Conversion Bureau: Momentum

"Here. Take this." Ken said solemnly, handing me a piece of shaped plastic.

I looked at it blankly, turning it over and over. It was black, dull and had a few grooves and recesses made for someone with much smaller... talons... than I had.

Getting into the room had been a bit harder than I had thought, though I felt like I remembered the gray almost lightless halls far better than I should for walking through them the first time. My legs felt a bit unresponsive.

I looked it over, noting its shape and size before looking at Jon. "So... what do I do with this?" Admittedly, I hadn't been quite sure what a gun was when I asked for one. It was another one of those things that I wasn't really sure of. It was like wondering why the humans kept throwing me pitying glances and, when they did, I found myself bristling with tension.

Jon audibly growled under his breath, stalking towards me. "Mild amnesia? How the fuck do you forget how to use a gun?" I stared at him levelly and kept the weapon pointed away from me.

He sidled around me and pried it from my grasp, positioning his hands around it in a manner that I found revolting and at the same time familiar. In his frail little fingers it was almost like he was cradling it like a baby and aiming it like it could kill.

Which I guessed it could, considering that I was expected to kill people with it.

"You pull the trigger-" He broke from his firing position and pointed at the appropriate part of the gun while Ken carefully shied away from the other end of it. "-And the bullet comes out this side." He pointed the gun away from himself. "And whatever you hit should die, so aim for th-" He dropped his hands, and by virtue of still holding the weapon, the gun as well.

"Will you stop?" Ken asked, glaring at Jon. "He clearly doesn't even know what's going on. Maybe we should just take him back to his roo-" Jon pointed the gun towards him and I felt a wave of anger rush through me.

"Ken. Shut the fuck up." He said, his body shivering. "If he doesn't come with us, I'll kill him myself. One less monstrosity for the fucking world to use. What's one more sacrifice?" he said, half slurring his words. I felt something slip over my thoughts like a curtain, cloaking them in a fit of anxiety.

"Jon." He said, clearly half terrified. "What are you doing?"

"Fuck the HLF. Fuck the PER. Fuck everything. After this, tell the higher ups that Mu was a success and that I fucking quit." He kept the gun trained on Ken, and I could see sweat start to form on the back of Jon's neck.

Suddenly, for a brief second, I lost control of myself and I lashed out, spinning Jon around and slamming a fore foot into the gun. It shot out of his hand as he lost his grip from surprise and hit the wall with a clatter, landing on the ground partially warped. In the same second that the gun was thrown out I pushed Jon to the ground, pinning him in place.

I glared into his eyes and growled loudly. "Will you two stop fighting? We'll miss the battle." I shot Ken a similar look that promised pain. “The battle that I’m coming too.”

Jon shook underneath of me and I looked back at him. His blue eyes were filled with an expression that was like fear but without a trace of regret. I got off from on top of him and looked over at the gun.

Broken. I could tell at a glance it was mostly useless.

I flicked my eyes about the area, taking in yet another dull grey room barely lit. The only real difference between the one I had woken up in and this one was the table set to the side piled high with various guns. Under the table were stacks of ammo sorted out in various boxes.

I closed my eyes and focused. "Have I always been a gryphon?" I asked politely, hearing Jon stand back up and swear under his breath.

"No." Ken said breathlessly. "Your nam-" My eyes shot open and I looked at Ken and felt my tail flick out.

Jon cleared his throat. "Your name is Mu," he growled out, glaring at me. He pulled a pistol almost identical to the one I had broken and gave it to me. "This is a pistol. You take the pistol, and you start shooting things when I tell you."

He went through the motions of showing me how to reload the gun, look down the sights and other such things that were rather simple once you knew what the hell you were supposed to be doing. Annoyingly so.

Deeming me semi competent at killing targets, despite the fact I had the remarkable talent of having not fired a single shot yet, he tackled the issue of keeping ammo and the gun attached to me. The issue was quickly resolved with bungee cords tied around the clips and the weapon, though I felt a flare of irritation at his blatant disrespect of the objects.

Walking was slowly getting easier, every step making me feel like I was getting something accomplished, like something was actually happening in my head that made it easier to understand how I was walking, how I was supposed to interpret things.

Just barely confident enough to walk out of the room, I couldn’t stop my face from going into an equivalent of a smirk. The hallway stretched on and on and I walked through them with the direction of the two beings with me, half watching them for a cue that they were planning to shoot me in the back. It was tense, with little conversation besides a quiet conviction that we were on the same side for the time being.

I’m really not sure why, but I was disappointed when I finally emerged from the network of rooms and corridors that I had been inside. There were no bird calls, or grass to greet me, and there was no sunshine to make my feathers feel better. It was an urban sprawl that greeted me, what little bare dirt around reeking of decay and being in general bad. It was cold, like someone had forgotten to warm the place before I had arrived.

Even as I half stumbled, half stepped out from the overhang of the building, I felt like I was walking into an alien world despite the familiarity of it all. Buildings, their roofs stained odd colors from centuries of acid rain looked almost like a primitive mosaic instead of failures to do what they were designed for. The pavement was a wash of dirt and concrete, patches visible only barely.

It was raining. Somehow, with all the other things around me that I took note of, the fact it was raining was the worst. Like little daggers descending from the skies, and my wings ached oddly, like I needed to use them. In a way I was disgusted in how I delighted in noting all of it, but amazed that I could at the same time.

The gun and ammo, hanging across my back from a bit of cord, seemed almost unneeded with the rain. Who in their right mind would be out in weather where the rain seemed to hiss as it hit the pavement? I turned and looked back at the two humans and blinked, suddenly feeling rather stupid.

They had two large umbrellas, stripes of neon surrounding the edges of the brim. It made them a bit more visible and it protected them from the rain. They shot me a smile and I walked back to them sheepishly. “I don’t suppose you have something like that in my size, right?”

Jon looked at me blankly. “No.” He said in the tone that I imagined he reserved for small children or particularly slow people. I wondered which one he considered me. The thought twitched my unreasonably easy to anger mind and I felt a low growl rumble out of my chest.

“Oh relax, you have feathers.” Ken tried not to look too smug, I know he did, but I caught it on the wisps of his voice that wasn’t muffled by the rain. I shot him a death glare and ignored it, letting the rain soak into my coverings.

It stung for only a moment, and only because it was colder than I was expecting. It was dreary weather, not half what I was expecting on my first battle.

And, just like the rest of the old stone and concrete structures, the school was no different. In fact, I wouldn’t even have noticed the school if it wasn’t for the explosion that shattered the ground in front of me. “Get back.” Jon hissed, tugging me by a wing behind a building for cover.

I nearly bit his face off. Literally, I felt the urge to ram my beak into his neck when the searing sensation of having one of my wings tugged with enough force to move me hit my brain. I glared at him snarling, almost forgetting about the school until the corner of the building let off a shower of concrete chips. I snapped out of it almost instantly, turning my head just in time, my brain speeding up to ridiculous levels.

And suddenly the flow of raindrops slowed and I could count each and every single one of the beautiful knives flowing through the sky. A bullet, and that was what I knew it was slowly sped by at the pace that I could watch it spiral off on its path, hitting raindrops and shattering them into hundreds of sparkles that captivated and held my eyes.

And something sparked in my head like a lightning strike.

The world was infinitely less colorful, like someone had swapped color film for black and white. There were shadows cast every which way and it was raining. The path in front of me was illuminated only by the precursors to the peals of thunder which hounded me forward like it was nipping at my heels. I felt... smaller... weaker...

I kept my eyes straight ahead, locked on the door that I knew was familiar.

And then I was inside, and I was staring at the corpse of a man clutching a note. A gun was beside him, a single round fired out.

I picked up the note and read it out loud.

“Gone to the conversion bureau.” I didn’t know why I broke into tears.

I snapped back into reality, soaking wet, feeling the sting of the acid rain in the few pores on my skin. The world sparkled with color that I hadn’t appreciated and I let out a sigh of relief from returning to the land of color. Every oily drop was properly painted like a canvass and it was only when brick exploded from another bullet almost blasting against me that I truly realized that I was, in fact, in danger.

“Luckily for us, they are using bullets.” Jon said with half of a laugh. “In this weather, we need all the blessings we can get.” I blinked my eyes and looked around. It seemed like less than a second had passed.

I looked at him and responded in kind to his tone. “What else would they be shooting?” I shut my eyes so they would stop burning from the slow motion.

“Potion canisters. Literally, a shot from one of those and you’ll be spouting off peace slogans like a goddamn hippie and eating grass.” Jon said, tapping the butt of his gun against the wall.

Ken finally spoke up again, his face going a bit white. “How long until they run out of bullets?”

“Who knows. I want to know where the rest of th-” The building shook with an explosion and the sound of something wet and fleshy getting hit a few times by something going a significant fraction of the speed of sound.

“One down!” Came a cry through the rain. Another spoke up.

“Set yer phasers to fun boys, we got sum pony bastards to fry.” Flashes of light, like magic spells hurled through the void greeted us. Ken grinned.

“Ready? I think that’s our distraction.”

I drew the pistol off the cord and flipped off the safety a few faint memories flashing behind. I ignored them, and ignored the single tear on my face before it was swallowed up by the rain.

I dove out of cover, suddenly feeling once again faster than the rain itself, like I could disappear and jump between them without getting wet. Something exploded off in the distance and I recognized it as a gunshot. I twirled the gun into position in my talons and fired thrice, watching the bullets streak through the air as I dodged the returning fire.

The first bullet was dead on target for the shadowy figure’s face and was only unluckily dodged as a gust of wind blew it to the right. It smashed into the school behind it. The second and third bullet struck the target with considerably more accuracy, one smashing through the shoulder and turning it into a pulp of bone and blood and the other burying in the chest of the figure.

Even through the rain, I heard him gurgle and collapse. I still had ten rounds in my gun by my count and I resisted the urge to instantly reload, instead moving swiftly and fluidly behind the cover of another building.

The world returned to normal speed and I was aware of a slight pain in my head from the pounding rain as my visibility reduced to almost zero. My vision, almost perfect, could barely see through the slight fog that had decided to spring up. The rain was starting to stop, and at least that was in my favor.

Something metal was forced against my head and an annoyingly familiar click was brought to bear. “What the hell are you and who gave you a HLF gun?”

I slowly turned around, mindful of the weapon. A man, unshaven with little bits of coarse black hair peppering his face held a revolver to my body. I rolled my eyes at him. “I’m on your side, moron.”

“The HLF doesn’t work with monsters.” The man stated firmly. My tail flicked out as I tried to resist the urge to scream.

“Do you really want to give away your cover?” I asked, instinctively ducking further behind the wall as a distant explosion rendered the corner bricks to shrapnel. The ground rumbled loudly and I looked at the man oddly before he pulled the gun away from me.

“Not worth the cost of the ammo.” He muttered.

“Oh shut up.” I spat, wondering how much trouble I would get in for killing him. The man next to me drew another gun, a dinky looking plastic thing that would’ve looked better in the hands of a child, and twirled a dial on the back, turning the entire thing an eerie red. He smirked and stuck his arm out from cover just long enough to toss it. Chips of plastic rained down, a large section of the stock bouncing over the top of the building and landing next to us.

Thirty seconds later it exploded in a massive detonation of light and sound. Once again, a human pushed me out from where I was. “They’re blind. Go get them.”

Ignoring the part of me screaming to pull out the gun and remove the idiot’s face, I ran through the fog and rain to where I had saw the school. A large singe mark, blood spattered everywhere from the remnants of a PER’s torso, the rain quickly clearing the stone of most of the red liquid.

Poor guy had probably not even known what killed him.

I swept by him without much of a though, my gun kept ready and clutched in one of my forelimbs like one might cradle a knife. There was another gust of wind and it tickled my wings like a faint dream, leading my gaze to the sky.

I needed to fly. I squashed the thought almost instantly.

I shook my head, cobwebs slowing down my thoughts as the world seemed to, for only a second or three, change into a maelstrom of greys.

The rain pattered down, a dull constant. I flicked my gaze back down to earth. There was nobody in sight, despite the smouldering remnants.

The rain slowly stopped and my vision swam.

“We’ve won.” I heard someone shout.

I poked my head out of the school building and my eyes focused on the form of Ken, smiling widely. His smile didn’t fade even though the front of him was spattered with blood. He looked around and slowly, the rest of the group pulled themselves out from their hiding places, each almost as curious as the previous.

Something was shouted from inside the building, perhaps meant to be encouraging or discouraging. I honestly couldn’t tell. Something was thrown, and my eyes trained on it; A silver canister, tens of bio hazard symbols scrawled across the side like urban grafitti, streaking through the air like a graceful grenade.

Without thinking and reacting on reflex, I drew my gun and fired, the canister almost seeming familiar in what I was used to shooting at. The first round tipped the top of it, sending it spiraling still towards us.

The second shot made it explode into an angry purple mist directly on top of me. The humans behind me ran for it and I stood there in mild shock as the mist washed over me with the smell of grass and fields of flowers.

I stood there for a long moment with warning signs flashing in my head and a feeling of deep regret. Clearly, the gas was some sort of nerve poison and any second now I would be bowled over in pain and then shot by my comrades in mercy.

I blinked and shrugged, my wings moving up and down my back as I tried to figure out why I was panicking. The mist had cleared, and I was now an unhealthy shade of purple instead of the browns and greys I had been beforehand.

I walked slowly out of the puddle of gas and then towards the one who threw it, a man that looked entirely too shocked for my liking.

Ignoring the urge to shoot him, I instead walked up to him and grabbed him by his throat, suddenly realizing that I did indeed mostly tower over him. My purple cloaked talons dug at his throat and he only smiled at me.

“Thanks.” He said as if I did him a favor, a segment of the purple coating me sinking into his skin. His body gave an unsettling jerk and I dropped him.

His body sprouted pastel colored fur, his bones locking together. My mind told me he was turning into a pony, though it was going wrong. Where the fur was coming in it quickly fell off, turning into an ashen powder and leaving bare ugly raw skin. And then the bones collapsed in on himself and he literally caught on fire, collapsing into a nauseating blob and then a puddle of singed and burning flesh.

I stared at it in disgust, and turned away.

I caught sight of a pony running for it and flicked my gun over to it, looking down the sights with my vision homing in like a scope itself. Brown. It had a brown mane, and a yellow coat of fur. No cutie Mark. A young child.

I didn’t take the shot, regardless of whether or not the gun could hit from that far away.

“Arachne's web is a success.” I heard Ken say out loud. I turned around and looked at him blankly as a bit of purple goo dripped over one my eyes.

“What?”

I turned away from him, not waiting for his response. There was something tingling on the tip of my tongue, like a half forgotten taste. “What about the children?” I was only a few feet from the school building.

Jon spoke up. “We kill them and give them burials. Better to be dead than to be ponies.”

I felt a wave of emotions I couldn’t identify flash through my head. “But...” I muttered, not putting any force behind it. “Let me see something in the building first, ok?”

He only nodded.

I carefully walked around the puddle of human pony goo and trudged inside, ducking behind a door.

Like hell I was going to let them kill all those kids.

Easing my way through the bullet riddled hall way, I found another canister looking device and carefully carried it in the crook of a wing out to the front doors.

“Right,” I said, looking out over the eight or so humans watching me. “Here’s how I think this should play out.”

Ken glanced at me with a look of betrayal as if he knew what I was doing.

“I think that anyone stupid enough to try and enter this building,” I grabbed the canister in my talons and tossed it a few feet up, catching it as it fell. “Should have to deal with me and this potion.” I threw it up and caught it again.

I wasn’t sure whether I looked threatening or not. On one hand... talon... whatever I am supposed to use, I had a canister of gas that made a man turn into a puddle. On the other hand, I was purple and my feathers were sticking out at odd angles because of how the goo clung to them. I thanked my eyes for being awesome as I scanned the group in front of me for their reactions.

“Mu. Listen to yourself.” Jon said in a flat level tone. He was clearly the leader. “You just helped us fight off the bastards that did this and now you want to protect what they did?”

It disturbed me and angered me that he would be so callous as to not even refer to the kids as being living things. “These are kids. They can learn.”

“They are ponies now.” He said, trying to reason with me. “And where would they go from here? We are miles from anything that will let ponies in besides the PER outpost. Do you really want to give them all those fresh young ponies?”

In a cold clinical way I understood what he was saying. They were either going to die or be captured and force fed propaganda. I stared at him without moving. “Then get them to a city. That shouldn’t be hard, right? Just escort them...”

Jon laughed harshly. “Yeah? And guess what happens the second we turn them in? We get arrested, tried, killed and even more PER get to go without us trying to keep their numbers down. And then they bomb another school. And another school.”

And in a way I knew he was right and in a deep burning way, like my soul itself was screaming, I knew he was wrong. “This is what you are going to do.” I said, letting an angry hiss into my voice. I felt part of my feathers try to puff up but it was held down by the goo.

“Mu. Shut up. Let us put them down.”

I glared at him and calmly threw the cylinder up again, and in the time it took it to soar up into the air I had drawn the pistol into my talons and without missing a beat, shot the ground in front of them. I dropped the pistol and caught the cylinder.

“I’d rather have the PER take them than let you kill them, Jon.”

He stared at me with such a look of abject hatred that I almost feared my feathers would catch on fire. He slowly looked up into the grey sky and shook his head. “Stand down men.”

The men around him didn’t move.

“Stand down, DAMN IT.” He roared.

They slouched into more relaxed stances.

“Mission accomplished. Let’s go home.”

The men filed away, a disorganized rabble, and left with only a few discouraging words.

Ken stayed next to Jon, Ken’s brown eyes looking at me with nothing less than pure betrayal.

“Mu. I swear to god I didn’t have a problem with you before this. Mark my words. If I meet you again, no force on this planet is going to stop me from unloading a clip or three into your head. Do you hear me? You aren’t the man I used to know. He was smart. He wasn’t an idealistic idiot. You were right. He’s dead.” And then he turned and walked away.

His words struck me like a dagger twisting into my stomach. I almost panted in barely constrained rage looking at him like a hawk looks at a mouse.

“I’m sorry.” Ken muttered, then did the same as Jon.

And just like that the rage vanished. Ken had cut it down like a machine gun firing squad, leaving my emotions in confused pieces.

I had never felt more alone.