Conversion Bureau: Momentum

A single, yellow, plastic glass of potion. Sitting there, on the table. Looking innocent.

I stared blankly at it, then at where I knew the one sided window was in the room. I gulped nervously.

"Damian." I shook my head, looking at the brew.

"Is it too late to opt out?" I asked, leaning against a wall. I looked over at the crate, loaded with still more canisters of the devil magic and shook a little, distant flaring memories of explosions and the begging of the pitiful animals screaming for mercy flashed through my head.

It had taken us so long to finally get a crate of the stuff. Lives, hundreds of them, lost as we scrambled to save humanity.

London was a nice city, all things considered. It had people in the streets, and, if you closed your eyes, you might not even notice that the sky was grey and you couldn’t see the sun. If you kept them closed you might even think that the world wasn’t dying, and ponies weren’t replacing all that mattered in the world.

That’s what I was thinking when it all went wrong. I was looking about pretty happily, smiling for the first time in a long time, my hands not even on my gun when the transport vehicle appeared five minutes before schedule.

The guard? A Gryphon. A monster made of beak and claw. The scariest thing was that the process for making more of the chimeras had expanded like a crack in glass, driving humanity further away. Before, they had always counted on humanity at least maintaining its military strength, but with the gryphon’s ability to actually fight...

Things were looking bad.

My mind flicked back to what I remembered.

A beak, a glaring gryphon, looking at me. My pistol doing nothing, watching as it tore through my companions. My legs shook at the memory, remembering how I just ran from it. That thing just... tore through all of them. It was a monster... I still smelled like blood.

I shivered again and again, the room cold as ice. We needed to find a way to stop them.

I needed to die. I stopped myself, looking over the suicide room I was in. Over by the corner, a small pistol with a round chambered in it was left as a mercy kill. I wasn't getting out of this room alive.

Sometimes, I guess, if you want to take out monsters you have to be a monster.

I needed to do this.

Suicide in the best way possible. I would be the one who kept humanity from dying, from being forgotten in a wave of fucking horses.

"Do you want more good men to die? Your friends are counting on you." Came the reply from the speakers. I felt my eyes bead up into tears.

"C-can... you guys... not call me Damian after this? I'm not going to be him. I'm going to be another one of those things." I reached out a shaky arm to lift the cup. There was a long silence.

"We won't refer to you as Damian. As of today, Damian is dead." A sad voice, one I recognized as a dear friend of mine said through the speaker. "The virus is with you, your bio scans all check out."

I stilled my shaking arms and sniffed the drink. I had a faint whiff of nuts. Hazelnut.

I lifted it to my face and chugged it in one go, feeling tears slip down my face. "Good bye..." I choked on it, coughing as it caught in my throat and having to stop myself from retching it up.

And then the pain caught me and I stopped moving, hitting the side of the table I was supposed to be laying on. I slipped, trying to stand back up, forcing it back down with what little training I could muster. I rolled on to the table and then right off, cracking my head against the floor.

Luckily, I was blessed with the calm of sleep and wasn't aware of the horrific changes.

The world around me was dappled, speckled, with sparks of color and flashes of movement. There was bird song in the far distance, echoing beautifully over the soulless prairie. I felt a wave of revulsion rip through me like a hurricane when I realized that I could count the hairs on every rabbit, every movement drawing my attention and letting me see the fear in their eyes. I felt an alien surge of pride wash through me, and felt big... strong...

I could do what I needed to do, protect others from having to suffer like I... h...a...d...

Something was burning. Something near me. The smell of char filled my nose and I winced at the sharp taste. It was flesh. I let my feet carry me through the prairie grasses, half terrified and scared as I tried to remember why I was here. It was so confusing, like bits of pieces were disjointed and moving about the second I took my eyes off of them.

And then I was at a mountain, fierce and strong. Obsidian spires, hundreds of them, sharp and jagged, easily able to pierce through me, all of them looking as if they had just been cut, all faced up at the sky. I felt a spark of anger light up, transferring down my frame and all over my body.

I climbed the mountain in flashes, halfway there one second, my hands bleeding at the unforgiving rocks and stones, then at the top in another second, my bleeding hands aching and burning.

I was burning.

I was unworthy.

The mountain opened up into a deep chamber, and thousands of miles it seemed below me was a tiny red pinprick. I stared down for a long time, wondering why I was there, was it all meant, why I felt so weak and pathetic and strong.

“Repent.” A voice hissed through a rising cloud of smoke and have and sounding like a demon searing through sulfur.

I felt like I had been struck with lightning, memories rising to the surface of my mind while I felt an agony quite unlike any other, like I was being submerged in liquid plasma.

And the pain stopped and I collapsed, looking around. “I...” My voice said, though my mouth didn’t move. “C-can... still... ch-change...”

The word was familiar. Change. It brought up such memories, most of which I didn’t even catch. They swarmed around the cave like thousands of faces, all staring, all judging, all examining me.

I was unworthy.

“Repent.”

The cave floor I was standing on cracked and I fell forward, falling down the shaft, bits of rock whistling by my head.

“I’m sorry.” I croaked. I hit the molten core below. I was blank. I couldn’t feel anything. The pool of melting ore became a pool of blood, an endless surge around me, frothing like sea foam.

I was unworthy.

I could change.

“Repent.” I stopped burning. Something stared at me, something so impossibly beautiful and impossible powerful that it Knew me in the way that a man knows his own hand. I felt violated, like something had brushed who I was and was not amused or impressed, changing it and warping it in just the right way to suit its purposes.

And then there was nothing.

And then I forgot.

There was a horrible noise. That was my first memory. I winced and pulled my head away reflexively, my ears folding against my head as I twitched and writhed, trying to get away from the sound. Like nails on a chalk board, I felt my body tense up and bunch up, trying to turn away. I felt a ripple of unease at the unfamiliar sensations.

I felt a cry rip out of me like a roar and a pained rasp, scaring me just as badly.

A distant part of me took in the fact that when I opened my eyes I still couldn’t see anything. I stopped and let out a sigh of relief as the pulsing pounding rasping noise halted its eerie advance.

"Da-" There was a sound of something stopping. The sound of the hammer of something being drawn back and something cold and metallic pressed to the side of my head made me freeze, shaking.

"Hold still, Mu." There was a broken note to it. And right there, he was referring to me. Mu. Hm. I kept as still as I could. I was at the disadvantage here and to my credit I didn't scream when something punched into my arm and withdrew blood.

"It's a success." The person muttered to himself. "It has bonded very well with you. 100% immunity rate..." I felt a surge of happiness at the words, but I felt shamed and shaken. "I'm so sorry."

Something fumbled with my bonds and suddenly I could see again. I, not really knowing what was going on, took in the room.

It was grey. An incandescent light, ancient, old and still usable flickered in the corner and painting everything in a gleaming luminance that almost contrasted with the metal walls. The place smelled of fear and of dampness, of cold cruelty.

And then my vision flickered and a sense of vertigo hit me as I was staring at a wall like it was inches away from me, then tenths of inches away. My eyes readjusted and I blinked slowly, feeling naturally unnatural.

"The Conversion was a success." The man muttered and I flicked my eyes over to him. A shock of brown hair rimmed the top of his face, unkempt and tangled as if he was part savage. A pair of chocolate eyes widened at mine behind a pair of glasses, dirty and transparent. He blinked. His face was soft, and pale, like he hadn't been outside in a long time. He looked like someone I should know.

I blinked back. "Conversion...?" I croaked and then looked away, shocked and ashamed at the odd quality of my voice. It was rough and rumbly and slightly deeper than I thought it should be.

He stared at me, his hands shaking as he held the curious piece of plastic and metal that I was terrified of against my neck. "D-da... Mu? How much do you remember?"

"My name is Mu?" I asked, not moving, getting a distant memory of guttural explosions and pain.

"Yeah..." He looked at my face and into my eyes in the manner than one might look into that of a dogs. "My name is Ken..."

"Do you know what Conversion is?"

The word Conversion let a shot of anger and fear rip through me, raising the feathers on my wings. The sensation was maddeningly wrong and it teased me with a hint of despair. Without missing a beat, he lifted the weapon in his hand into the air and looked at it, gulping. "N-no need to be angry. It's just a question."

I closed my eyes and fought back the flares of anger and nervousness. "I don't remember."

He looked away from me, his arms still shaking. "Subject shows signs of mild amnesia." He spoke into a tab on his left wrist. "No signs of fire damage or insanity. I have the blood samples I need and I am leaving." There was a hiss of steam and a door popped out of the wall, lights trickling into the room.

I was aware of a tiny pin prick of pain on one of my wings. Ken turned to walk away from me, the scent of his fear doubling as he turned his back to me. I watched him leave with amusement and a bit of confusion, wondering why I was still tied up.

“Project Mu. What is left of the other participants?” Ken jerked and pivoted, almost slamming the pistol into his boss’s stomach. He gasped for air, half terrified.

“He appears to be stable, sir.” He said, slipping a half assed salute.

The blonde haired man looked at him with soulless eyes. “Is he combat ready?” He said, tapping his fingers against the leg of his pants. A thread bare spot marked where he had been doing this, a nervous habit that Ken personally found annoying as all hell, but was otherwise a bit more innocent.

“No sir. He just woke up. He probably can’t even walk, let alone shoot.” He shrugged. “Heck, I don’t even know if he isn’t fried.”

“What of the other two volunteers?”

“They burst into flame and burnt through before we could extinguish them. One started screaming about not being worthy and the other bit out his own tongue in agony.” Ken shrugged, pulling a bottle filled with water and sipping down a little.

“We need something. Something shocking.” The man said, his face pale. “We need something now.” There was a degree of cold anger and cold fear that made Ken’s heart beat speed up.

Ken looked at him. “Wha-”

“Let me in. I’ll talk to him.”

He shook his head, glaring up at a flickering light. “He’s amnesiac. I doubt he would care at this point. Jon. What’s wrong?”

“That’s sir.” He sneered, walking over to the door and tugging it open. “And I don’t think I need your permission for this.”

I jerked my head up as the door opened again. Ken walked in, looking worried, his pistol drawn. Another man walked in after, carrying the weight of authority and the atmosphere of a pissed off ass hole.

“You.” He said, his face reddening.

“Me?” I asked innocently, stretching my neck. “Who are you?”

“Break out of your bonds. I know you can.” He hissed, drawing out a pistol that looked like some sort of horrible hybrid of a scifi gun and something out of an anime. “You attack me and we’ll see if a particle shot at your head will put one of you down.”

I stretched and found, to my surprise and infinite pleasure, that it all broke off under a slight twitch of my muscles. My fur was slightly streaked with sweat oddly enough, like I had been doing something wrong. “Yes sir.” I said, looking at the both of them. I rolled off of the table and his the ground awkwardly, my limbs collapsing underneath of me.

“Stand up.” He said, training the gun on me. “Stand up you son of a bitch. I need you to be able to walk.”

“Jon?” Ken asked, looking at him. “Wha-”

“The school. The elementary school.” He said, his voice breaking. “The PER. They snuck in under the radar and detonated something and now they are fucking ponies. My little boy...”
His eyes watered up. “My wife...”

Ken looked down. “The school?”

“PER?” I asked, watching the both of them. I felt hot headed, like I should be horrifically angry. My ears fell against my head and my tail flicked out, banging against the table like a bony club.

“A group of fucking psychos dedicated to killing off the rest of humanity.” Jon paused, looking at me. I began to raise to my feet. “You know what the Conversion is, right?”

I shook my head slowly.

“The Conversion is the one true way of letting everyone know that you’ve given up. You turn into a fucking pony and all of your desires to defend yourself get shot down, turning you into a lifeless husk, a mere servant to their royalty. It’s like a parasite, eating you from the inside until all you care about is your little horsey race, and all you can think of is fun.” He spat the last word out like a dagger hitting a chest. “And their little horse gods. Fucking Celestia took our sun. Her sister let her do it and they probably laughed when they squashed most of our hopes.”

I looked at him and felt my legs hold me upright. Powerful muscles responded to my call and I had to hold back my cry of jubilation.

Tears began to trickle down his face. “My wife. My Alicia...” He shook with a sob.

I looked straight at him and something told me that he was a good man. “What should I do?” I asked, ignoring the void that had replaced my memories and ignoring the urge to start freaking out. I was Mu. That was all I really cared about at that moment.

He looked at me and my tail hit the table again. “He’s prepared, right?” Jon asked Ken.

Ken looked down at his wrist and flipped something, turning it into a stream of numbers. “He’s set.”

“Here’s what you can do. You can sit here and wait for us while we all do what’s right and kill off some clowns, and maybe we let you go with only a bullet in your brain.” He paused, wiping tears with his shirt sleave.

“Or, you come with us and help us fight. That’s what you wanted, right? You wanted to help humanity? Then grab a gun and start shooting. We have some ponies to kill. And then you can do whatever the hell monsters like you do. Go away, kill off some Equus bastards, get laid, screw whatever the hell you want, make a family. Just never forget that we gave this to you, and that you can’t give up the mission.”

I looked at him blankly and looked his ramblings over, my mind centering on one thing. “I’m not a monster.” I said, testing my front legs to see if I could walk. “I’m a gryphon.” And it hit me that I was perfectly fine with that and I felt my mind dance around in circles trying to figure out why I wanted to hate myself.

He nodded, gritting his teeth. “So, your choice?”

My wings stiffened and I felt a wave of anger and hate towards him and everyone else in the room. I growled under my throat. “Get me a gun.”

I needed answers, and a bullet in my brain sounded like a bad way to start getting them. I felt the bare start of a smirk gracing my face. Things were going to die.