blood gushing from the wound that penetrated deep into their chest cavity, an unconventional shot but most certainly an effective one. The viper crumpled to the ground and he moved in, firing on the soldiers, though the gangling, yawning figure of a Sectoid, an alien with a humanoid form that was far, far from human with thin limbs and deadly intent, was already being set upon by six of his comrades.

He lunged, striking into a run – and then the tables turned.

“You dare harm my sssoldiers?”

And then he was swept off his feet, scrambling, gasping, his feet not even on the ground anymore as dizziness swamped him. Face to face with the biggest viper of all, her bright orange and diamond-pattern colouration dazzling even to his eyes, he gaped and whined, scrambling, trying to breathe. Tighter and tighter, the viper constricted him, cutting off most of his ability to breathe, holding him tight, squeezing him, pressing in on all sides, holding him there so that he had no choice but to drop his weapon, though he still had the ones on his hip, another strapped to his back. It was just a shame that James wouldn’t be able to reach them before he lost consciousness and succumbed to her crushing embrace.

Lyss hissed fiercely, a smirk on her lips, opening her jaws wider and wider, purple tongue flickering within. It licked out against her fangs, showing him, cruelly, just where the venom dripped from, the venom ducts within her mouth plump and full, preparing to bite. Whether she would or not was another question, however: it was just another way to torment the enemy, to show them where the vipers were truly superior.

As she leaned in closer, her jaws so big that they could easily have closed over his head with room to spare inside, saliva and venom dripped from the upper side of her mouth and fangs to the bottom, strung out as he weakly struggled and quailed.

“It would be ssso easssy to end you now,” she hissed, unable to speak, of course, without the hiss rolling through her tone. “But you are such a tasssty scrap. Perhaps you ssshould watch more of your friends fall.”

He fought, blinking, though his vision greyed out at the edges before she rippled her coils around him a little more, toying with him, making him think that, if only he squirmed hard enough he could get away from her. Of course, the viper was only interested in toying with her prey, showing off the muscle in her long, sinuous body, the coils that she was so very proud of. His small frame was of no challenge to her, though even Lyss was ever so mildly impressed that he had been able to down one of her own so easily.

However, the viper would see to it that he did not breathe again, squeezing him tighter and tighter as her tongue flickered out against his cheek in a mockery of a kiss.

“Poor little rat,” she said. “Too weak to fight back, relying on weaponsss. Too bad you’re not a viper. Too bad you’re not sssuitable for sparing. I would not ssspare you.”

Levelling the psionic device, one that would allow her to break into his mind, to communicate and steal secrets from his side, she pressed the button, the device round with a tapered barrel, somewhat like a gun. A rudimentary weapon and, frankly, a prototype – though the enemy in the field that had sought to attack her facility was a perfect target on which to test it out for the very first time.

With a whirr, it charged up, only taking a couple of seconds, green lights flashing – but the bang that seared at her eardrums was not supposed to happen. Flung aside, her coils loosened from James as the human sprawled, hitting the ground hard, eyes closed, both knocked out cold. Even the viper’s tail was limp, soft and loose, no muscle contractions held in it at all that could have betrayed her coming back to consciousness.

There was no stillness around the two of them, no silence at all. Only battle, bullets fired, screaming, the howl of someone who had been hit. Even the sky was dark, a gloomy thunder rumbling in the distance, as if the atmosphere itself had been poisoned to such an extent that it bore down on all life that should have been present, naturally, there.

What they didn’t know was that the device had not allowed access to James’ mind in quite the way that Lyss had intended. If their scientists had spent more time testing in controlled facilities – well, as controlled as they got for Advent in a time of war – perhaps it would not have ended up as it did.

Lyss blinked, sitting up, pushing up on shaky arms, though…something was wrong. She knew it intrinsically, something missing, feeling weaker, smaller, as if the muscle that had lined her strong, powerful body had been funnelled away from her. She cursed under her breath, though her tongue didn’t feel right in her mouth anymore either, not as she ran it around her teeth.

Wait… She should only have fangs! Why did she have teeth?

She cursed under her breath, though the voice was not her own, it was lighter, softer, simpler, not coming with a hiss at all. It felt like she had to push to get them out of her mouth, filling it with too much saliva while she expected the hiss, but with the gloved hands bearing down into the grey earth and grit, it was quite clear that Lyss was not a viper anymore, not in body.

She tried to stand, getting weak, human legs under her, scrambling, not understanding how legs worked. Yet Lyss was on the battlefield, in the body of one who was the enemy and yet might be solace for her at the same time: she couldn’t just stay down on the ground. Clenching her jaw, she shuddered at the new sensation of human teeth locking together, molars fitting into one another. It was such a foreign concept that it made her shudder.

Burning lands… Get up, Lyss! Rise!

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Her thoughts were the same, edged with a hiss, but it was with a great effort of will, trying to think like a human, that she got up, wobbling to her feet – though her body was right there before her. Well, not right there, but it was near, the body of a viper with her colouration sprawled out, jaws slightly agape, the eyes dull and blank, not yet awake. The dull, reddish armour was exactly what the man had been wearing – and what she had ended up with, directly swapping bodies with him, a transformation that had sent one mind into the other. All due to that accursed psionic device…

If she’d ever gone back to Advent, she’d have words with them for not testing their devices before sending them out. But her heart pulled, running, wanting to leave with a burning, aching craving that now, at long, long last, seemed within reach.

Lyss licked her lips, swallowing hard, tasting blood in her mouth – the mouth of a man. Could she? Would she? In the end, it was the man’s team that did it for her.

“James – get up! We’ve got them on the run now – woohoo!”

A man punched the air, but Lyss did not recognise him. And how would she, considering that she was a viper who had ended up body swapped with a man.

Her officer’s training kicked in, standing up tall, despite the wobble in her legs. Who needed legs? They were so weak, not like the soft pull of a tail, so strong and yet so subtle at the same time, working its way sinuously across any terrain that she set her body to.

James’ crew, for that had been the name shouted at her, surrounded her, urging her on, and she did her best to run along with them, though her feet didn’t behave her direction most of the time, dropping to her knees and cursing as she fought to flee. If only she got away, she’d be able to find a new life – in a man’s body, yes, but being James had to be better than what she had been dreaming about running from for years already.

Another man helped drag her up the ramp to the aircraft, as she stumbled up the ramp, falling over her own feet several times, though Lyss got away with it, everyone there thinking that the man was just tired, that he had been injured. It was something that she was glad for, even as she laughed aloud and hefted the gun from her back high over her head, whooping in a voice that was not her own. She had no joy in overcoming her brethren, those that she had commanded as an officer and, in a way, sought to protect too, but she could not throw away the chance at freedom. No, it was something that she had to snatch up, boarding the aircraft, leaving her life, her world behind.

All as a viper in the body of a man, though no one would know. All Lyss had to do was to keep James quiet. And there would likely be a chance for that soon…

Although James woke with other bodies around him, Advent soldiers, eyes rolling, panting heavily, chest rising and falling sharply as the new viper sucked in all the breath she could into her lungs, he was too far gone to realise what had happened. Barely conscious, he tried to move, heart lurching.

Injured! He had to be injured, something had to have happened to him. The aircraft took off with his crew, leaving the ground and him behind. Yet James could not even talk to say that they had left him behind to cry out for help, to beg them to come back for him, to save him. But they were gone, Advent soldiers swarming him, hands on his arms.

He didn’t want to be awake anymore. He didn’t even want to think. It wasn’t what he craved, what he needed, breath coming in short, faint gasps, slipping down, fading quickly. The grey of the void called him, sinking into the edges of his vision.

Falling unconscious, the blackness enveloped him once more.