The Conversion Bureau: Instincts

Chapters

...Is to take no risk...
Prologue
The Biggest Risk...

...Is to take no risk...

'Dear Princess Celestia,

Whilst studying human history, I have come to notice that their past is full of violence. Did you know that they had two World Wars, the resulting deaths totalling to around 80 million deaths between them?!

They had even more wars before and after as well, not any as major as the World Wars, but still, horrid warfare all the time. Terrorism and such.

Are you sure we can trust our new Human allies, because I'm not so sure we can trust a species with such a violent past…’

Excerpt from Twilight Sparkle’s second letter to Princess Celestia after arriving on Earth.

“ANFO,” David said.

“You what?” Freya asked,

“ANFO.” David repeated, “it stands for ammonium nitrate fuel oil. Fertiliser and diesel basically.”

“I remember dad making bombs out of petrol and fertiliser, now that you mention it,” I said, “I just regret not asking him how.”

“Well it's not as hard as you would think. We need some plain detonators, the ANFO itself and a container to put it it, you see it doesn’t need oxygen to use it. You know about Texas Harbour?” David patiently explained,

“Well, no,” Harry said,

“Back in 1947, the was a ship full of ammonium nitrate and tobacco, some bloke dropped a fag and the whole thing caught alight. The crew tried to fight it by sealing the containers to restrict the oxygen but they didn't know that it didn't need oxygen so the whole thing blew, killing over 500 people. We can replicate that in a Bureau, if we could just get inside.” David explained to us all.

“What Rodd said, about Celestia coming here next, we need to get out of this area of England fast,” Jack said, “perhaps we could find another resistance group,”

“Yeah, like Rodd said, those people who tried to be heroes. What if there are others?” Harry asked, he sounded interested now,

“There's got to be,” I said, “but we need to get out anyway. If Rodd has reliable sources, then we need to be long gone by the week’s end.” Today is Tuesday.

“Agreed,” David said, “I suppose we should get a move on then,”

David was the only one keen on leaving so soon, the rest of us were brought up in this country, and to leave it would be like disconnecting part of my soul. David was a townie, as we called them. He lived in Grantham. He didn't have the same connection to the country as we did.

“Who’s up for lamb tonight?” I asked. We rarely made fires at night as passing pegasi would spot us from miles away. But tonight, as our last night in the village, we needed a good meal, and we’d been preparing some sheep for a while now to eat.

Harry and I went to kill the sheep. I don't see why people say that people who just follow others are sheep. Sheep are not like that at all, they never do what you want and always wonder off on their own. I'm rambling aren't I?

Oh well. I can't help it if I like sheep.

We roughly butchered the lamb and lit a fire. David was on watch and Freya didn't really enjoy the bloody sight of Harry, Jack and I making her food. She could gun down other living, intelligent beings but couldn't stomach cooking. I guess it just shows what one can do in hot and cold blood.

After the lamb was ready we took some to David, who was still on sentry, and ate away from him to not distract him.

“This is nice,” Jack said, “I mean, it would be if the ponies weren't here trying to ponify us,”

“Mmhmm,” Freya agreed, “why did they even attack us?”

“Something about humans being too violent even though there were pony extremists as well, like the Harmony Today group,” I said,

Harmony Today was a pony group that despised humans, they believed us to be unpure and unnatural as we don't have magic. Celestia claimed she was opposing them, but with war declared a few months later, it's hard to believe she was.

I turned on the radio, seeing if I could pick anything up. I did,

“-tay hidden, ponies are systematically wiping out each town then moving on. The American Government has fallen, the Pentagon was attacked and overrun yesterday. The Royal Family was last heard from in New Scotland. We assume that they are still alive. North Korea still hasn't sent any sort of communication to anyone, even in the end times. This is your evening news broadcast. Over and out.”

“Everyone, get some paper and write down what you heard, we’ll compare what we get,” Harry said.

Our versions were surprisingly different but still contained the basic idea. We were discussing it, America, North Korea, the Royal Family when David rushed over to us and said,

“Pegasi! Royal Guards I think. Armed with Potion!”

My eyes widened and I hissed at everyone,

“Split up, when they land, encircle them. I'm using the 3 round burst rifle.”

They complied and each grabbed a weapon. I slipped behind the trough for feeding the sheep and looked around for the others. I couldn't see them, good enough for me.

The pegasi landed by our fire and sniffed the lamb remains,

“Killed recently, humans are here,” the one, the leader I think, said. “Potion Launchers out, boys,”

Potion Launchers, that’s new.

I thought. Suddenly someone hollered out an unearthly shriek. An awful sound. Enough to churn fear in the ponies, that was for sure. It scared me for sure. When the ponies were looking away, Freya slid behind, next to me.

“It's Jack,” she was referring to the noise.

“Bloody Jack,” I gritted my teeth, “he thinks it's a game!”

“He scared them though,” Freya grinned at me, teeth glinting.

“True, anything that peeves them assholes is a small victory for us,” I said.

Unluckily for us, David, Harry and Jack were nowhere to be found, and one of the ponies was a bit too interested in the trough were Freya and I were hiding. The pony saw us before we noticed him. He yelled,

“Get up, humans!”

Freya and I had no choice, she had left her rifle at her previous hiding spot so she could move quicker and I threw mine forward as I dived so it was out of reach.

“I could ponify you here, now.” The pony said, “but that would be a more painful way, it's much more comfortable to have it done in a Bureau, where you invest it, not get it on your bare skin,”

“Go to hell,” I said. The pony chuckled,

“By week's end, you’ll be calling it Tartarus”

Prologue

If you’d told me a few years back that I would be in a guerrilla warfare group fighting against magical ponies that are trying to convert us all into them, I would have either pointed you to the nearest padded, all white cell, locked away from civilisation, or ran from you, fearing that you were insane and were going to kill me.

Life’s funny like that. I remember back in 2015 when they used the Large Hadron Collider to make contact with a parallel universe. It was historical, incredible, outstanding. We sent messages into that universe, and we got a reply.

Before we knew it, we had made contact with a race of intelligent ponies, some able to use magic and others able to fly. There were air shows, human airplanes and Pegasus flight teams dominating the skies, there were advances in medicine, cures for diseases we never would have thought possible. It was a time of great prosperity, mankind and ponykind’s Golden Age.

Of course though, you cannot have a rise without eventually having a fall. Princess Celestia, the Ponies ruler and monarch, was the end of our Golden Age. There was always radical hate against the ponies, usually by religious people and racists. When our Golden Age was nearing its end, violence was erupting on the streets, hundreds of pony and human deaths alike.

Our fall wasn't a quick thing, it happened slowly but surely. The first stage was the Conversion Bureaus, completely optional at first. Optional but free. You see the ponies had developed a potion by combining human nano science and pony magic. The result was a liquid that could transform a human fully into a pony of any type apart from Alicorn, which is a pony with wings and a horn. Bureaus were built in every capital city of the world, so one in every country. It was funded by the ponies so our governments were fine with it.

This ponification process was absolutely free, leading to many people living in slums to get themselves ponified in search of a better life. There was jobs exclusive to ponies, for example Princess Celestia demanded that only ponies could run the Bureaus. I guess that they realised that they could get in on these jobs if they did it.

After the first rush to get ponified, it all but stopped after a few months, and the Bureaus were rendered almost useless. Almost. Rumour had it that Princess Celestia had changed one of them into a lab for testing new versions of the potion. Nobody paid much attention to them.

Three months after the rumours stopped circulating, it happened. The first thing we knew in England there was some kind of explosion in Waterloo. Princess Celestia then claimed responsibility whilst in a meeting with Jeremy Corbyn, the prime minister, and pulled out some sort of vial and threw it over him. Before our eyes on live television he was the first to be forcefully ponified. That was the official start of the war. Celestia then revealed what she was doing in her lab in Canada: creating a potion that would make anyone touched by it a pony 100% loyal to her and her alone.

That was when all hell broke loose, it was every human for themselves. Rumours of the HLF, Human Liberation Front, a group who would attack the ponies in large numbers, spread round the humans who managed to stay hidden. Billions of humans were ponified in the first week.

We had few firearms, what we did have was not that powerful at all. Three .22 rifles, a .308 rifle and a magnum revolver. Plenty of ammo for the 308, some for the revolver, not so much for the .22s. Luckily, we came across a small battle sight. There were 4 automatic rifles and 1 3 round burst rifle. There was also splodges of potion everywhere, which we narrowly avoided. There was plenty of ammo and a few pony bodies, but no human ones. The ponies were obviously more interested in ponifying then killing.

That was three days ago, now I'm with the four other people in a little survival group. My name is Thomas, I'm a 24 year old and a farmer. Lived on the land all my life, wielded a .22 when hunting with my best friend and neighbour, Jack. Jack grew up with me, I was born a few months before him and we were best friends all through childhood. He owned the farm that I worked on with him, he inherited it from his dad.

Harry is a level headed, calm guy. He moved to our village a while back and brought knowledge of other farming techniques from other villages. He has blonde hair and his eyes are a bluey-grey colour. He brought another .22 rifle to our collection.

Freya lived in the village a few miles on from ours, she was visiting me when war first broke out. She is a really close friend. Our parents used to joke that we were destined to end up together. Her father owned the .308 which she took here to show me. We went back to hers a bit after war broke out for more ammo.

We found David when going looting in the corner shops. He was huddled behind the counter, shaking in fear. We took him in. He helped us and we helped him. It's always nice for manpower, safety in numbers and all that.

From what we could gather from the few radio calls with other groups we’ve had, the reason a nuke hasn't been dropped yet is because of the country’s leader, the one who has the codes is dead or Celestia just wiped their country out, replacing the whole population with ponies. The radio was our one source of contact, and with batteries fading fast, we were running out of options, it’s getting to either attack or stay hidden now. No advice from other pockets of human resistance.

Celestia and her forces round up more humans every day, taking them to their Bureaus to be ponified. Perhaps, we can get into one and take it out. Perhaps we can make a difference in this war. Perhaps we can survive.

The Biggest Risk...

15th October 2016

‘Ever since we made contact with the human race, both our species have prospered greatly. Although there are some groups of both our races who dislike each other, we have created a harmonic society of humans and ponies. Things are looking up. I must admit I was surprised at the technology the humans had just as they were probably surprised at our magic. Human technology and magic are compatible, perhaps we can combine the two for even better inventions and creations. I've seen their slums, someone needs to take action…’

-Excerpt from Princess Celestia’s diary.

“We are in the Lincoln area, we’re not giving our exact location in case they are listening in. We’re getting hemmed in and we’re running out of options. Is anyone out there? Over,”

We sent out our daily radio call and as usual, no reply came.

“What a surprise,” David grumbled, “still no reply.” He wrote something down in his notebook. He did that a lot, he would write poetry and thoughts about life and a few half assed drawings.

“We’ll get one, eventually,” Freya replied, ever the optimist, “but we're on our own for now and we need more supplies. One of us needs to go into town,”

“Two,” I said, “two here and two getting supplies. We should do everything in pairs.”

“Seems a hell of a risk to loose two of us. Surely it's better if there is one ponified and three humans then two humans and two ponified,” Jack said, “we all know what a whizz I am at maths,”

“The biggest risk is to take no risks. Or crazy risks,” Harry said, “we should send two.”

So it was agreed. At noon Freya and I would sneak into the nearest town and scavenge. We each took an automatic rifle to take with us. I spent the rest of the morning on sentry. We always had a lookout, it was just to dangerous not to have one.

It was finally time to go, we had a collection of bicycles for these journeys. They were silent but speedy, making them very useful. Freya and I chose one, waved goodbye and left.

The cycle into Grantham was long and dull. We played categories to pass the time.

“Okay, give me five green vegetables before that signpost,” was one Freya gave me,

“Easy; peas, beans, sprouts, lettuce and broccoli.” I said. Suddenly, we heard a low rumbling sound overhead. In peacetime that sound would be so normal it wouldn't have been hard to miss, but now there is only a few million humans left at best, it's a very uncommon sound: the sound of a jet engine. I looked up to see a military jet rush past being chased by a squad of pegasi, one leaving a rainbow trail another leaving a lightning trail behind them. The plane banked hard to the left and got a few shots in, killing two of the ponies, but the lightning one and the rainbow one were not hit. The jet rushed back the way it came.

“Two against one, I hope he makes it,” I said,

“He or she,” Freya muttered and we continued our journey in silence, on edge, looking for ponies.

We left our bikes on the town outskirts and lifted our guns, sticking to the shadows and eyes peeled. We didn't encounter any ponies on the slow walk to the ASDA supermarket. We entered and started grabbing all the non perishable foods there was. We only stopped when we heard a slight cough from behind us. I span around and lifted my rifle, fear and adrenaline rushing through my veins.

“Don't point that bloody thing at me,” Mr Rodd, a fellow farmer said,

“Mr Rodd!” I sighed in relief, “I thought you could be a pony!”

“Understandable. Why are you here? Celestia’s going to be focussed on finding humans in this town next!” Mr Rodd hissed at us,

“Mr Rodd, do you know if there are any others like us?” Freya asked,

“Oh yeah. I've seen some people try to do some things. Tried to be heroes. One group even targeted the London bureau; they all paid the price,” Mr Rodd said,

“Will you come with us, back to our camp?” I asked hopefully,

“What? No, no way. I got a family to look after and defend. I've taken a hell of a risk being out this long and I gotta go back.” With that Mr Rodd scarpered out of the building and ran across the street into the old dentistry.

“We should be going too,” I said just as I heard a gruff male voice say, “you're not going anywhere, humans,”

Freya screamed and I was deafened as her rifle went off and blood splattered across the floor. A blue unicorn with brown hair lay dead on the ground near Freya. The vial of potion it had in its magical grip had fallen to the floor and had started mixing with the pony’s blood.

“Run!” I yelled to Freya but didn't get the chance as a Pegasus barrelled round the corner and I managed to step aside just in time before it knocked me into the puddle of potion. The Pegasus snarled at me and charged me again, I brought up my rifle and it kicked up against me as it spat out round after round into the Pegasus. The guns were so loud! There was no way all the ponies in Grantham didn't hear them but it appeared that is was only the two ponies that found us as the journey back was fortunately pony free. The most important things we’d got was the batteries, bottled water and the chocolate in our opinions.

David and Harry were shocked when they heard our story of meeting Mr Rodd and fighting those two ponies. That night we held another meeting. I wasn't in a good mood though, I, plain old Thomas, had just killed another living, intelligent, being. Harry could sense my regrets,

“It's not your fault,” he told me, “it's theirs, it's all theirs. You were defending your humanity.”

“I'm putting myself above them,” I said, “that's what it comes down to in the end isn't it? How many lives is it okay for me to end to protect my own?” I asked Harry. Harry sighed, “I don't know, Thomas, none of us do. We can just act and protect ourselves. Speaking of, David has an idea on how we could attack a Bureau.”

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