The Conversion Bureau: Tourist Trap

Every Saturday night, Coach Mann held a park closing ceremony, just like the parks of the old world, it called for fireworks, but a certain number of distinguished guests were invited to personally dine with Coach Mann himself. For Mary, the coach’s bride to be, the invitation arrived just like everyone else’s, delivered by one of the servant donkeys. Despite her reservations, she found the secluded location hidden in the park far away from whom she deemed commoners.

Everyone who came to the hidden entrance had to present their invitations, the hallway to the grand ballroom was lined with guards, but the inner sanctum only had one who despite his intimidating mantle, held the door for everyone. Mary found reason to silently mock many of the guests, most particularly the man who wore the upper half of a tuxedo but nothing to cover his genitals. Mary noticed the servant donkeys looked particularly frightened around Mr. Mann.

With a tap of his glass Mr. Mann addressed everyone, “Welcome to the park closing ceremony dinner. At the end of tonight’s dinner I have a very special announcement. However, I simply love anticipation, so I must leave you all anxiously guessing what it shall be.” Then to prove his wealth, he raised a live chicken in one hand and a saber in the other. With a dramatic slice, the chicken’s head fell to the table and the chicken’s body, dropped from his hand, ran and flapped in a grotesque display of spraying blood until it ran out of sight. Coach Mann raised his hands and smiled signaling everyone to applaud.

A chicken dinner was served shortly afterwards, then a dessert of fruit filled gelatin. Mary started to wonder just how out of touch she was with the world. Was Coach Mann having a laugh at the commoners by having common food prepared for them or was this what was done in high society these days? At last dessert was finished and all of the plates and servants had left the room. It was time.

Coach Mann stood beaming from ear to ear, “Ladies and gentlemen,” He paused as he brought his hands together, “I would like to invite you to a dance.”

Mary scoffed, “Excuse me, dear, but don’t you want to make the big announcement?”

Coach looked back at Mary for a moment, “Oh, yes, my dear. The dance is part of it.” He walked out in front of the table and spun slowly to look at everyone. “Here in this room, I see the great faces of humanity. Faces that deserve to be preserved against what Princess Celestia is calling a ‘rescue mission’,” There was a boo from the guests, “a ‘mission of mercy’,” another louder boo, “Yes, the conversion of humanity into pony” The guests hissed and jeered as the coach nodded his understanding. “But I see in this room, some of the greats and even some of the rares!” He started raising his hand and pointing into the crowd with each that he called out, “Gluttony. Wrath. Sloth. Pride.”

A confused look grew over the faces of the guests even as Mary’s grin grew wider, “Lust. Greed. Envy, and even the rarer faces of Acedia and Vainglory, but!” Coach Mann raised his finger then turned out stretching both of his hands toward Mary in pure adoration, “Not one of you comes close to my dear, my flower, my jewel, my Mary. My Mary who embodies all of these beautiful sins and more.” Mary’s smile ran away from her face as she stared both dumbfounded and utterly embarrassed.

“Mr. Mann!” Mary tried to start incredulously.

“Now, now!” Coach Mann continued, “I promised a big announcement. I am going to tell you the secret of the ponification serum, and how I have protected you all from it. Would anyone like to hear that?”

There was a murmur of agreement.

“It’s Celestia’s blood.” There was another murmur as Coach Mann raised his voice to speak over the din, “Hundreds of thousands of liters of her blood mixed with what she claims to be nanomachines. They are magical machines, which are as small or smaller than nanometers so that is not completely a lie. Now, a question for you:” The guests quieted down again, “What happens when you mix those same nanomachines with the blood of a god of chaos? Anybody? Alright, I’ll tell you, nothing.” He spread his arms again and spun in a wide circle, “Unless you have already given yourself over to chaos! Ladies and gentlemen! Let us dance the transformation tango!”

With that the lights of the grand ballroom started flashing as extremely loud dubstep started playing. Coach Man started growing and transforming into a living nightmare of amalgamated parts of various animals. The guests turned into a screaming mob and tried to run in every direction possible, but the doors were locked. Hidden guns were pulled from their hiding places and fired. Some having lost all other forms of control started fighting one another. Then the sound of screams was replaced by terrified braying as the guests themselves started transforming into donkeys. They kicked about as they tripped themselves on their own now ill fitting clothing.

In mortified terror, Mary found the one guard in the room, “Stop him, please!”

The guarded lifted his helmet to reveal the same grinning amalgamated face of the creature that was once Coach Mann, “Now, why would I do that, my dear?”

Mary fell to the ground as her feet transformed out from under her. She kicked herself in circles as she struggled to escape the bulky dress only managing to tie herself in tighter knots

Discord looked down from the center of the room laughing maniacally as the explosions from the fireworks above cast his shadow onto the new magically contract-bound slaves still preforming his favorite dance. He tried to savor the moment, but now seeing how she turned out, the thought of putting his new extremely overweight mare to work in the fields with all of the other mares fed Discord like a second dessert.