Paragon Force

by WildFire15

Spiders in the Ruins

Paragon City - Ruins of Galaxy City

It took a lot to shock Paragon City. The coastal Rhode Island metropolis had endured extra-dimensional invasions, deadly plots for world domination and even the occasional random shower of soy produce from one overly zealous vegan super villain, but every time the city had buckled down and sprang into action to face the foe.

Statesman’s death was a different matter entirely. He was a constant, the greatest symbol of what it meant to be a hero, even if his overly righteous attitude grated with some of the city’s many heroes.
No one ever thought he could die and the hunt for his killer had so far been fruitless. The group he once led, the Freedom Phalanx, were in disarray as Positron tried to keep them together, but the heroes of the city worked hard to try and keep the peace as the various criminal factions became bolder.

Black WildFire, one of the city’s most experienced heroes flew over the city district called Galaxy City. He was taller than the average human and well built, black and flame red form fitting padded armour covering most of his body. His almost shining blonde hair rustled as the wind blew through it as he used his fire powers to create jets of flame for his hands and feet to propel himself through the evening air.

His flight path went alongside one of the city’s war walls, massive concrete walls topped with blue energy barriers that were built during the first Rikti War but no one had ever felt like pulling them down. Turned out that lack of an urge to do so was beneficial as major events could be isolated and dealt with more easily, including a recent event in the district BW flew through.

Galaxy City had once been one of the jewels of Paragon City, but now lay in ruin after a meteorite attack, which filled the zone with alien goo monsters known as Shivans. The Vanguard, an organisation BW had worked for since the second Rikti Invasion two years previous, had been successful cordoning off the area and destroyed the Shivan invaders, but during the chaos the villain organisation Arachnos and a few other criminal groups had attempted to squeeze in and take control or simply loot the place.

This was the main reason BW patrolled the ruins of Galaxy City, but he simply couldn’t see any unusual activity only days after a combined effort to force the criminal factions out. He landed on the surprisingly intact dome of the abandoned arena building, commonly used for heroes to test their metal against each other and radioed his contact.

“Are you sure there’s more Arachnos activity here, Aaron?” He asked, the flame engulfing his arms and legs vanishing.

“Positive, Black WildFire.” Replied Aaron Thiery. He was a top SERAPH scientist working for City Hall and had personally contacted BW with a report of Arachnos troops looting the area. As BW’s powers were scientific in origin, it wasn’t unknown for them to contact him with potential leads.

“They were last sighted around the Arena.” Aaron added.

“Well, I’m stood on top of the Arena and I can’t see anything out of the ordinary.” BW reiterated, noticing the sun glinting off the armour of a squad of Vanguard troops on patrol. Paragon City was a very technologically advanced place and the Vanguard had access to the very best, seeing as most of the tech was adapted from Rikti technology and the Vanguard had been on the front line for both invasions.

“Keep looking, they’re defiantly there.” Aaron urged. “I doubt Longbow was able to root out every nest of Arachnos agents.”

"The day Longbow actually manages to finish something they've started will be the day wearing underpants on the outside becomes anything other then laughable. I'll keep you posted if anything comes up." BW smiled before turning his radio off.

He’d been searching for hours already without much luck and the prospect of continuing didn’t really appeal, but Arachnos wasn’t a threat to be taken lightly. He decided to ask the Vanguard Squad they had seen anything, so he blasted off, arched through the air and landed in front of the squad. For a moment, the squad levelled their weapons at him before realising who he was, their weapons including long rifles, wrist mounted energy blades and even a magic staff.

“Evening, chaps and chapettes. Anything of interesting happening?” BW asked pleasantly as he walked over, lifting his goggles to reveal his blue eyes that seemed to glow in the shadows cast by the late evening sun.

“Negative, operative.” The female sergeant leading the squad answered. “Just a routine patrol.”

“Right, ok. I’ve got word there’s still Arachnos in the area and I was wondering if you’d seen anything.”

“We’ve ousted a group of Vahzilok Mortificator and Cadavars but no Arachnos. We’ll let you know if we find any.”

“Cheers. As you were.” He smiled before walking on, giving them a quick salute as he went by but still keeping his eyes open for anything unusual as he put his goggles back on.

Walking through the ruins of Galaxy City was a sobering experience, seeing a place he’d frequented not more than three months ago in total ruin. He headed towards and up a large flight of stairs leading towards what was Freedom Court, which had been the safest place in the zone.

Being headquarters of Freedom Corp, an organisation set up by Statesman and the first Miss Liberty to help the new generation of heroes communicate and act against new threats, the citizens of the city felt safe here but, naturally, it had been one of the first targets of the Shivan attack. It had never been a particularly appealing building, a single story concrete structure with several basements dedicated to the different hero origin offices, but the sight of the enormous statue of the deceased hero Galaxy Girl, whom the area had been named after always reminded heroes what they could aspire to be, much as the statue of Atlas in Atlas Park.

All that was left of the huge stone statue was her boots, the rest of her shattered to rubble and scattered across the zone. The sight had inspired plenty of young heroes BW had had the honour of working with over his career, but the sight only now served to remind BW that regardless of what they did, they’d only ever really be able to react to a problem rather than prevent it.

He was distracted from his lamenting by a sudden burst of gunfire, coming from the direction he’d just walked. He turned and ran back to the stairs to get a better view and activated his goggle’s zoom function. He could see the Vanguard squad firing upon an unseen target through the broken doors into the Arena.

He reset his goggles and took off, landing behind cover next to the squad leader within moments.

“Your spiders have turned up.” The sergeant offered bluntly, leaning out from cover to take a shot.

“Good. I’m going in.” BW announced, jumping into the air, igniting his feet and hurtling into the open door.

A line of Arachnos soldiers in shining black armoured with red lights and spider leg details stood inside, looking very surprised to see BW flying at them at speed and dived for cover as he aimed his hands forwards and shot plumbs of flames forwards to slow himself and force them into cover.

He landed in the middle of the entrance lobby, which was coated in rubble from the Shivan attack. Plenty of shining black metal crates and evil looking work stations with red holograms dotted the room, making it look even gloomier and less inviting.

The soldiers around him scrabbled to their feet as the Vanguard moved in, the grunt soldiers with their sub-machine guns looking unlikely to put up much resistance against highly trained and well equipped Vanguard soldiers, but it looked like there was more than grunts to worry about.

As a few scientists in black lab coats ran for cover behind the crates, BW saw two soldiers in huge, heavily plated armoured suits stepping forwards. Their intimidating suits were equipped with forearm mounted blades and back packs that each had four long arms arching over their heads, each arm ending in an energy cannon and a sharp blades, the equipment of the fearsome Arachnos Crab Spider. They crouched slightly and leaned forwards, allowing their back pack arms full view of BW as a target before they started firing a stream of energy bolts.

Some heroes had bullet proof skin, others had super reflexes and could dodge enemy fire. BW didn’t have that sort of luxury and opted to get out of the way as fast as possible. Lighting his feet, he rocketed behind cover, taking a few hits before he was safe.

While he wasn’t invulnerable, he did have an enhanced ability to heal his own injuries which flared into life quickly to dull the pain of the hits, though his suit had held up against the shots. After giving his injuries a moment, he rocketed up into the air, channelling fire down his arms as the Crab Spider soldiers watched him get higher into the air before releasing two powerful streams of flames straight at them.

The two soldiers were whooshed off their feet by the attacked and fell over, seemingly out for the count as BW killed the flames he threw. His powers were among the most lethal in the city and if he wasn’t careful with it he could very easily kill those he fought, something he never went out to do.

Satisfied the Crab Spiders had been dealt with, he glanced around the room, seeing the Vanguard soldiers take down the last of the Arachnos soldiers. Vanguard weapons were usually set to stun, but Arachnos would have used full power to kill any potential threats, but fortunately the most significant danger hadn’t been directed at the soldiers.

He landed as the Vanguard started tagging the defeated Arachnos soldiers. With so many potential threats, escorting every single arrested criminal to the police was more hassle then it was worth and cut into time that could be used to prevent other crimes. Utilising teleportation technology stolen from the Rikti, Paragon City had a unique teleportation grid used by heroes, the police and the Vanguard to teleport both critically injured individuals to a medical centre or arrested criminals straight to the Ziggurat Penitentiary in Bricktown for processing using small transporter nodes.

BW surveyed the scene for any more potential threats, spotting a silver armoured soldier jumping out of cover and running for one of the largest crates, holding out a stick like weapon with two blades sticking out of the top of the weapon and flanking an energy gun, similar to the Crab Spider arms, from which he fired several shots at the Vanguard soldiers that all missed.

This individual was an Arbiter, one of the highest ranking troops within Arachnos with links to the organisation’s leader, Lord Recluse himself. He’d likely be able to tell BW what was going on with a bit of coaxing, so he threw a ball of flame at him with the aim of knocking him over with the blast

The Arbiter jumped behind a crate as BW’s shot splashed against the wall where he had just been a second earlier. Not wanting him to escape, BW flew forwards and slide past the crate to a halt, fire powers at the ready before he saw that the Arbiter wasn’t there, but something else was.

What looked like a huge glowing energy ring, roughly ten feet in diameter, floated innocently behind the crates, surrounded by computer equipment. The outer most ring slowly shrunk, replace soon after by another, into the middle through waves of energy that obscured the view of whatever was behind or through it.

“Portal of some kinds?” The sergeant asked as she stopped beside him.

“I’d think so.” BW replied, rubbing his chin. Both the Arbiter and the scientists, who he’d almost completely forgotten about during the fighting, could have gone into these floating energy rings in order to vanish completely, making it highly likely this was a portal of some such.

However, natural portals of any kind were near enough non-existent, so it was also highly likely someone or something had created it. Judging from the equipment around them, Arachnos must have stumbled across it and had been investigating it before they were found.

“Where do you think it goes?” She asked, which caused BW to grin.

“One way to find out.” He replied before turning on his radio. “I’ve found your Spiders in the Arena, Aaron, with a big portal of some such. Tell Portal Corp there’s one here and give them my co-ordinates. I’m going after them.” He informed Aaron, not waiting for a response before jumping through.

Jumping through portals was something BW was familiar with after fighting the Rikti, rescuing scientific expeditions and only a matter of months ago putting an end to the threat of the Praetorians, but while the sensation of displacement felt as it usually did, what he didn’t expect was the feeling of being forcefully physically reorganised.

He had fallen to his hands and knees from surprise as he exited the portal, the split second journey having felt like an age. He looked up from the crouch position he had landed in with an aim to inspect wherever he had immerged, but while he saw he was in an what appeared to be an empty disco with no one in sight, he had noticed out of the corner of his eyes as he looked up that his hands weren’t hands.

He looked at one. What was once a hand was now more akin to a semi-flexible hoof and a quick look at the rest of his body showed it wasn’t just his hands that had changed but his entire body. His knees were reversed with hooves in place of feet, he had a tail which was certainly different and it seemed his face was longer too with a horn sticking out of his forehead. Somehow his suit had also morphed itself as well to fit this new form.

While his body felt natural in its stance of being on all fours, he himself felt odd about being so low to the ground. He pushed with his ‘hands’ to get himself into an upright stance on his ‘legs’ and while he could balance while stood still, his first attempt to walk ended with him falling forwards back into this body’s natural position.

“Well, have it your way.” He mused to himself. If he had to walk like this then so be it, he still had Spiders to catch and return to their own dimension before they caused the locals trouble.

Checking his surroundings more thoroughly, he saw a lot of scrap marks that looked like they were cause by something heavier than speakers. Naturally enough, the marks led towards an open door into what appeared to be an alley, so BW carefully charged after them.

Comments

[Voldine]

Suggested fix for short description:

Paragon City is a place filled with danger as the many super powered heroes of the city fight gangs, crime families, militant groups, cultists and even aliens.

Equestria, in comparison, is a heavenly paradise. After being provided a glimpse of this strange alternate dimension, the spirit of chaos can't help but wonder how the ponies would fare against something they'd never seen before.

[WildFire15]

You know what, I think you're right there. Been getting a bit comma happy before so was trying to take a few unneeded ones out. Any thoughts on the story?