//------------------------------// // Belated Backup // Story: Paragon Force // by WildFire15 //------------------------------// “Yep, that looks like a portal to me.” Aurora mused, gazing in awe at the portal in the sewers. It had not taken her, Epona, Kittyhawk and Trixie (who’d refused to wear the costume Twilight gave her) long to find it as the ponyhole Shining Armour and Black WildFire had entered through was still open. “Well, you have a long history of portal hopping so you’d be the best pony to ask.” Kittyhawk remarked, stepping around to see that it did indeed look identical on the other side. “Well, my dad did work for the Equestrian Road Maintenance Crew and I had to amuse myself hopping from pot hole to pot hole from time to time.” “No opinions, Mare-do-well?” Epona asked. Trixie had opted to remain quiet and avoid the Lieutenant’s word games while Flash Sentry had been sent to get armour. “Surely we should be addressing her as Madam Trixie the Almighty?” Aurora suggested, Trixie keeping her mouth tightly shut and resisting correcting them. The sound of running hooves was a relief to Trixie as Twilight ran towards them, levitating four books, one of which was open in front of her. Flash Sentry followed her, carrying two large bags. “Nice to have you here, Princess.” Kittyhawk smiled, bowing slightly as Twilight skidded to a halt. “Did you forget where the Armoury was, Lackey?” She added to Flash as he dropped the bags on the floor with a clang. “The Armourer needed convincing.” He said through heavy breathing as Aurora opened one of the bags and started pulling out pieces of armour. “What are those?” Trixie asked looking at the books, hoping to distract attention away from herself. “They’re Star Swirl the Bearded’s notes on the Crystal Mirror and how he created it.” Twilight answered. “I think I can see where the portal leads without us having to go through up.” “That’d be really useful.” Aurora commented. “Just give me a moment and I’ll try the spell.” She added, glancing at Trixie. “Why haven’t you put the costume on?” “I’m not wearing that.” Trixie answered simply, scowling. “Why not?” Kittyhawk laughed. “Don’t you want to be a comic book super hero?” “No.” “Read tales of awe!” Kittyhawk exclaimed, her voice echoing around the sewer as her hoof slowly moving through the air as if indicating to a name in lights. “Featuring; the Great and Powerful Mare-Do-Well!” “Joking aside, Trixie,” Epona cut in after a moment. “Princess Twilight said the costume had an invisibility spell on it, it’d be really helpful for scouting out whatever’s on the other side of this portal.” “Fine, fine!” Trixie almost shouted, grabbing the costume and going behind one of the Arachnos crates to change. Epona and Aurora Gaze were less concerned as they started to put their armour on. While she did that, Twilight put down the books she’d brought with her and turned her attentions to the portal. *** BW observed the Arachnos brig through the red energy field that served as the door to his and Shining Armour’s cell, minus his goggles and utility belt. Wherever they were in Paragon City, Arachnos had managed to build a brig big enough to hold two stories of cells around a large open space where a number of tall, sinister Arbiter Droids and Wolf Spider soldiers patrolled, occasionally shouting abuse at the occupants of the cells. There were at least twenty four cells from what he could see and each had at least one person in them, all civilians by the looks of things. Perhaps they’d stumbled across the base by accident and been thrown in the brig to keep them quiet. “So this is Primal Earth?” Shining Armour asked, looking around the room as well. He had a pair of trousers and a t-shirt on under the cloak he’d been wearing when he and BW jumped through the portal. “A sorry part of it, yeah. It’s not all this bad.” “I imagine there’ll be a lot of things here that would confuse me.” Shining Armour observed, before looking at BW, who looked back at him. “I hope I’m not one of them.” BW said, slightly perplexed at the statement. “You are to a degree.” Shining admitted. “How so?” “Your face confuses me especially.” Shining said, which surprised BW enough to make him laugh. “Now that’s a new insult.” He replied after a moment. “I mean, you’re called Black WildFire yet your face is sort of white.” Shining said quickly to try and clarify his comment. “Oh right, that one I’ve been asked a few times. Black WildFire was an alias used by my mentor and then given to me, so I suppose I’m Black WildFire the second.” “Alias? It’s not your name?” Shining asked. BW looked as if he was about to answer before a look of realisation crossed his face. “Shining Armour’s your actual name?” “Yes.” “Right.” BW smiled, looking both amused and confused. “No family name or ‘owt?” “Erm, no?” “Should I assume those are more than funky tattoos on your thighs, then?” BW indicated to where he’d seen Shining Armour’s mark earlier. “Tattoos?” Shining Armour asked, looking confused at his hip. “That’s my cutie mark.” “Cutie mark?!” BW laughed. “It signifies my talents.” Shining explained, unamused by BW’s laughter. Once he’d stopped, he pondered the idea for a moment. “Do you guys have that done when you realise what you’re good at?” “No, it just appears when you find what you’re talented at and destined to do.” “That actually sounds pretty useful. There’s plenty of people in the world wandering around with no idea what to do with their lives.” “So how do you know what your talents are?” Shining asked. “I suppose we just find it by luck.” BW shrugged, unsure how to answer. “Anyway, these cells aren’t difficult to break out of.” “So why haven’t you done so yet?” “There’s a couple details we need to consider first. Arachnos have plenty of hostages that could be used against us if we break out now, especially with all the security they have.” BW observed, going quiet as one of the guards walked past. Once he’d gone BW continued. “Best thing we can do for the moment is watch their patrol patterns, then we can hit this energy field together to break it faster and ambush them.” “What about these guys?” Shining Armour asked, indicating to the cell next to them, which seemed to contain an unconscious man in a suit with brown hair. He looked familiar to BW, but he wasn’t sure why. “Once we’ve cleared the way, we’ll let them out and keep Arachnos occupied elsewhere.” *** Watching Twilight Sparkle work was either vaguely interesting or boring beyond belief. Seeing her sitting in front of the portal while staring at a book was defiantly in the latter category. Powerful as she was, Twilight didn’t seem to understand improvisation. Trixie was more than familiar with it, making up her act as she went along, but Twilight had to research every minute detail before she’d be willing to try something. Trixie had tried explaining the idea to Twilight once, but she shot down the suggestion with the most garbled nonsense Trixie had ever heard. Bored out of her mind, Trixie stood up on her hind legs and tried to stretch the costume she was wearing out a bit. It wasn’t comfortable at all, being tight in rather unfortunate places. She’d dispensed with the cape as it wouldn’t lie across her back properly, the material causing it to slide over her side constantly, while the mast currently hung around her neck so she could actually see. The hat she planned on keeping as it was pretty snazzy. “Right, here we go.” Twilight suddenly announced as she put the books aside and stood up. As Twilight focused, magic coursing from her horn around the portal, it started to become see through, showing a rather unpleasant place beyond built from black metal with red lights illuminating the somber scene. Bi-peds in black armour and some in white coats walked around the scene, the latter scribbling notes on clip boards. The scene through the portal changed from a large room with a lot of people in it to that of a small room with only crates in it. Whatever spell she was using seemed to heavily strain Twilight as she was sweating profusely. “Princess, are you alright?” Flash asked, pulling a towel out of one of the bags that had formerly contained full body armour which was now worn by Epona and Aurora Gaze, covering even their undersides, hinds and legs. “I’m ok, thank you.” Twilight breathed, taking the towel and drying her face. She gave it back after a moment and turned to Trixie. “Are you ready?” “I guess. Seriously though, why me?” Trixie asked, feeling apprehensive. Twilight looked at her for a moment before approaching her and putting her hoof on Trixie’s shoulder. “I’m trusting you to go because I’m confident in you.” Twilight said sincerely, opting to ignore Kittyhawk passing a few bits to a smiling Epona. “What about him?” Trixie offered, pointing at Flash Sentry. “Why doesn’t he go?” “Because I think us weak, defenseless fillies need someone to protect us.” Kittyhawk jokingly swooned. “Besides, we don’t have a spare big stallion so my lackey will have to do.” She added, Flash rolling his eyes seeing as he wasn’t in her view. “You know the visibility spell, Trixie. The costume will enhance it so you’ll be fine. If you need help, just shout.” Twilight stated, which didn’t fill Trixie with any confidence. “Right, let’s get going.” Epona suddenly chirped up as he strode past Twilight and towards the portal. He picked Trixie up on the way past, much to her surprise. “What are you doing!” Trixie exclaimed. “Put Trixie down!” “Just giving you a helping hoof, but if you insist.” Epona said before hurling Trixie through the portal. Trixie hit went through head first, initially thinking she’d hit something solid as her face flared with pain for a faction of a second, so quick she wasn’t even sure if she’d felt like she was in pain. Her shoulders and hips seemed to forcefully shift as she moved through the portal as her arms, legs and hooves flared with some of the strangest feelings she’d ever had. The feelings soon vanished from her mind as the swirling light vanished and a black floor rapidly approached her. She landed face first and slid to a halt about a meter later, falling flat on her front. Immediately, she put her front overs in place to lift herself, but paused when she saw they were no longer hooves. She looked closely at what had become a hand with three fingers and a thumb, not dissimilar to the baby dragon who worked for Twilight and Trixie honestly couldn’t remember the name of. She looked around herself to see what else was different and sure enough she was. Her knees had reversed, her hind legs were longer and it seemed her breast was bigger. As she pushed herself up to stand vertically, a pose she was quite comfortable with from her performances, she realised she still had her horn and tail and a quick feel of her face revealed it had largely stayed the same. The ridiculous costume seemed to have morphed slightly as well and still fit this new bi-pedal form, though it still wasn’t any more comfortable. As she was about to turn her attention to the room they were in, Epona and Aurora stumbled through the portal and fell flat on their faces. Trixie fought off the urge to laugh as she looked around the gloom, threateningly designed room. “What in Celestia’s name happened there?” Aurora said under her breath, looking around. “By Starswirl’s beard, what happened to you two?” “I’ll go with ‘something’ for the time being.” Epona remarked, pushing himself onto his hind legs and looking at his changed form. “This is a complication, but we can’t slow down. Trixie, you scout the place out and shout if you need us.” “Yeah, great.” Trixie sighed, pulling the mask up over her face and concentrating. She hadn’t mastered the invisibility spell, but immediately she saw that it had worked as her entire body vanished. She waved her ‘hand’ or whatever it was at the lieutenants to see if they responded, which they didn’t. Satisfied, she angled the hat once she found the brim and headed for the door. “You keep the crates safe.” She said before slowly opening the door. She noticed the portal vanish as she slowly slipped through the door and closed it gently, seeing a room with a large box like device in the middle. There was a hollow cylinder running through the middle and spinning, emitting blue light as two bi-peds examined a console on the other side of the room. “The portal’s reappeared!” Trixie hear someone say, seemingly from some sort of radio. “Told you the egg heads misplaced it.” One of the bi-peds remarked. Trixie opted to ignore them and headed for an open corridor that led into darkness. The whole place seemed to be pitch black as she carefully moved, trying not to make much noise. A few more bi-peds in armour walked past her with some sort of weird machine floating behind them, but she opted to just keep moving. After getting lost twice, Trixie came across an enormous room. Several bi-ped soldiers guarded the two floors which were lined with red magic barriers that seemed to be the doors to some sort of cells. She was slightly more familiar with dungeons then she’d like after a few botched shows, but this sort of dungeon didn’t seem particularly well designed. The nearest cell seemed to have someone unconscious laying in it, but the next cell had two discussing something, one of which appeared to be the Prince. *** “I don’t think we can wait much longer.” BW mused, watching the guards patrol. “And what do you suggest? Blasting our way out?” Shining Armour asked, not looking amused. “Yep, are you ready?” BW asked, moving to the middle of the cell and activating his fire powers, which engulfed his fore arms. “Ready enough.” Shining Armour replied after a moment, stepping behind BW in case he was going to throw something explosive. BW raised his hand and pointed it at the energy matrix that made up the door, but something caught his eye. He quickly deactivated his powers and focused on what he’d perceived to be there. “Hello?” Came a voice from outside the energy matrix from what appeared to be nothing at all. “Trixie?” Shining exclaimed as quietly as he could when he recognized the voice. “It is Trixie.” “One of yours?” BW asked. “Technically no. She’s my sister’s student.” “I am the Great and Powerful Trixie and don’t forget it.” “Full of yourself, aren’t you.” BW smiled, moving to lean against the wall next to the energy matrix. He couldn’t tell exactly where she was and didn’t want to draw any more attention than he had to. “You should be grateful of Trixie for she has come to your rescue.” “I’ll be grateful once I’m out as I have a feeling you’ve no idea how to do that.” “Trixie will find a way.” “Are you alone?” Shining asked. “Your idiot lieutenants Aurora Gaze and Epona are by the portal. I’m scouting the place out.” “They won’t know what they’ve let themselves in for.” Shining mused, rubbing his chin. “Actually, it presents us a better option than simply blasting our way out.” BW smiled. “Listen carefully Trixie, I’m going to tell you how you can flip this base on its head.”