//------------------------------// // Chapter VIII - Into the unknown // Story: Book 1 - Prisoner and Savior // by Midnight_Lights //------------------------------// Their plan wasn't the best, and Twilight wasn't sure what half of the writings meant. However, it was the only plan that she had, so she was going to go with it. The group had managed to share names while trying to communicate. Twilight had figured out that the leading creature who looked like someone from the mirror world was named Zeck Stone. She had also figured out that her location was called Terram. While making the plan, Zeck had shown that he knew the general layout of Terram, and he had come up with a way to get out. Twilight didn't understand most of what he was trying to say, but she figured that she could just follow the others who seemed to understand because they spoke the same language as Zeck. When they were figuring out the plan, one of the creatures pointed to the door and made a pushing movement, he turned to his side and moved his hands out as if he was pushing on a wall, then extended them like he was pushing away from the wall. He wanted to push the door down to get out, but another creature pointed to a wire leading from the door to the ceiling. Twilight guessed that this was a spell put on the dor to either keep them from pushing it down or to alert the guards when it was opened. Twilight figured that since the spell was visible, it was probably not very strong, and therefore she could teleport through it. "Look please," Twilight repeated this a few times to get the creatures' attention, then she teleported herself a few beds down and back. This caused several surprised looks, gasps, and a few creatures even backed away from her. Zeck was one of the ones to look surprised. Twilight then pointed to the door with her hoof, and teleported again, hoping that the understood that she could teleport them. The group looked very hesitant at that idea, so instead, they were going to try and break it down. Twilight thought that this was a bad idea because of the spell on the door, but she was also relieved, and confused. There are soo many creatures here, it would take way too much energy to teleport them all through. But why do they not want to be teleported? It's as if they have never seen magic before. With or without teleportation, the plan was finished, and now they were going to put it into action. Zeck said something to the group, and they all began moving towards the door, with Twilight following behind them. . . . Ash watched the purple alien freeing the others, and start trying to communicate with them. She knew that she should alert the guards and higher-ups right away, but she reasoned that it would be okay if she waited for a little while. After all, how far could they get on their own? Ash enjoyed watching others, even though she usually never talked to them. It helped her become better at reading people, acting (a hobby of hers), and understanding other life forms. She found it interesting to see how the aliens communicated with each other by writing things down and acting things out (like an intense game of charades). Though this time, the purple creature had captured most of her attention. The creature showed that it could levitate things, which was something that she knew about by watching the footage from the inspection room. However, it also could transform an object into a new object, and teleport! When Ash saw these things happen, she felt excited, awestruck, and even a little sad. Ash was mostly loyal to the Sectanium and the rest of the Mandors, but she felt a little bad at how quickly the UFF was loosing, they were just pathetic compared to the power of the Sectaniums and their Warriors. Ash knew that the creature would likely be captured again even with its ability to teleport and that the scientists would probably figure out a way to use its abilities like they have been doing with the other creatures at Terram. Once they could teleport quickly and make objects at will, they would be even more powerful, and the UFF would appear even more pathetic. The UFF wasn't pathetic because the lacked support, and they currently controlled 1/4 to 1/3 of the universe, while the Sectanium and Mandors controlled the rest. They were also just as organized as them, and had very skilled soldiers, however, they were losing people quickly, because the Sectaniums had one thing that the UFF didn't; mind control. While Ash didn't support the UFF, she did like how there were no Warriors on their side, meaning they offered much more freedom. Hence their name, United Freedom Fighters. Due to her conflicted and feelings and own interests, Ash waited on alerting everyone and only called it in once the creatures had broken down their door, and were heading up towards the ships. . . . Twilight, Zeck, and all of the other creatures were off and running. Zeck was in the lead, and Twilight was trailing behind. Zeck had led them all up several flights of stairs, occasionally passing guards on the way. Whenever they encountered them, about 5 or so creatures would jump on them, and only get off once one of them had taken an item off of the guard's belt. The guard would then raise his hands in the air and would run away. Twilight felt that this was a strange tactic to overpower someone, but it worked so she never protested. In a few minutes, they had reached a room that was marked on their escape plan. It had the symbol of a strange-looking shape on it, and when Twilight entered the room, she saw that the walls were lined with the ropes, uniforms, and other strange objects that the guards had on them. Most of the creatures went to get a rectangular-shaped object, so Twilight headed the join them. She picked up one of them in her levitation field and saw that it had a hole on one side of it and a trigger on the other. Twilight looked into the hole in the object, but one of the creatures saw he do this, and they yanked it away from her. They looked very panicked with her holding the object, and Twilight lifted her paper to try and ask why, but a shout came out from one of the creatures near the entrance, which drew her attention away. Twilight turned to the doorway of the room and say many, many, many guards standing outside it, each pointing an object at them similar to the one that the creatures took. "Uh..." Twilight said, feeling panicked. "Surrender." Twilight heard one of the guards tell them, but they didn't exactly say it. It was in the same type of language that she heard come from the announcements, and for a moment she almost felt relieved, thinking that they spoke Ponish, before remembering the meaning of the message. Twilight wasn't sure what to do, she didn't want to surrender to the guards, and she guessed that the others didn't either, but she also had no idea how to fight them if she had to. Her shields and blasts might not affect the guards and their weapons and armor. Luckily, she didn't get a choice. Wizz!! Something glowing came flying from behind Twilight's head, and she felt her mane pick up from the wind of it. Twilight saw and felt several more of them coming from behind and in from of her, so she ducked down, covering her heads with her hooves, and forgot about trying to put up a shield. As the guards shot at them, they moved into a line that blocked the exit, and slowly advanced into the room. The other creatures were ducking and dodging now but were still aiming their objects at the guards. One of the braver ones charged at the guards with his item, but he only knocked a few of them to the floor before he was captured in their rope. Amid the chaos, Twilight spotted one guard in the back. It, or she, was one of the blue guards, and she wasn't shooting at them, but instead staring, she seemed to almost be sad. "Evom!" Zeck shouted as he kicked Twilight out of the way of an oncoming guard. She felt a bit of pain in her side where she was kicked and she landed in a tangle of hooves and hair. She watched as Zeck tackled the guard that was attacking and he started hitting him with his weapon. Why aren't any of them taking defensive positions? Twilight wondered. None of the guards or other creatures were defending their position, or even trying to block attacks. When Twilight and her friends fought, they would usually try blocking or other ways to stop their opponents rather than outright hurting them. Thinking about Equestria made Twilight long to be back home with her friends. She watched as the creatures on her side of the battle were being pushed further and further into the room. They were outnumbered and didn't have armor as the guards did. She didn't want to be recaptured, she wanted to go home! I have to do something! Twilight thought as she stood up, making sure to keep her head low to avoid any flying objects. Since she didn't know how to use the projectile weapons that everyone else was using, Twilight decided to try her weapons and hoped that they would be at least somewhat effective. Her horn lit up as she created a shield around herself and the rest of her allies. The guards weren't phased by this, as they continued shooting at them. The shield held up, but cracks were forming quickly, and Twilight was struggling to keep it up. To her, it felt like an alicorn or a powerful unicorn was blasting at her shield each time a glowing projectile hit it. Who got ahold of a shield? "dleihs a fo dloha tog ohw?" One of the creatures said, before looking at her, "Twilight?!" A few of the creatures close turned to look at her in surprise, but Twilight didn't take notice of them. She was preparing herself to break her shield. Twilight looked at the guards, and noticed that some of them had given up on using their weapons, and were instead running and slamming sideways into the shield. When they got close again, Twilight contracted her shield, forcing everyone inside to get very close together. Then, the rapidly expanded her shield and broke it once it became large again. This caused the running guards to fly off and knock into the walls and guards behind them. "Run! Run!" Twilight shouted. She wanted her friends to get past the guards and hopefully lead them all to the triangle thing marked on the plan. Twilight jumped up and spread her wings, taking flight. She flew up and over the guards, afraid that the weapons would shoot her down. When she was close to the end of the clump of guards, she turned and looked behind her to make sure that her friends were following her. Twilight saw them running through the guards who were either getting back on their feet or shooting at them in the chaos. One of the shots hit a creature in the back, making them fall momentarily, before getting back up and running. When Twilight turned back around, she flew right into the guard she saw earlier. She was now shooting with the rest of the guards, but when Twilight hit her she got knocked off balance and started flailing her arms wildly to keep from falling. Twilight stopped for a moment when she hit her but then continued flying off, with many of the creatures now in front of her. Twilight flew a few feet behind them since they knew where they were going, and she didn't. They reached the end of the hallway and turned right. In the next hallway, they ran until they reached a very large door that opened upwards. Twilight landed and slowed down a little before entering. This made her distance between the creatures in the front greater, but she was closer to those in the back who were not as fast, or who had been injured during the fight. Once they were all through the door, Twilight saw that the room was very large, and had a floating object that appeared to be powering on in the center of it. It looked vaguely like the drawing on the plan, so Twilight figured that this was where they needed to get to. The object was slowly flying upwards, as Zeck and some others were already on it. The entrance to it was far too high for any creature to jump, and they didn't have time to grab some of the boxes lying around and make steps because the guards were very close behind. Twilight was going to fly up to the object, but she remembered that the others didn't have wings and no other way of getting to it. Twilight knew that the creatures probably wouldn't like to be teleported since they were hesitant earlier, but she gathered up her remaining magical strength and teleported every creature nearby without looking at who she was teleporting. This made her accidentally teleport one extra creature; the sad-looking guard from earlier. "Go! Go!" Twilight yelled, her voice rang loud, but she sounded very out-of-breath. She was in the middle of a cluster of creatures who she had just teleported into the front of the object. Zeck and a few of the other creatures were sitting in chairs surrounded by buttons, levers, lights, steering wheels, and other pieces of machinery, including some glowing things that Twilight didn't recognize. They were moving frantically, pressing buttons and adjusting settings, when Zeck spotted the guard who Twilight had mistakenly teleported. Zeck stood up and grabbed a nearby creature and sat him down in his seat. That creature then began doing the same thing Zeck had been doing while he was running over to Twilight and the disoriented guard. Zeck was now a few feet in front of them, and Twilight was off to the side. Zeck raised the weapon that he used earlier, about to shoot at the guard. "Wait, wait!" Yelled the guard as she backed away holding her hands in the air, "I'm on your side!" The guard spoke in the strange language that Twilight could understand, and Zeck seemed to understand it too. He hesitated for a moment, before shooting the guard. Crack! The glowing object from the weapon ricocheted off of a shield that Twilight produced in front of the guard. The shield cracked and then dispersed into the air. The guard had surrendered, and Twilight didn't want to hurt anyone who might be a friend, especially if they could offer a form of communication for Twilight. Zeck looked over at Twilight, looking very angry and confused as if he was saying "why in Equestria did you do that?" Twilight moved over to stand in between them and shook her head, hoping that would keep Zeck and any other creature from hurting the guard for the time being. Then, Twilight turned to the guard, and asked: "Can you understand me?" "I don't speak your language." Replied the guard, sinking Twilight's hoped of finding someone who spoke Ponish. Twilight's ears drooped as the guard turned to address Zeck, "As I said before, I'm on your side, I'm a spy." Zeck said something that Twilight couldn't understand, but it didn't matter. While Zeck was speaking, Twilight felt the adrenaline rush wearing off now that they were safe. She began to feel very tired, so she sat down to try and regain some energy, but instead, she fell asleep. The last thing that she heard the guard was was "Thank you." . . . What should I do? Xul had overheard that the higher-ups at Terram were going to bring in a Warrior to sort out the chairs caused by the escaped alien, and hopefully find whoever was responsible. For most of the workers, this wouldn't have been an issue. They were all told, "if you have nothing to hide, then you have nothing to fear." However, Xul did have something to hide, so she had something to fear. Xul, like most others, was afraid of the Warriors, and she knew that if one of them came to Terram, they would find out that she was a spy for the UFF in no time, and she would be punished or killed. Xul knew this was a possibility when she signed up for this job, but she also knew that if the time came to it, she would have to either run away or kill herself before the Warrior could get information off of her. Her officer told her that killing herself would be the best option, but as loyal as Xul was to the fight, she knew that she could never force herself to do that. Instead, she chose to run away and alerted the officer of her plan. Xul didn't pack anything other than what she wore as a guard because her change to escape came much sooner than she had hoped. When the purple alien escaped with several others, Xul chased after them, hoping to "accidentally" escape with them. Xul was sad when it looked like they were going to lose the fight, but the purple alien showed off even more strange abilities like shield casting and teleportation! Neither of these was new to Xul, but seeing something so small teleport and cast a very powerful shield was amazing. When the aliens escaped to the spaceship, Xul jumped over to their side at the last second and was teleported with them onto the ship. On the ship, she was almost killed by a human, but the purple alien stopped him from killing her. Now, Xul was on the ship with all of the other aliens and humans, and she was tasked with watching over the purple alien as it slept. She figured that the captain, Zeck, had given her this job because he still didn't trust her, so she was given a mundane and unimportant job...Until the creature started dreaming. . . . Trine made sure that the rest of the guards were asleep before he crept into the female sleeping quarters. Xul had just ditched all of them, but she left most of her stuff. He walked slowly past the sleeping guards in the dark, keeping his flashlight pointed downwards and close to the floor. Occasionally he stopped at an empty bed to see if it was Xul's, but most belonged to some unlucky guard who had to handle the night shift. After a few rows of beds, she found Xul's. Like all of the other beds, Xul's was a loft, and she had left her spare uniform and a few items out on her desk. Trine rummaged through her things, trying to find anything valuable. He ended up with and extra light rope, some batteries, and a throwaway with a message on it. Trine picked up the small square object and squinted to read the text in the dark. A throwaway was similar to a burner phone in that it was only used once, but the message and any reply could still be seen for an Earth day after because it took that long to hack into it unless someone found either person's throwaway like Trine did. This is A-X, Warrior coming 2 Ter. Dropping mission. A-X? Is that her name? Trine thought, no, her name is Xul. Xul...uh... Xul Sona. Maybe it's her nickname? And who's she messaging, and about what mission? Trine was very confused, he knew that a Warrior was coming, but it was strange to see Xul like this. He always thought of her as a sentimental, but loyal, guard. Now she seemed a bit tougher if she is taking special missions like this. Trine was bout to continue his search through her things, but another guard started moving around a lot in her sleep, which startled Trine. He turned off his flashlight, grabbed the rest of Xul's things, including the throwaway, and ran off with his mind running wild. Is Xul really who she says she is?