The Conversion Bureau - Mirror Match

A story set in the Conversion Bureau universe, by Silvertie

Chapter 13 - Endgame

“She’s your pen pal?!” Cake blurted out.

“She’s HLF?!” Ironshod exclaimed.

“You think she’s the HLF member?!” Gary joined in, adding his own alarmed shout to the mix.

“Your middle name’s Eurydice?” Duke asked M, who pursed her lips with an expression of “now’s not the time”.

“Hold up,” I said, holding my hooves up. “That... sounds absolutely ridiculous. Tell me he’s wrong, M.”

M looked down, and for once, seemed to be at a loss for words.

“M... please.”

“He’s not... entirely wrong.” M looked back up. “Illuminating Shield... I did know a pony by that name. He said he was in the Royal Guard, a pegasus. I wrote to him on a regular basis, a few years ago.”

“So you are HLF?” Duke pressed. “Did you really set up Shield?” M looked at Duke.

“What do you know of this?”

“He knows what I told him,” Shield said, levelly. “I waited at that train station for you, and while I was waiting, I got jumped by four HLF thugs. As they dragged me away, I saw you.” He jabbed a hoof at M again. “That very same jacket, too. Standing there, looking at your phone. Couldn’t resist, could you? Just had to see what you’d done and take some Luna-damned pleasure from it, didn’t you?”

M pushed the hoof aside angrily. “You think I did that? You think I set you up?”

“Think so?” Shield spat. “I know so! Go on, explain your way out of this one!”

I just looked between the two, and sidled over to Gary. “... do you think we should intervene?”

Gary looked torn. “Well, like... she might be HLF, Dice. What then?”

“Then we’ll deal with that. But she’s our friend, Gary. We don’t just hang friends out to dry.”

Gary sat back, leaning on the bonnet of his car. “I don’t want to get into this. Let’s hear what M’s got to say.”

“Oh, I see what the problem is,” M said, straightening up as she finished an argument with Shield. “You don’t know the whole story.”

“What more is there to know?” Shield retorted. “You sold me out! You betrayed my trust!”

“I was running late!” M shouted, overriding Shield. “That’s all! My game with Duke ran longer than I thought it would and I got there in time to see those men grab you!”

Shield’s wrath came to a cold halt. “What?”

“Duke,” M rounded on my human counterpart. “Tell him.”

“Tell him what?”

“The game!” M waved a hand irritably. “I seriously doubt you’d have forgotten. Remember? That horrible drawn out thing with the Ravenor?”

“Oh yeah,” Duke nodded. “That one. I remember that. That went on for hours, we had to call it because... oh.”

“Oh what?” Cake asked.

“We called it early,” I recalled, “Because M said she was running hella late for an appointment.”

======

Magdalene ran as fast as she could, alternately cursing her lack of car and the price of bus fare. She was late. So very late. But if Shield was anything like he claimed to be, he might just forgive her.

She slowed from a sprint to a walk, and stopped next to the corner, smoothing out her hair. Then she realized the futility of “trying to look nice” when she was wearing a ratty old Swandri.

She pulled out her phone, and checked the time; she was only ten minutes late. No biggie, right? She hoped that Illuminating Shield wasn’t bored or anything.

The sounds of a scuffle came from around the corner. She lowered her phone slightly, and crept to the corner, curious.

“Grab it!” a voice yelled.

“Shit!” a second shouted. “It bit me!”

“Get your hands off me, human!” a third, deeper voice demanded. The sound of scraping was heard, and a snap.

“My leg!” voice number two lamented.

“Hit him with the prod!” voice number one commanded.

Magdalene stepped out from around the corner, and saw a peculiar sight. Four men stood around one white pegasus, menacing it; well, three men. The fourth was on the ground, clutching his leg. None of them were looking her way, but she saw the pegasus, and the pegasus saw her. The pegasus was wearing the armor of the Royal Guard. Could that be...?

A flash of light flared, and the pegasus screamed as he was hit with what looked like a supercharged cattle prod. Magdalene jumped back behind the corner, and looked to her phone. Three button presses and she was on the line.

“Hello, emergency services. How can I help?” a soothing voice asked.

“Hello,” Magdalene whispered hastily. “I need the police. I want to report a crime in progress.”

======

M finished talking, and I closed my slack jaw.

“M... you never talked about any of this!” I protested. “Why didn’t you?”

M looked at her feet. “Once I got word that they’d successfully rescued Shield, I... broke contact with him. I thought it would be best if we all just... forgot about it.”

“I never forgot,” Shield said, quietly. “Not for one moment. Why... why did you think it would be a good idea to break contact?”

M sniffed. “I didn’t want to... I thought I’d be a reminder of the day you... you...”

Dice cleared his throat. “M, I’ve never seen you make that many mistakes... but that was a mistake. You don’t get over stuff like trauma alone. You pulled back when you should have pressed on!”

“Magdalene,” Shield bowed his head. “If I’d known the truth, if I hadn’t instantly thought the worst of you... perhaps I would have tracked you down and we could have had this talk sooner.”

“I think we can all learn a lesson from this,” I said. “Don’t keep life-changing things a secret.”

“Ha ha, yeah,” Gary agreed, clearing his throat. “Now what?”

“Yeah,” Cake nodded. “Now what? I mean, bonding’s important, but we’ve got a robotic unicorn-dragon to go kill.”

“Well, the truck’s toast,” Ironshod grunted, nodding at the overturned vehicle. “Think that fancy car of yours can carry us all?”

“What?” Gary looked at his car. It was a red convertible - it breathed “speed” but with a very firm insistience on “two seats”. “I really don’t think-”

“What if we sat on laps and stuff?” Dice asked, raising a hoof.

“Dude,” Gary shook his head. “Seven people in a two-seat car is not happening. One seat, really, since nobody’s sharing seats with the driver.”

“What about the boot?” Shield asked, walking around to the rear of the vehicle. “I mean, it ain’t luxury, but nopony dies from riding in the boot.”

“Ah, no,” Gary shook his head. “It’s, uh, filled with junk.”

“Are you okay, Gary?” I asked, looking my friend in the eye. “You look flustered. Anxious.”

“What?” Gary snorted unconvincingly. “That’s- that’s ridiculous. I’m not hiding anything.”

“Never said you were...”

“Hey,” Ironshod pointed skywards. “Contact! Airship!”

We looked skywards, to see a curious sight. Imagine a pirate ship. Now, remove the mast and the rigging, and replace it with a giant zeppelin balloon, and you’ve got an idea of the vessel that was rapidly descending to our level. Two decks, one upper and one lower. A simple, wooden door led to a room underneath the helm on the upper deck, and the railing-enclosed lower deck had a handful of hatches in it. The helm itself sported not only a traditional, circular wheel, but an out-of-place-looking metal console, clearly of human build. And on the bow of the ship, a name-plate bolted to it.

“Valkyrie,” muttered Cake. “What a name. What twit names his airship that?”

“Ahoy!” a familiar voice shouted out. “It looks like you lot had fun!”

The ship finally lowered the deck to road level, hovering next to the overpass, and we saw a familiar, scarred pegasus standing at the helm, waving.

“I saw the explosions, figured that was you guys,” Thorn went on. “Looks like I was right!”

“Thorn!” Dice whooped. “Tell me you have a staff of dragon-slaying, please. The rocket launcher doesn’t work.”

“The rocket what-now?” Thorn asked, leaving the helm once the ship was steady. “Come on, you lot. All aboard who’s coming aboard!”

With a clank of wood and metal, a boarding plank was extended to hook over the lip of the edge of the overpass. The gathering moved up the plank swiftly, boarding the ship. M and Ironshod were second-to-last to board, the human supporting the pony, but of all people...

“Gary!” I yelled. “Stop lollygagging about and get on the airship! Adventure calls!”

“I... I can’t!” Gary grimaced, looking about. “I’m not sure this is a good idea!”

“Come on,” Dice encouraged. “Years from now, are you going to be able to say that you got on the boat and had an adventure?”

Gary’s face contorted in agony, before he decided. “Fine. Gimme a moment.” The human ran to his car, and over to the driver’s side, reaching under the steering wheel.

With a loud click, the boot was popped, and Gary ran around to it, grabbing a large duffel-bag; with a grunt, he lifted the heavy bag and slammed the boot shut, lugging the bag up the boarding plank. Once he set foot on deck, Thorn nodded in satisfaction, and pulled it up.

“What’s in the bag?” M asked Gary.

“Uh,” Gary rubbed his hair. “Stuff. Might be useful.”

The ship lurched as it began to rise, and banked about as Thorn spun the wheel.

“Beauty, isn’t she?” he yelled, clearly talking about the ship. “She’s been through a lot, but she still got it! Where to?”

“That way,” I pointed towards the sun. “Lexicon flew that way.”

“Righto,” Thorn spun the wheel some more, and with a lurch and a thump of engines belowdecks, the airship set off at a steady pace.

“Uh,” Ironshod raised her good leg, resting against the railing. “Thorn, was it? Lexicon has quite a nasty weapon stored in his head. A large laser, it’s what melted one of our wheels and carved that large gouge in the road back there.”

“Aaah,” Thorn nodded. “Wondered what did that. Still, Valkyrie can handle it. Been to Tartarus and back, barely got warm.”

“I doubt this wooden hunk of junk would take any sort of actual hit,” grunted Shield, kicking the deck.

“This wooden hunk of junk was my father’s,” Thorn said, levelly. “He died on this very deck, fighting a demon of darkness and decay alongside his friends. And before the Valkyrie was his...”

“It was his father’s ship?” Gary guessed.

“Ah, no,” Thorn admitted. “I think he said he stole it from a bunch of mercenaries the last time they tried getting fresh with Whitetail.”

“Oh.” Gary shrugged. “That’s fine, too, I guess.”

“Long story short,” Thorn continued, “I found it where it crashed, patched it up, and I’ve made a few upgrades of my own.”

“They’d better be amazing upgrades,” Cake said, flying off over the side briefly to look the ship over properly. “This thing doesn’t look like it’d take a cannonball.”

“Looks deceive,” Thorn countered. “I took a gryphon eyrie with just me, my sword and my ship. Don’t look like it, but that’s what I did.”

“Why were you fighting gryphons for?” Shield asked quickly. “For that matter, how the hell are you still alive to talk about it? Last I checked, you wipe out a gryphon eyrie, the King places a bounty on you so huge even a dragon would consider taking it.”

“Oathbreakers!” Thorn chirped. “Nobody wants ‘em. Not even the Gryphon King himself. Got paid handsome to go and show them just how lowly the King thinks of oathbreakers. So low, he sent a pony to do the job.”

“How tough are Gryphons?” I asked, curious.

“Very!” Thorn replied, leaning on the helm to look at me on the lower deck. “So don’t sweat it! As long as you’re on this ship, you’re in good hoo-”

A sound of ripping air and energy hit our eardrums, and we all cried out in surprise as a bright blue beam of energy slammed into the side of the ship, sending us all to the deck as it shuddered and shook.

“Lexicon!” cursed Ironshod. “He saw us coming!”

“Whoa!” Thorn got up, grabbing the helm and bringing us back on course. “That’s... that was a glancing hit! We’re fine, I’m sure!” He leaned over and checked a dial. “Yup. Totally fine!”

“How can you tell?” Dice asked, getting up.

“Well,” Thorn said. “The energy conversion barrier’s still standing, so we’re not dead. Make sense?”

“Energy conversion-” M frowned. “How in the seven hells did you get one of those? I’ve only heard about prototypes for those sorts of things existing!”

“What sorts of things?” Gary asked.

“Energy conversion barriers,” M explained, “They absorb energy exceeding given limits going into it, and turn it into whatever you want - usually kinetic energy.”

“I know,” Thorn chuckled. “It’s really quite neat. As to where I got it, I took it in exchange for actual payment when I intervened and crashed a HLF party which just happened to be taking place at a secluded research facility. Something about using the technology for the betterment of mankind or something.”

“So, what did you convert that beam into?” Shield asked.

“Kinetic energy,” Thorn snorted.

“The more you shoot it,” Dice mused, “The faster it goes...”

“Yeah,” Thorn nodded. “That’s the idea. Hold on!”

Everyone grabbed onto the railing or the deck as hard as they could, and Thorn punched a red button on the human-made console. With a lurch, the ship itself thrummed, and leapt forward -- to the casual observer, the change in momentum was negligible. But such theories were rapidly dispelled when you looked over the side and realized that the ship was starting to form a contrail, and the buildings below were blurs. A slight cone of energy played around the ship, maintaining the illusion that the ship wasn’t moving half as fast as it actually was. I closed my eyes and stopped looking over the edge; the contrast between the speed I was seeing and the one I was feeling was considerable, and I was starting to feel nauseous.

In the distance, a small dot that was Lexicon rapidly grew larger, until with a small meep of surprise from M, we were flying alongside the mechanical dragon, a development that seemed to surprise Lexicon as much as it did us.

“What is this?” Lexicon boomed. “You think to approach me in that little hot-air balloon of yours?”

“You’re not getting away, Lexicon!” I yelled, hefting the rocket launcher. “Say goodnigh-”

The nose of the launcher was pulled down by Dice hastily. “Duke! We’re way too close! The explosion’ll probably take us out, too! Remember the shields?”

“Oh, right,” I recalled the flash of green that had thwarted us prior. “Any ideas?”

“Shields?” M asked. “Just overload it with impacts. Can’t hold up forever.”

“How, exactly?” I shrugged. “I’m hardly packing rapid-fire heat here.”

“Yes,” Lexicon chimed in. “I’m curious as to how you think this is going to work.”

“That’ll be my cue,” Gary said, hefting his bag onto the deck with a thunk. Without waiting for any questions, he reached over and undid the zip.

“Gary!” M exclaimed. “What in the- why do you have so many guns?”

The bag was filled with small arms - rifles, shotguns, handguns and even a couple of SMGs. Most looked pretty well-used.

“That’s, uh,” Gary rubbed his chin. “Let’s not talk about that right now. Will it break his shield?”

“How cute,” Lexicon dismissed. “You’ll never penetrate my shields. You think your rinky-dink little airship is the only one with a shield like that? The more you shoot me, the more power I gain!”

“It’ll work,” M said, ignoring Lexicon. “Everyone, grab a gun, start shooting.”

I shrugged, and putting down the rocket launcher, picked up a gun -- a SMG. With difficulty, Dice joined me, cradling a rifle against his shoulder awkwardly with his hooves, his horn glowing, ready to pull the trigger. Ironshod was better off, holding a pair of SMGs with her own magic. Gary and M held their own rifles and took aim.

We started shooting. I’ll tell you this - loosing rounds by the dozen at a big target is satisfyingly fun. As expected, not one of our bullets got close, flares of green energy lighting up and stopping the bullets cold in the air. When our guns ran out of bullets, we either found a replacement magazine or ditched the gun altogether and grabbed a new one.

“Stop that,” laughed Lexicon. “That tickles! Let me show you a real gun.”

With a clunk, Lexicon’s back opened up, and shielded from view intermittently by his beating wings, a turret rose up, the barrel as long as I was tall, and took aim at us. It clicked, and an audible hum filled the air.

“Railgun!” Shield cursed, moving to grab M. “We’re just feeding his railgun! Stop!”

“Don’t stop!” M countered, pausing only to switch magazines. “We can take it!”

Lexicon’s wings thrust downwards, lightning flashed, and the sound of electro-magnets discharging split the air. The whole ship rocked wildly as the shields suddenly came alive in a nimbus of colors.

“We’re good!” Thorn reported. “Didn’t even tax us as much as the laser did!”

“So we’re in a stalemate, then?” Shield asked. “Neither of us can breach the other’s shields!”

M grinned. “We can’t break his shields. But we can break his converter.”

There was a brief pause in gunfire as everyone thought that through.

“There’s no chance of that happening,” Lexicon scoffed. “You don’t have a weapon strong enough. Nobody does.”

“But if you hammer the shields often enough, the converter slowly overheats,” M grinned. “Slow and hard hitting doesn’t work, but rapid strikes does.”

As one, we all grinned. For the first time, Lexicon seemed caught truly unawares. Gunfire resumed with a vengeance, and Lexicon made to bank away and run. Thorn spun his wheel, and pushed a lever; with a jump, the ship moved faster, keeping pace with Lexicon’s tail to pepper that with bullets.

Lexicon’s shields began to flicker and pulse erratically, and the railgun firing back at us did little to slow our assault, sparks of energy cascading all around us as he attempted to break our shields before we broke his. With a loud bang, Lexicon flinched, and dipped violently in the air as smoke began to seep out of the plates along his spine.

“Alright!” Thorn said, spinning the wheel and taking the airship above the fleeing cyberdragon.. “Who wants to play “ride the dragon”?”

“You’re not seriously advocating jumping onto the back of a dragon, are you?” Shield asked, incredulous. “Even if it is just a machine, that’s still stupid!”

“Why not?” Thorn shrugged. “I jumped on plenty of dragons, didn’t do me any harm.”

“Because it’s suicidal! No sane person would do it!”

I dropped my SMG to the deck, retrieving my rocket launcher and shouldering it as I made my way to the barrier and looked down at the metallic surface below. A coiled rope nearby had one end tied to the railing already, as if that was what it was made for. I shrugged my suit jacket off, and wrapped it around my hand.

“Good thing I’m not totally sane, then,” I said, grabbing the rope, wrapping it around my hand, and hurdling over the side.

======

“Duke!” I yelled. My human counterpart, still carrying the rocket launcher in one hand, and a bundle of clothing and rope in the other, hurdled the railing and vanished, the rope going taut.

“What the hell?!” M exclaimed, running over to the railing. “What does he think he’s doing?”

“I like it!” Thorn cheered.

There was a faint noise of running rope, and I ran over to the edge as well, watching. Below us, dangling by one arm, the other clutching the rocket launcher on his shoulder, Duke was descending rapidly towards Lexicon, rope playing out and the wind pushing him about, causing him to swing like a pendulum.

“You know,” Thorn said, nodding to three more coils of rope, “I’ve got fancy belaying thingys that you could use. Instead of a shirt. If you want to get down there and help.”

“Fancy belaying thingys,” Ironshod remarked, drily. “You sound like you know what you’re about.”

“I’m in,” M said quickly, running over to another rope. “Duke doesn’t know what he’s doing. He needs help.”

“If you’re going,” Gary sighed, “I guess I should, too. He bruises in a stiff wind, for chrissakes.”

“You humans are mad,” Shield said. “No wings, no horn and you’re still dead-set on jumping onto the back of a dragon at whatever altitude we are. You’ll have time to say your Celestia-damned prayers before you actually hit the ground!”

“Humanity in a nutshell,” I quipped, as my two friends grabbed ropes and made ready to descend. “That said, I’m going, too.”

“Oh, come on,” Cake said. “You’re a pony -- I had hoped that you’d be a little smarter than that.”

“I was born in Equestria,” Thorn said, “And if it was an actual organic dragon, I’d be down there in a flash.”

“Shut up, you don’t count. You were clearly dropped on your head at birth or something.”

“How’d you know?”

“Can’t just abandon Duke,” I shook my head, grabbing a rope. “Isn’t looking after kith and kin the Equestrian way? Duke’s my own flesh and blood, in more ways than one. Can’t let that twit get himself whomped.” I clambered over the edge, my hooves wrapped around the rope and the clamp that would slow me down without giving me burns. “Besides, I wanna kill the dragon, too.”

I pushed away from the side of the ship, and with a whizz of rope and my friends beside me, descended to my fate.

======

I hit the metal plates of Lexicon’s back hard, and stumbled a little as I threw the smoking jacket aside; the wind snatched it away, and I shivered in the thinner air. Lexicon’s head turned to look at me, incredulous.

“I can’t tell if you’re extremely brave,” Lexicon said, a hint of amusement in his voice, “or if you’re just stupid.”

I shrugged. “I want to soil myself, if that’s any help.”

“Stupid it is, then. Prepare to die.” With a loud whirring, panels opened up along Lexicon’s back, revealing a pair of minigun turrets; clearly for the express purpose of dealing with anything that found it’s way onto the cyber-dragon’s back.

Like me. I lamented my weakness to hot lead, as the barrels began to spin up, and raised the rocket launcher. Lexicon smiled.

“My armor will stop that missile easily. And you’re far too close for the rocket to arm.”

“What?” I looked at the weapon, then back at Lexicon. “You’re bluffing. It’s a rocket launcher.”

“Yes,” Lexicon rolled a digital eye. “And because it’s a rocket launcher, it takes a few seconds to arm, to stop nimrods from blowing themselves up.”

“Well, that’s dumb.”

“I agree. It means you’d kill yourself and save me some trouble.”

I drummed my fingers on the rocket launcher for a moment, trying to work out how much of a backhanded compliment that was. As I did, I heard the buzz of rope, and the sound of feet and hooves touching down behind me. I turned around, and saw M, Gary and Dice standing there, smiling, the ropes they’d used dangling just above head height.

“Oh, hey. Did you come to see the show?” I asked.

“More like we came to help,” M snorted.

“I’m hurt by your lack of faith in my ability to kick oversized boss ass.”

“You’ve never won a fight in your life,” Gary laughed.

“This is a good time to start my career of slaying oversized monstrosities,” I countered.

“Enough!” Lexicon boomed. “Honestly. Watching you meatbags argue and bicker is annoying! You die now!”

The barrels on the miniguns, now spinning at full speed, adjusted aim to our party. M swallowed uneasily.

“I think I was a little hasty,” she admitted.

“We’ve made an error of judgement,” agreed Gary.

Dice just stood there, teeth gritted. I looked to the guns, then stared Lexicon in the eye, raising the rocket launcher.

“This rocket, your stupid mouth,” I nominated, pointing.

“Good luck with that.”

The guns started firing, and rapid-fire-death sought us out.