The Conversion Bureau: Inhuman Nature

Chapters

Prologue: Gym Class
Act Zero: Chapter 1: Signs
Act Zero: Chapter 2: Whispers
Act Zero: Chapter 3: Encounter
Act Zero: Chapter 4: Paranoia
Act Zero: Chapter 5: Change
Act Zero:Chapter 6: Divergence
Act Zero: Chapter 7: Sanctuary
Act Zero: Chapter 8: Truths.

Prologue: Gym Class

May 14th 2019.
Penns Creek High
1:29 P.M.

"CLOSE THE FUCKING DOOR!"

Eric and I slam ourselves against the door to the gymnasium, bracing ourselves as a wave of bodies slams into it from the other side. Nearly throwing us to the ground as we desperately try to hold out against the horde.

"What the fuck! WHAT THE FUCK!" Martin screams, adding his weight to the door as the screaming mob of equines pushes against the door in a frenzy.

"Find something to block the door!" I yell to the others.

A sudden surge of weight against the door pushes us back, nearly making us lose our footing as our feet slide across the old wooden floor. The door opens, and instantly a cacophony of high-pitched voices floods into the room.

"JOIN THE HERD!"

"EMBRACE CELESTIA! EMBRACE THE LIGHT!"

"PLEASE! JOIN US!"

"CAST OFF YOUR SIN!"

"Colin! Help us out with this!" I scream, my feet rapidly losing my grip on the ground.

My best friend runs over to us, throwing himself against the door and allowing us to make another push against the tide of bodies on the other side, with our combined weight the door is shut, and the cries of the newfoals decrease in volume. However, their muted cries still seep through the cracks between the doors, tearing at our minds and our wills as our former classmates desperately push back against the door in an attempt to get to us.

"HOLY FUCK! HOLY FUCK!" Martin is still screaming, nearly deafening the four of us as we struggle.

"SHUT. UP." Eric snarls at Martin, his massive stature allowing him to reach over and slap a hand over his mouth. He shifts his stance and presses his back against the door as he does so.

"And I thought Jehovah's Witnesses were pushy!" Colin quips, sweat creasing his brow and dampening his blonde hair as the horde of equines makes another push against us.

"Really not the time Colin!" Another figure adds, his New York, or rather, Manehatten accent reverberating across the gymnasium as he literally flies into the room. He pushes on the top of the door with his forehooves, flapping his wings rapidly, adding force and bracing the door for the next inevitable push.

"Thunder!" I look up at the Pegasus, "where's everyone else?!"

A hoof breaks through one of the windows on the door, showering me and Colin with glass as the voices return to plague us once again.

"There wasn't anything in here strong enough to hold up against 'em!" He replies, "They went to get somethin' stronger!"

Eric removes his hand from Martins' mouth. "It ain't gonna be long before the fuckin' convies figure out there's more than one way in here!" He growls over the voices of our pursuers. "They better find something fast or we might be suckin' hay in a minute!"

"That's racist!" Thunder remarks.

"Not the time, Thunder!" I grit my teeth, squaring my feet and shoulders before redoubling the force I place against the door.

The five of us struggle against their numbers for what feels like a lifetime, they push and we push back, slowly losing ground against them as their numbers only increase, most likely bolstering their numbers with the people still outside

"They're gonna get in!" Colin panicked.

"Son of a bitch!" I took a look out the window to see at least twenty newfoals outside.

"We're coming! Hold on!" Four more people came running into the gym, one carrying a large bundle of rope.

It was Naomi, Kevin, Diana and Anna, they had found something to hold the door

"Rope?! That was the best you could find?!" Thunder eyed the large bundle with panicked skepticism.

"Oh, I'm sorry, would you like to go out and look?" Naomi replied snarkily,

"It was the only thing strong enough we could find," Kevin spoke up, moving to help us, his small size didn't do much to help hold back the newfoals, but it was better than nothing

"Tie the handles!" I ordered, "We don't have time to complain!"

Naomi nodded to her sister, Anna, who dropped the bundle onto the ground before looping it through the door's two metal handles and beginning two tie a knot in it.

"Crumph! CRK! The newfoals' pounding on the door grew more frenzied as they overheard our intentions, their need to get to us becoming more intense as their screams became all the more fervent.

"LET US IN!"

"EMBRACE PONIFICATION!"

"CELESTIA DEMANDS OUR UNITY!"

Anna flinched as the only other window on the door was smashed by another hoof, showering us all with glass as the hoof flailed around.

"THE POTION! BRING THE POTION!"

"PUSH IT THROUGH THE HOLES!"

"Shit!" Martin swore, "Any day now Anna!"

"I'm trying!"

"I"m seeing potion bottles out there!" Thunder warned, "They're passing it up!"

"Craaaaap!" My nerve began to fail as I saw the potion grow closer and closer to us. "Anna, I don't want hooves!"

"YOU"LL LOVE IT!" A unicorn mare screamed through the window, "We'll free you from your human nature! You'll all be so happy as ponies!"

"The fuck I will!" Eric snarled back.

"It's almost here!" Thunder's voice grew frantic as his wings flapped faster than I thought possible.

"Oh God!" Martin's head was slick with sweat, his ebony skin reflecting the fluorescent lighting of the gym . "FUCK THIS!"

Colin glared at the panicking boy.

"Martin I swear to God if you run out on us I will personally use you as a shield for the potion!"

"Got it!" Anna threw herself back from the door, leaving a tightly wrapped pair of handles behind as she put as much distance between her and the door as possible.

We all followed suit, practically throwing ourselves back from the door as the potion poured through the windows, dousing the entire lower half with the purple substance.

"COME BACK!"

"WE"LL MAKE YOU ALL HAPPY! LOOK HOW HAPPY WE ARE!"

"Shut up!" Screamed Diana, "Shut up! Shut up!"

The newfoals continued to beat against the door, throwing their bodies against it as they continued to scream and shout.

"Come on!" Eric got to his feet and began to help Anna to hers. "That rope isn't going to hold for long!"

"Wait!" Martin called out, "does anyone else hear that?!"

Thmp! Thmp! A dull thud echoed in the exposed metal vents above us, moving along its length until it left the room.

"They're in the vents!" Naomi looked overhead with a fearful expression, everyone followed her gaze as the sound of thumping only intensified, leaving the room and heading further into the school.

"Does anyone know where those vents lead next?!" I asked, looking at everyone's terrified faces as the noises continued.

"I think to the cafeteria," Diana whispered.

"Not to mention every other classroom in the school." Remarked Colin.

This was bad... first the mascots... then the field... now, this.

The pounding on the door slowed, before coming to a stop as the converts left the door, the sound of their hooves and laughter fading away as they began to run off to God knows where.

"Can we talk about what just happened?!" Anna looked back to the rest of us, "Who the hell would do something like this?"

"Did you see what that stuff did to them!?" Kevin added, "They went from screaming and running like us, to tackling anyone with hands and screaming about potioning them!

"They melted! God, I can't get that screaming out of my head!" Colin cast another mournful look in the direction of the doors. "Is that what the potion actually does to people?!"

"Wasn't the mental degradation supposed to happen gradually?!" Naomi held her hands behind her head, attempting to steady her breathing, "How did they get all of that potion anyway?!" She asked to no one in particular.

"Reitman..." I answered.

Everyone turned to look at me, their expression ranging from shock to grim confirmation.

Thunder's eyes widened.

"That would mean..."

"Reitman,... explains the mascots and the T-shirt cannons." Colin chuckled darkly, "To think we thought those rumors were false."

"Reitman must have left all the potion into the town when she came to give that speech..." Naomi concluded, "But why Penns Creek?"

I think back to one of my 'unexpected' houseguests... she had said Equestria had wanted her magical talent, but that doesn't explain why Reitman would just show up and supply an attack on the school. Penns Creek was a town of nobodies, nothing important was here, which meant that my Equestrian friends were a little bit more than they seemed.

"No, man..." Martin said, denial clear on his face "My sister is with them... she wouldn't do something like this."

"Reitman has a way with words..." I replied, " Anyone can see that, and with all the religious crap she was spouting it made it seem like the P.E.R was a cult and the potion is their holy water, if your sister is with them, she might already be a newfoal."

"But-"

"CRACK! CRACK!"

Gunshots echoed throughout the building, cutting off any conversation as the noises slowly faded.

"T-that must have been one of the deputies." Anna breathed, "They must have stayed behind to look after the building."

"This is bucked...." Thunder paced back and forth, his hooves clopping against the hardwood audibly.

A scream split the air, one so loud and long it sounded like the guy's vocal cords would have been bleeding by the end of it, but instead, the scream slowly changed into loud, psychotic laughter, laughter that echoed through the halls and lingered long after it had ended.

"Maybe we should talk about this somewhere less exposed." Naomi cast a worried look at the gym's entrance, which was both unbarred and wide open. "Somewhere with fewer vents and doors."

"Good idea...." Eric looked at the door uneasily, "There's a supply closet by the guy's locker room..."

The nine of us quickly moved to and crowded into the locker room, finding the door, we all did our best to get everyone in there, Thunder had to hover in place just so all of us could fit.

"Well..." Naomi groaned, "It's better than nothing."

I shouldered my way past Anna and Diana "We need to get out of here..."

"We just got in." Eric cocked his head in confusion.

"Out of the school!" I grumbled, "If we don't want to be ponified."

We needed to get to our homes, I really needed to, as my 'guests' had more than a little explaining to do regarding who she was and why Reitman organized an attack to get her.

"Wouldn't it be better to wait?" Anna piped up, she turned to Eric, "You called your Dad just before everything happened, right?"

Eric nodded.

"Well then," Anna gave an optimistic smile, "We should just wait here until Eric's dad and all the other sheriffs get here!"

"What makes you think the cops can handle this?" Martin interrupted. "For all we know the town is being attacked too."

That left us all in silence...

"He has a point." Thunder's ears drooped.

"The Sheriff's office doesn't have much in the way of chemical protection." I pursed my lips, "We don't even know how many people out there were converted, they may already have a ready-made army."

"This is beyond bad." Naomi leaned against a wall, tears leaking from her eyes. "Why us!?"

"The people under Reitman are radicals," Colin scowled "religious ones at that, if we're to believe the rumors, they've been kidnapping people ever since the HLF attacked the bureaus."

"Might as well be a holy war," I added. "The HLF have been butchering Equestrians in the streets, you've all seen what that maniac in Austria has been doing to them. It only makes sense that the P.E.R would fight back."

"But outright attacking a town like this?" Naomi clenched her fists, "

"How does that have anything to do with Penns Creek?" Eric rolled his shoulders uncomfortably

Naomi's face contorted in fear as her eyes widened. "I might have an idea..."

All of us looked to her, eyes expectant.

"Numbers."

"What's that supposed to mean." Diana stammered.

"It means that they're here to recruit."

Thunder's eyes widened considerably as understanding dawned on him, "Oh, we're bucked, we are B-U-C-K-E-D"

"Can someone give me a straight answer please?!' Eric tapped his foot nervously as he looked between us.

"It means they're here for everyone here..." I said, my heart beating out of my chest.

"They're gonna convert everybody.

"Right you are Eli!" A cheerful and familiar voice came from the other side of the door,

All of us looked at the door in horror, none of

"Now if you could please all step out of there, we can get started, Eli, my love, you can be first!"

Out of any words or phrases used to describe the situation, I think Colin described it best.

"Oh fuck."

We desperately threw ourselves against the small room's door as hooves began beating against the wood, beginning to splinter it.

Well, this is where I die, well... not die, but I'm pretty sure that I'm not gonna like pontification very much.

I'm not gonna lie, on a scale from "one" to "up shit creek without a paddle," I'm probably up shit creek without a boat.

I suppose it all could have gone much worse for me, but it definitely could have gone better.

Maybe I should elaborate....

Act Zero: Memories

Author's Note

New Prologue!

I was working on another chapter when I got the idea for this, so expect another one in short order after this is posted.

Again, sorry for all this, this will probably be the only time I actually add a new chapter in that takes the place of another one. I hope this doesn't effect your view of the story in a negative way, I'm still new to the whole concept of writing fanfics, but I'll get better with practice.

Act Zero: Chapter 1: Signs

I suppose I should start with the beginning, shouldn't I?

Of course, you all know the general story by now.

Not the very beginning, mind you, I'm not gonna bore you to death with my life's story. Just when things got interesting, I'd say when a portal to another dimension opened would be about where things really kicked off.

Most world governments were scrambling to get information on the mysterious portal, which had somehow opened at the European Center for Nuclear research. I still remember when the first news report came in...

February 6th, 2018
Penns Creek High School Cafeteria
12:15 P.M

"Eli, Holy shit!"

I looked up from my meager meal of a sandwich and chips to find my friend Colin holding his phone up to my face. At first I thought it was another one of the half-baked memes we always laughed at.

"Hey man, can this wait?" I gave my friend a bored look as I took a bite of my sandwich. "I love a dank meme as much next guy but I'm trying to-"

"No! no! no! This is the real shit man!" Colin shook his head, his sandy blonde hair shaking around his head like a bush.

I took a closer look at his phone and noticed the CNN channel logo on the bottom left side of the screen. I sighed and took a look around me, everyone was laughing and chatting, as was the usual for a high-school cafeteria, but I also noticed more and more people looking at their phones. People slowly gathered around anyone else who had their phone and watched with rapt attention.

I raised an eyebrow and looked back at Colin's phone, which he set on the table before taking a seat next to me and playing the video. Immediately an image of a large, domed building I'd never seen before appeared on the screen, followed by the voice of a woman.

"In a startling discovery, a portal of unknown origin manifested at the European Center for Nuclear Research last night. However, any attempts to discover what may be on the other side of this portal have thus far failed due to the loss of communication between our side of this anomaly and any unmanned exploratory devices that have been sent through. All attempts to view what may lie beyond this portal have stopped and every drone sent through has been assumed to have been destroyed. "

"Whoa..." I looked at the image of the portal, studying it with wide eyes as the video played on.

The thing was massive, bordered in a sort of purple energy while showing a colorful landscape on the other side of it.

Eventually, the image switched to the image of an older man, a text box below him identifying him as Ryan Wellen, the head of the University of Cambridge's astrophysics division.

"What we need to understand here," The man began, his voice carrying a heavy English accent to it. "Is that this portal did not originate on Earth."

The Cafeteria had mostly fallen silent, almost everyone watching their phones or looking over shoulders to see someone else's. Many groups began muttering amongst themselves, not in a nervous way, but a reserved, surprised manner that came with the various cliques and social groups of a high school.

Some people brushed off the news, simply continuing and talking with their friends with more volume. I looked around us to see several other people had congregated behind us to watch the video.

"The only way a self-sustaining bridge between two could be created would be through the use of an energy source that we as a species have not yet attained."

"This is incredible." A girl behind us whispered, she pushed her way to the front of our small crowd and moved her head right next to mine. "This was what those weird energy readings were."

I looked to the girl and Identified her as Naomi, a young, bookish girl who I had always found in the library when not doing schoolwork. She was in mine and Colin's 4rth period class, so she always sat near us during lunch. I considered myself an intelligent person, but next to her I might as well have been a vegetable, hell, the whole school might as well have been.

She looked at the island the way a researcher would a new text subject, her eyes scanning the entire thing top to bottom with clinical curiosity.

"What weird energy?" I asked her.

"CERN had been investigating some sort of foreign energy signature before this happened," Naomi replied, her eyes never leaving the screen.

"How do you even know that?" Asked Colin under his breath, the question was rhetorical, but our new friend answered anyway.

"New York Times," She replied, "There was an article on it."

I vaguely remembered seeing a link to the article, I hadn't been too interested in it, I had more pressing concerns like homework or last week's test.

"Therefore," Dr. Wellen continued. "The only logical conclusion to make as to the origin of this portal is that it is alien in nature.

The cafeteria came alive with dozens of hushed conversations, lasting a few minutes before the bell rang, signaling the end of lunch.

Colin and I made our way back to 4th period, throwing what remained of our food away.

"Do ya think they're telling the truth?" voiced Colin, walking ahead of me in a backward gait. "About that place coming from space."

"Maybe," I pulled up the image of the island on my own phone. "It sounds like the only logical answer."

Colin snickered. "I just hope whatever is on that island isn't into probing. I'm not into that sort of thing."

I rolled my eyes and laughed along with him. "Trust me, Colin, not even an alien would want to probe you, they would take one look at you and probably think you're some kinda genetic defect."

"Fuck you." Laughed Colin.

The two of us joked and laughed all the way back to our class. Sure, there was a massive portal that appeared out of nowhere, but what did matter? No one I knew was hurt, nothing bad was happening, so what else could I do but go on with my life?

Days later, the first contact between humanity and an alien race was made, the ruler of a race of equine-like creatures had appeared out of the portal, and almost immediately diplomatic relations had begun.

Within a week, the ruler of Equestria, Princess Celestia, was announced to be attending a U.N summit in the Swiss capital of Geneva, an event that was to be televised worldwide.

I remember seeing the summit with my own eyes, not quite sure if I could believe my eyes as Celestia first appeared on camera. She was tall, standing on four legs and well over six feet tall. She had wings and a horn, which according to Japan was because of her status as a ruler. Her coat was a pristine marble color that almost seemed to shine. Her eyes were a deep magenta, carrying no malice whatsoever. What drew my attention the most, however, happened to be her mane, which flowed with a rainbow-like nature, dancing as if some unseen wind blew through it.

It felt like the whole world sat in silence as she strode up to the podium, her hooves making an audible clopping noise as she walked, echoing through the speakers of my family's TV like a heartbeat. As she approached the small wooden podium, he eyed the microphone, looking at the object with curiosity before looking offscreen to an unseen person. Understanding dawned on her face and she got closer, clearing her throat.

"Ahem!"

My heart stopped.

"People of Earth," Celestia spoke, her voice soft and kind, she looked into the camera with a warm smile.

"We come in peace."

The entire U.N exploded into applause, and the camera cut to various locations worldwide, people cheered and danced and clapped. Humanity was no longer alone in the universe, we had made our first friend.

The meeting went by about as well as could be imagined, Celestia answering the questions of various world representatives with kind smiles and polite tones.

The first question was raised by Spain's representative.

"Why are you here?"

Celestia nodded, apparently expecting the question.

"You see," she had explained, "Our world has developed a kind of energy that has worked its way into almost all things on the planet, it is a force we know as magic. My race has developed a means to manipulate magic, burning through it as the planet endlessly generates more and more, we used this energy in a search for life outside of our own planet, our efforts were rewarded with the discovery of Earth and humanity, we created the portal in order to establish friendly relations between our two peoples. The U.N gave murmurs of approval, satisfied with the answer.

The meeting went on for what seemed like ever, people asking questions and the princess giving answers.

"Why were our drones been destroyed?"

The ruler opened her mouth for a moment, seemingly confused by the question until a man quickly stepped into the camera's view and whispered into Celestia's rule, she nodded briefly to the man before he disappeared and she turned to address the man who had asked the question.

"Magic does not respond well to substances that have not previously been exposed to it, the field that surrounded Equestria was full of so much concentrated magical energy that your machines could not handle the exposure and fell apart as a result. "

"How is your nation ruled?"

"Power is split between four monarchs, each carrying an equal amount of responsibility, however presently out of the four of us I am considered to be the leader."

"I've been told that there is more than one sentient species inhabiting your world, is this true?"

"Yes, Equss is home to a diverse group of sentient species, ranging from griffons to dragons."

Eventually, the final question was asked:

"What do you plan to do next?"

Celestia remained silent, evidently in thought.

"While I do not speak for the other nations of my world, Equestria hopes to maintain peaceful and friendly relations with humankind, my kind values friendship as one of our core values, and as such I was hoping to advocate for free travel between Earth and Equss, allowing both humans and ponies to mingle freely, so we might all one day live in harmony. To promote this, I have come to propose several projects that would be co-opted between Humanity and Equestria, all of these projects being designed to mutually benefit our peoples."

The U.N was somewhat hesitant to grant the princess' request, but eventually, a deal was negotiated.

The summit ended with Celestia walks off stage to a round of applause, a day later news reports appeared showing the princess shaking hands/hooves with various world leaders. Several projects were later undertaken, one of these rumored to be some type of medicine, biologists from all over the world were being called in to help with it.

It had appeared that everything was going to be fine, a bright new future lay ahead of us and both races were eager to take the first step.

Then, the first human attempted to cross into Equestria, a woman named Nathalie Åkerlund, she died within minutes of stepping through, her body showing all the signs of advanced radiation poisoning.

Magic was an incredibly fickle substance, and due to humanity's lack of exposure to the energy and the barrier's high concentration of it, human bodies experienced an almost immediate collapse when they passed through the barrier. Equestria had issued a formal apology and sent condolences to the woman's family soon afterward. A platform was created to act as a staging ground for the bridge between the two worlds, and almost immediately all humans were barred from attempting to cross the barrier for their own safety.

Ponies, on the other hand, experienced no problems crossing the barrier, and within weeks large numbers of Equestrians were allowed to enter the United States of America under government supervision. Among these ponies was Lyra Heartstrings, a young and extremely enthusiastic mare who intended to act as the Equestrian Ambassador to humanity.

She soon became a shining example of the friendships that could be formed between the two races, acquiring several human friends over her initial visit to the U.S and many more over the course of several visits to other nations. She was described by those who met her to be a both kind and inquisitive spirit, ever hungry for more information on humanity.

For the next few months, peaceful relations were maintained, pony culture suddenly became widely popular in mainstream media. Music, art, magic, even a few ponies themselves became pop culture idols. The "Elements of Harmony" were at the forefront of these ponies. Apparently heroes in their own world, these six individuals had become living testaments to the Friendship between man and pony, each one spreading the message of friendship across our planet in their own way.

Then, in the spring of 2018, the potion was developed.

It spread pretty fast at first, advertised as a kind of "Miracle Cure" by one of the lead scientists on the project; Dr. Jacqueline Reitman. It was capable of regrowing limbs, curing cancer, and fixing almost any kind of injury or disorder that the human body could throw at it. The only catch? It turned you into a pony.

Even then, not that many people saw that as a problem, people began taking the potion en masse, some people without any sicknesses or injuries even took it.

Things got worse from there.

Author's Note

Here is chapter 1, the story will become less spread-out in regards to narration the closer the world gets to when the cow pies hit the industrial grade fan. That being said for some reason I'm feeling this story a lot more than I did Worlds Away, so I might actually put that story on hold for a while.
HA! It's been on hold for the past three months!
Oh for Christ's sake!

Act Zero: Chapter 2: Whispers

After the first people took the potion in Boston, it was like the potion was mana from heaven, amputees regrew limbs, cancer patients were cured, and people reveled in the increased strength, wings, or magical capability that the potion could grant them. For about a week everyone was caught up in the "potion fever." The purple liquid being the talk of my school for a couple of days. So, when the potion finally made it to the first major hospital in Atlanta, people of all kinds were lined up around the block to take it. Most people saw it as a symbol of progress, the first testament to what humanity and ponies could do when they worked together, politicians endorsed it to further their careers, some celebrities did too. Though I don't think I ever saw or heard of any of them actually taking the potion.

Some students started thinking about taking it, some of them boasting about how they were going to convert just because they thought it would piss-off their parents. I knew for a fact that almost every special ed student's parents had their child signed up to take the potion that first week after the Boston trials were proven successful. It seemed to make sense at the time, I thought of it as just another way for stupid teenagers to act stupid. As for the special Ed program, I was actually pretty interested to see what would happen.

Some adults from our town took it as well, some desiring a change of pace in life, others avoiding chronic illnesses, though the vast majority of converts happened to be young.

Of course, not everyone saw the potion as a good thing, In the U.S, there was a very small minority that questioned the legitimacy of the substance outright, and despite the fact that it was FDA approved, some people protested it. Some of them were simply backwoods 'heart of the south' folks that sat outside their trailer-park homes with a beer in one hand and a M1911 handgun in the other, just waiting for the government to pull up and try to take the weapon from their hands, other people protested it due to their religion, seeing it as unclean or immoral to change one's body so drastically from the one God had given them. There were also a couple of conspiracy theorists who were absolutely blowing their tops online. You would see them occasionally on the news and on discussion forums, I had heard of one or two doctors starting to research the potion for themselves without any funding, but I didn't think much would ever come out of it.

Meanwhile, the Equestrians themselves grew ever more popular as time went by. DJ PON3 had her first gig on Earth at a music festival in New York alongside Equestrian pop-idol Songbird Serenade, who people were saying sounded a lot like Sia, prompting the two to meet and perform together a week later. A.K yearling, a famous author in Equestria made thousands selling her 'Daring Do' series of novels and was preparing to write another that was rumored to take place on Earth.

Lyra Heartstrings, continuing her work as Ambassador to humanity, had begun traveling the world, meeting world leaders and continuing to foster peace between our races.

But none of them ever came close to the popularity of the Elements of Harmony.

The number of selfies that celebrities took with Pinkie-pie boggled the mind. She apparently began running a party service for people on Earth, and from what I heard... they got wild.

Fluttershy apparently stayed out of the public eye mostly, but I had heard she was visiting wildlife reserves all over the world.

Rarity Belle had recently released a new line of clothing that people were paying hundreds of dollars for, she seemed to favor Europe over other continents, but returned to Equestria after about a month's stay to take care of her sister, Sweetie.

AppleJack was in Texas, I think she was touring most of Southeast America with her family. Which meant she was eventually going to end up in the heart of the south, A.K.A Georgia.

Rainbow Dash mostly stayed in Equestria, training with the Equestrian Equivalent of the air force, the Wonderbolts.

And Twilight Sparkle, after assisting with the development of the potion, appeared to be working with human scientists worldwide on various other projects.

Needless to say, humanity was enamored with Equestria.

Many ponies were migrating to Earth as well, some even settling down, I hadn't seen any yet, though I would have been lying if I said I wasn't interested in meeting one.

Then the potion made its first appearance in my life.

June 9th, 2018

Peterson Road

7:02 AM

"So, are you gonna take the dive?"

I walked through to the bus stop next to my neighbor Martin, I sat near him on the bus, and we had progressed into a sort of friendship after I saved his phone from complete destruction at the hands, or rather, feet of a 190-pound football player. He was a fairly tall guy, a bit thin for his age, and he always had a self-proclaimed 'ladies man' air about him.

"Me?" I scoff, "No way man, I wouldn't look good with hooves and a tail."

Martin chuckled, "Me neither."

The two of us walked in silence, the clouds overhead making it sort of hard to see in the early morning as we approached the stop sign. We lived a bit far from any of the major roads, and Georgia was at least 70% trees, so it always took a while for the bus to show up. Martin and I usually talked about whatever was on our minds most of the time, usually, it was about some new album Martin's favorite artist came up with or a new game the both of us were looking forward to.

Recently though? We had been talking about the ponies.

"My sister thinks she would," sighed Martin after some time.

"What?"

"She thinks she would look good with hooves."

I kept quiet, unsure how to respond, 'W-well, to each their own I guess." I mumbled.

"Shetavia's always been a freak. She told my parents last night she wanted to take the potion, thinks she's 'making a statement' for people at school who are afraid to try it. Mom and Dad raised hell about it and 'tavia called 'em racists. Now she's grounded."

"Girls are weird man," I gave him a pat on the back. "That's just how it is."

"No, this is different, my aunt took that stuff," Martin turned to me, his expression full of uncertainty "She came to visit and she wouldn't stop talking about that stuff, how it made her life 'so much better'. I think she got 'Tavia hooked on that crank Reitman's podcasts."

"Reitman, you mean the doctor that's always talking about the potion?"

"Yeah, and my aunt wouldn't stop looking at me weird, she had, like this... forced smile on her face whenever she looked at me and my parents, but when she looked at my sister she always had this... big grin on her face."

That sounded weird to me, but nothing out of the ordinary at first, I hadn't seen a convert up close yet, so I had chalked it up to family drama made worse by the potion's involvement.

"Its probably just your parents," I suggested.

Martin looked at me "You're saying it's my parent's fault?" his voice carrying an edge to it.

"No, not like that." I held my hands up. "You said your parents didn't like the potion right?"

"Yeah?"

"So if your aunt came to visit directly after doing something your parents didn't like, she's probably in hot water with them, my parents were like that with my uncle once."

"What did he do?"

"He came to stay with us after getting out of the marines, didn't really pull his weight so he and my dad fought a lot. I saw a lot of forced smiles back then too."

Martin ran a hand through his curly black hair.

"I dunno man, it just feels... off, and why was she giving 'Tavia that grin and not me?"

"I hate to tell ya, man," I laid a hand on his shoulder and gave him a condescending look, trying to be funny. "But I think your aunt's picking favorites."

He raised an eyebrow, "Maybe." He replied.

A dull roar in the distance signaled the arrival of the bus, a look down the road revealed it slowly moving towards us.

"I think 'Tavia might sneak out to do it with some friends, 'heard a pony might help 'em."

"Like, an actual one? Or a convert?"

"An actual one."

I had yet to actually see a pony in person, convert or not, though at the moment there were more natural ponies than converts, an article online told me that would change soon if the convert rate kept rising. But I had never heard of something like this.

"How did you 'hear' something like that?" I said, turning my head to look at him.

"Heard her on the phone, she kept going on and on about how she and her friends were supposed to meet somewhere and 'do it', then she asked if 'the pony' was going to be there."

I sighed, well, either she was going to take the potion or do the 'stupid teenager thing' as my dad called it. I shuddered at the thought.

"Tell your parents then," I said simply as the bus pulled up.

"I don't wanna be a snitch man." Complained Martin as we boarded the bus. "Me and Shitavia are already having problems now she knows that I won't take it."

I shrugged, "Its either that or have a pony sister." I plopped myself down in a seat towards the back of the bus.

The two of us sat in silence for the entirety of the ride, I could tell Martin was thinking about what I said, the look of worry on his face was evidence enough.

I leaned back in my seat, picking my feet up and pushing my knees against the back of the seat in front of me before putting my earbuds in. Things were getting weird nowadays. But Summer was a week away, as a blizzard last winter had significantly pushed the end of the school year back, I just needed to make it through the week, still... something about what Martin said about his aunt bugged me... why would Shitavia's aunt act one way towards his sister and another towards Martin? There had to be some sort of motivation for behavior like that.

I mentally shrugged, not much I could do about it.

My family didn't see the potion in the same light as most of the public did. We were a pretty religiously grounded family, and my parents held true to Christain morals as best they could in all aspects of their lives. My dad had called it a; "Perversion of Nature." There were days where he usually ranted about how "God meant for humans to stay human," and "there was something more going on here."

My Dad was a bit paranoid when it came to stuff like the potion, he had also believed that the Rothschilds were a secret society controlling the world from behind the scenes. That being said, he was a rational man and had been in the army better part of four years without any significant PTS, so he seemed to be pretty well grounded in my eyes. After that he worked as an office drone, it paid well, but my mom could tell he wasn't happy with it.

He had seen a coworker and fellow veteran confined to a wheelchair after an RPG hit his humvee in Iraq, the man had been active before he had his legs Amputated. And my dad had told me that his friend had always talked about wanting to play tag with his son in their backyard. He took the potion despite my dad's warnings, came back to work that same day and quit three hours later, Dad never saw him again.

My Mom was about as Christain as a person could be, and had the morals of a saint, she wasn't perfect, mind you, she had a problem with keeping out of other peoples' business and tended to overstep her boundaries even when it came to raising me sometimes, she was incredibly strict as a parent, but loved me all the same.

She had been a teacher at Brannigan Elementary and had heard a lot of the kids talk about their siblings sneaking out to convert. It had worried her, worried her enough to call many of those children's parents about what their children had been saying.

Looking back on it, she had probably saved a lot of lives doing that.

I myself held the concept of the potion at arm's length, I wasn't necessarily opposed to it at first, but I had decided it wasn't for me, like it or not I sort of agreed with my dad about the potion, something about it felt like giving up a part of who you were. But this was the modern age, and opinions that tended to be unpopular tended to make those who voiced them unpopular as well, so I kept my mouth shut and watched, content to play my Xbox and hang out with Colin as school ended.

It was a few days into the first week of summer when I had seen my first convert, her name was Erica, she had been this slim little redhead that always had her eyes glued to her phone. One day I just saw her walking down the street with hooves instead of hands and feet, all smiles and laughs as a sort of fan club followed her around the entire day. She had become a unicorn, teal in color with the same green eyes she had, and I remember her mane being that same color of red that her hair was when she was human. I admittedly stared longer than I should have, it had been my first time ever even seeing a pony in person. She was always talking about how great it felt to use magic, and how "everyone should do this." I thought I saw Martin's sister with all those people following her around.

Still, I kept quiet and kept my distance, it wasn't my problem. Colin and I stuck to our memes and our video games as summer went by and the number of Converts slowly rose. After Equestria first appeared Naomi, Colin and I all shared a fascination with the alien world on the other side of the portal and so the three of us began to hang out together a lot more. Once that happened, the three of us found that there was a lot we had in common, one of those things being that we all had a similar view of the body-changing substance. We all had decided we wouldn't take the potion, that we were happy as humans.

Soon, as the week went on, the three of us were thick as thieves.

June 27th 2018. Tuesday

'Bowled Over' Bowling Alley.

7:02 PM

"So, what you're telling me is that the first time you two met, Eli punched you in the face?" Naomi looked at the two of us with a mildly amused look on her face. The three of us had managed to get a day off of our summer jobs and decided to go bowling that night. I didn't know how our conversation had turned into how Colin and I met, but I didn't like it, primarily because of the guilt that came with the story.

"Yep!" Colin draped an arm over my shoulder and smiled goofily. I smiled uncomfortably.

"It was an accident," I mumbled. "He looked like the kid who had stolen my favorite Hot Wheels."

"And so, he turned me around and gave me the mother of all haymakers," Colin pointed to his cheek. "Right here!"

I turned to continue bowling as Colin loudly narrated the story for Naomi, talking loud enough for me to hear.

"So I get up, and Eli has this confused look on his face, then I punch him in the mouth! He goes down and drags me with him, next thing we know we're both in time out, I have a bloody nose and he has a busted lip, and we just sit there watching that thief play with the toys we left behind! The next day both our moms make us apologize-"

I tuned Colin out, going over to the ball rack to grab my bowling ball, I lined it up, waiting for the pins to be set, and let it loose, the ball rolled with a curve, hitting the side of the formation and knocking over all but the lead pin.

"Crap," I growled. Watching as Naomi and Colin, who had finished talking, rolled their own balls, Colin's had got in the gutter almost immediately, but Naomi's rolled in a perfectly straight line, smashing into the pins and leaving none standing.

"Damn!" Growled Colin, looking at his abysmal score, he looked over to Naomi's and then mine. "How are you two so good at this?!"

Naomi folded her arms, a smug look on her face, "Just a matter of rotation, I rolled the ball so that it would only roll one way."

"Thank you, Mrs. Einstein..." I rolled my eyes, "I'll have your Nobel Prize ready in the morning."

Naomi laughed, walking over and playfully slugging me in the arm. Colin following close behind.

"Fuck Bowling," he said comically. "I gonna get fries, y'all want some?"

"Thought you'd never ask, moneybags," I replied, giving him a smug grin.

Then, without warning, two voices break through the otherwise calm of the bowling alley, grabbing the attention of both our party and several other families. On the other side of the building, we saw two men nearly at each others' throats. Both of them up in the others' faces as they continued their screaming behind one of the men stood a convert, who cowered behind the man as he held a hand protectively in front of him. Behind the other stood a girl, bawling her eyes out as she tried to push past the man holding her back.

"I don't give a damn who he was to her, "The man with the girl screamed, his face growing red. "You keep that fucking freak away from my daughter!"

"She's the one who keeps showing up at my doorstep!" The other snarled, " He broke up with her! That's that! Get the fuck over it!"

The girl began thrashing against her fathers' hold on her, still sobbing and screaming.

"It's not him!" She gasped between sobs. "It's not Paul!"

We looked at the scene in shock, silently watching as an attendant came and tried to break up the situation.

"So," Colin chuckled nervously "How about those fries?"

"I'm not really hungry anymore..." whispered Naomi, eyes glued to the scene.

"Me neither," I added somberly, I laid a hand on Naomi's shoulder and looked at Colin, nodding my head towards the exit.

"How about a movie at my place?" I suggested.

"Yeah." Naomi gulped, "Sounds good."

I gave my friend a gentle push on the shoulder and she turned her head from the scene practically running to the exit, Colin looked at me with a bitter expression on his face, we had planned this night last week and had all been looking forward to it.

I gave him a shrug, to which he responded with a shrug and a half-smile.

The two of us made our way out, trailing behind Naomi as we did our best to avoid the escalating situation. Many families had the same idea, ushering their children out in a hurried fashion. Despite my best efforts to force myself to look away, I took another look at the two, seeing the Convert's face in the process, he made eye contact with me and I whipped my head around, walking twice as fast as I had before, leaving Colin struggling to keep up.

The Convert was Grinning.

After the first three weeks, a law was passed stating that no person under 18 years can be 'ponified' without parental consent. But by then forty-two kids in my town and countless more worldwide and made the change, Not a significant percentage, around twelve thousand non-medical-priority teens worldwide. But there were enough to have some impact on our town. The special Ed students came back from the hospital cured of their deficiencies but behaved somewhat soberly when compared to other converts.

Several of my friends had taken the dive as those weeks had passed, either conforming to peer pressure from their friends and other converts or becoming so enamored with the media's constant glorification of the purple goop that they snuck out to Atlanta to take it with their friends. Coming back with hooves and a rather discomforting smile plastered on their faces. I never really said anything about it, why any self-respecting guy wanted to become a pastel-colored horse was beyond me. But after a few days started I noticed something... off, about the people who "went Pony." They always seemed to be a little too supportive of the process, always talking about how they felt so much better as a pony. Sometimes I wondered what parents must have felt, one day your child was the normal, happy human, and the next you've got some colorful, glassy-eyed equine at your door claiming to be your child. And after that night in the Bowling Alley, I couldn't even look at converts anymore without seeing that grin.

When the school year had ended, Colin, Naomi, and I had seemingly formed a clique of our own, the three of us rarely talking to anyone outside of each other, what friends me and Colin still had, and our families. We sat in silence, watching as more and more people went pony. We began talking, sharing information about events like what we had seen that Tuesday night.

Slowly but surely, people began to notice our group. Martin had been the first person who had started consistently hanging out with us, having heard of our little group from me before summer began, his sister had been too late to convert before the law passed, and their parents weren't budging on their refusal to allow her too, and according to Martin, his younger sister was beginning to act out because of it. Soon Naomi's sister Anna was next, then Eric, that same football player who had almost crushed Martin's phone. His older sister converted and was never the same afterward. Soon it became less about the hanging out and more about the converts, It was weird, all of us bonding over something so strange, some of us had family members who converted, others had friends, some people were just creeped out by the creatures and needed a place to vent. The three of us had no idea how to handle it really, we would just go somewhere, have fun, and start talking about it somewhere private. My parents were thrilled to see me so active, Colin and Naomi's parents felt the same way.

Before long our group had gone from three, to nine, to sixteen over the course of several weeks, all of us going somewhere to hang out and enjoy ourselves, sharing our own experiences and concerns about the creatures in hushed tones. Naomi had moved to Georgia two years ago from Milwaukee, though her parents were Russian. Before our little group formed, her only friends were her sisters, Colin, and me. She didn't know very many people in our town and hardly made the effort to, so when she came to Anderson High no one barely paid her any attention before Equestria showed up. But now she was an important part of our squad, always in the know about the state of affairs outside of the little world that was our town.

When information about the potion was leaked, she would be the first to tell us about it.

To be honest, it felt great, having so many people to just, talk to. For a while, I thought things would get better for us, so long as we all stuck together we would be fine, we would ride out the wave of potion and come out of these trying times unscathed. But as the days went on, the stories our friends started to tell got more and more disturbing.

And the further into summer we got, the worse the converts became.

Author's Note

Chapter 2

It has come to my attention that some elements of my grammar may leave something to be desired, I will try my best to correct what I can but I'm by no means a grammar whiz.

I may be on a roll with these chapters, we'll see how long it is before the procrastination sets back in.

Act Zero: Chapter 3: Encounter

Our group had yet to find a name, but we were pretty well known.

by the time July had come about, parents had come to me, Naomi, and even Colin, thanking us for founding the group and asking when our next meeting would be. To which we would respond with a resounding "no idea." Many parents began asking if their child could join, and if a convert had a sibling, chances were they could be found at one of our meetings. Before long the three of us found ourselves as the unlikely leaders of what felt like a therapy group for those concerned by the converts.

Noticing the need for organization, we began a group chat, nothing too extravagant, just a means to contact everyone who wanted to show up and tell them where our next meeting would be. When our money ran low, we used the school gym or a classroom. Parents started sending food along with their children, the town paper even wrote an article about us.

We met bi-weekly, all of us bringing another story or thought to the table as we tried to work through what was happening around us, I didn't know how I ended up being one of the people leading this group.

To be honest, I thought the only one to really qualified to do this was Naomi, and even then, out of the three of us, no one had siblings or parents who had taken the potion. Colin had a second cousin who took it and that was about the extent of his families involvement with the potion.

I was an only child and any grandparents I had passed away years ago. My uncle felt the same way about the potion as my Dad did, and his sister was either too passed-out drunk to even get to Atlanta to take the potion, or she was too lazy to drive there. My Mom had no family left to speak of, her parents died in a car accident and for some reason, she refused to speak of it to us, as, for her sister, she utterly refused to peak to or about her. Though but from what I had put together she was in the military somewhere, I didn't know her, so I really didn't care much either way.

Naomi rarely spoke of her family outside of her parents and sisters, but none of them had taken the potion, her Father was a doctor, specializing in Neurosurgery, he wouldn't let anyone in his family take any kind of medicine or drug he himself had not personally cleared first, and he most certainly had not cleared the potion.

We had no idea what to tell the people that came to us, we just listened to their problems, Naomi gave explanations and information, Colin made people laugh, and I gave people advice as best I could about dealing with their four-legged family members, and between the three of us, we actually did some good for our members.

But the converts, they never got better.

I thought at first that the coverts were just victims of a drug that was rushed through production, that their behavior was a result of mental strain from being placed in a new body with new instincts, and the isolation and general change in personality were just a temporary behavioral quirk that people would learn to work around. For a while, I thought I had been proven right, people talked about their family members frowning, exhibiting emotions besides constant happiness. Naomi said that was good, that the 'human' brains of the converts were adjusting to the new pheromones and chemicals that their pony bodies were producing. That was the FDA's explanation for the changes in the converts' personalities, a chemical imbalance brought on by a human brain being overwhelmed by a pony's body. We believed them, they were the professionals, after all.

But that grin, that grinning pegasus still irked me, those glassy-eyed smiles they put on when they started talking about conversion never changed despite my hopes to the contrary. I looked at the ponies on the street and still saw a shell of what a human was supposed to be.

I hoped the people who took the potion would reappear soon, but it was what happened at our fifth meeting that got me praying for it.

July 4rth, 2018 Wednesday
Whitman Public Park
4:20 P.M

"I swear to God, they're like a herd now." Insisted the girl, Diana, I think her name was, a soon-to-be sophomore with ambitions of joining the cheer team. "It's not just the ones from school either, its all of the convies."

Whitman was where Penns Creek's (Our Town) fireworks display for the Fourth of July happened every year, the mayor used to brag about how they were the best in the state. The only thing I knew for sure was that the display lasted forever, how a small town gained access to so many pyrotechnics every year I'll never know, but they brought something new to the table with every new years' display, which brought a lot of people from other towns, and at times, other counties, to see them.

We all knew our families would have dragged us out here either way, so we decided to cut out the middle man and meet at the park, we would all talk first, then enjoy ourselves as our families arrived with homemade hamburgers, hot-dogs, and other Fourth of July staples. We all sat under a pavilion, lounging on the picnic tables

"What do you mean?" Another guy asked.

"They're all grouping up." Explained Diana, "I've seen it, they all meet in this one place and then split up into groups, but they're never alone."

"They could just be forming a group to talk about their problems," I suggested, "We all know this is as hard for them as it is for us."

"Yeah, but..." a shy freshman named Kevin interjected, "My brother hasn't talked to me in a week, he just...glares at me and my parents." The freshman looked to his feet, "I think he hates us, he's either locked up in his room all day or out with the other ponies."

Naomi, who was here more on a formality than anything else due to the fact her parents didn't celebrate independence day, looked up from her laptop with sympathy etched onto her face.

"I'm sure he doesn't hate you, Kevin." She consoled, "You're family, for God's sake."

"Yeah," Added Colin, " Your brother doesn't mean anything by it, he's got a whole new body to deal with! He's probably just exploring..."

"What do you- Aw, gross!" Naomi smacked Colin over the back of the head, inciting laughter and several "ew's" from everyone in the audience.

"Your brother probably feels out of place," I observed once the laughter had died down. "Not that you or your family have done anything wrong, but he's literally a different species from you. But you have to remember, behind those glassy eyes and admittedly creepy as hell smiles, your family member is still in there, and they're struggling as much as you are."

I had taken a shot in the dark with that, it was mostly me guessing about how a normal teenager might feel, but from the looks on some of my friends' faces I had made an impact, Kevin had picked his head up, still smiling from Colin's antics and now sitting straight up, almost everyone else who had a ponified family member looked to be thoughtful about what I had said. I mentally fist-pumped, allowing myself to feel good about myself for the small victory.

"I'm not so sure about that."

Every head turned to Eric, who had remained quiet the entire meeting with a bitter look on his face. The guy had gained weight over the course of the summer, and I wasn't talking about fat, the guy had gone from being taller than the average student to standing a full head over everyone here, and God, did he look pissed.

"My Sister told me she wanted me to take the Potion," Eric said after some pause. "Said she would like me better if I did, I said no, and she just... kept smiling. When I told her she was better as a human and she got mad, talking about 'how awful we all were' and how 'she'd rather die than go back.'"

People shifted uncomfortably on the benches they sat on, mumbling and whispering to one another. Another member raised their hand to speak.

"One day, my little brother was over here at the playground, right? Two or three of them showed up and just started talking to him out of nowhere, my Mom got to him and ran 'em off, but... my brother said they were talking about taking him to Atlanta."

All of us were silent, there was the big problem, all of the converts wanted everyone around them to convert as well, the FDA hadn't commented on that, and people were beginning to get antsy about it online.

I was about to respond when a high-pitched voice from behind me cut me off.

"Hi!"

Naomi turned and gasped, a lot of people got out of their seats as I turned to see an entire herd of converts looking at us with big, creepy smiles.

"Shitstains." I cursed mentally, there had to be at least twelve of them.

"U-uh, hello." Naomi managed to stammer out, "W-what can we do for you?"

"Oh, we just came to see what was happening!" Replied a purple Earth pony mare, her voice a little too excited for my liking.

"There was a lot of you here!" A blue pegasus added, hopping into the air and flapping his wings, hovering in place.

"We... were just talking about some problems that we're trying to work through," I replied.

"Oh, sorry to hear that." The pegasus flew a bit closer, " Y'know, we might be able to help..."

"Oh, that's not necessary." Naomi hurriedly replied, taking a few steps back as she did so. "We're doing fine, thank you for the offer though, Mr?

"Call me Spring Breeze!"

My heart stopped, that wasn't a chemical imbalance, that was a full-on fucking identity crisis.

"O-oh." stuttered Naomi, she reached for her laptop, closing it and holding it against her chest like a teddy bear.

"Well!" Colin strode forward, a forced smile on his face, "Is there anything else we can do for you?"

"You could come with us to Atlanta..." A teal unicorn with a red mane said as she stepped forward to the head of the group.

Erica.

Colin paled.

"Erica!" I exclaimed forcing a smile onto my face as well. I clasped my hands behind my back. "Great to see you again!"

Erica's smile faltered somewhat, but the fault was gone as soon as it appeared. "I'd prefer to be called Starry Skies if it's all the same to you."

Behind me I could hear Martin, who had been sitting beside me and quietly taking in what had been said during the meeting.

"Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit." He silently chanted, repeating the phrase like the words were going to protect him from th converts.

"S-sure, Starry Skies it is," I replied.

I waved my hand behind my back, hoping everyone behind me could see it, before pointing in a very frantic manner, hoping they would get the message and start leaving. I kept my eyes on the teal unicorn, watching as she slowly trotted up to me.

"We were going to volunteer to help with the construction of the new bureau." She said with a smile. "We wanted to see if any of you wanted to come with us." The ponies behind her agreed, their voices mixing together as they all echoed her request to us.

"Yeah!'

"Come on!"

"Help us out!"

I took a few steps back, what did she mean by bureau?

Naomi's eyes went wide. "How did you-?"

Starry looked over at her with another smile, "C'mon Naomi, I may not have fingers anymore but that doesn't mean I can't use the internet." She turned back to me, closing her eyes and grinning as an inexplicable squeaking noise escaped from her mouth.

"Squee!"

"Isn't it great? An entire place dedicated to helping humans become ponies! Queen Celestia's been so generous!"

I looked over at Naomi, a 'WTF!?" Expression clear on my face.

"Later," she mouthed.

"Sure does!" Replied Colin, that same convincing fake smile was back on his face. He was still as pale as a ghost, but he was one of the best actors our school's drama club had ever produced.

He could hide his emotions well, and hide them he did.

"Unfortunately, we don't have much time on our hands as of recent, so I'm gonna have to take a rain check." Colin looked behind him, "Any of you guys got the time?"

I didn't have to look behind me to know everyone had shaken their heads no.

The ponies had this hungry look in their eyes, almost predatory as their smiles dimmed somewhat.

"Sorry, I've gotta go into work almost every other day this week." I played along, shrugging and giving the herd a nervous smile.

"Getting holidays off comes with a price y'know?"

"Yeah." Martin agreed behind me, "Really sucks, but y'gotta do what y'gotta do."

Starry's eyes darted from Martin back to me, and she craned neck to look behind me.

"Aw, where are you all going?" One pony cried, I allowed myself a quick look behind me, everyone was peeling the fuck out like I had told them to, trying to get back to the park's entrance where we agreed to meet our families.

"Our parents are probably expecting us." Naomi hastily explained, "It is the Fourth of July after all!" She chuckled nervously.

"Oh! I'll take my brother, then!" A White Earth pony trotted past me briefly, "C'mon Kevin! I've been wanting to talk to you!"

Kevin froze in place, the poor kid looking between the departing group and his brother, uncertainty and fear evident on his face.

The white pony's ears drooped, and for the first time ever I saw something akin to an actual emotion on a convert's face.

"Kev, it's just me...It's Alex." The pony said, the emotion in his voice was evident, shocking all four of us into silence as the stallion slowly advanced towards the confused kid.

"You trust me...right?"

Kevin's face was a mask of conflict, and he slowly began to walk towards the pony as the elder brother smiled kindly towards his younger brother.

The look on the convert's face was convincing, I had to admit. By the hopeful look on her face, I could see that Naomi had fallen for it. After all, it was the proof we were looking for, the converts were still people, they just had to be given time and before long everything would go back to normal. I myself wanted to believe that, and so I almost let Kevin go with his brother, but something stopped me.

Kevin's brother still had that hungry look in his eye, his smile was growing back into that grin and the ponies in the herd began to shift restlessly. Each one of the four-legged creatures' grins growing with every step closer to his brother Kevin took.

As always, something was off.

I held a hand out, blocking the freshman's path to his brother, I swallowed my panic, stepped forward, and put on the most believable, most confident, most poker-faced fake smile I had ever made in my life.

"Sorry," I said, my tone losing any kind of hesitation, "but your mom entrusted Kevin's well being to me. It wouldn't look good if I wasn't the one to give him back. You can stay with him if you like though, all of our parents should be here before too long."

At the mention of our parents, many of the converts began to shift uncomfortably, many of them seemed anxious now, ready to bolt if something went wrong.

Alex looked up at me, and the grin on his face was replaced by a cold glare.

"He's my brother..." He growled, pawing the ground with his hoof. "He's more important to me than he is to you."

"I'm not saying that he ain't," I said, still smiling. "But a lot of people benefit from these meetings, your brother included. If a parent decided to say something about their child being left with one person and their brother having to come to pick them up, it might leave an overall bad impression on what we're trying to do here."

Alex's frown deepened.

"Besides, are you really gonna deny your brother the chance to make some friends?"

Alex was livid, and looked ready to charge me, he took a step forward, but before he could do anything else Starry held a hoof in front of him. Alex pushed against Starry's outstretched foreleg, she whispered something in the stallion's ear and immediately he stopped.

"I'm sorry for bothering you." Starry Skies smiled at me once more, letting her foreleg down. "We completely understand." She looked at Alex, a grin still on her face, "Right, Star Chaser?"

Alex looked between me and Kevin, before smiling happily once more, any trace of anger gone.

"Yeah, I guess I'll see you in a few minutes then Kev, tell Mom and Dad I said I'll be there soon, ok?"

Kevin nodded fervently. "Yeah, for sure!"

Starry Skies smiled, "Sorry for bugging you guys, it stinks you can't come to Atlanta with us."

I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding, "Yeah, I'm sorry too, but what can I say? We're only human."

Starry chuckled, "Oh, I know."

She turned and walked back to her herd of followers, Alex/Star Chaser following behind her.

For a moment I thought it was over, but Starry Night turned to speak one more time.

"We'll see you soon!" She waved a foreleg.

I was the only one who waved back.

"Jesus Christ!" Colin looked as pale as a ghost, his hands trembling as he sat back down at one of the tables.

"Its a fucking no from me, chief." He managed to blurt out, trying to hide his panic with humor.

Naomi was still watching the herd of converts disappear into the distance, her Laptop clutched in her arms like it was a lifeline.

"What, the hell, was that? " Martin rested a hand on a table, looking like that was the only thing that was keeping him from collapsing.

I turned, the only people that were still here were Me, Naomi, Colin, Martin, Eric, Naomi's sister, Kevin, and Diana.

All of us were in various forms of shock from the encounter, except for Eric, he just looked like he was ready to punch something.

"I-I told you, they're like a herd now." Diana stammered.

"I saw my sister." Said Eric simply, "She was with them."

He turned to me, "you think she's still in there now?"

"I don't know," I replied.

"I do, she's gone." Eric began to walk off. "Equestria took her from us."

He left the Pavilion, leaving the all of us in silence.

"We should... probrably meet up with our parents now." Said Naomi, finally turning to face us.

"Not yet..." I turned to Naomi and pointed in the direction the converts left in. "First, you're going to tell me exactly what she was talking about."

Naomi nodded shakily, prying her arms open and placing her laptop down on the table.

"T-they're called conversion bureaus." She began. "They've started building them everywhere."

After that, everything went normally, our parents showed up, everyone ate, the fireworks display featured a moving pony created by the fireworks. It was amazing, or at least, it would have been if all of us didn't have the exact same thing on our minds.

Kevin's brother didn't come back until the next day, and every day after that he and the rest of his herd began to follow us and the other members of our group, not quite interacting with us but always somewhere in our vicinity. It didn't take long to figure out that we had been marked, and that mark wasn't going to go away. People started panicking in the group chat, looking to us for answers we didn't have, so we made a split-second decision.

We canceled the next meeting for that week.

We canceled the ones for the next week too, hoping they would lose interest, and for a while, they did, at least on the three of us, and for a while we laid low, thinking we were safe.

But that wasn't the end of it.

Hell, it was barely the beginning.

Author's Note

I feel like I should mention that I got the idea for the story listening to this while reading the original story to the Spectrumverse

Also... as of right now I have more dislikes than likes... that is somewhat discouraging... BUT IT WILL NOT BE ENOUGH TO DISSUADE ME!

BTW: I'll also be replacing the prologue I wrote with one that would kind of change the nature of the story but hopefully give a little more depth to the story overall. I'll also be splitting the chapters into acts, with the first seven chapters being a part of "Act Zero" that will serve as the groundwork of the world, introducing the characters and a lot of the necessary backstory required to build up the characters so we can get Act 1, which will get to the nitty-gritty of the story.

Act Zero: Chapter 4: Paranoia

Penn's Creek was the kind of town where everybody knew everybody, we weren't the biggest town in the state by any means, but we weren't the smallest either. I guess you could say that we were somewhere in the middle, with a population barely over 19,000 people. People in Penn's Creek were known to be friendly and polite, but that was commonplace in southern rural towns, unfortunately, blatant racism and unwavering distrust of any newcomers were pretty common too.

When the potion came, all of those feelings suddenly had a new target, my friends and I saw our first example of those feelings being let loose at the bowling alley. But as time went by and the converts' strange behavior began to become more and more noticeable, these incidents became more frequent. People began complaining about the converts, to the mayor, to the police, and to each other. Families with converts slowly became blacklisted by people they had known for years, children's birthday parties were left without guests despite countless invitations being sent. If a family with a convert showed up in a grocery store, chances were the store would be empty a few minutes later.

Meanwhile, the converts seemed to become more and more distant, forgetting little things, like passwords or distant memories. Not all of them seemed to change their names, however, and some even seemed to be more grounded than others, like Kevin's brother or Erica.

Others...

Well...

July 27th, 2018, Thursday
Downtown Penns' Creek. Marianne Street.
12:05 A.M

"MY NAME IS SPRING BREEZE!"

A voice came from the open window of the SUV in front of us, grabbing the attention of everyone else on the street.

My dad slammed on the brakes of our truck as the vehicle ground to a halt, in front of us, a sky- blue pegasus with a white mane lept out of the window of the passenger side door. Surprising various people, as they walked between the various businesses lined up on the sidewalk. Some backed away quickly, re

Spring Breeze, I hadn't seen him ever since the catastrophe in the park...

A distraught woman flung open the driver-side door as the pegasus pawed the asphalt with a forehoof. It was Mrs.Deloach, her husband was another one of Dad's pals from the army, she and her husband always came over for Christmas, I remember always getting great gifts from them. Mr. Deloach and my Dad had done a tour together, with Deloach coming back with PTSD. He and Dad would have a beer on the porch while his daughter and I played in their yard.

But if that was her, then her husband...

"Well, shit." I thought, looking at spring breeze in a new light.

At the park, he acted like he had'nt even known me.

Maybe he didn't.

"I used to call him uncle Ed..."

Another car pulled up behind us as we listened to the scene unfold, its driver honking obnoxiously.

"Ed, please get back in the-"

"No! I'm done riding in that thing!" The Stallion tossed his head in frustration, "I have wings! I should be using them! We should all be using them!"

"Edward, we talked about this..."

"No, you are denying yourself and our children a better life!"

Spring Breeze walked to the front of the vehicle, disappearing behind it due to his decreased size.

"Edward, you're scaring the kids.." Mrs. Deloach followed Spring Breeze, who I assumed was her husband, tears falling from her already red eyes.

Meanwhile, I could hear the crying of children inside the car, the couple's other two daughters were still in their car.

"This can't be good..." My dad leaned out of the vehicle as the two continued to fight. "We were supposed to have picked your mother up from work an hour ago." He grumbled, sliding back into his seat with an annoyed sigh as the car behind us honked once again.

Dad had decided to take Mom to "Southern Temptations." one of Penns' Creek's few restaurants that required a reservation. I was supposed to stay home and play video games all night. On the road people began taking out their phones, holding them up to the scene as the telltale flash of lights that signaled the beginning of a video appeared on the phones throughout the slowly forming crowd.

"I'm tired of it Elise!" Spring Breeze's voice came from behind the car.

"Of what Honey?" Mrs. Deloach concerned voice replied.

"Everything You, the kids, this entire Celestia-damned town!"

The two of us sat up in our seats,

"You... heard that too, right?" I asked my Dad.

"Yeah." He replied slowly. "Tell you what Eli, stay here, I'm gonna see if I can-

"Ed..." I saw the grieved wife kneel down through their windshield, presumably to comfort her agitated husband.

"DON'T TOUCH ME!"

The sound of hoof-meeting flesh was distinct, and immediately Mrs. Deloach flew out from behind the car, crying out as she sprawled across the road with a sickening "Crunch!".

I stared at the woman's prone form, her eyes meeting mine for a moment before they rolled back into her head and she fell uunconscious.

Her children screamed.

Some of the people on the street screamed too, the entire crowd backing away from Mr. Deloach with shock written across their faces. Parents shoved their own children behind them as they gaped at the scene in a mixture of fear and anger. Teens watched in morbid curiosity, unable to look away, even one of the converts that had been watching from the sidewalk looked somewhat concerned.

"Son of a bitch!" My dad threw the door open and jumped out of the car before beginning to approach Mrs. Deloach, only to stop as Spring Breeze inched closer to his wife. His face a mask of fury as he turned to my father with a snarl on his face.

"What are you looking at human?!"

Spring Breeze's eyes suddenly filled with that hungry look again.

"Dad!" I warned, Spring looked like he was ready to attack again.

"Stay back, Eli!" My Dad laid a hand on the holster on his hip, ready to draw if need be. "Stay in the car!"

Spring Breeze tossed his head around, his white mane flying wildly around his head, as he glared at my dad.

"Edward... it's me," my dad held a hand up in a placating gesture, "Its David."

"My name... is Spring Breeze!" The stallion snarled, "How many times do I have to say it before you all understand that!"

He advanced on my Dad, furious, as he drew the pistol from his hip and aimed it at Spring Breeze in one fluid motion, people gasped and began to back even farther away.

"Stay right there, Ed!" My Father warned, "Not a step closer!"

Spring Breeze eyed the weapon with caution, fully aware of what it could do, he glared at my Dad again before turning to his wife.

"Elise, get up," Spring said, looking down on her with an apathetic expression. "We're leaving."

Mrs. Deloach was unresponsive, Spring turned back around.

"Elise?"

The convert slowly approached the prone form of his wife, he looked like he was in a dreaming, his eyes carrying that same glassy look as every other Convert had.

He stared at his wife like he didn't know who she was.

"E...Elise?"

Spring's eyes lost their entranced look, and realization dawned on his features.

"Elise?!" Spring's eyes went wide and the look of apathy was replaced with one of horror.

"OH GOD!" Spring ran to his wife's side, frantically trying to rouse her, tears forming in his tennis-ball sized eyes when she didn't respond.

"Someone...someone help!" He called out into the crowd, looking around as people began to walk away, either too scared or unwilling to help a convert. Spring desperately looked amongst the faces in the crowd, looking for someone that could help him.

Eventually, his eyes met my father's, and in them, I saw the same man that used to come to visit for Christmas with his family, the man who used to watch me when my parents went out to movies.

I saw Edward Deloach, Not Spring Breeze.

"David?" Edward said, his eyes full of hope, "David please." He pitifully gestured to his wife with his hoof, "I don't know what happened, I just..."

"Its gonna be fine, Ed." My Dad holstered his pistol and held his hands up, "I'm gonna help Elise, ok? I just need you to back up."

Edward complied, scrambling back before falling back on his haunches. "I... I didn't...I didn't mean... I don't want to..... oh, jesus." He stammered, choking on sobs as he stared at his wife, I couldn't imagine how he must of been feeling, at first I was afraid of him, but now I just felt sorry for the guy.

My father immediately ran over to Mrs. Deloach's prone form and immediately knelt beside her, looking over her wounds, he held a hand under her head, suddenly tensing as he did so.

"Eli! Bring the First Aid Kit!" He yelled, panic entering his voice. "You!" He pointed to Howard Mills, one of the town's most commonplace residents. "Call an ambulance!"

Howard whipped out his phone, nodding as he did so, he was a good guy by my standards, he ran the gas station at the end of town, Colin and I used to make trips over to the convenience store at the station to stock up on junk food, most of the conversation I ever made with him consisted of polite, light-hearted banter

I opened the glove compartment without a second thought, pulling out the red andwhite box as I opened the door and ran over to my father. Spring looked at me in a mixture of recognition and surprise, which turned to shame as he avoided meeting my eyes.

My dad's hands were stained red as he held one under Mrs. Deloach's head, the other checked for a pulse at the base of her neck.

"She's still here." My Dad breathed, "She's still alive, "Dad breathed a sigh of relief lasting a full second before turning his head to me.

"Alright, her breathing is normal, so is her pulse, I don't think her skull is fractured." My Dad said, sounding somewhat relieved, "I need you to hold her head and shoulders up while I dress the wound. "

I nodded, wordlessly crawling over to her head and placing one hand on her head above the wound and another on the small of her back, lifting her up slightly as my dad doused a cotton ball from the kit in antiseptic.

Blood ran through my fingers, making me squirm uncomfortably as I watched it drip down and stain my jeans. I waited for my father to finish preparing with a grimace on my face, watching as he placed the cotton ball in a large adhesive bandage and delicately positioned it over the wound. The blood flow stopped for the most part, and my dad stood up.

"You're going to have to keep her like that for a while until the ambulance gets here." He stated, closing the medikit and returning it to the car.

I nodded solemnly, not comfortable with the idea of sitting there with a bleeding, unconscious woman in my lap, but smart enough to understand this wasn't the time to argue.

"And you," my dad walked over to Edward, who was still crying and mumbling to himself, "You and I are gonna have ourselves a conversation."

Edward looked up at my father, his teary eyes full of defiance.

"I'm staying with my wife," he replied, his voice hoarse.

"No, you're not." My dad frowned.

"Yes, I am!" Edward got to his hooves, that glassy-eyed look starting to return.

"Ed, look at Elise!" My Dad gestured to Edward's wife, "look at your kids!" he pointed to the car, where two blonde-headed little girls stared at their mother's limp body with wide, tearful eyes.

"Do you really think staying here is going to do them any good!?" My father's voice was rising.

"Police are coming!" Howard called out, "Seven minutes! The ambulance arrives in five!"

Edward looked at his wife once more, then looked at his children, the second he did the two little girls screamed and ducked back into the car.

I could practically hear Edward's heart snap in half.

"Yeah... ok, let's go." Edward's head dropped as he followed my dad behind our truck, I wasn't quite sure what was said back there, and I wasn't sure I wanted to.

Before long the telltale whine of an ambulance came within earshot, the white vehicle pulled up on the other side of the road. The paramedics took over from there, asking me several questions about what had happened. I answered them as best I could as the men loaded Mrs.Deloach onto a stretcher and put her in. Two minutes later the police arrived, and out of the car stepped the worse possible person to introduce into this already delicate situation.

Officer Thomas Ellenburg.

Eric's father.

Officer Ellenburg was a highly respected police officer in Penn's Creek, he was the guy you called when things got bad, once upon a time there was a bar fight at Barrett's tavern, some out-of-town biker type had decided to get handsy with another resident's girlfriend, one thing led to another, and before long an entire biker gang and all the boyfriend's friends were going at it, both groups were as wasted as hell and Ellenburg just waded in. Five minutes and several broken limbs and jaws later both parties were either handcuffed to a piece of furniture or unconscious, with Ellenburg only suffering a broken finger and a black eye.

Problem was? He hated the converts and the potion with a burning passion, he had petitioned the mayor to set all converts on indefinite probation (including his own daughter.) When he wasn't on duty, he was riling people up, trying to get support to start protesting the use of potion in the town. The man alone was half the reason people were so scared of the converts in the first place, and while that fear may have been justified, his bias against them was not. Eric had told us that Ellenburg no longer treated his daughter like family after she snuck off to take the potion. Most of their conversations consisted of one or two-syllable words that were often said in passing, and when one of the two was home, the other often made every effort to ensure they were not.

"You've gotta be fuckin' kidding me." Ellenburg said as Mrs. Deloach was loaded into the ambulance, he strode up behind me with a frown on his face and a chip on his shoulder as he laid a hand on mine and spun me around."

"You were here when it happened?" He asked me simply, I nodded.

"Tell me."

I described the incident, the officer's frown growing with every detail I added to the story.

"Where is he?" He growled after I finished my story.

"Behind our truck with my Dad."

Ellinburg went off without another word, five seconds later he came back literally carrying Edward back to his squad car by the scruff of his neck. Edward hung limply from Ellinburn's grip as he opened the rear door of his squad car and practically tossed the stallion inside.

"Watch it, Steven!" My Dad warned, coming out from behind our truck, "the guy may not be human anymore but that doesn't mean he doesn't still have rights."

Ellenburg froze in place, turning around to face my father with a flabbergasted expression on his face.

"David, you're kidding, right?" the officer gestured to the Pegasus, "We both know Edward Deloach isn't there anymore."

My Dad was pale, and his hands were shaking, meaning whatever had been said between him and Edward hadn't been very comforting.

"He's still in there," my Dad said, "I don't know for how much longer, but he's still there."

I stared at my Dad with wide eyes. "What do you mean "how much longer?'" I interrupted, looking between the two of them.

Dad looked down at as if just realizing I was here again, "Get in the truck, Eli... I'll be done in a sec."

I opened my mouth to argue, but with the look on his face, I decided I was better off not knowing. I returned to the passenger seat in the car as the two talked, both of them wearing ever-deepening frowns as they spoke. I tried to tune out what they were saying, but eventually, it became hard to ignore.

Finally, after about five minutes, Ellenburg, red-faced and practically foaming at the mouth, yelled at my Dad.

"What do you want me to do, Hallanday? " He snarled, using my Dad's last name as he flung his hands up, "He nearly killed his wife for Christ's sake!"

"All I'm saying is that his two daughters saw everything!" My dad replied, his own frustration rising as he pointed to the car, "You take him now, who knows what that might do to them!"

Ellinburg looked to the car, sighing.

" I can't let this go, David, he was at the park on the fourth, when they started after our sons, they've been following Eric ever since, I know for a fact they've been following your son too."

My Dad looked back at me, I made an effort to look inconspicuous.

"Ed told me he's been forgetting things," My Dad said after some time, "He said he felt like something was eating him from the inside out, taking anything it wanted and then destroying the rest."

Ellinburg looked at my Dad with a grim expression. "I don't even talk to Sarah anymore," he admitted, "She won't shut up about Equestria or their God-damned Queen, they're starting to act like she is a God, David."

"I noticed." My Dad said Darkly, "You should still try-"

"Try to what, David?" Ellinburg growled, "That's not my daughter anymore, and sooner or later all of these... things are gonna snap."

"Take it easy Steve..." My Dad took a step back

"And when that happens we're all gonna have to make a choice, I've already made mine." Ellinburg pointed back at his squad car. "That thing in there, isn't Edward Deloach, just like that thing in my house isn't my daughter!"

The people still watching on the street began to talk amongst themselves, listening to the conversation between the two men.

"I know it, you know it, everyone in Penns Creek knows it! We're all just to scared to accept the fact that the converts aren't the people they used to be! They should all be rounded up and sent back to Atlanta!"

My dad remained silent, looking at the police officer with a pained expression, Ellinburg held my dad's look before shrugging.

"Look, Hallanday, there's this guy, a Reverend, he gave his daughter the potion to save her from Hodgkin's lymphoma, whatever the fuck that is, she started acting exactly like everyone else who took it did. One month later?" Ellinburg grimaced. "She ran off to Equestria."

"To Equestria?" My Dad looked skeptical.

"Yeah, didn't even say goodbye, just left a note."

"Damn."

"Guy's name is James Thomas, started up a support group for people like me, sort of like what your kid did." Ellinburg rounded his Squad Car. "Named it after his daughter, The Harriet Thomas Foundation, they've got a website set up and post a video to youtube every week. I think you should give it a look."

"I'll consider it," my dad replied, "before you drive off with Ed, call Rebecca, that's their eldest daughter, she should still be at home. She shouldn't be more than a few minutes away, she'll pick up the girls and then you can take Ed to the station. You know their house number?"

Ellinburg nodded after some thought, the two shook hands and my dad returned to the truck as the officer pulled his phone out.

"He's going to end up causing trouble."

My Dad said as we began to pull around the S.U.V, leaving the scene in the distance.

"I kind of feel sorry for him," I said, looking back at them in the rearview mirror.

"Which one?" My Dad looked at me with a forced smile.

"Take your pick."

He chuckled lightly, "Yeah, that's about right, he looked into the side mirror as the lights became less visible, the sun had just barely begun to touch the tips of the trees when this had started, now it just barely peeked out from behind them, my Dad looked at the setting sun with a sigh.

"So much for our reservation"

My parents began listening to Reverend James Thomas the next day, the Harriet Thomas Foundation had gained a lot of support in the weeks following its formation. As more and more incidents regarding the converts began to appear across the globe, people became more restless with every passing day. Despite this, various health organizations and professionals would insist the potion was harmless and preach about its benefits. It was like they were living in an entirely different world from us, they treated the convert's behavior as if it were nothing more than the side effects to some kind of cold medicine.

Some of the Equestrians themselves began to voice their concerns over the behavior of the converts, chief amongst them was none other than ambassador Lyra Heartstrings, who began to speak her concerns publically.

Most people, however, still supported both the potion and the converts, whether it be through purposeful ignorance or outright belief. There were also the people whose lives were changed by the potion, deviants, outsiders, people who society decided they didn't like and as a result, tried to forget they existed entirely. The potion gave them a chance to start over, or at least advertised a chance, and because of that people were willing to believe whatever explanation the FDA or any other medical authority had for the former humans' strange and disturbing behavior.

At the forefront of the people supporting was Dr. Jaqueline Reitman, who had become one of the potion's biggest advocates
as her work on the potion had led to her becoming the leading authority on the subject of 'ponification'. She had appeared in several media and news outlets across the world, explaining how the potion worked and why the 'newfoals' behaved the way they did. She was the source of a lot of the information regarding the potion and its effects, so when things first started going wrong, people started to come to her for answers.

They didn't like the ones she gave...

The worst of it was that she blamed the poor behavior on their environment, and that "the fact that we were calling them things like converts, or 'convies' as the more angry members of the internet would say, was contributing to a "widespread campaign of alienation." She stuck to the whole "chemical imbalance" story but insisted that the newly formed ponies were still developing and coping with the behavioral traits and instincts of the pony species. As a whole the Equestrian species was used to a great deal more peace than what was common for the average human living space, the fact that they are acting out, behaving strangely, and running away was apparently evidence to Reitman that humanity as a whole was just too 'chaotic' for a pony to develop under, and so they would naturally migrate to a place where they felt they would be most at peace.

Equestria.

In English... she was saying that humans were not 'peaceful' enough to properly accommodate a pony's mental development.

That was pretty much like telling an entitled parent named "Karen" she was a poor parent.

People practically foamed at the mouth online, and the number of dislikes on the video where Reitman gave her explanation surpassed some of the most loathed videos on youtube.

But despite that, people in Penns Creek just kept on keeping on, we begrudgingly coexisted with the converts over the summer, and slowly but surely the next year of high school loomed over the horizon like the abyss of night swallowing up the day. Soon enough, we came to a date that only served to remind us that summer was almost gone, that we would be thrown back into school alongside the converts for eight hours a day, five days a week.

Open House.

But that night did more than just that, it also brought with it two more surprises.

Act Zero: Chapter 5: Change

August 8th 2018 Wednesday "Penns Creek High Open House."
Penns Creek Highschool
6:57 P.M

"So, what do you think of your classes, Eli?" My mom smiled at me, her face held a genuine smile that made left me powerless to do anything but return it.

"Pretty good, overall," I answered her, "I'm not a fan of algebra 2, but meh." I shrugged, "Not much I can do about it."

We walked casually through the halls of my school, I had already met my teachers for the year, I had my route scoped out, for each day and had a pretty good idea of who my classmates would be. I had more than a few of the friends I had made over the summer sharing a class with me, and more than a few converts as well. However I had yet to see a single convert,

That was the odd thing about tonight, the only thing that spoke to the existence of the converts at all that night was their names on the class rosters and the uneasy looks on people's faces when they were brought up in a conversation. When Spring attacked his wife it set off a social nuke in the town, people didn't just avoid converts now, they treated them like the plague, apparently, this was a rare case in regards to the potion, given the ponies' 'peaceful nature, it was more likely Edwards PTSD flaring up and triggering his pony flight-or-flight instincts. That was how the judge ruled it when we were brought to court to testify, Mrs. Deloach wouldn't even come near her husband in the court, and there were rumors of her filing for divorce after the initial ruling finished. So we were all surprised when the judge deemed Spring 'not guilty,' I chalked it down to a political move to ensure the town wouldn't suddenly become a target of a social barrage online from the various pro-ponification groups online.

Spring disappeared after he was released, he didn't return home, no one had seen him in town at all.

I could tell some people were relieved by the converts' absence, there was a more relaxed look in the eyes of the parents, a higher inclination to laugh and smile amongst the students, and the teachers clearly had no complaints when it came to the absence of certain students.

It was sad, in a way, to see people return to the way they had been just because the converts weren't there, it spoke volumes about how people saw them, or at least, most people. There had been a few people who had been defending them, I had heard some families had even become acclimated to living with their Equine family members.

"Honestly," I said, "I wouldn't mind skipping math as a whole for the next two semesters."

"Not if you want enough credits to graduate this year!" She poked me in the ribs playfully, "Mr senior!"

I chuckled involuntarily as my mother giggled continuing to poke at me, I lightly swatted her hand away.

"Really? You're gonna do this here?" I grumbled lightheartedly, "I think you've given me enough reason to never talk to anybody ever again."

"Oh, stop." My mom laughed, "All I did was tell one of your teachers a bit about you!"

"You literally told them a story about how I blew up our bathroom toilet in front of every other family in the room!"

Mom had a tendency to ramble on when it came to me, she was the sort of parent who always had a story to tell about her child, I liked to think she was proud of me, and that was why she did it, not a day went by without her saying something to someone about me, even if it was Dad she was telling it to. I had no idea when she got it into her head to start doing that, but I wasn't about to stop her, no matter how red I turned when she did it.

"Oh stop your bellyaching, Eli, I'm just being a mom." She affectionately flicked my ear, "I'm allowed to do that, right?"

"Ugh, yeeessss." I groaned, "Can we please just go home now?"

Mom snickered, "I suppose..."

She put an arm around my shoulders and gave me a squeeze.

"Love you, Eli."

"Love you, Mom."

The two of us began to make our way to the front of the school, I was intent on returning home and making good on what little summer I had left, and getting online with Colin to play a little Gears of War 4. I was already fantasizing about Colin's screams of anguish when I rammed the blade of my retro lancer through his character's chest.

Unfortunately, my dreams would remain dreams as the sound of my Mother's name cut through the air like an arrow, and struck her ears as accurately as one.

"Sandra!" A heavily accented called, my mom honed in on it like a hound, and immediately I was dragged over to the midst of the cafeteria, where a large number of finger-foods and drinks were arrayed on a series of tables in front of the kitchens.
Standing by the entrance to the lunchroom was a middle-aged slim-looking woman whose Russian-accented English made itself known even in the loudest of rooms.

"Anya!" My mom exclaimed happily,

Mrs. Zakharovich, Naomi's mother, and one of my Mom's newest friends.

Well, there goes my night. I thought unhappily.

I followed my Mom to where Mrs. Zakharovich was standing, the two met with a hug before going on with their usual gossip and 'mom' talk.

"Where's Naomi, Anna, and Gaspard?"

"Gaspard and Anna went to have a 'conversation' with one of Anna's teachers, Naomi is over there." She pointed to a table a few yards away, where my friend sat staring at the screen of her computer.

My Mom looked at her with a disapproving look on her face, "You let her bring her computer?"

Mrs. Zakharovich shrugged, "she's not wasting her time, she's been watching a video on the town's problem."

My mom raised an eyebrow "Problem?"

"You know what I'm talking about Sandra." Naomi's mom fixed mine with an earnest look, which she met with another disapproving look.

"They're not problems, Anya, they're people, whether we like it or not..."

I sighed, I didn't want to listen to this.

"I'm gonna go talk to Naomi," I said aloud, turning and heading in her direction.

The two mothers continued to talk in the background as I walked off in her direction, already interested in what Naomi was watching, I had heard the same old argument go on between countless members of the town, believe it or not, some people began to defend the converts' behavior, at the moment, the majority appeared to be family members of converts, with the exception of the Ellenburgs. Anyone else who defended them was either some random person off the street or someone who listened to Reitman and her whole "it's humanities fault" routine. I rarely looked into pro-ponification forums online, but when I had, I saw a lot of interesting stuff, chief amongst them was one thread that explored the possibility of Celestia being a deity. The majority of the threads, however, simply talked about humanity's failings as a species and praise regarding the converts.

And as per usual with the converts, things were getting worse.

Eric's sister had disappeared about two weeks ago, some people blamed her Dad, others blamed the potion, but the silver-colored pegasus simply went to bed one night, and didn't come back from her room in the morning. Leaving nothing but an open window and a note saying how 'she couldn't take living with them anymore.' People had been talking about it for the entire week, and Eric's dad had joined the HTF about a week later, nowadays when he wasn't working he was at the bar, barely coherent and angry as sin.

I had seen Eric here, he had been hanging around several other guys from the football team, but his father was nowhere in sight.

I shook myself from my thoughts, approaching the table Naomi sat at with a smile on my face,

"That's a load of Bull!" Naomi fumed, her expression one of frustration as she stared at the screen of her computer, her blue eyes carried an icy disdain that she usually only reserved for people who royally pissed her off, and there was only one person who royally pissed her off.

"That's actually a computer" I joked, causing her to look up with a jolt, clearly surprised by someone suddenly walking up to her before she recognized me.

"Oh, Eli! Hey..." She gave me a half-hearted smile

"Whatcha doin'?" I rounded the table to look at the screen, an image of Dr. Reitman.

"Reitman's spouting her bullshit again." Naomi looked at the image with disdain, "I swear to god, it's like she wants us to hate her." She rested her elbows on the table and let out a breath. "If it's not about how humans suck, then it's about how ponies are tantamount to angels in comparison to us."

"Well," I leaned against the table with an intentionally contagious smile, "its either listen to her or listen the HTF and that nut Carter, I swear, every time he hijacks one of their podcasts he's gonna rupture a lung from all that yelling."

That managed to get a small chuckle out of her, the bitter frown on her face was replaced by a smile as she turned her attention away from the computer.

In truth, Carter was at the forefront of the rapidly-growing group of individuals that had become increasingly hostile to anything that had to do with Equestria and already a disconcerting number of people within the HTF had begun to disregard Reverend Thomas' more peaceful methods of protests in favor of the outright hate speech and threats endorsed by both Carter and his daughter; Verity.

"Well, his wife did grow a-"

"Yeah, yeah, I remember," I growled uncomfortably, cutting Naomi off as I waved my hand frantically in an attempt to stop the images I had seen online from returning to my mind.

Carter's wife had been trans, and had been diagnosed with Alzheimers, she had been one of the first people to take the potion, and ended up as a stallion. I had my own thoughts about the whole idea of being transgender, but I couldn't help but feel bad for the two of them. One day the woman you've known for years walks out the door, and the next day, a smiling, four-legged creature that wasn't even the same gender as the person it had replaced came to take her place, it had to be hard to live with something like that. I had heard that the former "Mrs. Carter" hadn't even lasted a week before running off to Equestria, some rumors stated the father and daughter ran the former human out of their home themselves.

"You know, I've been wondering," Naomi shifted her gaze away from me timidly "How things would have been if they had never shown up at CERN, all of us would have been going about our lives like normal, maybe things would have been better if the ponies never met us."

Her eyes scanned the cafeteria, watching as people talked and laughed with each other, she had a nostalgic look on her face, the sad kind of nostalgia that you usually saw in movies when someone knew this was the last time something like this would happen.

"Maybe then the converts wouldn't exist, and people could talk as comfortably, be as comfortable in their own homes, with their own families as they were before all this bullshit happened."

"I wouldn't know," I sat down on the opposite side of the table as Naomi looked back to me, "maybe it would have been, or maybe the world would have collapsed and we could have all fucking died."

Naomi gave me a look that said "WTF?"

I shook my head, "What I'm trying to say here is that we can't sit around wondering about 'what if's,' like it or not, Equestria is here to stay for the foreseeable future and so are the converts."

She closed her laptop with a frustrated growl, the sound of it making me flinch as well as briefly drawing the attention of several nearby people.

"I don't get how you're so casual about all of this, Eli." Naomi regarded me with skepticism "You saw a convert attack his own wife in front of his kids, man, his fucking wife!. But here you are, talking and laughing like nothing happened. You and your dad saw what the potion is doing to the converts, what it's doing to their families."

My eyes widened at Naomi's outburst, her words drew even more attention than her laptop, with several parents looking at us with nervous disapproval apparent in their eyes.

"Sssh!" I whispered, "Edward's family is already a martyr for the fucking anti-convert groups all over the country, the HTF keep calling my Dad about talking on one of their podcasts, and the converts keep looking at me like I'm the prize buck during open-season!"

I subtlely gestured to the people around us as my frustration began to get the better of me.

"Look around us! Everyone here is already on edge, we are on edge, and the last thing I need is another target on my back because of what everyone thinks I should do or how I should think because of what I've seen! You wanna know how I feel about this? I'm scared out of my mind! I think that something about the potion isn't right and that we are not being told everything we should be about it! But right now there is precisely jack-shit that I can do about it right now, so all I can do is fucking sit here and crack jokes and hope I don't sink deeper into this pile of horse-shit of a situation than I already am!"

Naomi shrunk back at my outburst, looking around to see the people within earshot that had been staring at us quickly avert their eyes nervously and put distance between us.

"Ok! I get it, I get it. Sorry..."

I pinched the bridge of my nose, "It's fine, just... forget about it."

We sat in silence for the next few minutes as the people around us came and went, leaving the cafeteria mostly abandoned as the sun finished it's descent to the treeline leaving the sky all but completely pitch black. Naomi had returned to her computer and I had fished my phone out of my pocket. However, the silence became too much for my friend to bear, and I could tell there was something she wanted to get off her chest.

"I wish they had never come here."

I looked up at her to see Naomi on the verge of tears, her eyes red behind her glasses and the bags under her eyes now much more apparent, only now did I notice how she really looked, her light brown hair was disheveled, looking ragged and just barely styled, her hand gripped the side of the table with a white-knuckled intensity I had never seen before.

"These fucking ponies are ruining our lives, Eric, I swear to God, I can't go three days by getting harassed by one of these fucking converts, and there's this one pony that won't leave Anna alone, it's like he has this fucked up crush on her and he keeps trying to get her to convert so they can 'be together.'"

I was speechless, I hadn't talked Naomi about the converts since the incident with Edward, I had been uncomfortable talking about them before that night, but afterward? I couldn't say a word about them without Edward's eyes plaguing my thoughts once again. Those huge, watery pupils seemed trapped between the man that he had been and something else entirely, something full of hatred and yet very, very happy. I was so focused on what I had gone through and keeping up the facade I had created I hadn't even paid attention to what was happening to the people around me.

"Naomi." I reached out a hand to console her, placing it on her shoulder "I'm sorry."

She looked at the hand with a somber, tired look.

"Don't be, it's not your fault, it's theirs."

"Who's?"

She looked at me "The ponies."

If this had been anything less than the serious, emotional discussion that it was right now, I would have laughed in her face, but I knew what she meant. It was the same thing that a lot of people in the HTF were saying right now. She wanted them gone, she wanted every last Equestrian out of her life, for the rest of her life.

The hell of it was, neither of us had actually met an actual Equestrian yet, but even now I could tell how much she hated them already, she hated them for making the potion, she hated them for making the converts, and God knows she hated the converts.

"Naomi," I looked at her warily "No offense, but you're slowly starting to sound like Carter."

"Don't give me that, Eli." She glared at me, "You know just as well as I do that they're the ones to blame here."

"We haven't even seen an actual Equestrian yet Naomi, all we have to go on are the converts."

"So what?! I've seen enough news coming out of Equestria to know that they still support conversion one-hundred percent! Its been months since the FDA released an explanation and how much have we heard in the news about a cure!?"

"And so you place the blame on the many for the deeds of the few, is that it?" I was beginning to get frustrated, to be honest, I didn't even know why I was defending the Equestrians, I definitely wasn't a fan of them and the converts, but I had heard more than enough about how the natural Equestrians differed from the converts, how they seemed so full of life, and they didn't smile nearly as much as the converts, sure they were cheery, but even they had been creeped out by their smiley counterparts.

Naomi looked at me with venom, "That's not the same thing, this is different."

"Really?" I matched her gaze with my own, "Nine-Eleven, a major terrorist attack on U.S soil, hundreds dead from the actions of the few men, the result? We still have people calling anyone from the middle-east a 'terrorist'.

"Nine-Eleven was about religious ideals and hatred, this is something else." Naomi leaned forward, her anger at me was growing with each passing moment.

"Who cares what it is, Naomi!" I balled my hands up into fists, "You haven't even met one of them and yet, you act like they've murdered the converts!"

"They might as well have!" Naomi stood up, her hands pressed firmly on the table as she got in my face. "Look at the facts you fucking idiot!" She growled, "They aren't trying to cure the converts!"

"Then what are they doing, Naomi!" I stood up with a snarl, "Since you're so fucking smart, tell me how a race you haven't even seen in person is so evil, how they've come to kill us all!"

Naomi glared at me with venom in her eyes, her mouth was pulled into a tight, grimacing frown that told me I had made her really, really mad.

"What would be the point?" She turned her back to me and began to walk away, "You seem to have everything figured out for yourself."

"Nao-"

She flipped me the bird over her shoulder, signaling that our conversation was over, I ran my hands through my hair and took a deep, frustrated breath. This was definitely going to end up biting me in my ass, but there wasn't much I could do about it now, I wasn't sorry about what I said, I still believed Naomi was wrong for hating the ponies as a whole. She was stubborn at the best of times and a complete brick wall of a person in regards to willpower when it came to her at her worst , when she was convinced of something, there was no dissuading her.

"You got a magic touch with the ladies, E." A voice chuckled from behind me.

I turned to see Martin striding up with Diana in tow, despite our argument, the two of them came to me with small smiles on their faces.

"Sup Martin?" I bumped fists with him, "Hey Diana."

"Hey, Eli." She replied quietly, Diana was the silent type and tended to hang around one of her friends when she was out in public, from what she told us at our meetings, she had a problem with anxiety, and the converts had done little to help that. It looked like Martin had been the first person she had found, and she stuck to him like glue.

"What was that about?" Martin nodded Naomi, who was stomping over to where my mom and hers were still talking.

"What do you think?" I raised an eyebrow, "She wants the Equestrians off Earth, I don't blame all of 'em for the potion, she does, we're both stressed, stuff like that tends to be toxic in a conversation."

"Can't really say I feel the same." Martin shrugged, "Even with my sis and my aunt," I can't hate something I've never met."

"Exactly!" I threw my hands up," I'm glad I'm not the only one here who understands."

"She's just scared." Diana replied, "This is hitting her family kinda hard."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Her Dad's family had something to do with the potion."

The both of us stare blankly at her.

"Excuse me, what?" Martin deadpans, "We're talking about the same person, right? Mr.Zakharovich, the very same guy that made cookies for our little group thing this summer?"

"I don't know!" Diana shrunk back, "All I know is that I heard her talking to her Dad about something like that when they walked in!"

"Holy shit!" Martin exclaimed, "What the hell!"

I looked at Martin, "Kind of overreacting there, don't you think?"

Martin shook his head looking at something behind me, "Not about this, about that!"

I turned to see a large amount of the people in the cafeteria staring at something in the leftmost entrance to the cafeteria, even my Mom and Mrs. Zakharovich were staring wide-eyed at it, I followed their gazes to see a group of three converts standing in the doorway. A light purple Earthpony, and two pegasi, one light red and the other a dark shade of burgundy. At first, I tensed up, ready to force a smile on my face and retreat out of the room as fast as possible, but my sudden anxiety was almost immediately washed away by confusion as I saw the very same kind of forced-smile on the faces of two of the ponies, while one had a nervous frown plastered on his face, they were accompanied by an older man in a light gray suit. His balding head shined in the fluorescent lighting like the top of a freshly-minted coin, and the constant beads of sweat on his head identified him as the Mayor of Penn's Creek, he was round, portly man by the name of Mr. Rivers.

The entire cafeteria had fallen silent, with neither party knowing how to react.

"What the hell is going on?" Martin whispered, "What's the mayor doing here?"

"Why is he with those converts?" Diana took a wary step backward.

"I don't think those are converts," I replied.

Mayor Rivers cleared his throat, "Pardon us everyone, don't pay us any mind, I'm just showing our town's newest residents around the school."

"What."

The cafeteria came alive with whispers as the Mayor ushered the three ponies across the cafeteria, with every pair of eyes in the room on them, as they passed I saw a picture on the flanks of two of the ponies and realized what they were, a manifestation of a pony's natural talent, something they called a 'cutie mark.' (I still can't help but roll my eyes when I hear that, ponies and their puns.)

A piece of information came back to me at that moment, converts don't get cutie marks for some reason, meaning these three weren't converts. They were Equestrian immigrants.

Already I could see scorn and fear wash across the faces of several people in the crowd, God-knows how Naomi was reacting to this.

"Well, this is going open a can of worms," I whispered as the group passed us.

"A can?" Martin replied, "It's gonna open a fucking shipping container of 'em."

The mayor kept that same nervous smile plastered on his face, but I could tell he was at a loss for words, why an Equestrian family would want to move to Penns Creek of all places was beyond me, but there they were, looking like a bunch of fish out of water.

The stallion leading the family cleared his throat, doing his best to put on a legitimate smile, it was strained, not in the way the convies were, trying to smile so hard it looked like it hurt sometimes, this pegasus seemed somewhat scared, like he was about to be mobbed by everyone in the cafeteria if he said or did anything wrong.

"H-hello everypo-" The stallion hesitated, "Hello everyone, my name is Wind Runner," he gestured to the Earth-pony mare and the stallion next to her, "this is my wife; Morning Mist, and my son Thunder Arc."

The Cafeteria remained oddly silent, everyone staring at the ponies in a manner that seemed almost accusatory.

"I suppose you're all wondering how this...unexpected turn of events came to be," the mayor said, his eyes scanning the crowd for a light in the dark, someone who could do something to break the silence.

"Our town has been chosen to become one of the many places across the country to receive citizens of Equestria that have chosen to immigrate to the United States."

More whispers, I could see my mom amoungst the many faces in the crowd, her expression one of surprise but lacking the hostility and hesitation that so many others carried. I could see a few more faces in the crowd like hers, some seemed a little too happy to see the Equestrians.

"Now, I expect everyone to treat our new neighbors with respect, our local newfoal population has been more than welcoming to them."

"Newfoals? Is that what they're calling them now?" Diana strode up beside us as we took got a good look at the family.

"Good a name as any." Replied Martin, "Better than what Eric's been calling 'em."

The mayor continued speaking of how the Equestrians would need help acclimating to human technology and norms, Edward's name came up once or twice and I saw Wind Runner visibly flinch, he had heard of what happened, I didn't necessarily know how he would react to something like that, or how any of them would react to it.

"Thank you everyone, for your time, I'm sure everyone is eager to get back home and enjoy the last few days of summer, so I'll be showing our new friends to their new house, everyone have a blessed evening." The mayor nodded and led the family off, leaving everyone to take in this revelation.

My mom came to get me soon after, I said my goodbyes to Martin and Diana and the two of us left in a hurried fashion. As we walked I caught a glimse of who else but Eric, Naomi was with him.

The two sent a passing glance my way, Naomi seemed to ignore me as soon as we made eye-contact, but I could feel Eric's eyes on my back as I turned the corner.

We entered the parking lot and I found myself staring at Officer Ellinburg and several other people gathered together, they looked pissed, and I didn't need to think much to guess why. They seemed to be talking and that was about it, but a lot of bad could come from words, especially when one of the people speaking carried a gun on them.

As we got in the car, my mom eventually spoke up, "They're gonna be a problem."

I looked at my mom in shock, "The ponies?"

She shook her head, "Not them..."

We remained silent the whole ride home, The few months of school proved my mom right, and from there on my life got about ten times harder.

Author's Note

Well, that took a while, life stuff got in the way, but I will continue to write until I have no hands to write with!

Now we're getting to the better parts of Act Zero, things are gonna heat up from here.

September 6th: felt like adding onto this chapter, the ending seemed too abrupt.

Act Zero:Chapter 6: Divergence

August 13th, 2018 Monday
Penns Creek High School
7:55 A.M

When I had first stepped off the school bus, I had generally understood the fact that this year was probably going to be something special, whether that was a good kind of special or an: oh God, oh fuck, kind of special, I couldn't say for sure until I got into the school year for real.

"Time will tell, I suppose." I thought, my lips pursed into a grim line on my face, the grimace turning into a frown as the sounds of hooves on pavement and wingbeats made their way to my ears.

In spite of the hopes of countless students and even some of the staff, the converts did show up to school, their backpacks looped around their forelegs as unicorns and earth-ponies trotted off the bus, while pegasi simply flew in to school, touching down in front of the entrance with a certain smugness that left several other converts and even a few humans staring enviously at them. Most tried to ignore them, some of the more accepting people tried to strike up a conversation with them, I did my best to tune them out, believing I knew how the conversations would all end up. The converts would end up creeping out the human talking to them, usually when they started talking about conversion. It was what had happened almost every other time a human and a pony seemed to interact.

This time, something was different, over the din of countless students conversing with each other the sound of the ponies' high pitched voices made their way to my ears, but their words didn't seem to add up. Instead of the usual drivel about how great conversion was, I heard things that didn't make sense.

"So, did you hear about the game yesterday?"

"Calvin? No, sweetie... you're waaaay too good for him."

"Conversion? I mean yeah, it's amazing, but it's not all I'm gonna talk about."

The newfoals actually sounded like people again!

I had stood stock still when I had first made the realization, straining my ears to make sure that the words I heard were coming from the very same creatures that had seemed borderline threatening just days before.

"Eli!"

I had made a mistake in standing still, if I had just kept moving I might have been able to blend in with the crowd and make it straight to homeroom without a second thought, but my brain had entered an"error 404" state, one that left me completely unaware of my surroundings as a very familiar teal unicorn approached me.

"Hey, Eli? You alright?"

I snapped out of my stupor to find Erica, or I guess, Starry Skies, looking at me with a concerned expression on her face.

"Oh!" I scratched the back of my head nervously as I felt warmth rise to my cheeks. "Yeah, I'm fine, why wouldn't I be?"

"It's almost time for homeroom, and you've kind of been standing there for the last three minutes." Starry cocked her head.
"Is there something on your mind?"

"Uh." I mentally tore through my archive of bullshit excuses for being weird, feeling even weirder for having to find one to explain my behavior to a newfoal of all people.

"Yeah, I forgot some homework, pretty important stuff." I gave her a nervous smile before quickly walking forward, trying to break off the conversation as quickly as possible.

She gave me a blank stare, "it's the first day of class."

"Shit!" My mind screamed, "diversionary tactics ineffective, begin evasive manuvers!"

"Oh..." I said, slowly beginning to walk backward in the direction of the front doors, "Whoops?"

The unicorn snorted, laughing somewhat as she trotted to keep up with me, I joined her in laughing, my own nervous giggling betraying the discomfort and anxiety I felt being around her. I backed up into the doors, pushing through them before turning and hurrying off to my homeroom.

"OkgoodtalkingtoyouIgottagotoclassbye!"

"You're gonna have to try harder than that if you want to fool me, Eli." Starry trotted up next to me, entering through the front doors just after I did with a troubled look on her face. "It's because of us, isn't it?"

I stopped, turning back to the unicorn.

"Us?"

She gave me a sorrowful look, "Newfoals, Eli. " Her expression was one of frustration as she pawed at the linoleum tiling, she looked at me with a look that lacked any sign of lost humanity, but there was something more there, something that pulled at me, almost begging me to believe her.

"Did you think we don't notice how people avoid us? People like you?"

I broke eye contact with her out of habit, my cheeks reddening once again.

"Don't take this the wrong way, I know what you must think of us after Mr. Deloach went crazy. But I don't think any human in Penns Creek really knows what's happening to us."

Starry Skies moved into my line of sight, her eyes boring into me like a drill, her ears had drooped and she had a frown on her face.

"Do you want to know how it feels to think one way when every other part of you screams for you to do something else? I used to love watching old horror movies with my parents, and now I can barely bring myself to even look at the screen when they come on! They look at me like I'm not even their daughter anymore, just some freak that took her place! They smile and they say they love me, but I hear what they say when they think I'm not listening."

The sound of the bell sounded through the school's P.A system, signaling the beginning of homeroom, and still, I couldn't bring myself to move from where I was standing. Her words gluing me to the spot as she continued.

"Do you even know why we keep talking about conversion? Why we stay together so much?" Her voice became choked up as she continued, causing the pony to close her eyes as she continued.

"Ponies are a prey-species by nature, we require a herd to feel anything even close to safe, and when you live in a town populated by the apex-predators of an entire planet, how else are we supposed to cope? We want more newfoals in the town, Eli, whether we like it or not, our instincts are screaming at us to either find a bigger herd, or to make one. But people like you keep looking at us like we're walking timebombs!"

"I-" I tried to explain myself, tried to say something that would make me seem vindicated in the matter, but nothing seemed to come out of my mouth. Ever since Edward I had kept seeing the same pony in the faces of every other newfoal. But with Erica, it was something different entirely. She was living proof that the newfoals were getting better, and worse yet, she was right, and that stung.

"We're all trying to get better at stuff like this, you've seen how everypony is talking now, right? It took weeks of us practicing together, overcoming instincts, mental hurdles, and even our own natures just to get to this point!"

She stared at me, tears in her eyes, "I know how you must see us, you were there when Mr. Deloach went crazy, I can only imagine what he must be feeling right now, but everyone is looking at you now, expecting for you to be up in arms against us."

She stepped closer, suddenly rearing up and resting her front hooves on my chest, she was on the verge of breaking down, I wanted to protest, but found myself allowing it, my guilt strongarming me into compliance.

"I'm begging you Eli, don't be like everyone in the H.T.F. don't be like Eric."

Alarm bells went off in my head, I took her hooves in my hands and gently let her back down to the floor.

"What do you mean like Eric?" I said, my voice soft but firm.

Starry hesitated, the look in her eyes changing from a pleading look to one of resentment, but at the same time, she seemed unwilling to talk about it.

"Erica."

"My name is Starry, Eli." She sighed, "I can't help but to want it that way."

"Starry, then." I said with some reluctance, "is Eric-?"

"Not physically, not yet." Starry relented. "There have been a few threats, I hear other newfoals talk about it when they meet, he and a few other people have been doing this for weeks, and it's not just newfoals either, he's been going after their friends, family, and anyone who supports us as well. They're scared, they're all scared and they're all looking to me to tell them what to do and I don't know what to tell them."

The distraught unicorn sat down in the middle of the hallway, beginning to cry outright.

"They want to run away, a lot of them do, and it's all I can do to get them to stay here with their families! B-but I don't even want to stay here! This is my home! I've lived here my entire life, but I can't stand the look everyone gives me every time I step outside my own house!"

The pony wiped at her eyes with her hooves, clearly breaking down from the pressure. I paused, I could just walk away, right now, promise her I won't be like Eric and not say another word to her or any other newfoal for the rest of the year. I could just go back to keeping my head down, fix things with Naomi and get on with my life.

I didn't have to do this.

I didn't want to do this.

Why was I doing this?

"Ah, Fuck."

I knelt, forcing myself to overcome my reservations and wrapped the unicorn in a hug, her breath caught slightly, my actions shocking her, but after a few seconds I felt her hooves around me, and she buried her head into my shoulder, crying her eyes out. She felt exactly like everyone had expected one of them to feel, soft, warm, but strong at the same time, her forelegs carrying muscles that could carry her for miles at a running pace. I was just grateful she wasn't an earth pony, I had heard that they were even stronger than unicorns.

I hesitantly patted her on the back, softly speaking sweet nothings in a hope to calm her.

"It's fine, it's ok, you're gonna be ok, alright? It's all gonna be alright."

She cried into my shirt for a few minutes, her tears wetting my shirt as she continued to bawl, God, how much emotion had she been holding back?

She eventually stopped crying, but continued to hug me in silence, her hooves tightly wrapped around my shoulders.

"You ok?" I asked.

"Mmhm." She replied, her response muffled.

We let go of each other, the two of us awkwardly taking a few steps back, shifting uncomfortably as we did so. I couldn't believe had just done that, in the middle of a school hallway, when this school was so drowned in opinions right now that even the kitchen staff would give you dirty looks if you thought a certain way. My eyes wandered to the black orb of a fisheye camera, confirming that there was likely video evidence of me hugging a newfoal.

Well, considering that I've already thrown myself down shit creek, I might as well toss my paddle in the river as well. I guessed I was taking a side after all.

I looked down at Starry, kneeling once again to look her in the eyes.

"Who else is with Eric?" I asked.

I wasn't entirely sure why I was involving myself in this, I guess I could say it felt right, but I still had my doubts, but I was willing to believe the unicorn was telling the truth, and if she was, well, I wasn't duty-bound to be some white-knight to the newfoals, but Starry had reminded me that the equines were still people. People who were going through something that neither I nor any other human being in this town could even begin to comprehend.

"A few of Eric's friends, I think I heard something about Naomi being there once."

I swore mentally, it was only a matter of time before Eric did something like this, but Naomi, I was hoping she would at least have the sense to stay neutral in something like this. If they even saw me talking to Starry like this, they would probably see me as siding with the newfoals.

But, that was what I was doing, wasn't it?

"Thank you." The unicorn offered a small smile. "I... wasn't expecting you to do something like that, but... I needed it, after everything that happened during the summer, after we all converted, I remember seeing you and your group, I didn't mean to intrude on you guys, but I wanted to try to calm things down between all of us. But then Alex saw Kevin and all of a sudden everypony was following me and talking about the trip to Atlanta, I didn't mean for it to end the way it did."

"It's fine," I replied.

"No, it's not." She insisted, " Ever since you started that group I've been trying to emulate you, tried to become a leader to the newfoals just like you did for their siblings. I was hoping that since we all stuck together anyway, we could work together to overcome this, and it's working! It really is! But I think most people are too scared after what happened to Mr. Deloach, I thought I could get both of our groups to work together, but everypony wasn't ready yet, and now Ripple Wood won't stop
bothering Anna, and I think Alex is trying to pressure Kevin into conversion, and it's not just us foals either, I think the adults were starting to act out too. I've really messed up and now I don't know how to fix all of this."

"There may be no good way to fix this." I remarked, "Especially with Eric on the warpath."

I scratched my head anxiously, taking another deep breath.

"Ok, time to do something stupid." I sighed, pinching the bridge of my nose.

Starry cocked her head, "what do you mean?"

"I'm gonna see if I can talk to Eric, see if I can get him to see reason, or at the very least, threaten to call the cops unless he and his friends leave you guys alone."

She looked doubtful, "you do know his dad is a cop, right? One that hates newfoals?"

"Yeah, well, it's a good thing I won't be going to him about it." I took a deep breath, steadying myself as I prepared to stand back up.

"Wait."

Starry reared up again, this time wrapping her hooves around my neck in another hug.

"Thank you, thank you so much."

"Yeah, well." I chuckled. "If you see me with a black eye you'll know it didn't work, in the meantime." I took my phone out of my pocket, "we're twelve minutes late to homeroom on the first day of school."

Starry went wide-eyed and looked at a nearby clock, "Uh oh."

"Yeaaaah. We might want to hurry."

I stood, nodding to her before the two of us went off in the direction of our separate homerooms, I felt good about the choices I had made, maybe that was just the whole Christain in me talking, but for all the good deeds I was about to perform, but couldn't shake the feeling that I was walking from one lion's den into another.

Going through the first week of school can be a difficult experience at times. There was the unfamiliarity of the new classes, the confusion that comes with planning the route from class to class, the stares of classmates both new and old, their thoughts hidden behind their eyes like top-secret documents hidden behind a safe. The looks of the newfoals made it even worse, especially since they were the same faces I had avoided and even feared for the past few months. I still saw Edward when I looked at them, but now a guilty feeling bared down on me as well when I met their eyes.

The promise I had made Starry had been fresh in my mind the entire week, and as each day went by I found myself lacking the courage to go up to Eric and Naomi, fearful of what they would say, fearful of what they might do.

I would be making myself a target once again by defending the newfoals like this, but this time, it was members of my own species that would have their eyes set on me.

Regardless, the promise seemed to follow me wherever I went, distracting me from schoolwork, keeping me awake at night. If I didn't do it soon I would drive myself crazy.

I couldn't risk confronting them all together, I'd end up a punching bag if I did something as stupid as that. I needed to make sure Eric was alone or with Naomi when I talked to him. But that window seemed to be a rare occurrence at the very least, as his little gang seemed to follow him through the halls, changing with the classes but ensuring that he always had backup when he decided to bother a newfoal or another kid.

Sometimes I would see his gang in the act, the newfoal would do their best to move on to class while they followed him, sometimes they harassed them in the halls, other times, the bathroom. Their words harsh and mocking, one newfoal stallion was laughed at as they tried and failed to hop-up onto a toilet for the first time, and ultimately ended up falling in.

But, the newfoals never seemed to react how Eric wanted them to, my guess was that he expected anger, that he was trying to provoke them into fighting back so they had even more ammunition for their anti-pony campaign. But the ponies had always either responded with forced smiles and slight hints at conversion.

The newfoals' human relatives seemed to be much easier prey for them, humans weren't an unknown for them, and they couldn't seriously injure any of them like a pony could if they got pushed too far.

Kevin, unfortunately, was a prime target for them, the freshman being quiet and with few friends thanks to his brother, what friends he did have he tended to stick close to as much as possible, but there were times where he would walk through the halls alone, and I would watch as Eric backed him into a corner, heckling and sometimes even exhorting money from him and other students.

And then, there was the Equestrian.

Thunder Arc, a native to the city of Manehatten back in Equestria, Eric seemed to go out of his way to provoke him. But from what I could see, the pegasus was not one to be pushed around, I only saw the two of them go at it once in the halls, the pony's eyes met Eric's with fire and defiance, always meeting an insult with an insult of his own, tempers flared and if a teacher hadn't been watching from the threshold of her classroom, I had no doubt that the encounter would have turned physical.

Thunder kept to himself mostly, I had two classes with him, and he usually sat in the back of both rooms, only speaking when spoken to and completing his work in silence. When another student spoke to him his responses were short and to the point, not seeming to care much for conversation. The newfoals, however, never seemed to leave him alone, he seemed to be only slightly more comfortable around them, and they seemed to be the only ones that ever sat next to him during lunch.

The newfoals themselves seemed to only improve in behavior, Starry being the shining example among them, being both polite, sensible, and rarely speaking a word about conversion to anyone. Eric seemed to leave her alone, I had asked her why once and she didn't seem to have the slightest idea as to why. The two of us slowly grew to be friends as the next two weeks passed like nothing, I felt eyes on my back every time I spoke to her, but I refused to allow them to get to me. I made myself a promise that I would make up for the way I treated the newfoals during the summer, and my friendship with her was the first step in that process.

She was a great conversationalist, being both as intelligent as Naomi and pretty witty to boot, she ended up tutoring me in geometry for a while, and to my disbelief, she had a gaming hobby as well. We never spent time at my own home, for fear of how my parents may react, but her parents seemed thrilled when she first brought me to her home. Though her parents rarely ever seemed to be home, and when they were home, they were very aloof, almost dreamy, Starry said that they had taken to drinking ever since she converted.

Soon as the days passed and the two of us spent more and more time together she seemed to be just like any other one of my friends, though all of my other friends were human.

Colin was the only other friend of mine I introduced her to, he treated her with caution, but seemed to be polite enough to her. I could only imagine what he thought of her, of me, but after everything he was still willing to hang out with me, and in my book, that said a lot.

That was how the first month went by, with me struggling to fulfill a promise as Eric and his people only grew in confidence, sooner or later I was going to have to say something, sooner or later an opening would appear and I would have to take it.

My window of opportunity came sooner than I expected.

September 3rd 2018
Outside of Penns Creek High
3:45 P.M.

"So, gluestick, I've been wondering, is it your dad or your mom that has the horn?"

"Buck off you big gorilla, both of them have more than you'll ever have!"

"Oh, really?"

"Not... not like that!"

I had heard the conversation in passing as I had begun walking home to school, just two faint voices coming from under the stadium-seats of the football field. I knew who both of them were before I even tried to see who it was.

Eric and Thunder, just the two of them, both pissed, both ready to strangle the other.

That was my window, not the most opportune time to confront him on something like that, but I was tired of waiting, Starry hadn't said another thing about my promise ever since the first day of class, but I could tell she was waiting for a change, I had my chance, if I didn't take it I didn't think I could face Starry.

I approached the bleachers, steeling myself for an inevitable punch to the face as their voices grew closer.

"Y'see pony, ever since you horses showed up shit's only gotten worse for us humans, you and that fucking potion should have stayed on that Dungeons and Dragons game you call a planet."

"Not my fault your sister knew what was good for her, I heard you treated her like she was nothing but a monster, she's better off without you!"

"Fuck you gluestick! Say another word about her and I'll fucking kick your ass!"

"Do it then, plothole!"

I walked up on the two of them about to go at it, their eyes locked on each other as they slowly began to circle each other.

"That's enough!"

My voice cut through the air like a judge's gavel, carrying with it much more force than I had intended it to. Eric turned on me, his expression showing that he hadn't been expecting me to show up, but he didn't seem to care much either way.

"What do you want? Mind your own business, horse-fucker." He growled, beginning to turn back to Thunder.

"Is... is this how you're going to keep doing this, Eric?" I managed to say.

He paused.

"How long is this going to go on?" I gestured to Thunder, "he hasn't done anything to you, none of them have."

Eric turned back to me, cold fury in his eyes.

"Nothing? Is my sister nothing?" He snarled.

"That was Equestria's fault, not his."

Eric closed in on me, his stature making me feel like a dwarf in his presence.

"Why don't you go back to fucking that horse that used to be Erica? You walk up on me like you have a goddamn idea what it's like to lose someone, for them to tell you they hate you for just being human and then leave like you didn't mean anything to them. I don't give a damn how much better they act, they deserve every last thing coming to them."

"Sarah left because you treated her like she wasn't family." I replied, "You wouldn't even give her the time of day when she did come to you for help."

"Slap!"

The backhand I got sent me reeling, nearly causing me to fall as I managed to catch one of them nearby beams for support.

"Naomi said you'd do something like this, try to play the saint," Eric said glaring at me. "You're a coward, Eli, you're just like every one of those freaks who converted. Do your parents know you're hanging out with that horned freak? God, if I had a kid like you I might have just given you off to some orphanage."

I pushed myself off the bar only to receive a punch to the face, knocking me to the ground.

"What a disappointment you are, tell you what, how about you go back to that whorse? I let you be, and you can go be with your marefriend and I'll pretend like this little incident never happened

I felt anger burn in my throat, words that I didn't want to say and things I didn't want to do burning in my mind like branding irons.

"Fuck you." I spat, gritting my teeth as he put his foot in my gut.

"Maybe I should bring you some of that shit, huh? Would you like that? To be a fucking gluestick like your friend, you don't even deserve to be human." Eric sneered, "Carter was right, everyone who stands with these freaks is no better than them, they're beneath us."

"He's better than you." Thunder's voice drew Eric's attention back to him.

"The fuck you say?" Eric wheeled on the pegasus.

"This guy?" Thunder gestured to me with his hoof. "I've heard about him, he's more of a man than you'll ever be." Thunder pressed, "He's here standing up for somepony he doesn't even know, getting slapped around and not even bothering to hit back, and what are you doing?"

The pony glared at him. "Throwing your weight around, blaming everyone but yourself like some little foal having a temper tantrum, you're the coward here, it was your fault your sister left you."

"Shut the fuck up!" Roared Eric, charging Thunder, who lept back, flapping his wings once to dodge the punch thrown by Eric. Without thinking I stuck my foot out, tripping the enraged linebacker and sending him face-first into a support beam. His nose smacked into the metal and he fell onto his butt with an enraged growl, blood pouring from his nose.

I stood, my hands balled into fists as I gave Eric a look that meant business.

"You need to think about who's really to blame here Eric. You can throw your problems onto absolutely everyone you want, but it's not gonna go away until you face the fact that it's your fault." I turned my back on him, feeling his hate-filled eyes on me as I walked away.

"Plothole." Thunder spat, following me out from under the bleachers and into the sun.

"Crap," I muttered, massaging my jaw and looking at the bruise forming on my chin. "How am I gonna explain this to mom and dad?"

"Tell 'em the truth." said Thunder from behind me, "Ya helped me out when ya could've walked on by."

I shrugged, "Anyone would've done it."

"That's a load'a horseapples."

I shrugged, "probably."

Thunder gave a short laugh, plodding up to stand in front of me before hopping into the air and hovering to be face-level with me.

"Thunder Arc." He offered me his hoof.

I raised an eyebrow and gave a half-smile, bumping the hoof with my fist like the Equestrian meeting guides online had said to do.

"Elias Hallanday."

Thunder nodded, "My ma knows a spell that'll make that bruise disappear, c'mon." He landed and began trotting off, down the sidewalk, looking back to me when he noticed I wasn't following.

"Ya comin' or what?"

I shook off my initial stupor, hesitating for a moment but pushing past it, shouldering my backpack, I jogged after him.

"Yeah, sounds good."

Author's Note

I'm a liar, yes I know.

Worlds Away will be updated, but I had a spark of inspiration, and after a few hours of brainstorming I've got the plot of act zero written out.

Yay! Consistency!

About time.

Shut up.

Anyways, constructive criticism is accepted with open arms, thank you for reading and have a wonderful day!

Act Zero: Chapter 7: Sanctuary

I had chosen to become friends with two of the most hated individuals in the town.

There were consequences for that choice.

The most obvious of said consequences was that Eric Ellinburg declared war on me.

It was not a war in the traditional sense as much as it was a campaign of words and attempted intimidation, bathroom-wall threats, insults written in marker on my locker and notes declaring the writer's hatred of me and "all of my horsefucker friends." Instantly anyone who had ties to the HTF now had a firm dislike of me, which meant at least sixty percent of the school now considered me blacklisted, if they didn't hate my guts outright.

That was fine, I pretended not to notice the glares I received in the halls as I walked through them, eyes glued to my phone as I walked from class to class with my earphones in. I walked near what few friends II had left when I could, Colin, Martin, Diane, Anna, Kevin, and on occasion, Thunder and Starry.

That was really when I could feel the eyes on my back, the times when I walked alongside a pony, not only the students but the faculty, it was strange, seeing how someone's facade of 'maturity' or 'professionalism' fades away when you stand for something they don't like. Not one of the teachers dared say anything to us directly, not when people like Martin's sister took every opportunity they could to defend the converts and conversion.

That was another consequence, I wasn't trying to pick sides, but everyone assumed I had, and now both the converts and those who supported them now saw me as 'on their side.'

It was awkward at first, declining invitations to talk at afterschool meetings or go out to spend time with the "pro-conversionists" as I liked to call them. The converts were improving daily when it came to their behavioral quirks, and despite the evidence screaming the contrary online, it was slowly getting to the point where the converts could be seen as human again, at least mentally.

Of course, much to my own dismay, my own experiences with them had left a figurative bad taste in my mouth, I could still see the thing in Edward Deloach every time I looked into the eyes of a newfoal, no matter how well they hid it I could still see it. But after so spending so much time talking to the converts, I had convinced myself it had been my own fears and hesitations trying to mess with my mind. I forced myself to recognise that whatever I was 'seeing' was an excuse for me to distance myself from people who just needed sympathy and someone to talk to.

But no matter how hard I tried to focus on everything positive about the converts, the feeling that something was "off" about the newfoals never went away.

The only newfoal who seemed wholly and completely normal to me was Starry, maybe that was how I had convinced myself that nothing was wrong with the newfoals, because Starry had seemed so human.

Starry had found me in the halls once again a few days after my confrontation with Eric, right in front of my locker, which had the word "horsefucker" written in big, black sharpie on it.

She had taken one look at the graffiti and began apologizing, trying to explain that she hadn't meant to draw me into Eric's crusade against the converts. I had tried my best to assure her that what I had done had been my choice and my choice alone, that what I did I had done because I had believed that it was the right thing to do. That seemed to calm her down somewhat, though I had to remind her of that several times as the state of things in the school was brought up.

After that, Starry and I tended to hang around each other when there was no one else to spend time with, my "good looks and charm" could only go so far when almost everyone either wanted nothing to do with me or wanted me to subscribe to something that I didn't believe in.

My small group of friends was all I had, and the human ones were always being pressured by the other students to ditch me, some losing friends of their own because they refused to blacklist me as their friends had.

I had felt happy that there were a few people that were still willing to stand next to me, it was reassuring, it had made me feel like maybe I was actually doing the right thing. Of course, each of them had their reasons for staying with me, but their loyalty had made me euphoric to the point that I probably would have overlooked any ulterior motives if they had any.

Colin and I had been the best of friends since third grade, and we were more than accustomed to watching each others' backs. To say he was a little uncertain about the converts would be an understatement, but he trusted me as much as I trusted him, he had my back until the end, and God knows I was grateful for it.

Martin and I were still on friendly terms because I would keep an eye on his sister where he could not. She liked me a lot more than she liked anyone else in her family, probably because they refused to allow her to be converted or convert themselves. But considering how Starry considered me a friend, Shitavia was more than friendly on the rare occasion we did talk.

Diane hung around Martin, and it was pretty obvious that the two of them had a thing going, but Martin seemed to have done a lot for the smaller girl's confidence, she seemed a lot surer of herself than before, talking to me in the halls and brushing off the looks everyone gave her. She seemed to want to stand for something, but she didn't like how Eric was doing things and conversion still didn't feel right to her, so I guessed she saw what I was doing as the grey-area, and so she stuck with it.

When it came to Anna, I didn't understand her motives in the slightest, but one day she had chosen to sit with us rather than Naomi, Eric, or any of her other friends. It might have been that I had spoken to Starry about Anna's newfoal stalker, and she had gotten him to apologize and ease up, but there seemed to be something else going on between her and Naomi, something that had driven a wedge between the two of them. But I would never ask and she would never offer up the information, so I left it at that, I think she appreciated that notion, that my little outsider's club never pried into why its members were there, we just talked and hung out without worrying about what everyone else thought. Anna had taken steps to define herself in the months that had passed, changing from her traditional styles to a more urban stylization, dyeing and cutting her hair so that it hung on-level with her rounded cheeks, her t-shirts and jeans became denim jackets and skirts, but beneath all those cosmetics it was still her in there, still kind, still patient, and definitely still bubbly.

Kevin however, he had come to me, I suppose it was the only place he could run to with his parents too timid to say anything as Alex, or "Star Chaser," was almost always trying to convince his brother to convert, and with the first bureaus opening in a few weeks, if he hadn't come to us to vent I think he might have given in. I had tried to talk to Starry about it, she dodged the topic a lot, either with empty promises or nervous silence. I almost always felt the older brother's eyes on me when I was near Kevin, but if I wasn't used to being watched by then I didn't think I was ever going to be.

Star Chaser had regarded me with grudging respect when he had noticed Kevin with me and my group, knowing he couldn't object without being in the wrong in some capacity, I guess he considered it acceptable because I was friends with Thunder and Starry, and that I was "on his side."

Then, there was Thunder.

The pegasus knew about as much about humanity as humans knew anything about the internal affairs of Equestria, he had next to no friends barring the converts, which seemed to treat him as if he were a God amongst them, and he made barely any attempt to succeed in his classes. He knew he wouldn't be able to learn a human high-school curriculum when he hadn't even finished his schooling in Equestria. But I think one way or another he was relieved to not be on his own anymore. The constant pandering of the converts and conversionist students tended to make him uncomfortable, and if he wasn't being glared at, he was being avoided when it came to most of the other human students.

When I had sided with him against Eric, he had led me to his home so his mom could heal me, after that, we briefly spoke before I left for home, that evening had been strange. I had both seen magic in use for the first time in my life and observed how the ponies tried to live in a home clearly made for humans, they were adapting, however, and with a few suggestions from me they were on their way to acclimating to their new environment on a physical level at least.

It hadn't taken long for my mother to force the information about that little visit out of me, and not even a week later she had invited them over for dinner, intent on doing what no other family on the block was willing to do. It had resulted in Morning Mist and my mother going out to the local Starbucks every Saturday, leaving Thunder and I stuck hanging out weekly, and while I could drive, my family didn't have the money to get me my own car, and so if the two of us did anything outside of playing videogames it required us to walk through the town together, on display for every resident of the town to see.

The pegasus had, however, provided some interesting stories about his home country when I finally convinced everyone to sit with him, telling us about the massive factory-city that was Manehatten, the crystal war, and some of his world's greatest villains and heroes. He had a way of telling those stories, like his words became pictures as soon as they left his mouth, he had wanted to become a traveling storyteller before he had left Equestria, apparently a dying profession. But his father had insisted they leave after the factory district after he supervised the construction of something called "totem proles."

My group of friends was small, but I was happy with them, content with the quality of the company I kept rather than the quantity, but even then there were times when no one else could hang out. Of course, there were times where we would spend time together out of a mutual want to, but Starry and I seemed to have an understanding when it came to the circumstances of our friendship.

The burden of leading the pro-conversion faction of our town had taken its toll on her, she had been the first to convert and both the newfoals and those who followed her looked to her like she was some sort of sacred prophet or messiah.

If they had troubles, concerns, or questions, they would come to her for advice, and so she had looked to my tactic of banding together, using the way I had kept my discussion group together over the summer to model her own leadership style.

But now, that group was gone, torn apart by our own fears and doubts while the newfoals all still looked to her for guidance.

So, when her doubts and fears would bubble up to the surface, she would come to me and vent, and I somehow would end up reassuring her, giving advice where I could and doing my best to make her smile in spite of the responsibility placed on her. In my eyes, all I was really doing was saying nice things and giving my opinion while doing my best not to judge, but I supposed that was more than enough for her.

The unicorn was actually an incredibly empathic person once you got to know her, but always so hard on herself, saying that she had to make things right. I had gotten a notion that she might have blamed herself for everything that had been happening in Penns Creek, that by her choice to convert all the hate and fear everyone felt had been directly caused by her and that she had to atone for it.

That was the thing about her, always kind, yet so determined to see peace in Penns Creek once again.

"I'll be satisfied when everyone in Penns Creek smiles again." She had told me at one time, "If nothing else, I want everyone to know peace."

It was an admirable goal, one I didn't see happening any time soon, sure, but it was that optimism that led me to look up to her in some ways.

She had succeeded where I had failed, keeping the newfoals and their families a united front that stood strong in the face of the hate and controversy that followed them wherever they went. But even she had her breaking point, and I had seen a glimpse of that the first day of school, it had been heartbreaking to see her in that state, breaking down crying in the middle of the hall. It had made a pang of guilt that I hadn't realized I had been feeling show itself to me, and I had felt ashamed.

So, whether it had been out of guilt for my hand in her struggles or out of my newfound respect for her, I became a kind of unofficial advisor to her, giving her "the human side of things," without seeming like the dreaded "privileged white male" I had heard so much about online.

I liked to think that the times I made her smile and laugh were genuine, that I was starting to make up for my neglect of the Newfoals and my own moral compass.

She had wanted to become a psychiatrist back when she was human, and she still wanted to do so after converting, she had studied the topic vehemently, doing her best to understand both human and pony nature so she could understand what everyone felt, but even then she was humble about it.

"If I were any good at psychiatry, maybe I would have been able to talk Eric down." She had told me. " I tried that once, and almost got jumped five minutes later, human nature is one of the most stubborn, indomitable things about your species, and hate seems to be a deep-seated part of it."

She seemed lost at times, on the brink of giving up, and I would bring her back with words of encouragement and support, giving her ideas about how to manage individual problems and coping with life as a newfoal.

For a while, I enjoyed it, though sometimes I would catch her staring at me, not in the way other Newfoals did....or used to do. She just, stared, looking away hurriedly when I turned my head back to look at her so I could never see exactly what was in those eyes, I thought that maybe she still felt guilty about drawing me into everything, that she was responsible for me being blacklisted and now on top of everything else I was helping her after she had done this to me.

I knew she would deny it if I talked to her about it, so I remained silent, resolving to help her when and how I could.

October 31st 2018
"Halloween."
Penns Creek Park
12:05 P.M
"I think it's a bit weird, to be honest."

"Why? They're just holidays."

"How many Equestrian holidays are tied to human ones? Specifically American ones?"

I flicked another piece of chocolate into my mouth before resting my arms and head on the table, looking up at Starry with a quizzical expression. Her face was thoughtful, a hoof held to her chin in thought as her mind browsed through her knowledge of both human and Equestrian holidays.

"Three, I think...."

"Yeah," I replied, "there's today, which the Equestrians call...?"

"Nightmare Night." Answered Starry, her hoof returning to the table with a loud "clop!" "It was created after some foals decided to pay homage to Nightmare Moon to prevent her from returning."

"Nightmare who?"

"Princess Luna, but edgier."

"Ah." I had only seen the second princess once during her own interview at the peace summit, she had seemed like a fairly competent ruler, it was hard to see her as someone who led a coup against her own sister, but appearances were deceiving, I had learned that much by now.

"How about Christmas? What do they call it? Heath's Warming?"

"Hearth's warming." Corrected Starry, looking somewhat bored. "You were close."

"What about that one?"

"I don't know much about Hearth's Warming, I think it had to do with the unity of the three pony races."

"But still, they put up a tree, decorate it, and give each other presents, like us?"

The pony sighed, "Yes, if I remember correctly."

"And there is no religious significance whatsoever?"

"Not unless you count harmony as a religion."

"Right, and there was one more big one, was it new years?"

"Equestria celebrates that, but not as much as humanity does, besides, I think the one your thinking about is.....hearts....and hooves.....day."

Starry averted her eyes, moving her hoof over suddenly to pick up the water bottle that sat near her but ended up knocking it to the ground.

"Whoops! Dropped my water bottle!"

She suddenly ducked her head under the table as her horn glowed a soft blue, the water-bottle became enveloped in energy of the same color and began to move on its own. I ducked my own head under and watched as it levitated up and onto the table.

I stared intently, still amazed at the performance of magic despite having my newfoal-friend perform the same spell several times over. Magic was an unknown for humanity, and when something as impossible as the colorful energy was suddenly proved to exist, I took every chance I could to get a look at it.

"You're getting pretty good at that," I remarked, watching as the bottle was set down and the cap screwed itself back onto the bottle.

"Practice makes perfect," Starry shrugged, her eyes brightening somewhat as the topic changed. "Telekinesis is a basic spell for most unicorns, but the more I use my magic, the closer I get to being able to do stuff like teleport."

"For real?" I raised an eyebrow. "You guys can teleport?"

"Yup." Starry smiled smugly. "What's wrong? Jealous?"

"Not when I have to trade hands for hooves."

"It's not as bad as you think!" Starry began. "Once you get used to the new spine-structure, walking on hooves becomes almost second nature, to be honest after I converted it felt even more natural than when I was-"

Starry cut herself off when she saw the look I was giving her.

"Oops, sorry." She gave me an apologetic smile.

"S'fine, that's two days without talking about it though, your record is four days."

Starry thumped the table with her hoof.

"Horseapples."

I gave a sudden laugh at her choice of words.

"Horseapples?"

Starry blushed, her eyes moving left to right before covering her mouth with her hooves.

"What is that?" I laughed, "An Equestrian swear-word?"

"Maybe." Said Starry in a small voice, lowering her hooves slightly.

I cracked up even more, "are you cursing in Equestrian now, Star?"

"No!" Starry pushed herself up on the table, standing on her hind-hooves, "who would do that? I'm not some bucking-"

Starry's hooves flew to her mouth again as I fell out of my seat, practically in pain with how much I was laughing.

".....Shut up!"

I looked back to see Starry's face flushed with embarrassment, which made me laugh even more.

"Yeah, yeah, laugh it up monkey-boy," Starry grumbled, trying to hold in the smile that was slowly growing on her face.

After I had managed to remember how to breathe after a few more seconds of laughter, I returned to the table, my face red
and my breath short as we continued our conversation. It was days like these that had made the trade-off worth it, hanging out with someone who didn't judge, because we both knew everyone else did. I had felt like I had gotten a handle on the strange hand life had dealt me. I had hoped to simply focus on my friends and grades for the rest of the year, until I could finally graduate and head to college. So far my plan had been working brilliantly, and I didn't think anything could stop me from regaining a somewhat normal life.

It took one night for life to prove me wrong.

November 12th 2019
Hallanday Residence
11:12 P.M.

The Doctor's name was Erica Kraber, she was one of the few individuals with the know-how and resources to conduct research on the newfoals for herself.

She had just proven that almost every major health organization in the world was lying.

She had posted the results of psychological experiments in a series of vlogs, showing the clear difference in the mental faculty of the newfoals versus their pony counterparts. She had even gone so far as to monitor the brain activity of a first-wave newfoal, a young stallion who had volunteered, hoping to prove to everyone that they didn't need to be afraid of it.

The brain had shown no signs of physical alteration, but the parts of the brain that processed memories and emotions seemed to operate differently than when they were paired with a human body. The parts of the limbic system that channeled positive emotions and memories seemed to work in high-gear, focusing on emotions such as anger and happiness while the parts that handled emotions like fear and sadness almost appeared to be working as if they had been muted, perfectly healthy and yet slowing down with every passing day.

Then she compared those findings to the brain activity of a recently-converted newfoal.

The brain seemed to be on the same level of a healthy Equestrian, the limbic systems of the convert had shown slight signs of alteration but nowhere near the level of the first-generation newfoal. In English, Dr. Kraber had proved that the newfoal's brains were undergoing an undetermined form of alteration, one that did not line up with the brain activity of a pureblood pony. These alterations happened over time, causing the newfoal to forget more and more about the person they used to be the longer they lived in their new forms. The projected time periods in which the alterations would completely subsume the brain seemed to vary from case to case, but many newfoals now were either obsessed with conversion or dead-set on fleeing their friends and family to go to a country that they never even knew existed until a year ago.

It was obvious enough that the FDA had lied to the public, but this meant more, there had been dozens of medical institutions that had verified the potion's safety as had Equestria itself. Why would so many risk their reputations for a substance so blatantly flawed? People were losing themselves to the potion and still, people line up around the block to take it as if nothing was wrong, meanwhile half of those who actually see the potion for what it is were those who had a personal grudge against the entire race of ponies. Already the elements of harmony and other Equestrian citizens of importance were receiving threats, even Lyra Heartstrings was being threatened, and she was probably one of the potion's biggest critics!

Equestria had produced the potion as a means to broker peace between humanity and ponykind, yet it seemed more and more that the potion was driving us apart.

There was a missing piece to this puzzle, there was something in play here that I couldn't quite put my finger on, and it felt like whoever was behind all of this had the world tied on the end of a string, one that was about to snap.

By the time I had finished reading and watching everything I could set my eyes on I was about as pale as a snowman, thoughts of panic and sympathy raced through my mind. More and more newfoals disappeared by the day, their behavior continuing to spiral out of control. Dr. Kraber's tests now solidified that things were going to get worse before they would get better, and between the increasing hostility of the HTF and the unsettling zealotry of those who continued to defend the newfoals and potion, there had to be a point where things boiled over.

I blinked tiredly as I closed my laptop, trying to process everything I had just seen, the newfoals were slowly losing their humanity, leaving only the smiling, dreamy-eyed pony behind.

"God," I thought, "Starry, Edward, Alex, Eric's sister, how long had they been feeling themselves slip away?"

I wiped a hand over my tired face, looking at my clock before yawning and rising from the place on my bed, I wanted to sleep, knowing I had school in the morning. I wasn't looking forward to another day's worth of ridicule and insults mixed with a likely distraught Starry struggling to manage a bunch of panicked converts. She barely had time to herself as it was, between schoolwork, the time she took to practice her magic, and leading the converts I was pretty sure she was losing sleep.

Still, as her friend, I needed to be there for her, through thick and thin, I owed it to her, especially now. I shuddered at the thought of something slowly eroding my mind, eating away at me until I was a blank slate.

I strode to my bathroom, intending to brush my teeth, but froze as a flash of light briefly illuminated my window, I yelped in shock as I stumbled away, tripping over my own feet and tumbling to the ground in the process.

"Crack!"

Shitt! I thought, "Was that lightning?!"

I pushed myself to my feet before hurrying to the window, there hadn't been any storms in the forecast for tonight...

The first thing I noticed as I looked out into my backyard was the overturned trashcans, which were illuminated by a porch-light. Spilled paper-trash and food was all over the yard mixing with the countless leaves the trees had dropped, something I would be made to clean-up later if I didn't do it then and there. Even though my parents weren't here I could practically hear them calling me

Groaning, I stomped over to the door to my bedroom, haphazardly tossing the door open before I continued down the hall and over to the stairs. I looked over the banister that overlooked the living room and kitchen, the rooms were as dark and quiet as I had left them.

I descended the stairs, looking around as I did so for some kind of jacket to wear, it probably would have been a good idea to get something warm from my closet back upstairs, but I was pretty sure that if I went back to my room I wouldn't be able to force myself back out. So I resolved myself to suffer through the cold and do what I had come to do while I still possessed the motivation to do it.

I made a left through the living-room to get to my back door, the glass doors offering an excellent view of the trash-covered backyard. I let myself out and wrapped my arms around myself as I observed the backyard, shivering in the autumn wind.

"Freaking cold," I grumbled, rubbing my arms slightly and shaking my head.

I did my best to get up all of the trash as fast as possible, and after about seven minutes I was chasing down the last piece, a rogue paper towel that was being blown about by the wind.

"C'mon!" I grabbed at the white sheet for the third time, it danced just barely out of my reach yet again, almost as if it were mocking me.

"Work with me here you floaty piece of- ha!" I pinned the paper to the ground with a finger, "got....you?"

As I lifted my hand from the ground I noticed that there was a patch of grass that was black, I leaned down, intending to pick a blade up, instead, it crumbled in my fingers.

"Burnt, I whispered, " maybe it really had been lightning."

That didn't make sense though, if lightning had struck this close to the house, there would have been some kind of power failure, wouldn't there? The lights in my room were still on even now, I could see them from where I stood in the backyard, and what was even weirder, the grass had been burned in a near-perfect circle, as if someone had taken the time to make a crop-circle in our yard.

Even more interesting was the fact that there were twelve parts of the blackened grass circle that had already been crushed. I looked nearby and found more crushed grass leading away from the circle.

And towards our basement window, which was now open.

"Well, shit." I thought, approaching the window, I cautiously peered into it and flinched as I heard the sound of shifting boxes inside.

"Great."

I raced to the back door, closing it behind me.

"Shit, shit, shit."

I fumbled with the lock on the door.

"Oh God, oh fuck."

I finally turned the lock and turned to the kitchen, silently tiptoe-running across the living-room to get to the kitchen's center island. Opening a drawer and pulling out a flashlight, flicking the switch a couple of times to make sure it had power.

"Son of a bitch, fuck my life, etcetera, etcetera."

I cautiously approached the door to the basement, which stood a few feet away from the kitchen, looming over me in the dark room like a portal to the abyss.

"Ok, Eli, something's in the basement, could be raccoons, could be bears."

My thoughts drifted to the burnt-circle of grass.

"Fire-breathing bears, ones that came from the sky in a bolt of lightning, yeah."

I grasped the handle of the doorknob, flicking on the flashlight as I did so before opening it up and descending into the dark, closing the door behind me.

"Wonderful Idea Eli, go into the basement with the fire-bears of death, I give the plan a solid 10/10, would die a brutal death again." I mentally berated myself as I went deeper into the basement.

Our basement was a maze of boxes, filled with old heirlooms, toys, Christmas decorations, and old car parts, no one in my family ever went down unless they absolutely had to, partially because no one wanted to navigate the junk-jungle, and partially because there was enough dust down here to choke a fire-breathing bear to death.

"Shff!"

"Oh shit!" I whispered.

My eyes registered movement in the dark as I stepped off the stairs and onto the cold concrete floor, the flashlight and the moonlight that filtered in through the open window were the only sources of light in the room. Casting shadows that shifted and writhed as my flashlight swept across the small cardboard forest to the general direction of the movement.

I slowly stepped off of the stairs and approached the area where I had seen movement.

"Bad idea, bad idea, bad idea." My mind chanted, trying to discourage me from continuing.

I brushed aside some boxes to behold...

A tiny wooden rocking horse, which bobbed back and forth as I stared at it.

I suddenly let out a breath I hadn't realized I had been holding, silently laughing somewhat as I swept the light around the room, nothing, maybe whatever had wandered in had wandered back out.

Satisfied and as sleepy as a bear in winter, I turned back to the stairs, taking a step in their direction, as I did I felt my foot step down onto something.....

"OOWW!" A high-pitched voice echoed through the basement.

I felt something being yanked from under my foot, sending my leg flying up and me to the ground.

"OH F-" I sputtered before smacking into the ground.

I heard the sound of something scrambling away, making a sound like coconuts being clapped together before it suddenly stopped entirely,

"FFFFFFFFFfffffffffffffffudgecicles." I whimpered, sitting up and rubbing the back of my head, I looked around for my flashlight, finding it on the ground to the right of me. I picked it up, flicking the switch to find I was holding the wrong end forward, flashing me in the face with all the power of a flashbang, minus the noise.

"Gah," I turned the light around, blinking a few times before I came to the realization that the voice I had heard earlier had not been mine.

I slowly turned around, scanning the room again before putting my back to the stairs and ever so slowly beginning to back up, scanning the flashlight from left to right as I felt my feet hit the first step. I grabbed the handrail for balance before beginning to take the stairs one at a time backward, making sure nothing was following as I slowly found myself with my back to the door, only for it to give way behind me, swinging open and causing me to fall on my butt.

Scrambling back up, I grabbed the door with one hand and slammed it shut, locking it only a second later and putting my back to the door.

"Phew." I closed my eyes, exhaled deeply, and slid down to a sitting position with my back still to the door. That had been close, whatever was down there couldn't get up no-

"Wait," I thought, "Didn't I close this door on the way down?"

"Clop!"

My eyes flew open, making contact with three pairs of much larger eyes, four feet away from me.

I screamed.

The Mares screamed.

The stallion screamed.

It was a good time.

I stood up, dashing over to the stairs to get to my room and hopefully my phone, but I was stopped as I felt a warm feeling enveloping my feet, gluing them to the spot. I fell over on my face, still shouting and panicking as I tried and failed to force myself up, I looked back to see one of the two unicorns, a pinkish mare with a purple and green mane and silvery-blue eyes,
her horn was lit up green.

The same color as the aura surrounding my feet.

She didn't have one of those cutie-mark-things.

Newfoals.

"CRAP!"

I tried crawling forward to no avail, what were these three doing here? I had heard about some newfoals that went psycho, they would attack people on sight, spewing gibberish all the while.

The mare quickly moved forward and reared up, about to smash my head in.

I closed my eyes, still screaming, was this how I was going to go out? I guess it was kind of ironic, killed by the very creatures I was trying so hard to believe in.

"Clop!"

I felt one hoof hit the ground near my head as another covered my mouth, I opened my eyes to see the mare's panicked face, looking both panicked and pleading.

"Shshshsh, please stop screaming please please I'm not gonna hurt you just please stop." She whispered, apparently trying to calm me down, the look on her face wasn't doing much to help, there was a cut along her left cheek, with dirt and grime in several places in her coat and a desperate look in her eyes, she looked like she had been through hell. She wore what looked like a saddle on her back, which supported several pockets, I assumed it to be the pony equivalent to a backpack.

The next pony looked to be in a similar state as the unicorn, but otherwise seemed to be some kind of pegasus, though significantly different from the ones I had seen. The mare possessed wings that looked more akin to those of a bat's than a bird's, her green eyes appeared to be slit, similar to how a cat's eyes might have looked, and her black mane was short enough to reveal that her ears were pointed, with tufts of fir puffing up around the ends. As she panted I could see a pair of pointed teeth poke out further than the others.

She was garbed in what seemed to be a set of purple armor that covered her barrel, back, and hooves.

I grasped at the unicorn's hoof desperately with both hands, trying to push her off of me and prevent her from doing anything else, but before I could, the strange-looking pegasus pinned my left arm to the ground.

"Calm, human!" She hissed, "Calm down!"

I began pawing at the unicorn indiscriminately with my free hand, trying to get her off me however I could.

"Sunburst," she looked back at the other unicorn, a yellow stallion with a short orange mane and goatee who wore a similar saddle to the other unicorn, he looked between me and his companions with a panicked and hesitant expression on his muzzle.

"Help!"

"How?" The stallion replied slowly approaching us, "You know I can't-"

"Just hold him or something!" The strange pegasus barked, carrying an air of authority, "we can't have him making a ruckus!"

I pressed my hand against the unicorn's face, pressing her head up and smushing her face,

"Hurgy!" She called out to her companion, her mouth obscured by my hand.

I reached out for her horn, and without thinking, I grabbed it, the mare suddenly gasped, and I felt the warm sensation leave my feet. My legs flew up, pushing myself backward as the mares struggled to keep me pinned and muted.

"Buck!" The armored-pegasus-thing swore. "Sunburst!"

Suddenly, the warm sensation was back, and I got a look at my feet again only to see the stallion had thrown himself over my legs, pinning me to the ground.

I flailed for a little bit longer, all the while the two mares were desperately shushing me.

"Nonono please stop, please stop, we're not gonna hurt you, just please be quiet."

"Calm down, human, just stop and we'll stop!"

After a few more seconds I was too tired to continue, and finally, I simply laid flat on my back, my hand still holding on to her horn.

"Ok." The unicorn mare sighed. "Ok, good."

The two of us stared into each others' eyes for a moment, panting as we caught our breaths.

"Ok, Mr. Human." The mare breathed, "I'm gonna take my hoof off your mouth, but you have to promise not to yell anymore, Ok?"

I sighed somewhat through her hoof, fear and hesitation still running through me, but nodded slowly, she moved her hoof, and I gave a small "pleh!" smacking my lips in an attempt to rid my mouth of the taste of grass.

"Ok, ok, this is good." The mare gave a small smile through her breaths of exertion, "this is progress."

"W-what do we do now?" Asked the stallion, still pinning my legs.

"Well, he's seen us now, we may need to do something about that..." The pegasus replied, shifting her weight to hold a hoof out to my face, with a flick of her hoof the gauntlet revealed a pair of claws that flipped out with a "shink!"

"OH FU-"

Instantly the hoof was back in my mouth again and the four of us were back to struggling.

"Why?!" The unicorn stallion scolded the pegasus. "Why would you do that?!"

"Put the Celestia-darned claws away, Primrose!" The mare groaned as my grip on her horn tightened.

"Ok! Ok! My bad!"

With another flick of her hoof, the claws disappeared back into the shoe she wore.

"Look, human! The claws are gone, I'm not going to harm you!" She waved the hoof in front of my face as she struggled to pin my arm. " So stop, bucking, flailing about!"

I stopped once more, depleting the last of my stamina as I flopped back against the ground.

"Maybe...don't do that again." The stallion groaned. "Starlight, why couldn't you have gone with a day-guard? Thestrals and their predatory instincts, sweet Luna."

The strange pegasus glared at the stallion but seemed to hold her tongue.

"Ok, let's everypony calm down here..." The unicorn mare sighed. "Maybe it's time we all get to know each other, that's the first step to making friends, right Sun?"

"Uh, yeah, sure, let's go with that." The stallion breathed. "All this bucking physical activity, good grief."

"Ok then." The unicorn gave me a look before slowly removing the hoof from my mouth.

"What's your name, Mr. Human?"

I looked at the unicorn confusedly.

"Seriously?" The bat-pegasus looked at the unicorn. "It said in the dossier you were bad with social interaction, but this is ridiculous."

"What?" The Unicorn tilted her head, "Isn't this how you do it?"

"This is not the time for friendship practice!" The pegasus groaned, "We need to-"

"What, exactly?" The unicorn...Starlight I think her name was, interrupted. "We have no idea where on Earth we are!" She nodded at me. "We need a guide!"

"I'd prefer some sleep first," the stallion muttered.

The bat-pony grumbled, but remained silent nodding to Starlight after some thought.

"So," The unicorn looked back to me as I blinked a couple of times in confusion. "My name is Starlight Glimmer, the stallion holding your legs is Sunburst,"

"Hi, Mr. Human." The now-named Sunburst waved awkwardly with one hoof, smiling in a somewhat forced manner, from where I lay I could see his flank, emblazoned upon it was an image of a sun.

They weren't newfoals?

"And the thestral is Primrose."

The bat pony sighed, "Hello human, a pleasure to meet you." She droned.

Starlight looked back to me with a smile that was little too much effort, and not enough naturality.

"What's your name?"

I blinked again trying and failing to find my voice for a few moments before my wits finally returned to me.

"Eli?" I muttered, an expression of pure confusion on my face.

Starlight's eyes brightened somewhat at the sound of my name, "Nice to meet you, Eli." Her smile relaxed somewhat.

"Nice......to meet you too?"

"Do you think...you could let go of my horn, please?"

I looked up and noticed that I was still gripping onto her horn, I was hesitant to let go, unsure whether or not to trust someone whose friend just threatened my life less than five minutes ago.

"Please?" Starlight asked again.

Against my better judgment, I let go of her horn, and she lifted her head somewhat, poking at her horn with an inquisitive look on her face.

"Ok, Eli." Starlight looked back down to me. "I'm gonna have Primrose and Sunburst get off you, but you can't run away or do anything crazy, ok?"

As much as I wanted to run, my curiosity began to take hold of me again, telling me to cooperate for the sake of learning where these three had come from and how they ended up in my backyard.

"O.k," I replied, casting a nervous glance at Primrose, she met my eyes with a blank stare but gave me a small nod, I took it as an indication of peace.

Starlight slowly stepped away from me, as did Primrose and Sunburst and I sat up, looking at the three of them with a dumb look on my face.

Starlight still had that forced smile on, while Sunburst glanced nervously from me to Starlight, a significantly more nervous smile on his face. Primrose, however, kept the same neutral expression as she had earlier, scanning me and her surroundings before settling her catlike eyes back on me.

"Ok, Eli," Starlight spoke again. "I'm terribly sorry for disturbing you at this hour, I know our arrival must have been something of a surprise for you."

"It's fine, I guess?"

Starlight winced at the hesitation in my voice.

"I know this may come off as a bit weird, but would you mind telling us where on Earth we are?"

My mind drew a blank for a moment.

"Penns Creek," I replied.

Silence ruled over us for a moment before Sunburst spoke up.

"Is that the name of your country or-?"

"Town." I answered simply.

"In what province?" Asked primrose.

"Province?"

"Province, region, district."

"The state?" I raised an eyebrow " this is Georgia."

"In what country?"

"America."

"The one that the element of honesty liked?" Primrose looked to Starlight, "looks like we got lucky."

"Hmm." Starlight looked thoughtful, "Just a moment Mr. Eli, I need to talk with my friends."

"Uh, yeah, sure, take your time."

The three of them suddenly turned, whispering amongst themselves as I tried and failed to comprehend the situation. I slowly got to my feet before running my hands through my hair. Pacing somewhat as I cursed fate for whatever cruel joke this was.

"Uh, Mr. Eli?"

I turned around to see the three of them facing me once again.

"We have a request for you."

"O....K?"

"Would you mind letting us stay here?"

I'm sorry, what?

I froze mid-step

"You're serious?" I looked at to Starlight, "You want to stay here? In my house?"

Starlight hesitantly nodded.

No, no way, there was not a single way that this would end favorably for me if I said yes.

"Uhhh, I don't know if my parents would like that...."

"Wait!" Primrose deadpanned, "You're not an adult?"

"Almost," I replied.

Primrose froze somewhat, her pupils dilating before she took a deep breath.

"Almost killed a foal..." She muttered to herself.

"Anyway," Starlight cut in, "We would need you to keep this just between us."

"How long?" I replied.

"As long as we need," Primrose said gruffly.

"May I know why?"

"No." Primrose answered again.

"Why can't he know?" Sunburst asked.

"Because I don't think trusting a foal with this is a good idea." Primrose said simply, locking eyes with me, "and besides, the less he knows the less danger he's in."

"Ah."

"Danger?" I stared at primrose incredulously.

"No! No danger, just a bit of trouble." Starlight kicked Primrose with her rear leg. "Right, Primrose?"

The bat pony sighed, obviously tired of the conversation.

"No, I misspoke, I meant to say the less trouble with his parents he will be if they find us." She stared at me, her eyes telling me a completely different story than what was leaving her mouth.

How in the hell would I do this? I guess my parents were away for work most of the time, and the basement wasn't being used.... but why the hell was I even considering letting them stay? They attacked me in my own home!

"Well..."

"We can pay!" Sunburst blurted out, he reached around to his bag and produced a small tied-up sack in his teeth, with a flick of his head he tossed it over to me, it jingled as it hit the floor, attracting my full attention.

I opened the bag to reveal at least thirty solid gold coins, enough to be worth at least ten-thousand dollars, my eyes went wide as I stared at the pouch, with this I might even be able to pay for college!

"Uh...." I looked at the bag, and then the three of them, weighing my options.

There were three completely random strangers who attacked me and then just threw money at me to hide them from everyone else in the town for an undetermined period of time.

Then again, my curiosity was getting the better of me, and this was a lot of gold, and besides, they didn't seem to be too sinister in appearance, they looked more like refugees than anything else.

I bounced the pouch in my hand.

"Alright, fine."

Starlight and Sunburst both gave a sigh of relief, and Primrose's eyes widened as her mouth upturned into a small smile, she was surprised I took the deal, but happy I did at the same time.

"But first, we need to set some rules," I said clearly.

The three of them nodded.

"First, if I'm going to keep you hidden, you need to move when I say to where I say, I'm not the only one who lives here, and while my parents are here you'll need to either stay in the basement or in the attic. When they aren't here you can move around the house, but everything must stay as it was before they left. If you leave the house for whatever reason....just try to stay out of sight, please."

The three of them nodded once again.

"Second, I can provide food and water, but only so much, what do you guys eat?"

"Flowers, grass, vegetables, fruits, bread." Sunburst listed, "stuff like that."

"All of that, but I'd prefer meat if you have any." Primrose cut in.

I sighed, that was....doable.

"Ok, I'll bring you food, but no stealing from the fridge or pantry, I can't have my parents asking about where the food went."

The three of them nodded again.

"Finally, no magicking or assassinating anyone in the town."

The three of them seemed to ponder this, Primrose looking somewhat dour, but eventually, all of them nodded and agreed to the terms. Starlight suddenly offered me her hoof, and I was about to take it when she drew it back somewhat.

"Oh, um, you're supposed to bump it."

"Oh."

I made a fist, gently bumping Starlight's hoof and sealing the deal.

Why on earth did I just agree to this?

My parents were going to find them, and then I was going to die an early death.

"Well" I thought, "No going back now."

It took me another hour to move enough pillows and blankets from our storage closet into the basement for the three of them to sleep on. Thank God my parents weren't going to be home until two, because Starlight and Sunburst wanted a bath. Primrose resolved to stay as she was, and simply stated she was going to take her armor off before heading down into the basement.

Thirty minutes later I had shown the two of them how to operate the shower, and after they were done, I spent the next ten minutes picking pony-hair out of the drain.

I pilfered a bag of baby carrots out of the refrigerator for them to eat, promising bigger rations later on tomorrow.

As Sunburst took the carrots down to Primrose, I said my good-nights to them and prepared to go to bed myself, but was stopped by Starlight.

"Mister Eli...." Starlight began.

"Just Eli works." I rubbed the back of my neck awkwardly.

"Oh, Eli, then... uh, I realize that what we're asking you to do seems kind of ridiculous, and I'm sure even ponies would hesitate to allow someone who broke into their home and attacked them to stay. What I'm trying to say is that we really appreciate you letting us stay here, I can't tell you anything, but I can tell you we are here for a really important reason."

I nodded, "Important enough to leave Equestria?"

Starlight flinched, "yes."

"You're not criminals, are you?" I joked.

Starlight blinked, her eyes suddenly seeming weighed down for a moment before the guilt in them was washed away by what seemed to be determination.

"No, no definitely not, look, I can't tell you anything until we're sure we can trust you, but I wanted to say thank you, and I hope we can all be good friends."

I looked back at her, sighing somewhat.

"Sounds good." I gave her a thumbs-up, "And you're welcome, I'm going to sleep now."

"Ok, um, good night!"

I ascended the stairs, heading straight to my room and falling face-first onto the bed as I gathered up the blankets and screwed my eyes shut.

I had a feeling that what I had just done might have thrown me into a little bit of an interdimensional problem, but that was a problem for in the morning.

Now?

I just wanted sleep.

Author's Note

Chapter complete.

And here are the characters that make the s**t hit the fan.

Seeing as how this is an alternate timeline with a bit more of a draconian Equestria, I felt like Starlight and Sunbursts' story might be changed up a little given their individual talents. I won't say to much about what they're doing on Earth or why they're here. But I will say that they have a reason to hide, one that will be revealed in the next chapter.

If he ever writes the next chapter...

F**k you, manifestation of Dash!

Buck you too Angsty!

Gah, you little... come here!

Fight, fight, fight!"

Oh dear, please don't-

Get 'im Dash, buck 'im in the apples!

Go for the eyes! For the eyes!

*Sigh* Thank you everyone for reading, Angstcannon appreciates your willingness to put up with his procrastination and assures you that chapter 8 is "coming in hot." As always, he accepts critisism in all forms, and wishes you a wondeful day.

You like that?! How 'bout one of these!

Ha! You call that a punch? How about this?!

Ooooooh

Oooooh, he's gonna feel that in the mornin'

Act Zero: Chapter 8: Truths.

Chapter 8: Truths

Living with a secret was a difficult thing to do, living with a secret was even harder.

My parents were fairly busy people, my mom was almost always gone during the school-week, and my dad had to commute to Atlanta every day for work. Mom would usually be home around 6:00 P.M after she had tended to everything she needed to tend to at Penns Creek Elementary, my father would arrive two hours later. By then my mom would have dinner done, I would eat and disappear into my room to do homework or play my X-box while they would eat and watch whatever TV-series they had developed an interest in at that time in the living room. Curfew for me was midnight, but they usually went to bed around 11:00 P.M, leaving me an hour to check up on my unexpected houseguests.

My nerves were a mess the first day, with me at school and the three ponies alone in the basement, I was worried they were going to end up destroying my house with some magical explosion or end up wandering off and be seen by someone. When I had gotten home I had practically thrown myself down the basement stairs to find the three of them still in the basement where I left them. Starlight and Sunburst had their noses stuck in books and Primrose was.... hanging from the rafters, sleeping like a bat.

As the days passed, my curiosity only grew, I could only get so many details out of Thunder before he would get annoyed, even he seemed hesitant to talk about his homeland.

I had questions about my three equine guests, why were they here, why did they look like they had been in a blender when I first saw them? whether or not they were convicted criminals, stuff like that. My thoughts, my concerns, and fears had swirled around my head for the entire day, and seeing the batpony like she was, I suppose it had been the last straw. I began asking questions, starting with less personal ones.

The two unicorns hesitantly explained to me that Primrose was a thestral, part bat, part pegasus, making her primarily nocturnal and omnivorous. A minority in Equestria, they were sometimes subjected to discrimination due to their more predatory natures and slightly more intimidating appearances. More than a few Equestrians liked to throw around the term "vampire" when referring to thestrals, but Starlight had assured me that Primrose didn't suck blood, she just ate meat alongside a standard pony-diet as any omnivore would.

The two agreed to answer my questions as long as I answered a few of their questions about Earth and humanity. Things like biology, history, and customs seemed to fascinate them for a short time, and after about two weeks I think both parties had their fill of general knowledge. When I began to drift to more specific topics, however, the two refused to say anything more. The three of them were extremely tight-lipped exactly who they were in Equestria and why they had come to earth, they had said it was as much for my safety as it was for theirs. I would have been lying if I had said that didn't unsettle me somewhat, but still, a deal was a deal, I had agreed to house them and keep them a secret, and I intended to keep the promise I made.

It was a bit hard figuring out how to keep them fed with only a weekly allowance of fifty dollars, Starlight and Sunburst made do with the produce I bought for them, but when I ran out of money... that was an awkward five seconds when someone made eye-contact with me from their car when I was shoving assorted flowers and weeds into my backpack.

Primrose was a bit more difficult to handle than the two unicorns, considering she could eat meat and appeared to crave it as well, I eventually found Chick-Fil-a to be the answer to that problem. She was a bit hesitant at first to try human food which I had initially attributed to the fact that she didn't trust me, but she seemed genuinely worried about what the food was, after a few days of convincing and eating an entire meal of it in front of, she eventually tried it, and then she ended up wanting it weekly.

Water was easy enough to provide for them, but they began going stir-crazy down in the basement, as they were stuck down there until my parents left for work. I had to empty my bookshelf for the two Unicorns when they had exhausted their supply of literature. Books, board games and a small DVD player solved the problem for Starlight and Sunburst. When I was alone with them in the house I let them up to look around my home, provided they didn't go into my parents' room. They seemed vaguely interested in the technology present in the house, as Equestria appeared to be in an early 20th-century stage of technological development, and magic seemed to be the primary means of advancement for them.

For those first two weeks that was how things progressed, with them hiding when my parents were here and them looking around my house when they were gone. But as much as they were studying their surroundings, I was studying them, my curiosity drove me to understand all I could about them, and I began to get a general idea of their personalities.

Sunburst seemed like the bookish type to me, always eager to learn more but at the same time stuck in a constant state of caution when it came to new experiences. He was a fairly polite individual and seemed to enjoy intelligent conversation, he was somewhat wary of me, something that he never seemed to get over. He always had this sour mood about him when we spoke, he didn't hold any resentment towards me, but I had a feeling that he had something that he wanted to get off of his chest whenever he talked to me. He avoided eye contact and winced whenever I brought up the subject of the potion up

He seemed to prefer reading to anything else, stuff like T.V and other complex electronic devices seemed to make him uneasy, to the point where he didn't even want to be in the same room as them. Regardless of that, he seemed content to stay in the house as long as possible, fearful of the unknowns that lied beyond my front door, it had taken no small amount of coercion from Starlight to get him to step outside into my backyard when the mare had wanted some time outside. Another strange thing about him was the fact that he: despite being a unicorn, didn't seem to use magic all that much. He was extremely knowledgeable about it, though, I could tell from his and Starlight's conversations. I had brought it up to Starlight and she had said it had been a "sensitive topic." The mare had said that he; "wasn't the greatest magic user in Equestria," and he was pretty hard on himself about it, Starlight had been doing her best to help him develop his abilities but progress had been slow. I left the topic there, not wanting to put myself at odds with any of my guests.

Starlight was a bit similar to Sunburst in the way that they both seemed to be academics, though she was a bit more brazen in her attempts to learn about her surroundings, which, unfortunately, included me. She would ask about how everything in the house worked, and sometimes I would turn around and find her holding some random object in her magic up to me and asking what it was. She seemed to enjoy T.V a lot when I introduced it to her but wasn't opposed to things like board games and books either. She was pretty competitive when it came to things like that, in fact, both Sunburst and Starlight were fiercely competitive, though the stallion was a little more reluctant than his friend and sometimes I would catch Starlight cheating when I played Uno with her. However, when she tried her hoof at Mario kart and ended up on a losing streak, she ended up throwing a tantrum and teleported out of my room, scaring the hell out of me in the process. She seemed a little socially awkward when it came to common interactions, nothing crazy, but at times I could see some social cues were lost on her, she tended not to think things through sometimes and she seemed to use magic for every little thing she did besides walking and breathing. Which on the bright side, allowed me to learn a little bit about it.

Magic seemed to operate on it's own set of rules, those rules, however, didnt seem to pay much heed to the laws of our reality. Which made sense, considering the mysterious energy was generated by another dimension entirely. Starlight seemed to enjoy speaking about the topic, and she would willingly tell me what she could about it, but despite being innatel talented in the performance of magic, she knew very little about the powers she possessed.

November 24th, 2018
Hallanday Residence Basement
7:04 P.M.

"That's kind of where Sunburst and I kind of cancel each other out." Starlight threw a red seven down, smiling in relief at having a card to match the one I had thrown down. " I know how to cast pretty much every spell that a unicorn could possibly cast, but I couldn't explain to you how it works. That's where Sunburst comes in, he's the one you want to talk to if you want to understand magic. "

I throw down a blue seven, and Starlight's face falls.

We sit under the basement's only window, the moon and a nearby electric lamp being our only sources of light, we had decided to play Uno tonight, just another game she had picked up quickly and got good at it even quicker.

"Great," I sigh, "Guy's afraid to even hold a conversation of more than a few sentences with me."

The unicorn throws out a blue skip card, then places a blue two on the pile before casting a look at her friend, who lay on a pile of old blankets nearby, snoring away. She smiles slightly before her focus returns to the game

"I will admit that Sunburst is a bit of a shut-in, he rarely went outside if he didn't have to, and the whole 'new planet' thing might have him more than a little freaked out, especially with all the rumors about you guys being thrown around Equestria. But I swear he'll warm up to you, they both will."

"Rumors?" I frown, drawing two cards from the reserve pile before pulling out a green two and throwing it on the pile, looking up to see Starlight smiling somewhat smugly.

"Yeah, the whole, 'horse meat' thing, your 'predisposition to violence?' Stuff like that?"

They were saying stuff like that about humans in Equestria? Jeez, no wonder Thunder was scared to talk to anybody.

I cringed, "Well, the first one is true when we're desperate, assuming you meant that we eat it."

Starlight flinched slightly as she threw another blue two onto the pile.

"But, horses are non-sapient, and more like a cousin species to you guys than anything else, and as a whole eating other sapients is usually a capital-punishment sort of thing here. As for the second one, I don't believe that we are, but I suppose there is more than enough evidence to support that rumor nowadays. But I like to think that all the good outweighs the bad stuff we've done."

I frown and pull another three cards before pulling a yellow two and throwing it onto the pile.

"Darn it." She whispers. She pulls four cards out of the reserve before she finds a yellow seven places it neatly onto the pile. "I guess that's fair, I've heard the kinds of things ponies had to do during the Crystal War, I honestly think it's unfair for anypony to say stuff like that about you guys when we're capable of it ourselves."

"Well, I guess that's where the conversion bureaus get some of their validity from." I shrug and place a wildcard onto the pile.

Without warning, Starlight throws her hooves up in frustration.

"Why would you draw cards if you-?!"

Primrose grumbles overhead, removing her wings from around her head to shoot a warning glare our way before returning to sleep as she hangs from the rafters. I was still a little confused about how she did that exactly, but that was a question pretty far down on my "needs answering" list.

"Shhh." I hold a finger to my lips mockingly. "All part of my Uno technique."

"But that's cheating!"

"What're you talking about?" I feigned innocence, "I just didn't realize I had the right cards is all."

Starlight scowled at me as I smiled toothlessly at her. She grumbled, holding her hooves out as if to strangle me with them, I smile warmly, and she only seems to angrier.

Finally, she drops her gaze and sighs, shaking her head. "Fine, what color?"

I pucker my lips, looking through the deck of cards in my hands before choosing the most numerous color I had.

"Green."

The pony's eyes flick down to her deck and she frowned in an accepting manner, picking out a green five and placing it on the pile.

"What did you mean by that?" She said as I looked through my own deck once more.

"Mean by what?"

"About the conversion bureau getting their validity, why would they need validity at all?"

I stared at the cards in my hands, trying to come up with an answer.

"Oh, uh, well I suppose anyone would need convincing to turn into a pony when they've gone their whole lives as a human, I mean I guess its an easier choice when you're about to die or something, but anyone else I would imagine would need at least a little bit of convincing, I guess there were always people had given up on humanity, people who wanted to be something else, like that would fix any whatever personality flaws they had," I shrugged again. "Going for people with the whole, 'fatalist mindset' seems like the best choice for a target audience."

"So you're implying that the bureaus are using the idea that being a pony makes you a better person to attract more people to convert?"

"Well, yeah."

Starlight seemed thoughtful for a moment, and her eyes scanned her deck as if she were looking at pieces of evidence connected to a crime scene.

"You know, the news back home never really portrayed you guys in a good light either."

"They didn't?" I looked back up to her, my hand temporarily forgotten.

"No, I attended a study on humanity once, one funded by the crown, and it was like they wanted to downplay humanity, to make us look down on you. In fact, that was pretty much the case for everything involving humanity, nothing directly attacking you, but they were essentially telling us that you were all misguided savages who couldn't overcome your natural urges."

The look on my face must have been telling because Starlight must have made a connection.

"I'm guessing that's not how we've been acting here?"

"No, the elements of harmony are like celebrities here, I mean, most of them are, Twilight Sparkle and Rainbow Dash don't really show up here very much, but even then there's a bunch of other ponies that seem to like us, but there's also a lot of us that don't like you guys."

The pinkish unicorn tilted her head, a loose strand of her man falling into her face as she did so.

"Well, there's always skeptics, on both sides it seems " I remarked.

Starlight nodded but remained silent, mouthing something behind her deck of cards.

We didn't say much else to each other for the rest of the game, Starlight hid her face behind her cards, only offering a quiet thanks for the game and the company before she quickly moved to her bedroll and announced she was going to sleep.

I already knew the trio were hiding something from me, they all but screamed it at me the night we met, but by the way Starlight was acting during our talk, I was beginning to suspect it ran a lot deeper than a couple of disillusioned citizens of Equestria fleeing degrading conditions in their homeland.

The last of the trio, Primrose, was a distant individual, letting little information about herself slip and letting even less about her situation out. I had already put it together that she was some kind of soldier from the armor she wore, her overall mannerisms, and the fact that she had tried to kill me the first time we all had met. She wasn't impolite or spiteful, however, and she always thanked me when I brought food or did my best to make sure the three of them were comfortable, but she seemed more interested in keeping an eye on Starlight and Sunburst than she was making conversation. I had an inkling that her attempt on my life had been more of an impersonal, professional kind of decision than it had been a grudge or emotional one. From what knowledge I could glean from overheard conversations and my sparse interactions with her, she was a few years older than the two unicorns, not by a lot, but enough to be considered an elder by the two of them. She seemed to be on friendly terms with Starlight, but Sunburst seemed borderline uncomfortable around her. By the way she ordered the two of them around I assumed she seemed to be protecting Sunburst and Starlight, from what exactly I didn't know, I assumed humans maybe.

But, as a soldier, she seemed to hate the stagnation that came with the whole "safehouse" routine, she became antsy, pacing around and muttering to herself.

That was when she began to disappear.

I remember freaking out somewhat when I came downstairs to find Starlight and Sunburst playing Stratego, only for them to tell me that Primrose had left to "get some air."

I had panicked somewhat, despite the two of them assuring me that Primrose was used to keeping out of sight. If she was found it would mean a crapton of trouble for me. Still, I had said they could leave as long as they weren't seen, and Starlight had assured me

That was only the first month of my time housing the three Equestrians, between keeping my grades up and keeping an eye on them, I had my hands full, so full that I didn't notice what was happening around me, what had been created when I wasn't looking. Starry and Alex were the only two newfoals I had ever paid close attention to and they always had seemed as human as anyone else, so when the newfoals began to change once again, I had been so busy I didn't even notice it.

But Thunder did.

December 18th, 2018
Penns Creek High School Cafeteria
12:45 P.M

"Eli."

I looked up from my lunch, making eye contact with Thunder as he hopped up onto the seat opposite from me and used his teeth to pick up the lunchbox balanced on his back and move it to the table. I almost hadn't noticed him over the countless voices in the room, how I managed to do that I have no idea, as the pegasus' burgundy coat stands out even in a crowd of ponies.

"Hey, Thunder," I muttered absent-mindedly, taking another bite of my ham-and-cheese sandwich as the pony hopped up onto the bench with a flap of his wings. He picked up his own sandwich, which was stuffed full of various greens, and began eating as well.

The two of us ate in silence for a few moments, I was distracted at the moment, trying to figure out how I was going to manage to keep the three Equestrians in my basement a secret when summer break rolled around and my mother was home 24/7. So distracted that I hadn't noticed the rather concerned face on my friend's muzzle.

"So...." Thunder trailed off, his voice carrying a pointed, "I'm trying to get your attention" type tone to it. I snapped out of my thoughts and looked up to see Thunder with a very unsettled expression on his face.

"Thunder, what-?

His orange eyes suddenly flicked to the left, then back to me, I sat there, slightly confused as he repeated the action two more times before he sighed in frustration and began to nod his head slightly to the left. Raising an eyebrow, I shook my head slightly and exhaled through my nose.

"If this is another one of your pranks, I swear to god..."

"Just, bucking, look, at, the, place, I'm, trying, to show you!" He spoke through grit teeth.

I looked up, scanning the cafeteria for anything out of the ordinary, nothing really, every human student sat with other humans, the newfoal table, where the ponies chatted with one another, pretending not to notice the hateful eyes on their back, Starry made eye contact with me giving me a smile and waving, causing both human and pony eyes to follow her eyes to me, the newfoals smiled, the humans looked at me in a mixture of pity, anger, and spite.

I smiled slightly and returned Starry's wave before looking back to Thunder who was speaking through grit teeth and tossing his head to the side.

"Yes, Thunder, I see the newfoals." I said hesitantly, somewhat weirded out at his behavior.

"What are they doing?" He asked.

"Why don't you look for yourself?"

"Because I don't want them to know that I know they're watching me!" He said frantically.

I Iooked back over to the newfoals' table, and I just barely catch the movement of the ponies' gigantic eyes flicking back to their food and each other. My eyes widened as I slowly turned my head back to look at my friend.

"How long have they been watching you?"

Thunder sighed, " The past week and a half, how about you?"

I paused, "What do you mean?"

The Pegasus stared at me, " how long have they been watching you?"

"I mean, like, overall? I mean I guess they did back then when that whole thing with Edward Deloach happened... you heard about that right?"

The pony nodded slowly, but didn't seem to be satisfied by my answer.

I shrugged, "I'm taking 'following' as a loose term here, dude."

Thunder huffed in frustration, "That's what I'm saying! I'm being serious, the newfoals aren't even paying attention to anyone but us! They've been stalking us, Eli, for weeks! How...how have you not noticed that!?"

I blinked, perhaps realizing for the first time how serious Thunder was being, and as the gravity of his claims hit me I felt the blood drain from my face.

"Where?" I said, lowering my voice to where it could only be audible to him, "when?"

"I see one or two tailing you on your way home at least twice per week, they walk past your house a lot, and I think your meetings with Starry aren't just a meeting between friends anymore."

I drag a hand over my face, how could I have not seen something like that, the only thing that didn't connect with me was Thunder's suspicion of Starry, we had met dozens of times and not once had she done anything that had even remotely seemed suspicious. But then, wasn't she supposed to keep tabs on everyone else? Was there someone working behind her back?

"I'll need to talk to her about this," I said, shaking my head.

"Don't."

I looked over at him as he stared at me intently, the way I returned his stare must have given him some Idea of what I thought of his opinion of Starry because his already large frown deepened.

"I came to you with this, Eli." He said, "Trusted you with this because you and your friends accepted me when no one else but the converts would. So I'm asking you, as my friend, to keep this to yourself."

I held his gaze for a moment more before shaking my head and turning away.

"Fine."

As the final bell rang that day and I strode out of the front doors and towards my home, I heard the sound of hooves racing to catch up to me.

"Eli!"

Starry slowed to a trot as she came up beside me and matched my pace.

"Hey, Star." I said nonchalantly, "What' up?"

"Just saying hi," She said, smiling up at me. "Well, hi and I had something to tell you."

I raised an eyebrow, trying to mask the slightly anxious feeling I felt.

"What's that?"

"Well, you know how that reverend guy started the HLF after his daughter ran away?"

"Yeeeaaah?" I replied warily, not knowing where she was going with this.

"Well, I was in class yesterday and the teacher said something that caught my attention, 'every action has an equal and opposite reaction,' and that got me thinking, 'what is the opposite reaction to the HTF's action'?"

I nodded my head, she seemed to be on to something.

"So I looked it up online, and I found it!"

"Found...what?"

"They don't really have a name yet, I'm not sure what the acronym stands for yet, but I looked around on their forums and asked a few questions, and you'll never guess who started talking with me online."

"Who?"

"Dr. Jaqueline Reitman!"

I stopped walking as memories of the woman slandering humans and praising Equestria and Celestia like the second coming of Jesus Christ and the literally rabid things the HLF had to say about the woman.

"Really?" I said quietly, not sure what to make of the situation.

"I know, right? " Starry smiled broadly, "I just started talking about what's going on in Penn's Creek and guess what?"

"What?" I asked, praying she wasn't about to say what I thought she was.

"She offered to come here!"

And of course, Starry said yes.

That was the point where I think things took a turn for the worst, Reitman was decidedly anti-human, no matter how well she managed to hide it at first, anyone with enough common sense would have been able to see her true colors.
I intially didn't know what Starry was thinking, bringing her here, but I learned soon enough that she thought of Reitman as some sort of peacemaker between Equss and Earth. She believed that Reitman would have some kind of magic words to make the hatred and the fear that was dividing the town disappear. I didn't share her optimism, she had helped create the potion, and this group that she was running seemed......suspect, to say the least. I looked them up online searching for a name or website. I found it after some digging, it wasn't like a place from the dark web, it had just been hard to find without a good idea of what I was really searching for, but finally I clicked on a link for a website for the P.E.R, a group that supported ponification in hopes that it would unify both humans and Ponies.

I was surprised to see the level of professionalism that it had been made with, it offered links to conversion bureau websites, news out of Equestria, even several scientific articles regarding the potion. I guessed that Reitman had a good bit of resources at her disposal.

As winter break came, followed by Christmas, I found myself with a few more games and a couple of other amenities, things were normal for those two weeks, and as 2019 finally rolled around I found myself dreading the third week of January, when Reitman had promised to appear.

Word got out quickly, and when the mayor announced her arrival the week before it was due it was like the discontent was a physical force, practically able to be felt as it filled the human residents with foul words and even fouler ideas. The words of the vocal majority of the HTF were no longer being heard in youtube videos, podcasts,and online forums, they were being spoken in the town, between families during rec-ball games, whispered between students in hallways, fights got more common in school, Thunder's house was almost always being TP'ed, and now my family was beginning to undergo scrutiny for our friendship with the Equestrian family. My dad got in an argument with a co-worker and ended up trading blows with him, fortunately the guy had both started the argument and thrown the first punch.

Finally, the dreaded week arrived, and on Tuesday a group of three trucks followed by a news van appeared from the town's main road and pulled up next to the town hall.

I didn't attend the speech she gave, anyone who did was there because they either supported or hated the woman. I did neither, and I wanted to keep myself as far as possible from the doctor and her "support group."

But, I suppose you know by now how well that went for me.

Author's Note

Yes, I know, I said I'll put all three remaining chapters in act zero out at once, unfortunately I only got this one done since that announcement was made, so........

Here you go, I guess.....

Ha! Loser.