Chapters Call of Conversion Bureau
Old Man Henderson was always a little crazy, and blamed his life's misfortunes on Vietnam.
Although he never went to Vietnam, 'cause he was 12 in 74.
Old Man Henderson wore combat boots, cargo shorts, and an open-front Hawaiian shirt with a wife-beater underneath.
He was dyslexic, and had a lesser case of Schizophrenia, allowing him to assume that the reason he saw crazy shit was because he WAS a little bit crazy.
He had a grizzly Adam's beard and wore his hair in a mohawk.
He never took off his aviator shades, for any reason.
He had a stuffed parrot on his shoulder named Rupert that he constantly asked for advice, while ignoring the other peoole, assuming they were hallucinations.
He had an Automatic combat shot-gun he knew how to use.
He also had MEMORIZED the anarchist's cookbook.
He had a pre-existing hatred of religion, cutlery, and books.
And he was about to add one more item to that list.
Ponies.
Henderson was sitting in a lawn-chair in his house, smoking a bong, staring at a wall he painted to look like a Hawaiian beach. "You know, Rupert?" He addresses the stuffed parrot currently resting on the arm of his chair. "You're a good friend. Most people would've asked for a hit, but you know how much I love this shit. Way better than what we had back in 'Nam." he chuckles, and then begins reminiscing "You know, I still remember the first time I got high. Back of my older brother's van. Know it musta been some good shit too, because I'm an only child. Ain't that right, Charles?" He looks over to an empty corner of the room.
".... Charlie?" He then gets up, mildly concerned. "Man, what the hell?" He begins to search the house in earnest, before sitting down on a chair in his kitchen. "Where the fuck are my lawn gnomes? I mean, did somebody steal them? Who the fuck would steal them? Yeah, they're worth a lot, but come on." He then pulls out a sharpie and begins to scribble on the table. "Alright, 215 gnomes, total weight about 800 pounds, total value approaching 40 k. Not a one man job. Need help to carry them, need help to sell them. I'm looking at a large and well organized group of assholes."
He looks into the middle distance. "Like those guys down the street? They're Mormons, right? Large religious group, come around in the early morning like those damned charlies.... Rupes, I think we've got a lead." And then he poured a bottle of Jack Daniel's in a large go-cup, and went and got in his car.
At the nearby Conversion Bureau, Poor Bastard the pegasus was in the middle of orientation with a bunch of stinking humans waiting to be sacrific- he meant converted in the name of ponykind. It was difficult though. Most of the people here were smelly, overweight slobs who had nothing going for them in life. If Poor Bastard was in charge of things, he would have left these humans to a painful death via the ever expanding shield that kept the unclean out of Equestria. The only reason he could even stand to stay in the same room as them was for the fact that they absolutely worshiped ponies. Well... maybe worshiped wasn't the right word. He had heard things about this kind of human. The THINGS they would do to lone mares if they even had half the chance. Not to mention what some would do to stallions as well. And the looks he was getting from some of them gave credence to the hearsay.
Either way soon they would no longer be these disgusting wastes of air, food and evolution. Once conversion was complete, they would be perfectly normal, obedient New Foals ready to carry out any request he had in the name of "harmony" and "friendship". Not that he would ever take advantage of that. Ever. Especially not in a sexual way.
So enraptured in his brief fantasies of helping the soon to be mares with getting used to showering as a pony in a totally platonic fashion, the battered '92 Buick Century cruising in front of the building blasting Creedence Clearwater Revival fails to get his attention when it suddenly executes a perfect handbrake turn and parks at the curb.
Back to Henderson's point of view, he's blasting Creedence Clearwater Revival when suddenly he sniffs the air and says 'Mormons' before whipping around and parking out front of the Bureau and killing the car.
He then gets out of the car and pops the trunk. In full view of the daycare center across the street, he then shoves 'Lurid Lucy', an inflatable sex toy of exceptional quality, to one side and pulls out some sort of Israeli-made combat shotgun and starts walking towards the front doors of the Bureau.
He then kicks open the door while the converts and Poor Bastard's mouths are agape and shouts the words that would forever be a call of chaos and destruction to all ponykind.
"MUCKLE DARMED CULTISTS! 'AIR YOU NAMBLIES KEEPIN' ME WEE MEN?!?"
Back to Poor Bastard- he's freaking out right now. So we'll pass the narrative over to John Doe.
John Doe was a native Wherever The Hell This Setting Is In. It should be noted that the town's founders were prolific users of Reaper, Crack, Smack, Horse, EX, Shrooms, Dust, and Meth. Whom John Doe is a descendant of. He had come to the Conversion Bureau because he heard that Equestria had crystals everywhere. It sounded like that trip he had. Except there he wouldn't get arrested. Because who would leave all that meth lying around if it wasn't free? Anyways, these pleasant thoughts buzzed around his mind, mixing with the dust he snorted earlier that morning. Right up until his drinking and drug buddy Henderson busted open the door without even knocking. Talk about rude. He was also holding a that novelty pipe that looked like a shotgun. Maybe he just wanted to share one last smoke before he went to paradi-
Henderson was shocked. He had busted in thinking he was going to interrogate some Mormons. Instead he finds some strangely dressed people sitting in front of some weird looking poodle. The things that cultists get up too. But he only gave pause for a second, having gotten over walking in on a bunch of poodle worshiping freaks proceeds to shoot the closest cultist in the face. The face looked familiar, but if said owner of face was a part of this cult then he was dead to Henderson figuratively speaking. And now literally. Then he shot the poodle. Then he shot another cultist, then he pissed on the poodle that looked like a pony's corpse since everyone else is too busy losing their shit in a panic over the deranged Human Liberation Front gunman, and casually sets the brochure rack on fire with his cigar as he walks out the door.
So then everyone still alive runs the fuck away from the burning building before the cops show up. Henderson makes it home (about three blocks away) when he realizes something horrible.
He totally fucking forgot about the lawn gnomes.
He RUNS back to the still burning building, only to see the fire department has already arrived. They inform him that no gnomes were in the building that they can tell.
On the one hand, he's relieved as fuck since he didn't lose the gnomes, and killing that many little people would probably constitute a hate crime.
Never mind that he totally just leveled a Conversion Bureau full of ponies and ponies-to-be with the speed and brutality of the fucking Spetsnaz.
On the other hand, no gnomes were here so somebody else must have taken them.
Anyway he goes to try and cook up where they could have gone at the local pub.
And that's when things start getting really interesting.
Author's Note
In an attempt to get my creative juices flowing, I'm rewriting Henderson's life story into the Conversion Bureau universe. I reiterate. This is not meant to be taken seriously. This is crack, pure and simple. I'm just posting it on here so that people can critique my changes to the story. And I want to see if something like this can get into the featured box. Stranger things have happened.
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Call of Conversion Bureau
I'm not saying it was ponies, but it was ponies. Revised again with 20% more pony-cultists.
Good ol' Harry, the fine owner of the pub, was scared proper shitless of Henderson after an incident with a 'commie bastard pinball machine' a couple years back, so Henderson is able to drink in peace and nobody really bothered him about the mounting tab.
So he's sitting there working on a new plan of action with his two best friends, Mr. Daniels and Mr. Walker, when suddenly a news report comes on. Apparently some woman was commenting on how a building a few blocks away from the bar just had their shit wrecked. Henderson was VERY interested in knowing that they were not in fact Mormons, but rather 'Ponies' which apparently were a radical sect of Buddhism that had the details promptly ignored since there was a hockey game on.
Then Henderson had a really good idea. Since somebody at the other table had the 'Dragnet' theme as their ringtone.
On the other side of town, a Detective with ties to the HLF picked up a phone.
"Hello?"
"I need a man who's good at finding things, doesn't have any great love of religious loonies, and doesn't mind maybe shooting an ugly ass poodle or two."
"... I'm sorry, but WHO is this?"
"Name's Henderson. I need some help from a professional."
"No argument here. So, you're looking to hire a PI?"
"Yep. Had something precious stolen from me."
"And that was?"
"Roughly 40 thousand dollars of Lawn Gnomes."
There was a silence on both ends of the line. "What?"
"I'm not saying it was cultists, but I'm pretty sure it was cultists. Or aliens, either seems likely in this situation. If you're interested we can talk down at Harry's on the south side by the river." And then he hung up.
Since the detective was quickly getting nowhere with his missing persons case, which he is convinced is somehow connected to the Conversion Bureau, he decided it'd be good for a laugh.
Henderson meanwhile had discovered that Harry had acquired a Pac-Man arcade machine, and decided to fill the score board with profanity.
So when the detective arrives, he asks for 'some guy named Henderson' and was promptly pointed to a man in... unusual attire who was teaching a girl how to shoot pool.
"Henderson?"
"Hold on, just a second. The important part of a shot in pool is to make sure it's smooth. Take all the time you need to line up the shot, don't let them rush you." He says, and then he sinks his last three balls and the '8' in one stroke. He then turns to the detective.
Who promptly recognizes him, because he was camped out near the CB earlier but was cut from the story for reasons, and tries to leave. Too bad for him, Henderson decided to follow. "So how do you think you're gonna go about this?"
"I'm gonna get the hell back in my car and leave the crazy ass arsonist/murderer behind."
"No shit?" He looks over his shoulder back at the bar "Which one?" He looks at the detective poking him in the chest. "What?"
"The Bureau! You burned down a Conversion Bureau!"
"They started it."
"Because you walked in with a shotgun?" He asked exasperated at the infuriatingly flawless logic of a complete asshole.
"No. Because they stole my goddamned lawn gnomes."
"Yeah, you mentioned that. How do you fucking steal 40 thousand dollars in decorative lawn fixtures? Where the hell did you even get that many gnomes?"
"I worked briefly as a prostitute in Thailand. The antique gnome collection was my retirement plan."
"What?"
"Ended up riding some dude's junk all the way back home. Hell of an uncomfortable ride, let me tell you. Not meant for the ocean blue. And I would know."
"You... understand the logistics... of riding another man's junk... across the ocean..."
"Well, in a general sense. I took a course on ship building back in college. This was before we had these fancy navigational Gypsy Pathfinder Space-fairies."
"... I... alight, you said you were looking for gnomes?"
"Actually, that was earlier. Just now I was explaining that I knew so much about catching a ride on somebody's junk because of vigorous study in my youth."
"Let's focus on the Gnomes. You think they were stolen by a cult?"
"Only thing that makes sense from what I know. I want you to look into these 'Ponies'. See if they're doing anything suspicious."
"I think you mean Conversion Bureau... Actually, I was looking into them already for another reason: looks like they've got a hand in human trafficking. Lawn Gnomes... seems like an odd direction to go in, but I won't deny that they're up to no good. I'll let you know if I find anything worth talking about."
"Sounds good. I'm usually at Harry's unless I'm not. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go see a man about a horse." Henderson then walked across the street, stole a bicycle, and rode off into the sunset and would not be seen again until shenanigans were needed.
The detective, who's name is Alexander Johanson, goes back to his office to call up his old pal James Fink.
"So," Jim said as he walked into the office. "Who's the client?"
"Some crazy motherfucker named Henderson."
"That his first or his last name?"
"Man, I have no fucking clue."
"Alright, so what's he want?"
"Apparently he thinks some ponies stole his antique lawn gnome collection."
"... So drop the nutter."
"Two good reasons not to: The group he's accusing I honestly believe to be involved in both activity illegal and bizarre. Well, more bizarre than turning people into ponies. The other is that any man who can afford to just have 40 grand in gnomes lie around can write a pay-check."
"...Why the hell would somebody have fourty-"
"Don't tug on this particular string Jim. Trust me, just... don't."
"So what's our first lead?"
"Well I was gonna go kick around in the ashes of the Conversion Bureau my new boss burned down, and then see if there were any witnesses."
"Wait, our BOSS caused that fire?"
"Yeah. So you're in?"
"You kiddin'? I NEED to see how deep this rabbit hole goes."
That evening they went to the site, and discovered some human corpses that went unaccounted in the back of the wreckage. There wasn't enough left to be damning evidence, but plenty to make them start asking some pointed questions.
A professor at a local school was contacted to look into how these bodies could be identified, and then they found the page of the Neighcronomicron. Recognizing the occult symbols on it, from his investigation into the transformation potion, the Detective dropped it off at his office while he went to ask if he could borrow a notebook out of the cold-case evidence lockers.
Henderson meanwhile discovered that during a recent bender, he had agreed to chaperon a dance at the local high-school. So he swings by the detective's office to let him know where he'll be.
So he's at the office, and he meets Jim, asks him to pass along the info to Al, and then snags the scrap of the Neighcronomicron on the way out the door saying he needed paper.
Jim failed to notice which sheet he took.
So Henderson shows up to the dance in his usual attire, slightly less scruffy than usual, and volunteers to sit outside and make sure punks from the other schools didn't try and gate-crash the party. The more 'proper' people were glad to keep him out, since that meant he wouldn't be able to corrupt the youth.
Henderson was glad because there was no way they'd let him smoke the monster blunt he just rolled inside.
When the detective realized what Henderson had taken, he quickly rushed to the school to prevent the inevitable.
Meanwhile, Jimmy (the jock) was sitting outside, sad because his girlfriend didn't come because she was too busy being a pony.
Henderson decides to introduce him to the wonderful world of substance abuse, and like a bro passes the blunt.
So Jimmy took a hit, and then went on the ride of his life.
He saw Jesus, and then Jesus turned into a giant squid thing. In the deep distance, the Weed softened the blow by masking everything behind a cartoon-ey after-glow.
So imagine for a moment watching Elmer Fudd scream 'Cthulhu fhtagn' and shoot Daffy in the face. Only instead of a fucked up beak and a muttering of 'this means war', he screams 'HE COMES!" and tentacles rip out of his form to molest wildlife.
Henderson of course takes the blunt back, and then comments on how 'this is some really GOOD shit man' and how Jimmy is 'a lightweight'.
Jimmy then does a bit better and they get to swapping stories. Pretty soon some New Foals show up, and they agree to join forces for the sake of cute girls next door, and lawn gnomes everywhere.
Sadly that roach burned fast and hard, so when Al and Jim got there all they saw was the crazy old fuck and some ginger teenager crashed together against the wall giggling at 'those silly squid things in people's heads'.
So then they discover the kid's connection to the madness, that being his girlfriend tried to kidnap him to be converted, and promptly discover what he knows. Which admittedly isn't all that much, but ever little bit helps.
This leads to the three people who DIDN'T have school tomorrow to prepare a stakeout of the Conversion Bureau that Jimmy was meant to be shipped to.
So at this point, they all get into Jim's van, and park down the street from the Bureau. The Bureau happens to be on the end of a road, at a T-shaped intersection, and they're parked a bit up the way from it.
"Man, stakeouts are boring."
"No shit, Henderson. You have anything useful to contribute?"
"Not really. I should've brought a book or something."
"Would you be paying attention to the building if you had reading material?"
"Not really."
"Then I guess that would defeat the purpose of a stakeout, wouldn't it?"
"Not if you two were watching. Hell, we could have two of us watching the third man playing bait."
"You'd volunteer for that?"
"Beats the fuck out of sitting in a van with two dudes who won't even let me smoke."
"Didn't you smoke EVIDENCE last time you lit up?"
"I regret nothing. Fuck it, you guys hungry or something? I'm gonna go grab some munchies from the gas station."
"Bring coffee."
"And some cheese doodles."
"Aight. Back in... fuck it, just leave the doors unlocked."
And he went in search of snacks. When he hopped out of the van, one of the ponies happened to see him, and as he walked around the corner into the gas-station, they ran out and beat the shit out of the two left behind.
About the time they got dragged into the building, Henderson had FINALLY got out of the bathroom. About the time they got tied to the altar, Henderson had stopped to try on hats. About the time the ritual reached it's height, Henderson was debating which AC/DC album was the best with the cashier.
The end result of that argument was that while they couldn't decide if Back in Black or Dirty Deeds was the best album, Black Ice was pretty boss and heralded only good.
So then with some tense tests of willpower and resolve, Jim managed to free Al and hold off the ponies while an evil presence steadily took chunks off his sanity until he was no longer able to resist.
Smiling in malicious glee, the New Foal that was once Jim began to stalk his new prey. At this point in time, Henderson had JUST walked out of the store, just in time to see Al get potion-glomped by a monster using his friend's voice. So Henderson does the only 'logical' thing he could. He stole a fucking fuel truck.
He made it, and bailed, just in time for the truck to hit him off of Al's body, and run Al's ass over. Jim rode that truck to its end, an end that involved C4, while Henderson placed a call to Jimmy(the other one).
"Hey kid, Henderson here. Found out what the nasties are weak against."
"What's that Mr. Henderson?"
"Point blank annihilation." he then hangs up the phone, and proceeds to walk off to the nearest bar.
Until the back trail ignited, and the fire blew up the gas station and took the nearest bar with it. Then William Brocklaw runs out into the street and yells about how his newly refurbished bar just got destroyed on the evening of its grand reopening.
"Hey man, if it makes you feel any better, I can help you get back at the people who did this."
"Who are you?"
"Name's Henderson. This is my right hand man, Rupert."
"... and you know who did this?"
"I'm fairly certain I do. Ever hear of the 'Ponies'?"
"Are you saying that this was done by those tiny horses?"
"Look, I'm not saying it was 'Ponies'."
"Re-"
"But it was probably 'Ponies'. Come on, your bar might be gone, but it's not the only watering hole in town. Ever hear of a pub called Harry's? You look like you could use a drink."
At Harry's bar, he got filled in on what Henderson knew, while getting a couple of drinks 'on the house'.
So after a few minutes of back and forth, Will decides he'll get in on it IF Henderson can provide some proof as to the whole evil pony thing.
"So why'd you decide to go after them?"
"Revenge mostly."
"Really? What happened?"
"Same bastard who blew up your bar killed two of my buddies. This is after they stole all my fucking lawn gnomes."
"Damn. Tell you what, when we catch them, I'll hold one of them still while you kill him."
"Mighty generous of you."
Author's Note
What am I doing.
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Call of Conversion Bureau
Anyone seen the plot? I think I dropped it somewhere. Along with my sanity.
While Henderson and Will were at the bar getting drunk, the night began with the Ponies using a Ponification for Earth's Rebirth (PER) front, planning to kill the son of a top HLF officer.The bodyguard, a HLF pony sympathizer named Spontaneous Combustion, was quickly knocked out and thrown in the trunk of one car, while the kid was loaded into the back-seat of another.
Enter stage left: Henderson and Will. They see them wacky Ponies up to no good, and they decide to nick the vehicle with the visible hostage. While Will hotwired it, Henderson punched a hole in the gas-tank of the second car, and lit it off. They then sped away after unknowingly leaving Spontaneous Combustion to burn screaming in the trunk of the second car.
Approximate elapsed time between the start of the confrontation to Spontaneous Combustion's demise? Two minutes and thirty seconds.
They then decide to pull into a local bar with the Don's kid to help him get off his problem.
At this point in time, Ronald was playing darts. Ronald was a used car salesman coming off the tail-end of a bad divorce in which his wife gained all their worldly possessions, and then promptly turned herself into a New Foal and left it all to the Conversion Bureau. Unbeknownst to him, a pony from the Bureau just let loose a powerful chaos curse after the car that was stolen from them. A curse with a very specific target: The brake-lines of the car coming in for a hard stop just outside.
Ronald looked at the perfect game he was playing, and felt genuine joy for the first time in weeks. Then he was ripped in half by a BMW coming through the brick wall behind him. This was less than ten minutes after the first death of the evening.
Henderson gets out of the car, and the Bartender with the HLF connections immediately puts a gun in his face.
"What the bloody hell do ya think you're doing?"
"Trying to escort a young man to safety. Damn ponies must've cut the brakes."
The bartender then recognizes the HLF Officer's son, and calls him over to see if he's alright. Danny, the boy, is confused but mostly unhurt. This saved Henderson's life.
As luck would have it, the HLF knew of a possible lead on the Pony Cult case.
Or was it Henderson's revenge? I think it had something to do with a invisible parrot and an inflatable sex doll... You know what? Forget it. There's racist ponies to kill!
He finds an old summoning circle down there, and decides to spit in its general direction, accidentally activating it as he walks out the far door, finding nothing of 'interest' in the room. Upon discovering that this other door leads outside, he circles back around into the house, and winds up in the study with Will.
Meanwhile, with the pony human pony cultist's new lead pointing him at the basement, he trots in, sees the horrible thing taking shape, botch the FUCK out of his save against 'crawl into the fetal position and cry while losing 2d10 sanity'. Henderson meanwhile picks up a book off the shelf and flips it open to a random page.
"What the hell kinda gobblydegook is this anyway? How are you supposed to pronounce this: Al'whya al Cthulhu fhatagan? K'kili'far al is ar'arkas fal dep'wa?" He turns to Will, completely oblivious to the be-tentacled beast he just conjured into existence behind him, cocked eyebrow barely visible above the rim of his sunglasses. "What does that even MEAN? What's the point of wasting paper with that sort of nonsense?"
Will, having barely failed his SAN check, loses his beer and points behind him muttering something about a thing that 'should not be'. Henderson chuckles and says how he's not going to fall for that one again. Last time he did the tranny he was interrogating vis-a-vis his lawn gnomes had 'her' pimp beat the shit out of him and steal his wallet. So he leads Will to the kitchen, leaving the monster to its own devices.
In the kitchen, Henderson continues to be disappointed with the continuing lack of clues, while Will is overjoyed to discover that the liquor cabinet was never emptied by the previous owners, and helps himself to a bottle.
Then the local Lovecraft Pony cultists, getting a report of Henderson's location, proceed to buck the door to come kill him.
Three of them are eaten by the thing Henderson summoned in the study, and while they're screaming the two of them take a peek at the next room, and Henderson smashes all the alcohol and lights it off while they run out the back door.
The abomination in the basement with the first cultista equinis does nothing of importance, while said cultists regains his wits and attempt to leave. Bursting out the way he came, see the fire, and immediately have a SECOND breakdown caused by a pre-existing phobia of fire and then die burning, screaming in pain and terror.
Much like the cultists and the monsters.
Meanwhile, Will is asking Henderson why his car only has the Creedence Clearwater Revival playing ever. It turns out that it's because the CD is jammed in there and the radio is broke. Henderson just never bothered to fix it because Creedence is awesome.
Somepody in a yellow robe gave Splat a pile of money and a picture of Henderson, asking him to make sure he 'disappeared'. Now normally Splat would think twice about accepting such a shady deal, since he preferred to 'rough people up' since it couldn't get you 25 to life.
However, it was a LOT of money. And his previous incarnations were very bitter about the whole dying every fucking minute. So Pat agreed to the job.
First mistake.
Turns out, Henderson wasn't a particularly tough fellow to find, since there's only one crazy old fucker with a mohawk and Hawaiian shirt running around reeking of cheap whiskey and porcelain.
When Splat caught up with him, Henderson was taking a piss in an alleyway on the cardboard 'home' of a hobo that just tried to mug him, now dead. As he finishes up, Pat taps him on the calf.
Second mistake.
"You Henderson?"
"Indeed I am." And then Splat's right hook hits him in the face and smashes his aviator shades into a useless mess of metal and glass shards. At which point Henderson very calmly pulls it off his face and pulls out a spare pair of shades, puts them on and comments "Well that was kinda rude."
Then Splat caught him with a left.
Henderson then tosses the second useless pair of sunglasses aside, dons a third set and then says "Now son, I've only got one more pair on me and I've got considerably less patience than that. What the bloody all loving fuck hell are you doin?"
"I got good money from a man in yellow saying that you're a no good son o' bitch who needs to be put down."
At this, Henderson puts on a very surprised and concerned face. "A man in yellow you say... Son, I'm afraid that there's been a very big mistake here."
Final mistake.
"... I've been lied to?"
"Nah, you're pretty spot on." Henderson replies, before shooting out both my knees with his concealed handgun, followed by a pair to the balls. "But no man gets between me and me wee men." He then walks out of the alleyway, leaving Splat to bleed to death.
Will and Henderson bounce around trying to find a lead to work with for the whole 'ponies, revenge, ???, profit' plot they were kinda working on. They ended up meeting up with Jimmy to try and talk his girlfriend out of being a cultist.
Jimmy basically agrees to go to one of the meetings if she promised to seriously have a chat with him afterwards about the whole 'joining a cult' thing. She agreed, basically telling him that he'd totally change his mind once he saw what it was all about.
So, pretty soon, Henderson and Will are sitting outside the church on the curb.
Waiting.
Henderson breaks the silence. "Man, I fucking hate stakeouts."
"They aren't that bad."
"Last time I was on a stakeout, two of my friends got killed and your bar burnt down."
"... does this shit happen on a regular basis with you?"
"Not causing it. Well, not usually. I remember I got arrested about a year ago for scaring a cook shitless."
"What? Why?"
"I told the motherfucker that I was allergic to olives. I get olives on my everything. I coulda fucking died if I didn't check it out."
Then "Fuck it, there's a Best Buy and a video rental place around the corner. I vote we get one of those portable DVD things and a movie."
"Fuck yes. Shit, we're just here in case Jimmy calls us, let's get baked and watch something funny."
So they went and got a copy of Grandma's Boy, got high, and laughed their asses off.
In public, outside a church they're supposed to be watching for cultists that already know what Henderson looks like.
His girlfriend, shocked at the sudden change in tone from the companionable welcoming air that was there before, suddenly realizes that cults aren't as awesome as she thought.
And that's when Henderson and Will run inside, guns drawn. Jimmy, wise man he is, grabs his girlfriend and ducks, while full auto-shotgun spray kills every motherfucker in the room.
They go outside and into the car, Henderson starts it up while Will keeps the arson streak alive and sets the building on fire. As they pull away, Kary (Jimmy's girlfriend) goes all 'my hero' on them, and soon the two freaked teenagers are 'getting busy' in the back seat. Will looks shocked, while Henderson lights the bong up and starts hot-boxing while cranking up the stereo.
To this day, no one know what that cop must've been thinking when he saw that.
There's Henderson 'driving' the car, taking a hit off a bong the size of god, next to him is a dude who looks like a slightly less fat Kevin Smith looking bored out the window, there's so much smoke inside that you'd think the car's on fire, and there's a couple of people obviously fucking in the back seat.
I'd like to think that he was thinking about his family, or going to watch a hockey game at the bar with his friends. Or maybe finally asking the cute waitress out.
I just... Some part of me desperately wants to know why it took him two blocks to process what he just saw.
Henderson just keeps going, not a care in the world.
Cop turns around and starts to follow him.
Henderson keeps going.
Cop turns on his lights.
Henderson keeps going.
"Sir, pull over the vehicle." The cops says into his loudspeaker.
Henderson pulls into a drive-through.
The cops walks up halfway through an order for tacos and politely asks what the fuck he's doing. Henderson responds with a 'hold on a sec' gesture and finishes his order. Then he asks if the cop wants anything.
The cop asks him to please step out of the car, sir. Offers of a chalupa are denied.
Henderson gets out of the car, a plume of smoke accompanying his exit, Jimmy and Kary are kinda blushing and avoiding eye-contact, mostly having recuperated.
Will, having seen three cosmic horrors in the last day, killed a bunch of people, and still coping with the loss of his bar... apparently has no fucks to give. He just sits there, high off his ass listening to 'Fortunate Son'.
The cop interrogates him as to why he didn't pull over, and Henderson responds that was because he was color-blind, and that he didn't realize there was a cop behind him.
The cop asks him why he smelled like weed, and Henderson replied that it was because he just smoked a huge fucking bowl, but it's cool because he has one of those medical licenses.
When asked about the kids in the backseat, he stated confusion, and asked what kids, before looking back and seeing Jimmy.
"Hey Jimmy, when'd you get here?"
"You... you came to pick us up."
"No shit?" He turned to the cop. "Tell you what, memories the first thing to go, followed right by the memory. So how can I help you officer?"
After replaying the conversation a few more times, the cop made Will drive and they left relatively unmolested with their tacos.
Author's Note
I do this late at night to make it even less coherent.
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Call of Conversion Bureau
Row Row Fight The Cosmic Horrors From Beyond All Mortal Comprehension
Author's Note
Felt like writing. Hope it's to your liking.
Row Row Fight The Cosmic Horrors From Beyond All Mortal Comprehension
I think when I left off on the last story our intrepid 'heroes' had just gotten their hands on tacos and narrowly avoided getting arrested.
Henderson is formally introduced to Kary at this point. Usually it is what you do BEFORE you start making sweet, sweet hero sex in the back of someone's vehicle. But Henderson's a pretty chill dude, so no foul.
Henderson, being the responsible adult that he is, takes the kids to Henry's. "If you're old enough to kill cultists, you're good to drink." He told them, and grabbed everyone a beer.
They eventually bumped into Malcolm Reeves. Mal was a soldier who just got discharged from the military after a tour of duty sent him into a PER bunker out in the East. During the engagement, Princess Celestia herself appeared to provide back-up for the losing ponies. In the form of summoning monsters from the ether into the mortal realm. He was diagnosed with Schizophrenic hallucinations caused by PTSD, and sent home. He overhears Henderson talking about pony cultists and deformed hell-poodles, and asks if he can get involved.
They move out of the bar as evening begins to set in, in various degrees of drunk. Soon they start looking for... something. Look, I don't know, all semblance of coherency left a long time ago. Let's just say they start looking around the building Henderson exploded.
Nothing.
They go back to the remains of the Bureau Henderson burned down.
Nada.
Same story with the old mansion and the Bureau meeting they saved Kary from.
"Fookin' cultists!" Henderson yelled dismayed. "Not one clue anywhere!"
"We wage a scorched Earth sorta war here, kid." Henderson says darkly. "But that can wait until we get a lead. Anyone have any ideas?"
Jimmy, buzz well on it's way to wearing off, raises a hand. "Uh... the Internet?"
"What the hell's an Internet?" And then Henderson learned something new about the world.
Seeing as how Kary and Jimmy's parents wouldn't want a trio of random dudes showing up to use their computers, they do the next most logical thing: break into the library and use the public access lines.
Sadly, Google had zero useful results under 'Gorram poodle fookin cultists'.
'Conversion Bureau', as Jimmy pointed out, and then corrected Henderson's spelling, had a list of locations and possible meeting times for various groups across the city.
There were ten unmolested locations, and several of them were having meetings this very night. Clearly, God was wanting them to get back to investigating. For clues. That or He REALLY liked seeing Henderson fuck up everyone's shit. Because Henderson instead bought enough gasoline to make about fifty Molotovs, and burned every one of those motherfuckers down that evening, before dropping off the kids at home for a good night's sleep.
The rest of the gang head back to the bar, and Mal buys the first round as they watch the news, seeing their exploits all over T.V.
The posse all got a good laugh when the Cops apparently failed their assorted checks, tests, and investigations. Triumphantly, they return home for the evening, and they all catch the news the next morning. Apparently people are appalled by the hate-crimes against ponies in the community, and they send their prayers with them.
The head of the local Conversion Bureau, Utter Clusterbuck, thanked the community for their concern, and said that he had the permission of the local government to gather together and pray for the souls of their departed in a local High-School Gym.
In retrospect, what appeared to be a sign from the Flying Spaghetti Monster telling them that every living cultist of Princess Celestia would be gathering into one convenient location should've been a hint that it was a trap.
Like one big enough to be visible from space.
This is when Henderson had a 'cunning plan'. He was gonna go there and talk to the head cultist pony. Mal tells him that it's a fantastic plan, since Will already shared the summoning of the demon thing Henderson accidentally accomplished with him.
So the new plan, of which Henderson was only vaguely aware, was that Jimmy was going to help the 'deacon' set up a slide show thing for all of the words of the prayer that he was going to lead.
Henderson asked what significance Lawn Gnomes had in their worship/conversion process. Clusterbuck, after deducing that he wasn't in fact being mocked, explained that the CB was rather neutral on the topic of Lawn Gnomes. Henderson then kept chasing the line as hard as he could, asking about things like Human-Pony-Gnome relations. Whether the Gnomes had souls. Whether said souled-Gnomes could theoretically be used as sacrifices to Satan.
Clusterbuck then gave Henderson a Look. A look that can only be summed up as 'Dude, I fucked a Shoggoth and you're creeping me out'.
Jimmy then lead Henderson away from the fracas, after he completed his secret mission of changing one of the slides about a third of the way into the show.
That evening, the cultists prayed to Celestia. They asked for guidance and protection. They asked that their dead be avenged. They asked that they be allowed to continue serving.
Or at least, that was the intent.
One of the slides had been changed to say something more like ' Al'whya al Cthulhu fhatagan, K'kili'far al is ar'arkas fal dep'wa'.
One horrible, tentacled monstrosity per member saying the prayers out loud. The group chose to barricade the doors and leave. After the horrors had ripped apart the cultists, they turned on each other. Soon the hall was left with only the dead and dieing, while some stone-cold motherfuckers shot pool across town.
However, Henderson and the gang didn't account for one thing. Celestia wasn't the only game in town, and a High Priest of Cthulhu felt a hundred monsters being called into the world in his Master's name. He investigates and finds the scene of the crime, and then looks into the earlier summoning performed by Henderson.
Gravely insulted by the turn of affairs, he uses a sympathetic binding using what little remained of the corpse to sick a pair of hell-hounds on Henderson, before returning to his meditations.
When they catch up to him, Will's already gone home, the Kids are sleeping, and Henderson's going for a walk with Malcolm. We're in the park not far from his house, about to part ways when we hear a horrible snarling noise.
Pistols drawn, we get a lucky shot off and kill one of them while the second leaps onto Henderson's face. He throws it off, and dodges it's second coming.
Guess who get's a crit to the fucking throat? Fucking Guess.
So as the monster kills Mal, Henderson manages a few solid kicks into it. The summoner, having detected a kill from his beasts dismissed the survivor, assuming that he got the kill he desired.
Henderson called the cops, and Mal was given a small but tasteful funeral at the military's expense. The official police reports read it off as a mauling by some dogs that apparently escaped, heavily wounded. Henderson chose the epitaph. It read, "At least it wasn't AIDS."
