The Next Conversion

    The first stop was, logically, the Conversion lab. If they were searching for the serum this was the best place. I walked over and began hearing a someone throwing various items around and the sound of shattering glass. I quickly opened the door and found a man in uniform leaning over, throwing chemicals, and shouting at a man huddled in the corner. I noted he was wearing a lab coat, the poor guy was probably about to call someone in for conversion.

    I once again fell back on my failsafe plan. “Stop! I am Colonel Bradford and I command you to-”

“That voice…” The man said in a disturbingly nasally voice. “You aren’t Colonel Bradford!” He turned to face me and then I realized he was not leaning over at all, he had a hunch! His uniform contorted to adjust itself to his odd stature, his face was one that a mother couldn’t love; one eye bulging from his head and the other covered by an eye patch, his mouth had a horribly large overbite and his lower jaw was dangling as if it hadn’t been used in his entire life.

    I noticed he was wearing a beret nigh identical with mine and I realized something.

“You’re a Colonel?!” I shouted, horrified by the man’s presence.

“Ah! So he has an intellect to match his charisma!” He said sarcastically, his one eye began to twitch as he scanned me. “You are either the bravest man I have met or the dumbest, taking an officer’s uniform to conceal yourself. I bet you think you’re the hero huh?”

    I pulled my revolver but before I had known what had happened it flew out of my hand! I looked at the man and saw he was a better draw and shot I would ever hope to be, holding a laser pistol at his waist.

“Get with him.” He said, motioning the gun over to the scientist, I headed over and huddled with the man as the hunchback turned back to his search.

    I started to think, this guy could kill me the moment I made any move. There had to be a weakness I could use against him,

Suddenly it clicked!

“Doctor,” I said “Do you have any of that potion thingy he’s trying to get his hands on?”

“Of course,” He responded.

    “Why? Do you have a plan or are you just going to take the coward’s way out?”

“I was going to give it to him, but not in the way HE’D want.”

“What?! Are you crazy? You can’t just jam him full of the stuff! It would-”

“Would you rather him killing you the moment he figures out that the serum is on you?”

    A short pause followed before he gave me the vial.

“I do not approve of this…” I could only roll my eyes at this statement as I slowly got up. I silently approached the man and tried to wrap my arm around him, keeping my the vial behind me. Before I could he turned to face me and grabbed my arm, using his free hand he punched me in the stomach.

    “Ah-ah-ah, not so fast kid. You didn’t think it would be THAT simple did you?” He begun to ramble on about how he was better than me, and the horrible things he would do like prying my fingers out one by one with a pair of pliers or kidnapping me and getting the scientists to dissect me without anesthesia. When he’d finished he apparently had just said such things to scare me so I would be able to see my own demise with adrenaline coursing through my body.

He wrapped his large hand around my neck and began to strangle me, he dropped my arm and used it to help. He lifted me off the floor as I felt the air stop in my windpipe, the blood trying in vain to flow, my vision getting hazy as I took my hand from behind my back, opening the container and jammed the vial into his mouth. He tried to spit it out while strangling me but my hand held the glass in his gaping maw until he finally let go of me. He was more furious than ever and was breathing heavily after he spit it out. I took my eyes to the vial and found that he had drunk almost all of it.

    His iris began to enlarge as the drug began to take effect, his hat was pushed off by a mane growing in, his slack jaw dropped even further as he looked at his body changing color.

“What did you do? WHAT DID YOU DO?” He shouted as he backed into the counter staring as his fingers began to conjoin before his very eyes.

    “No, this can be happening!” He shouted, holding his head as his eyes began to grow larger. He screeched in pain as his feet began to turn into hooves and tore up his footwear with their size. As his fingers began to fall off he fumbled for his gun, and put it in his mouth, just barely keeping a grip on it and the trigger. With tears falling down his face, his gun went off, ending his suffering.

   He fell limp, his gun fell to the floor, and blood dripped from the hole in the bottom of his skull. I was mortified but the scientist was laughing as if he was the villain of an old B movie over the sound of flesh being changed and contorted, bones being broken and rebroken to create the structure of the new stallion. Turning around, I could only look at him in horror as he laughed for a good minute before he finally calmed down.

    “What is WRONG with you?!” I shouted. “Did you just not see a man shoot himself in the head before us?” The scientist began chuckling more and pointed to the body. I turned to see that the brute had been replaced by a deep orange stallion that was twitching on the floor.

    “W-what happened to him?” I asked, looking at the pony sitting in the pile of blood.

“He was converted,” He said, smiling. “He must not have killed himself fast enough and the serum worked its way through his body.”

“Is he… dead?” I asked poking him.

“Hardly, you see the serum you injected him has a habit of… bringing beings back from the edge of death. It repairs all the problems the human had, only physically of course.” He picked up the small horse and put him on his back. “Of course it has a bad habit that if any damage of the brain during the conversion will the conversion result in…complete memory loss,” He said with a smile.

    “So.. He won’t remember a thing?” I responded curious. “None of the people he’s killed, none of the hell he put the bureau through? I think he’s gotten the last laugh…”

“Oh contraire my friend,” he said adjusting his coat, “He had just destroyed the last of his human self in this pony and he is now the very thing he sought to destroy. I would say it is poetic justice.” I decided to stop arguing the points of his fate and went to pick up my gun.

    I once again used the brick to open the hidden door and lead him and the former brute he was hauling down the hall. At the end of the hall he gave me something that he believed would be helpful: a key to the security room, he said it gave me clearance to the cameras the guards used. When I tried to ask him where the guards went he shut the trap door on me.

    Sighing, I turned back to the cell and saw that the man in it was still squirming and trying to say something through his gag.

“Sorry soldier, I have a few more POW’s to capture.” I said smiling.

Autor's Nos: Ooooh I can hear TV Tropes calling me out on this right now. "Unfortunate Implications" here I come, wouldn't be the first time. I actually have QUITE a few chapters un-uploaded right now, hopefully to tide you over 'till the REAL new one comes out.