The Conversion Bureau - Lab Rat

The Conversion Bureau: Lab Rat 2.0

Chapter 001-2: I got bit by a lost specie

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It was a great day on the East side of the North Amerizone, in the region that we used to call Montreal. I’ve been living here since some weird stuff happened to me. It all started with the lack of food. All the crops over the world had been eaten by a bacteria that was supposed to save them. The animals died from the pollution we, humans, caused. At least, the world government managed to turn human waste into comestible food, but, unluckily, they forgot to remove the crap flavor.

Then, magically, some ‘saviors’ appeared out of nowhere. By this, I mean really out of nowhere. One day in the middle of the Atlantic ocean, a Navy ship found a bubble-like anomaly floating peacefully. However, when they went toward it, they started to become sick, their body were getting covered with black spot. The cause of death was massive cellular necrosis.

It took few months before we finally found out what was this ‘bubble’. It was another dimension, populated by the weirdest thing ever : pastel colored ponies. The world government made a press conference, shown on every three-vee in the world, with the princesses of the dimension. They said that the bubble was a portal toward their dimension, but humans die if they approach it. Then, they said something that froze every human in the universe. They said that the bubble will grow until it covers the whole planet. The only way human would survive is by turning into a member of their nation, turn into ponies.

The conversion movement started years ago. More and more human, every day, turned into ponies, by fear of the bubble or by following their families. The total human population had decreased tremendously because of all those transformation. From around 17 billion humans inhabitants to a mere 8 billion on this dying planet. Half of those ponies have gone to Equestria, their ponyland, and the other half is showing off their flank to the rest of us, saying thing like ‘ponies are awesome’ and ‘join the herd’. Seeing them happy on this apocalyptic-like world made more and more people want conversion. It’s like a walking advertisement.

The ponies received hate by some people who thinks that they are demons. They name themselves the Human Liberation Front, or HLF. They’re trying to stop the movement by doing thing like peaceful riots to more gory thing like killing ponies. They are doing their best to stop the human from going to the bureaus, the place where the conversions occur, by making advertisement or by telling lies. Here’s one of their propaganda that was showed on a three-vee a long time ago, until the princesses themselves stopped it :

“They look harmless. They are candy-colored and pretty. But like any poison, looks can be deceiving.

More and more they invade our cities, our land, and our lives. Like rats, they breed and spread, covering our world.

They claim to be our friends. Some claim to be us, 'magically transformed' into inhuman creatures. They can be convincing, knowing facts and details about our lives, our families, and our personal histories. Do not be fooled. These invaders are not us, and they are not transformed humans. They pretend to be those they replace, but make no mistake, no human being who enters a Conversion Bureau walks out alive again. What comes out is a sick and twisted parody of humanity, insulting both God and Man by its very existence.

We of the Human Liberation Front seek to save humanity from annihilation, for that is what we collectively face. We know that if we work together we can stop the invasion. We can stop the expansion of Equestria into our world. We can send these inhuman pretenders and deceivers back to the horrific realm from which they came.

We ask you to join us, to help take back our world, our culture, our very lives. We know how convincing they can be. We ask you to think. Why are they so adorable? Why are they so perfect? Why do they seem so kind? Why is Equestria so beautiful? It is all a trap. They prey on our weakness. Everything Equestria does is calculated to attack our natural desires, our innate sense of beauty, our very humanity itself. Not every demon comes in a guise of horror. The worst demons come appearing as angels.

These creatures are not ponies. They are invaders. They are alien monsters who are replacing good, decent human beings with copies. If you enter a Conversion Bureau, you will be scanned and dissected. One of their kind will then have your memories transferred to it through alien technology, and that newly created invader will pretend to be you.

While they convince others that they are you, converted, the real you will become the meat that these nightmare monsters secretly eat. They are not the vegetarians they claim to be. Their spaceships have been observing us for millennia, waiting for our civilization to reach its peak before the great harvest could begin. They were responsible for the destruction of the ancient super-civilizations of Atlantis and Lemuria. And they are the space monsters who attacked the astronauts of Apollo 13.

Equestria is the great Harlot, and she is sending forth upon our precious world her unholy spawn. These monsters who some call 'ponies' are in fact the advance guard of the living Satan, who is an ancient alien from beyond our galaxy, trapped within the molten core of our planet eons ago, plaguing mankind until his day of escape. Do not be deceived by this false Rapture. Fight the evil Nazi hell monsters from beneath the hollow earth, who have risen up within their expanding bubble of false promises.

This is the time when God needs us the most. We must band together to fight both the aliens and the race traitors among us. Stand tall. Stand firm. Put the demon aliens in their place. Do not accept them in your homes, your schools, your places of work. First we must segregate. Then we may eliminate.

Join the Human Liberation Front. The HLF stands between the darkness of Equestria and the light of Humanity. This is our world, the center of the universe, and we are the chosen species of God. Join the Human Liberation Front.

Or watch our world be cast into the darkness, our flesh devoured, and our world destroyed."

This ad brought much hate by ponies and lovers alike, that the HLF was forced to stop making advertisement, but it was shown that they would do anything to stop the ponies.

This is where my story begin. I don’t remember how and why I joined the HLF, but I did. I’m one of the highest graded members of the North Amerizone, maybe even the whole organisation. I even have a title given to me by other members and victims, until they die: Anthony, the torture master. This nickname seems gorey and it is. I received it when I managed to retrieve information from a stubborn pony when our crew lost all hope. Let’s just say that the information I managed to get helped us destroy one of the headquarters of the Ponification for Earth Rebirth, our arch-enemies.

Back to the story. It was just a normal day in the city of Montreal. This city used to be the biggest in the province of Quebec, but the high level of pollution and smog ruined the fun. Year after year, people were dying from the pollution. Now, there is so much pollution that the youngers and the elders need to wear gas mask to take a walk. Naturally, the pony magic that started acting all over the planet was cleaning the city. Every second, the city was getting cleaner and our organisation was getting angry.

Those ponies invaded us when our planet was at the end of its life. This is like a blow under the belt in a battle. We need them, even if we don’t want to say it. It’s almost a shame that they give us such a hard decision. Being friend would have been easier, but they didn’t let us this opportunity. Their ultimatum turn this decision into an obligation, and I don’t like it one bit.

The only thing that I hate about humanity is the screwups that we did through history. For humans, it takes millions of person to do something great, but only one to screw it up. Every time somebody tries to help. Somebody else will do something to destroy it.

An example, the bacteria that destroyed every crop on earth. The lead scientist was on the right way, but his assistant, because of his greedy appetite, wanted the bacteria to make the crops grow faster. At the end, it caused the opposite. After three days, there was no more apple trees, no more wheat and, by the domino effect, caused the animal to die from starvation.

I remember, when I was young, I used to eat two apples a day. Now, because I know that there is no more crops alive, I’m scared of eating one a week. Who could guess what kind of chemical shit there is in. The food is made out of shit, transformed by machine and shit is toxic. Everybody knows that. And it’s this exact crappy food that ruined my greatest job.

In my younger days, I knew that I had a talent in cooking. So, I used all my money to make a small restaurant. Who could have thought that it would be that popular. People all around the world were coming to eat at my restaurant. Even, one day, the famous action movie maker and special effect coordinator, Freddie Wong, came to eat. When he told me that my food was awesome, my popularity, which was already big, grew bigger!

But, one day, all the crops died. Sure, I didn’t cared because most of my food didn’t contained any fruits or vegetable. Shortly after, the animals were falling by thousands. The world government, then, realised the gravity of the situation. They started building machines that turns human waste into so-called food.

I remember the first time I tasted that synthetic stuff. It looked like grey goo, sprinkled with light grey powder with gray liquid in a bowl, which I guessed was soup. I took my fork and started to dig in. It tasted so much synthetic that I’m sure I lost at least a thousand taste buds just by taking one bite at it. As a renowned chef, I tried to make a recipe that would turns this hellish meal into something that would only came from heaven. The only thing I managed to so is fail, time after time. I finally lost my popularity because of all those fails. Because I lost my clients, I had to close my restaurant, for good.

Now that I was no longer able to cook perfectly, I managed to find something in another department which I excel in : piano. There was a theater near the place I lived, so, I decided to ask if there was a place in any of their musical show for a pianist. To show them my talent, and get myself some credits toward them, I played few song that I knew. They immediately liked my performance and they talked about me to lots of musical show owner. With their help, I managed to get my place in some of the most popular musicals. I was the pianist behind Winter Wrap Up, Art of the dress and May the best pet win. I was so popular that people even came to see me after my performance to get an autograph.

But, one day, I’ve lost my girlfriend to some jerk who used to bully me. I was very sad and I just came out of the theater. Because I wanted to hide from the fan wave, I got out by the back door. I ran as fast as I could toward my friends car door. When I entered his car, he saw how sad I was. He, then, gave me a cigarette. He told me that it helped him each time he was sad.

When I was young, I promised myself that I would never take any kind of smoking thing, like cigarette and cigars. I did every kind of promise possible. One day, my friend showed me the ‘Pinkie promise’. I did it, without knowing what would happen if I broke it.

I took the stick and his lighter and lit it. I took a deep breath of the smoke. At first, I was wondering how they did to get addicted to it, but, after few more breath, I started to feel better.

We went to my house and I got out of the car. I waved at him going away. I took few steps toward my front door when I heard a shout in the distance. It sounded like ‘YOU BROKE A PINKIE PROMISE’. I didn’t care and I continued to walk while smoking. When I was in front of the door. a pink ball hit me right in the chest. I was trying to get off under it when it started hitting my shoulders and hurt me by its weight. I had never felt so much pain in my life. I fainted after few minutes of restless pain.

When I woke up, I was in a hospital room. Somebody found me and brought me there. The guy told me that I got beat up by a pony, which is incredibly rare. The doctor told me that I had some broken ribs and a broken shoulder. I wasn’t at the end of my pain. The attack damaged the nerves in my right shoulder. If I try to move it, the reaction occur much later. Unless I managed to play piano with one hand, which is impossible, I would never play again. Even when I tried, wishing that I would have been blessed, I messed up.

I left the theater leaving behind such amount of swears it would’ve made a sailor blush. I promised myself that I would take revenge on those ponies, even if it would cost my life. But, I didn’t wanted to go into the HLF because I hated violence, but life already had my life written. While I was walking toward my house, which was already far by going with a car, I got hit from behind right on my head and fainted, again.

When I woke up, I was in a bed in the HLF training camp in the city we used to call Quebec. I never knew why I was there, or how did I got there, but I didn’t cared. After 5 month of easy training, they sent me in the HLF HQ located near my old home, in Montreal. It took long before I made a name for myself in the history book of the HLF, but I did it, and it feels good.

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“This is the story of how I got here, which no longer matter. Now that my friends are back, I can forget about the past and walk toward the future.” I said to the said friends. I was walked peacefully with two of the new comrades that just came out from training, which are also my long lost friends from high school.

“That was a nice story, but I don’t want to walk during the whole day while listening to each other’s past, I want to do something cooler.” Said the first man, Kevin. He was an average joe with some bigger muscles. His patience is very small and, if you are in his range of fire while he’s angry, you have great chance of dying. He have green eyes hidden behind his dark brown hairs. Even if we are a lot different, we managed to stay friend.

“I don’t have any idea what to do. It’s not like it’s an amusement park out there.” I turned to stare at the other guy, Nathaniel. He is a bit taller than the average, but far less muscled. He got the same eyes and hair color as Kevin. The only thing that is weird about him is his personality. He is a bit crazy, but is very random. He throws random comment in conversation and don’t care about other people’s confusion. His goal in life, make everybody smile.

“Got an idea what we could do, Nat?” I asked him. He tapped his chin with his hand until he finally found an idea. He searched in his pocket and took out a PSP. It was the first generation that ever existed and there wasn’t even a scratch on it.

“Watching me play Final Fantasy XXXIII?” He said while smiling in an exaggerated way. If he would be in a cartoon, his smile would be at least 5 meters large.

“You say that all the time. Is there a place where you don’t have this machine on you?” I sarcastically asked him. We all laughed at Nathaniel’s common behavior. We were all happy that we were back together. Even if there was missing some of our other friends that used to be in our group, we were still happy.

We continued talking about random things like the next video game convention that would be happening in San Francisco, and other stuff. We talked so loud that we didn’t hear the small ‘whoosh’ in the bushes behind us. There was a blowgun pointing toward me that was coming out of it. It fired, which send a dart in my neck.

“Ouch, what happened?” I said while removing the thing that was stuck in my neck. “A mosquito!? How is it possible. The whole specie died when the pollution was over the top.” I checked the insect again. It looked exactly like a mosquito, but I was sure that they were all dead. “Well, I think I killed it. Rest in peace, unfriendly bloodsucker.” My friend checked in my hand and they both wondered how a mosquito survived. I threw the insect deep in the forest, hoping that I killed the last one on Earth.

Suddenly, I burped. Not the common one, more like the one that you do after drinking 2L of soda. I placed my hand on my mouth, a bit ashamed of myself, but, when I saw both of my friend laughing their ass off, I started laughing with them. Then, I had a really weird taste in my mouth, the one of artificial cherries.

“Yuck, it taste like artificial cherries. How is it possible? I no longer eat cherries,” I asked myself. They both chuckled at my question. “Yeah, yeah. Laugh as much as you want. Also, just to know, what time is it?” I asked Nat. He lifted his arm and checked one of his three watch.

“It’s 11:34. I think it’s time to go eat,” he said. We all nodded and walked toward the HQ. When we entered the cafeteria, the cook told us that he manage to steal food from a conversion bureau. It means that today, we would eat real food and not artificial waste. With all the ingredients, he made some spinach flavored tortellini. Unluckily, because the bureau don’t have meat, this would be a vegetarian lunch.

What happened next was awkwardly weird. When I took a bite of the tortellini, I made a sound that looked like a foodgasm. They all looked at me, laughing a lot. It was very weird, but it was just laughs so, I didn’t cared.

After managing to eat without making more sound, and being the laughing stock of all the HQ, we went to a reunion with the headmaster of the HQ. With the help of his spies, he found out that the PER made a new weapon designed to ponify somebody without being spotted. Their goal is to ponify everybody until the world is populated only by ponies, which is the reason why they are our enemies.

We walked from the cafeteria toward the reunion room #3. Because we arrived a bit early, we needed to wait a bit until everypony… wait, what the heck? Let me rephrase this. Okay, we waited a bit until EVERYBODY arrives. After a long wait trying to understand why I said ‘this’ word.

The reunion started when all the captain arrived. The headmaster started talking: “Listen up girls, we got another problem on our shoulder,” he said with annoyance in his voice. “Those damned PER created a new weapon made with their crappy serum. From the information I got, the weapon is a dart filled with serum. The said dart look like a mosquito. They are sending blow gunners all around the country to turn important people into ponies.” Let’s rewind this a bit... A MOSQUITO DART. Uh oh...

“If you are ‘bit’ by one of those insects, please tell us,” He continued. “With your help, we may find a cure and save your life. If you die while trying to hold your humanity, you will die as a hero and not as an alien. If you are transformed and you tried to stay human, we will continue to help you. If we manage to make a humanification serum, you will be the first one to be saved.” He said

I looked around for Nathaniel’s never ending grin. He looked at me with a bit of sadness. He motioned a dart moving in my neck. I stood up, surprising everybody in the room. I walked toward the exit, in front of the eyes of my friend. I heard Nat inventing some excuse for my sudden exit. He came out of the room and patted my back.

“Can you tell me why, Nat? Why am I always the one in this kind of situation?” I said while sobbing a bit. I didn’t wait for an answer. I ran toward my room and packed the stuff I had left. “I’m going to run away tonight. Don’t try to stop me. It was very nice to meet you again, even if it was short.”

He placed his hand on my shoulder and sighed. “You’ve been my friend since high school. Even if I did my best to come here, I will never leave you. Remember, we are best friend forever.” He said. I was happy that he would follow me, even through hell.

Tonight would be the most difficult day of my life. Against all odds, we would break out the the head quarters and we will walk proudly toward a conversion bureau. I just hoped that none of us would die in the process.

To be continued…

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A/N : Hello guys, NetherPortal is here.

I hope you liked this chapter. This is the first chapter of the rewritten version of my only good story. Thank to Krass McWriter, WastelandGunner, IanTeanBoy and all the others who helped me correcting this story.

I'll continue writing this while writing the collab, which I still don't know why it's not uploaded. >.<

Welp, ta ta for now~!

~NetherPortal... you know what, call me like my main OC, StrawberryFrosting !

~StrawberryFrosting