The Conversion Bureau: Code Majeste

Chapters

2. My Little Runaway
3. Horse With No Name
4. The Lights Are Much Brighter There
5. A Warmer Place To Sleep
6. Won't Get Fooled Again
8. Do You Really Want To Hurt Me
9. You'll Never, Never, Never Reach The Sky
10. I Am I Said
11. Doctor My Eyes
Alternate Universe Chapter 11 - by Midnight Shadow
1. They Smile In Your Face
7. I Can't Go For That (No Can Do)

2. My Little Runaway

The
CONVERSION
►Bureau

CODE MAJESTE

By Chatoyance

My Little Runaway

Lillian remained still. She could tell that she had been converted, but all of her daydreams of waking up and enjoying her new pony body had been destroyed somehow. She could feel her four hooves, she could feel her long neck and tail and the soft coat that covered her body and kept it warm and comfortable. She had been changed. But this was not how she had imagined things at all. She wanted to cry. A small tear began to form in the tiny crack she kept open in her right eye; now her vision was blurred from it.

The door to the conversion room opened and closed. She heard the locks engaged from outside. She heard the PA, Olivia, stepping about behind her as she lay on the table. Something bad was going on, something very wrong. The doctor did not mean her well, and Olivia served the doctor.

Right now, there was only one other being in the room. Lillian felt the desire to escape, to run, to leave whatever was going on. This was a chance - Olivia the assistant was smaller than the heavy-set attending physician, and one person was easier to deal with than two. She could lay here on the table and wait for doctor Treasen to return, or she could try something, anything. Panic and desperation filled Lillian's mind.

She decided she would try to kick the PA as hard as she could, and then make a run for it. She would have to be fast, she would have to be smart, and she would have to act now.

Lillian whipped her head up to see where Olivia was. The room spun - she was unprepared for just how long and muscular her new neck was. She found she had overshot and managed to hurt her own flank with her jaw. Her neck hurt now, as she straightened it carefully. Olivia spun around at the noise, a syringe in her hand.

Her hooves lashed out with far less control than she had imagined, and since Olivia was slightly to the side, Lillian found herself twisting as her kick brought her hips over the edge of the stainless steel table. Her rear legs and flank pulled the rest of her over the edge. She hit the tiled floor with a smack that made her head spin and her bones ache. Something on her side hurt very much; it felt like she had injured her arm, only she could feel all four hooves flailing aimlessly.

The syringe! She couldn't allow it to be used on her! Lillian ignored her pains and rolled as best she could to her belly and tried to launch herself to a standing position. Her uncoordinated effort threw her against the wall, where she slumped in agony - the injured arm feeling on her side, just by her shoulder was worse now. The PA, Olivia, had sprung back against the other wall, holding the syringe up as if to protect herself.

"Lillian! Wait! I'm not going to hurt you!"

Yeah, sure, she thought. Lillian tried to stand again, this time using the wall for balance. "Don't even try to come near me, I swear I will kick you!" She tried to sound as menacing as possible, but her voice sounded immature, even to her.

"I won't I swear. Look! I'm putting it down!" And she was. Olivia put the syringe on the tile and waved her empty hands.

"But the doctor!" Lillian was standing now, more or less, leaning against the wall. She had to look over her own shoulder to see the PA. It was then that she finally understood the pain in her side; she had wings. She was a pegasus pony! She must have landed wrong when she fell, and hurt her wing. It didn't feel broken, just sore. That was a relief.

"Listen, Lillian, you have to trust me. I don't want you to be hurt. I can't live with what they are going to do. I want to give you a chance to escape, but we have to act quickly, and you have to trust me, please!" The dark haired PA's voice quavered as she spoke. It was clear that she was frightened, and that she was fighting with herself over her decision to help.

"Why? Why help me?" Lillian felt fear and suspicion. Nothing made sense to her, it felt as if she were still inside a nightmare.

"There isn't time, dammit. Just trust me. I'll get you to the door. Just trust me." Olivia approached Lillian, her hands outstretched. Lillian considered trying to kick her, but then realized that she wasn't sure she could manage it. Her body was entirely new to her. She could barely stand. There was nothing for it; she would have to trust this woman.

Olivia took hold of Lillian, bent over her, and steadied the pony. "Come on, walk, try to walk, I'll keep you from falling. You have to learn to use those legs fast. Towards the door - move towards the door! That's it, keep moving. Trust in your body, I've helped a lot of newfoals. The body knows better than you do. Just let it walk, that's it, let it get you there." Olivia was babbling, but somehow it was all working, and the less Lillian tried to control her walking, the easier it seemed to be to walk. Olivia was talking with some experience here, it seemed.

They were at the door. "Stand. Just stand for a moment."

Lillian struggled for a moment, then deliberately tried to relax. Once again her body seemed to know best, and she did not fall over. She looked up to see Olivia entering a code on the active surface by the door. "I am going to get in so much trouble for this. God dammit. God dammit."

The sounds of locks disengaging rattled through the room. Olivia took hold of the massive handle on the metal door and pushed it open. The long hallway that led to the conversion room beckoned. "Lillian, listen to me carefully. You have to run, you have to find someplace to hide. You can't trust anyone. You can't go to Equestria, not ever, do you understand? You can't ever let Celestia find you. And you can't ever let the government catch you, or the HLF or the Blackmesh or... anyone! Everyone is going to be after you. If they catch you, you are dead. DO YOU UNDERSTAND?"

The look in Olivia's eyes was horror and pity and anger, and it drilled straight into Lillian's heart. "I... I understand."

A strange feeling filled the room. It was the damnedest thing; it was like a breeze coming from nowhere, like a light shining from a direction that no hand could point. Lillian felt as if the air pressure were increasing rapidly, only it wasn't. An electric tingle danced over her body.

"SHIT! Wait a moment!" Olivia ran to a drawer and began searching it frantically. She snatched something and ran back. Lillian's head was rudely grabbed and she felt something slammed into her forehead. It felt like Olivia had hit her somehow, only now there was a cold, hard weight above and between her eyes. "That will hide you. It's Equestrian. Now RUN!"

Lillian began to run down the hall. Her hooves threatened to skitter out from under her with every step, but somehow she remained upright. As she slammed into the side of the hall due to an error in trajectory, she glanced behind her to see a curtain of blue, lavender and teal light rippling like some impossible flag behind Olivia in the doorway. "RUN DAMMIT! RUN FOR YOUR LIFE!"

Suddenly, Olivia was snatched backwards from the doorway, as if by an invisible hand. It was horrifying. Lillian turned her head and ran again.

Doctor Treasen was suddenly in the way, his face filled with shock and anger. Lillian ran straight at him; she felt the impact as he was knocked to the side, falling on his face just outside the hallway. She was in the cafeteria now, already bustling with the lunchtime crowd. Familiar faces, human and pony, blurred as Lillian scrambled to run past them towards the front of the clinic.

She was barely aware of an innocent newfoal stallion sent sprawling, his tray and bowl clattering on the floor. Lillian dashed towards the lobby, barely avoiding an impact with several pieces of furniture. Someone was entering the clinic as she approached the door; as she sent them tumbling it dawned on her that the figure was dressed all in black. He was a Blackmesh guard.

Lillian was galloping now, the stairs were coming up. She knew she couldn't navigate them; she was still having trouble running. Without thinking she leapt, her wings spreading out automatically in terror. She was beyond thought now, her fear having taken over her mind completely. Somehow she found herself safely down on the plascreet roadway, running again. She must have glided, it was the only explanation, but she had no idea how she had managed it.

The sound of her hooves on the plascreet was loud as she ran down an alley. She had no idea where she was going other than far away. She could barely make out the sound of yelling behind her, doubtless pursuit was in progress. Where now? Lillian tore off down another alleyway, trying to take an irregular route.

The underground. The sky would be filled with drones and cameras if she could somehow figure out how to fly. The streets were lined with cameras and patrolled by vehicles and she would soon be captured if she continued running about above ground. Stairs leading down to the maglev tunnels offered slim hope. She ran for an entrance, down a side street. She was sure it must be there; she had taken that maglev to reach the Bureau from her home in Surrey.

She slowed to step carefully, now. She could not run down the stairs for fear of breaking her neck, and she dared not try to glide again, not inside the narrow tunnel. Step by agonizing step, she slowly made it to the bottom. There were cameras above that would show that she had entered, but that information might not be immediately available to her pursuers.

The station ahead was crowded, surprising and confusing her. Suddenly Lillian felt stupid. Of course it would be crowded, it was a maglev station. She ducked down the tunnels that led to the restrooms. As she headed for the women's bathroom she felt more and more like she was heading into a dead end, a trap from which she could not escape. She stopped in the tunnel. It was hopeless.

There were cameras above, in the sky and in the streets, cameras everywhere, the eyes and ears of the world government. And, of course, there were cameras here too, like the one she had just noticed scanning back and forth at the end of the tunnel, where the doors to the restrooms were. She looked behind her, at the cameras she had failed to notice there.

It was hopeless. She was trapped. Anger and rage filled her. She stomped her new hooves in frustration and tossed her head back and forth, insane with fear.

There was a loud, metallic clank, clunk, ting from the walls and floor of the tunnel. Her head felt lighter.

Lillian looked down. Near her left hoof was a ring. It was large, big enough to be a bracelet. It was thick, and appeared to be made of silver. Strange symbols ran around the ring: horseshoe-like shapes, stars, crescents, spirals and more. Equestrian symbols. This was the thing that Olivia had stuck on her forehead.

It was all too much. Lillian could not understand anything of what was happening to her. Mechanically, she lowered her head to pick up the strange ring. She had dropped it, she had to pick it up - that was the extent of her numb, overworked thought.

The ring tasted like metal in her mouth. She stood there like a dumb and useless animal, sucking on the metal ring, utterly without any plan. She literally could not think of anything more or better to do. She looked down at herself, taking in what she could of her appearance for the first time. Her coat was a soft bluish-gray, her mane and tail the soft pale yellow of corn silk. She began to idly look around.

Her shadow was on the tunnel wall. She looked at it. She was a pony; she wiggled her tail and the tail on the shadow wiggled too. She stretched out her wings; her left wing hurt as she did so, she had bruised something there. Her shadow had also spread its wings, her wings, and she admired the dramatic display of them on the wall.

It was then that she noticed that the shadow pony had a horn.

Lillian crossed her eyes and looked up, trying to verify what her shadow seemed to indicate. She couldn't see a horn. She walked, slowly to the wall, her shadow growing as she approached. Lillian lowered her head carefully, still sucking on the ring in her teeth. She felt the sharp knock to her skull as her horn tapped on the tilework. It was there, it was real. She was a unicorn.

No, she was a pegasus. She flexed her wings once more.

Oh.

It hit her. That was the problem. She was both. That was strange. In all of ponykind, only two beings were both. The princesses, Celestia and Luna. Alicorns. That's what they were called. Alicorns. Immortal goddesses of Equestria.

Olivia's words came back to her. "You can't go to Equestria, not ever, do you understand? You can't ever let Celestia find you. You can't let anyone catch you."

Oh. My. God.

Understanding began to spread across Lillian's mind. She was a pariah! If she was an alicorn, then she would be... a threat. To Celestia. To her rule. Stories of ancient earth monarchies, of pretenders to the crown, of executions and heads rolling from blocks bubbled up in her memory. Celestia was more than a mere ruler, she was a goddess who raised the sun in her world.

By being an unsanctioned, unauthorized, illegitimate alicorn, Lillian was not merely a threat to the crown of Equestria. She was a living blasphemy.

And the Human Liberation Front - they wanted a way to stop the expansion of Equestria, to defeat the invasion that they felt Celestia represented. The HLF humans would want her. They would want her to fight for them against Celestia, and if she would not, they would want her body to dissect and study, to find the secret of the powers of a god.

There was no being in either world who would not want her dead or enslaved to their cause. Lillian had casually used the word 'doom' her entire life; finally she understood what 'doomed' truly meant, and it was not a happy thing.

The strange feeling was back. The feeling of pressure rising, of light from nowhere, an electric tingle - the same as back at the bureau! Lillian remembered poor Olivia being pulled into the conversion room, the sensation of something approaching, the glowing curtain of colors, blue, violet, teal.... the colors of Celestia's strange mane of light!

Lillian, ring still in her mouth, turned to see the hallway behind her distorting. The air itself was bending the light differently, as the feeling of pressure increased. Light began spilling from the distortion.

Somehow Lillian knew. Celestia was coming. That light was Celestia coming. It was a... a wormhole, or a space warp or some kind of magic door. Celestia was coming. How? How had she found her? Why had it taken this long to find her?

The ring. "This will hide you. It's Equestrian." The ring had hidden her. It had been on her horn, until she had shaken it off. It must act like some kind of scrambler, or damper, or cloak, or something like that. It hid her. She could think of no way to put it back on her horn. In any case, it was too late now.

The feeling of pressure was overwhelming. Lillian could see light shining from the center of the distortion in the middle of the air, and it was becoming brighter. Lillian saw the grand, tall, regal shape of princess Celestia, monarch and living goddess, walking towards her, the world itself bowing and stretching to make way for her royal passage.

Celestia did not look at all happy or friendly.

Exquisite painting by Balthasar999

Lillian thought she had felt fear before. She was wrong. Everything she had experienced until now was as nothing; the creature walking slowly and carefully towards her was the most terrifying thing she had ever experienced. That was not a pony. She knew beyond understanding that it was not even flesh. The being approaching her was an entity, and only a tiny portion of it played the small role of 'princess'. It was ancient beyond measure and powerful beyond reason. Princess Celestia was an eldritch horror, stalking her with caution and determination.

"Pleathe... pleathe..." Lillian could only beg now, she could only mumble around the ring in her mouth "I juth wanth to be thumwhere elth... pleathe..." Her begging filled her heart and overwhelmed her mind. She felt a sharp pain in her forehead; it was like a spike of hot metal digging into her brain.

Suddenly there was a massive flash of light within the tunnel.

As princess Celestia exited her hyperspace conduit, it collapsed behind her, winking to a point and vanishing. The living goddess stood, staring down the empty tunnel, at the tiled walls and plascrete floor. The camera at the end scanned lazily back and forth making a faint humming sound. The two bathroom doors at the end remained closed.

Celestia sniffed delicately at the air; the faint tang of ozone touched her royal nostrils. She gritted her teeth.

The usurper had somehow instinctively managed to teleport.

This would not do.

3. Horse With No Name

The
CONVERSION
►Bureau

CODE MAJESTE

By Chatoyance

Horse With No Name

The little gray pony was slightly singed around the edges. The tips of her cornsilk mane and tail smouldered in the stinging, acidic rain. The heavy metal ring was still clutched tightly between her teeth. As she regained her senses, the smell of burned hair and ozone biting her nostrils, she suddenly startled with renewed fear. She rose to her hooves; she felt wobbly but much more confident in her new body.

The damper ring. Lillian knew that she needed to get the band of metal over her horn again, and she had to do it quickly. She could not sense the strange feeling that indicated Celestia's approach, so it was likely she had not yet been traced. She stared at her clumsy hooves; if she had hands she could slip the ring over her horn in an instant. Then again, if she had hands, she would be a human, and the entire issue would be moot.

Lillian set the ring down on the dead, storm-flattened grain that covered the disturbingly flat landscape. It could be Alberta, or more likely Saskatchewan. Then again, it could be Iowa. Gray stalks stretched to the horizon; they had been dead for a very, very long time. The last crop ever grown had been perfectly preserved by a small error in genegineering; nothing could digest wheat anymore, neither animal nor bacteria nor fungus. The broken genes for the new wheat had spread quickly around the planet contaminating all the relatives of wheat. The last crop had become the tombstone for grains as a botanical family.

The little gray pony set her front hooves on either side of the ring, pinching it between them. She could feel the resistance of the ring in her... ankles? Knuckles? Whatever her new body parts were called, she reasoned that she could use her hooves to keep track of the ring's position on the ground.

Lillian lowered her head slowly, until she felt her horn touch the earth. Lifting and lowering her head again and again, she tried to work the tip of her horn down toward the space between her hooves, where the ring was held. She couldn't roll her eyes far enough to see the tip of her horn, but... wait. That must be the ring! And that curvature her horn was sliding off of was her right hoof! Carefully, carefully... that is probably it. That must be the center of the ring.

She slowly and ever-so-gently moved her head, tapping to feel if her horn was trapped within the ring pinched between her hooves. She felt faint resistance. The ring must be around the tip of her horn. Lillian pushed her head down, hard, digging her horn deep into the muddy, sterile soil. The itchy acid rain pounded her back and trickled through the feathers on her wings. Now what?

She had to get the ring to stay, and she needed it to fit around the base of her horn, just the way that Olivia had set it. Lillian lowered her body, her belly down among the crushed stalks and mud. Using her chest and hindquarters as a stable base, she slowly lifted her horn free from the muck, while simultaneously trying to drag the ring closer to her forehead with the edges of her forehooves. She felt the scrape of the ring as it slid down her horn. Resting now on her... elbows? she was able to fiddle about with the ring, finally assuring herself that it was on her horn and set solidly around the base, close to her skull.

She didn't feel any different. The metal ring seemed a little heavy, but other than that she could detect no change. Was the ring working?

Lillian scanned the horizon. It was flat in all directions, with no trace of mountain, hill, or building. The view made her feel dizzy and unsettled. Her eyes craved any difference in the landscape. For a moment she felt as if she might fall into the sky. How could anyone live in such a flat, barren place?

They didn't, of course. Not now, anyway. Once, though, she knew that this had been one of the breadbaskets of the world, when the soil was alive, when grains were still capable of nourishing life and were not filled with genetically engineered preservatives and pesticides. Back when plants could still grow at all.

Even so, the thought of spending a life in a perfectly flat land made Lillian shudder.

The tainted rain was hurting her eyes terribly. She carefully, delicately waggled her mane, trying to get spikes of it to hang over her face like the brim of a hat. She managed to get a large sheaf of hair to curve over just enough; for now the rain ran down it, and stayed mostly out of her eyes. Better. Much better. She blinked again and again, allowing her tears to clear out the stinging rain.

There was no pursuit. If Celestia could find her, she would have by now. Lillian let out a huge sigh of relief that turned into a moan. The moan became a cry, and the cry turned to exhausted tears.

Lillian cried in the rain for a long time. Eventually the fear and tension drained from her. She was safe. For now.

It was enough.

Thunder boomed in the gray sky, but Lillian saw no lightning. Still, it would be sensible to find some kind of shelter. The little gray pony... no, alicorn - she would have to face the fact of it - stood up again. Alicorn. The word seemed strange and alien. That was the species of monster she now was. Lillian Fogarty, the alicorn.

She realized that she was something else that had never happened before. She was the first newfoal to ever regret their conversion. And she did. She regretted it so much. That was supposedly impossible. Newfoals were universally filled with positive feelings, as though they were high all the time. According to some things she had read, that was not far from the truth.

Lillian was not at all high. She felt no special feeling of wellbeing. As far as she could tell, her thoughts were as dark and moody as always, more so today, considering all she had been through. She could imagine the most horrible ends for herself. That too, was supposed to not happen for newfoals.

Apparently, alicorns didn't get the automatic gift of happiness and serenity that normal ponies received. Lillian just felt sad, regretful, and miserable. And afraid.

Shelter. Lillian began to amble in an arbitrary direction. There was nothing to see, wherever she looked, but standing still was pointless. At least if she moved, she might run into something.

Suddenly, Lillian realized she had missed out on lunch. She had never gotten to have the coveted 'First Meal As A Pony' party that made morning conversion so much fun. Her belly rumbled with hunger. All around her was kilometers and kilometers of wheat, the ripe grain still on the stalks, and not a bit of it was food. She laughed, bitterly, as she walked. "Water, water everywhere, and not a drop to..." Lillian froze.

That was a building. That was absolutely a building. It was gray against the gray sky, but it rose above the gray fields. It was faint but it was there, not entirely hidden by the mist and the downpour. Lillian began to move faster, her amble rising to a trot. Soon she was galloping.

It was a corporate farming facility. It must have been abandoned decades ago. As she approached she could see the rows and rows of automated silos, the three concentric chainlink fences, the razor wire on top. There were the automated turrets, and the guardhouses. She slowed her pace; no, no. Careful now. Or not. The turrets, the defenses... they would all be dead now. No power. No maintenance. It had to be safe by now. They'd probably removed all the ordnance in any case. No one would bother attacking a production center that produced nothing. The days of food riots and anti-corporate resistance were long gone.

Lillian began circling the fence, looking for a way in. There had to be a gate, somewhere, because there had to be a road, or roads, leading in and out. The stark, angular buildings and curving silos looked eerie and strangely beautiful in the rain. Above all, it was somehow a delight merely to have something break up the monotony of the flat landscape.

The gate, when she finally got to it, was busted open. Sometime in the past, someone had apparently run a heavy truck through the gate, probably to pillage the abandoned facility. Lillian felt grateful to that long ago scavenger; she had no idea how to get through the triple fences on her own.

The complex was huge. After the gate were guardhouses; these contained nothing but broken glass and stains. Lillian ambled down the crumbling concrete roadway. On both sides were now rows and rows of compact apartment blocks, the housing for the corporate prisoners who had once served as the workforce here. An idea stirred in Lillian's mind.

Camouflage.

While most ponies did not wear clothing, some did, especially on the Earthly side of the Equestrian barrier. Newfoals were notorious for clinging to the wearing of clothing; hats, coats, scarves, even pants. Newfoals commonly did not grasp the cultural significance of clothing to native Equestrians, despite the efforts of the classes held at the Conversion Bureaus. Wearing clothing, for ponies, was uncommon, and where it was not functional or ceremonial, it was remarkably sexually provocative. In Equestria, the equivalent of a strip-club involved the putting on of clothing, not its removal.

Lillian had entered one of the apartment blocks, and was searching the apartments one after another. In one she had found a hard hat, but it was too small and would not serve to hide her horn. In another she discovered a stray pair of boxer shorts; even if they were not ripped and filled with holes, they would have been utterly useless.

One apartment held a holophoto of a family, a mother, father and two daughters smiled out at Lillian. They all wore the same corporate worker jumpsuits, but they appeared glad to be together even so. She lay down on the floor there, for a while, and sobbed. She wished she could talk to her mother, she wished she had a family now. Her mother would never accept her as... this thing she was.

When she had regained herself, she continued her exploration. Outside the acidic rain continued to beat down; as she entered each apartment, she could smell it as it fell through shattered windows and splattered on the bare, plascrete floors.

Finally, in one closet, Lillian found the jackpot. A trenchcoat. A marvelous, dark gray, intact trenchcoat. How had it been left here? Who would ever leave such a thing in the post-collapse world? Lillian wondered at the owner, a corporate prisoner, wearing nothing but assigned jumpsuits for their entire life, unable to leave the farming facility, yet possessing a fairly decent trenchcoat! Or had someone been allowed a visitor, one who left behind their coat? Had an elite taken an interest in one of the prisoners - some kind of dalliance or romance behind the razor-wire? The coat held provocative mysteries that would never be answered.

But the coat also held promise as a way to hide her wings.

All Lillian really needed to do was to hide one aspect of her being. If she could hide her horn, she could pass as a pegasus. If she could hide her wings, she could pretend she was just a normal unicorn. Lillian took the coat carefully down with her teeth; it tasted of mildew and ancient pollen.

There were the remains of a bed in this room. It had mostly rotted away, but the frame was intact. Lillian lay the coat down on the metal frame to study it. If she was to use it, she would need to put it on somehow. Clearly, one forehoof would have to go down one of the arms of the coat, then the coat would need to be tossed over her back. Lastly would come inserting her other forehoof down the remaining arm.

Lillian took the neck of the coat in her teeth and sat down on her haunches. Using her teeth and her other foreleg, she worked her right hoof down the ample right arm of the coat. It was fortunate that the coat had been made for a male adult human; this made it large enough for her hoof to fit the tunnel of fabric.

She trapped the opposite side of the coat with her left forehoof, and pressed into the coat; her right hoof popped out of the arm. One part done. The coat was partly draped across her back now, which was a good start. Lillian craned her long neck and tried to nab the left side of the collar with her teeth, but it was impossible. Instead she settled for the middle of the left side of the coat. No. That wasn't going to work either. This was a problem.

Finally, after much struggle, Lillian managed to wriggle her left hoof down the left arm of the coat by spinning about on the floor while resting on her haunches and leaning back. This hurt her tail, and it bruised her flanks, but with enough short, sharp spasms and a bit of wrestling, she managed to jerk the coat all the way onto her back, and her left hoof all the way down the arm of the coat.

Lillian lay on her side, panting. It had been exhausting trying to put the coat on. She did not want to imagine how difficult it would be to take it off again. If she even could.

It struck her suddenly that... she was a unicorn. Well, partly, anyway. She had a horn. Suddenly she felt stupid. Unicorns could lift and manipulate objects with their magic. Telekinesis was normal for unicorns. Duh.

Lillian looked around the room. There was a chunk of rotted foam on the floor, once part of the bed. It was about the size of an orange. Lillian's stomach growled loudly at that; she had enjoyed some marvelous oranges back during her fourteen days at the Bureau. Oh, how she could use just one of those shining fruits right now. Enough. That only made things worse. Time to concentrate.

Move, she thought. Move, foam. Lillian tried to reach out with her mind, she tried to pretend she had an invisible arm stretching out from her forehead. She imagined beams of energy tractoring the lump of rotted bedding. Nothing. Not a glow, not a feeling inside her head, nothing.

She had managed to teleport! She had teleported herself all the way to... wherever this was. Probably Saskatchewan. Lillian Fogarty of Surrey, magical alicorn, had teleported herself all the way to Probably Saskatchewan without even knowing how, and she couldn't move one little piece of freaking foam!

The ring. That must be it. The ring on her horn.

It wasn't for hiding her. That was just a side effect. Why would a Conversion Bureau even stock such a thing?

To control new unicorns that could not contain their power. That was the real purpose of the ring. To keep frightened, out-of-control newfoal unicorns from harming themselves or others if their magic expressed itself dangerously. Lillian had heard stories; occasionally some newfoal unicorn would turn out really powerful right from the moment they woke up. There had to be a provision, a protocol for that eventuality. That was the point of the ring. It blocked magic completely. It wasn't a cloaking ring, it was a damping ring.

That it hid her from Celestia was merely a fortunate benefit to shutting off the fount of magic.

Rested from her struggles with the coat, Lillian stood upright. The coat dragged a little on the ground, but overall it did the job. Her back and sides were covered all the way to her tail, and her wings were entirely hidden. She could wander now as an ordinary unicorn. A unicorn dressed in an old trenchcoat.

Beyond the worker apartments was the main building of the corporate plantation. These had been the offices of the corporate drones that ran the facility, the overseers. There was one thought now in Lillian's mind: food. There must be old vending machines in this place, and there were certain snacks said to be impervious to the passage of time.

It did not take long to find a cafeteria in the structure, and as expected dozens of vending machines crowded the walls. Most were partially full, some were empty, one looked as if it had been filled the day the complex was abandoned. Lillian studied the selections carefully; she did not want to eat something that could make her sick.

Could an alicorn get sick? Just how unusual was this body of hers? It was prudent to avoid unnecessary tests of her status, she concluded.

Nanobars. Fruity chewy Nanobars. They had been one of the first commercially successful nanoconstructed snacks. A smart advertising campaign combined with clever endorsements had overcome public distaste for entirely artificed food. Nanobars contained nothing natural but the atoms from which they were woven. And they were woven, out of threads of protein, carbohydrates, and flavoring molecules, all stitched together with nutrient complexes.

Now, after the Collapse, virtually the whole of humanity lived entirely on nanoreconstructed, recycled food. It was the crowning achievement of human civilization: an entire planet fed, no human ever went hungry. Of course, a diet of small, awful tasting gray and brown rectangles could not be considered exactly good living, but, for the first time in all of history, everyone everywhere ate at least one meal every single day.

Some had called it the golden age of Mankind.

Nanobars would do. They never degraded so long as their packaging was sealed. It was said that a cache of Nanobars should last for centuries in perfect condition, so long as they were kept properly. Lillian's stomach was growling like a beast.

The trenchcoat hindered her hindquarters a bit, but a few good bucks with her strong rear hooves opened up the front of the vending machine easily. Using her front right hoof, she scooped out stacks of the Nanobars onto the floor. Laying down in the fading light from the intact windows, Lillian bent her head and picked up one of the bars by the edge of the wrapper.

Lillian held the bar between her forehooves and used her teeth to rip the end off of the bar. Hunger had made her feel a little shaky, so it took a few tries before she succeeded in opening the wrapper. The smell of artificial fruit essences filled her nostrils. It was disgusting to her new senses, but she was so hungry she simply did not care.

After the ninth Nanobar, Lillian was getting quite efficient at manipulating the small objects. She snagged the tenth bar with only one hoof, balancing it in the cleft of her frog. In one swift motion, she clasped the bar between both hooves and neatly tore the wrapper open. Once in her mouth, the fruity bar was vacuumed out of the wrapper in an instant, and wrapper number ten joined the growing pile on the floor. Lillian munched contentedly; she had been through so much and food helped. Food definitely helped.

After twenty bars, she finally felt full. The cafeteria was dry, the windows were intact, and the storm still raged outside. It was late; Lillian had no way to tell what time it was but it surely must be evening by now. It was desperately dark now. She felt sure that human eyes would be entirely unable to see. What she could make out seemed to shine unnaturally; it crossed her mind that she might be perceiving more of the spectrum than humans, or ordinary ponies, could see.

Then again, it could all just be her imagination. Right now she wanted to believe that she had some kind of power, some kind of extraordinary means at her command. As she hopefully studied what she could see of the room, she gradually came to the sad conclusion that while her eyesight was better as a fresh new pony, it was not magical after all. The realization somehow felt far more depressing than it really should be.

She lay down on the floor. There was nothing else to be done. She was exhausted, but she was full. In the trench coat she felt a little uncomfortably warm, but she did not want to go through the hassle of trying to remove it, only to have to put it on again. She lay partly on her back, careful of her bruised wing, and spread her legs wide to allow her belly to cool.

What next? Where was she supposed to go, what was she supposed to do? Olivia had made it clear that she could not flee to Equestria. Besides, that was Celestia and Luna's home turf. They would surely be at their most powerful there. Without question the place was the very source of magic itself.

The human world held its own dangers, though. All large cities and operational complexes were constantly monitored; cameras everywhere, corporate eyes in every room, on every street, in every space. It was a pity that there was no living wilderness left. Lillian could imagine running off to some forest and living comfortably as the little pony she was. But all the forests were dead, as were the seas; the only places that plants could grow now were in controlled environments.

This meant that if she wanted to eat, she had to deal with the cities. She would have to find a way to get into the food queues. If she kept herself covered, and moved regularly to new locations, in theory she could remain hidden. As long as she kept the ring on, presumably Celestia would not be able to track her down. Presumably.

It was not much of a life, but it was survival, and right now that was everything. Lillian recalled the look on Celestia's face.

According to the holo on Equestrian History and Politics she had seen at the Bureau, Celestia had exiled her own sister, Luna, for a thousand years because of a squabble over how day and night should be apportioned! Supposedly, Luna was an alicorn, a full and true goddess, and equal to Celestia in power, more or less. If this is how she treated her own sister, then what would be the most likely reaction to the existence of an upstart wanna-be alicorn like herself?

Lillian didn't feel like a goddess. The thought was laughable. She was just a pony with wings and a horn, a freak, but nothing more. She had no special wisdom, and her alicorn powers consisted of being able to put on a trenchcoat and rip open Nanobar wrappers easily. Not much of a resume for a goddess.

And teleport. She had somehow done that. Lillian had no idea how, and no idea why it had happened. But it had, there was no denying that. So, maybe one little hint of magical wonder there.

That said, though, if she ever wanted to try such a stunt again, she would need to remove the damping ring, and if she did that she would become visible to Celestia, and she had no doubt, no doubt in all of both worlds, that Celestia could wipe the floor with her and never even break a sweat.

Lillian understood that the only reason she was even still alive was sheer luck and the clumsy response of the humans to whatever a 'Code Majeste' was.

Majeste. It sounded familiar. Lillian thought for a moment, unable to sleep. Majeste. Lese Majeste! That was it! Lese Majeste. The crime of insulting or diminishing royalty. Treasonous thoughts, speech, or deed. Merely failing to show proper deference was Lese Majeste. Historically, the crime was serious, and the punishment often dire.

That was Code Majeste, then. A direct insult to the Crown Of Equestria. Her very existence was that insult.

Lillian began to cry, softly, then more loudly. The thunder and wind seemed to weep with her; and for the rest of that night she desperately clung to the strange and irrational comfort that the storm was somehow trying to be her friend.

4. The Lights Are Much Brighter There

The
CONVERSION
►Bureau

CODE MAJESTE

By Chatoyance

The Lights Are Much Brighter There

Lillian Fogarty had no pony name. Indeed trying to come up with a cute and fun Equestrian name for herself was the last thing she felt like doing; so far her experience of being a mare had been anything but cute or fun.

Then again, she was not a mare, at least not an ordinary one. She was not even a pony, properly.

The pockets of the gray trenchcoat that covered her body were stuffed with colorfully wrapped Nanobars, the last she could find in the decaying rooms of the corporate agricultural complex. She had found scattered buckets and containers that had been filled with bitter rainwater to drink from; the water was tainted with whatever had drifted into the buckets over time but she had been desperate with thirst.

With the storm over, and nothing more she felt safe to take from the vending machines, Lillian had decided to leave the complex. There was nothing else for her in that abandoned place.

Endless, gray, dead fields of inedible wheat stretched out in all directions. The nightmarishly flat expanse of Probably Saskatchewan made Lillian feel more alone and lost than she had ever felt. All directions seemed the same to her; at least there were the remains of a road to follow.

The road was broken and deeply cracked. It was not made of modern plascrete but of concrete, and it was clear that the road had been built decades before Lillian's birth. Some parts had buckled and crumbled entirely, forcing her to step carefully around tilted slabs and chunks. The sides of the road were littered with ancient bottles, some still intact, and aluminum cans.

What she could see of the road seemed to go on straight to the horizon. She felt worried about just how far she would need to travel before running into... anything at all. At least, after the storm, the sky was remarkably clear; she could see blue here, the global smog layer not yet having filled in the brief window created by the rain.

As Lillian walked, she fell into a monotony driven trance, daydreams and memories compensating for the boredom of travel down an endless, perfectly straight road through flat, gray fields.

"Good on ya, Lill!" Her father was proud of her; she had just told him about how she had given her tickets to the Calgary Tech Faire to the cyborg twins. Everyone called them the cyborg twins, because of the implants and the support frames that kept them alive. They had such terrible congenital defects that without technology, they could not be alive at all.

Lillian had wanted to go to the Faire - some still called it the 'Stampede', though hardly anyone remembered where the name had come from - and she had worked hard to win the tickets by having the highest ZTA in her class. A high Zone Training Average meant that she could potentially have her pick of occupations within the BC subsection of the Northamerizone Corporate Production lists. Her father wanted her to keep the family tradition of having a job going.

Though they were far from the elite class, Lillian's family had held low level positions for generations. It was more than employment within the world corporation, it was a matter of family pride. The Worldcorporation tended to hire from established families. This was reasonable since there was no upward mobility any more. Lillian's family had wealth enough to afford education from Early Indoctrination all the way to Corporate Training - the countless masses had no such advantage, so they could never hope to have a job.

Lillian knew her father, Graeme, worried about her. He felt she was a bit on the soft side. This trait seemed to both concern him and endear her to him - it would have been more appropriate for her father to have scolded her for giving away an advantage. But the twins were moderately famous for their struggle to survive - one of the media outlets had done a story on them recently - and if nothing else Lillian's act of generosity and kindness would probably be seen as good strategic self marketing. Those watching would likely think her shrewd, communicating her willingness to be a team player and sacrifice for the benefit of the greater good - all traits the corporation valued highly.

But that was not why she had given them the tickets. They really, desperately wanted to go. The cyborg twins didn't get to do much that was fun, and Lillian didn't care about their recent publicity. She didn't even know them that well. It was just that... they wanted it so much! Both Étienne and Joseph had worked hard - FAR harder than she had - to try to get the highest scores on the ZTA, yet they had fallen quite short.

Lillian had seen them roll away from the posted scores on the holodisplay and cry, softly, in the corner. It had broken her heart. When later, after being declared the winner, after Onésime and Jeanne had sneered and made faces at her - they looked down on low-level corporate drone families - something in her raged. Lillian hated the constant fighting for status and position, that those who truly struggled ended up with little, while those had innate talents or the higher ranked parents ended up with everything. It wasn't... nice. It might be 'how things worked' - as her parents often reminded her - but it wasn't at all kind.

Lillian was sick of 'how things worked'. The way the world was didn't make anybody happy except those already advantaged. Lillian wanted nice. She wanted kind. She wanted a life where those who already suffered were not penalized further for being imperfect. She wanted something she didn't quite have a name for, something that hovered on the edge of her understanding. A not-corporate world. A world where people mattered far more than they did.

So she had gone up to them later and given them the tickets. They thought it was some kind of trick at first, as if the tickets were fakes, or that there was some hidden agenda going on. Somehow she had convinced Étienne and Joseph that she genuinely meant for them to have her prize, that it would make her happy to see them get to do something they wanted so very much.

They were still uncertain, even after that, and she knew they had checked the tickets to make sure they were real. They probably felt she was trying to horn in on their recent celebrity or something. That thought had made her feel sad.

It didn't matter, she had told herself. It didn't matter what anyone thought. She had done what her heart had told her to do, and somehow that made her feel closer to the world she wanted, the world she didn't have a name for.

When the Worldgovernment finally revealed the existence of Equestria to the masses, when the first speeches by Princess Celestia had been disseminated, Lillian finally had a name for her ideal world. Celestia's soft voice and gentle face had instantly stolen her heart; she saw in that royal countenance everything she had ever wanted. This was the princess of a land of kindness. More than anything, Lillian wanted to live in that world, and with ponification announced, with the Bureaus being built everywhere, she had no doubt as to her path.

Lillian Fogarty knew her future was to become a mare and serve that beautiful princess, her princess, Celestia. It was all she could think of, dream of, until she became a legal adult at nineteen. It was her deepest wish that she might even get to meet Celestia one day. She had practiced trying to bow on four legs long before her Conversion; she had gotten down on hands and knees, and pretended that she was meeting the princess as a pony.

She had seen the princess now. Twice. And neither meeting had been at all what she had dreamed of. No, make that thrice, if her Conversion dream was real... and it had felt real. Terribly real.

Lillian wondered what had happened to the poor PA, Olivia. She shuddered as she walked, remembering vividly how Olivia had been pulled away from the Conversion Bureau door by some invisible hand, Celestia's flowing mane filling the room.

This wasn't right! She shouldn't have let Olivia risk herself that way. Who knows what happened to her?

It was hard to believe that such a beautiful and seemingly kind creature as princess Celestia could be... so frightening. Lillian had trouble, even now, imagining her princess as a threat, as actually being out to hurt her. Maybe this was all a big misunderstanding! Maybe Celestia was really trying to help her, only she kept stupidly running away. Maybe she had misinterpreted the look on Celestia's face, and the feelings of dread.

What if doctor Treasen and the humans were the real danger, and Celestia had come to rescue her from them? Some humans did want to stop the expansion of Equestria, after all. What if Celestia just wanted to welcome her, to accept her as a sister alicorn? Celestia may have banished her own sister, but she had taken her back. Princess Luna didn't show up on the holoscreens as often as Celestia, but it was clear that she was co-ruler.

Maybe the best thing Lillian could do would be to just take the ring off of her horn and wait. Wait for Celestia to find her and appear. She could bow to her - like she had practiced - and beg her forgiveness for running away. Lillian imagined Celestia comforting her, giving her an understanding smile, and leading them both back to Canterlot, where she would be given her own room and taught what it meant to be an alicorn.

Lillian remembered her conversion dream. The crushing, squeezing nightmare, the cold, implacable stare. It had felt like she was being killed. It did not feel friendly.

But then again, it had only been a dream. No one had ever claimed that they had proof that the dreams were true experiences of a higher reality. They could just be dreams, nothing more, even despite the common elements.

Olivia had seemed to think that Celestia could not be trusted any more than humans could be trusted. Lillian just didn't know what to believe anymore.

Sounds from in front of her made her lift her head. Amazingly, there was a town coming into view. A town! How long had she been walking? The sun was low in the increasingly smoggy sky, it was getting close to sunset. Lillian suddenly realized that she was hungry. She briefly considered squatting down right then and there and polishing off her collection of Nanobars, but stopped herself. She might need them later, and the town might offer new possibilities. Also, she was desperately thirsty; eating the bars would only make that feeling much worse.

Her hooves felt sore. She had walked for an entire day. Wow. Lillian had never imagined doing that before.

Welcome To The Future

Home Of The Assiniboia Arcology!

The sign was broken and decades old. What it proudly proclaimed had never been built. When the Last Crop turned out to be the death of all wheat on earth - except that preserved in vaults, or grown in special, enclosed facilities - there was no longer any reason to build an arcology in Assiniboia. Saskatchewan had become a dead land, and hundreds of millions had starved to death worldwide. Lillian had studied that in her classes; the Collapse had many aspects, not all of them merely financial.

Now she knew, Probably Saskatchewan was Definitely Saskatchewan, and Assiniboia was still a small place. It had housed probably only a half a million people at its peak. Now, it was impossible for her to tell how many people still lived here, but it was clear that they had been busy; the shelters and buildings were made with surprising care and expertise, relative to the average favela.

As Lillian clopped down the street, the life of the town ran on many legs around her. It appeared that there was an equal mixture of humans and ponies here; she guessed that it was pretty much half and half. They all seemed to be getting along well, which was encouraging, and her new ears delighted in sounds of laughter and friendly talk. Perhaps Assiniboia was going to be a nice place.

Assiniboia was interesting for a post-collapse favela town. It had clearly once been entirely abandoned, then resettled afterwards by the constant, unchecked, Malthusian expansion of human population. The ruins had been rebuilt into quite a charming metropolis, with an astonishing variety of structures piled like toy blocks on top of each other.

Lillian passed one street corner where a reconstructed fast food building on the ground had been repurposed as a carpentry shop. Above it were cubical apartments and houses built of sheetmetal, old street signs and light-yet-strong foamcrete beams. At the top of the perilously stacked pile was a fishing boat-turned-penthouse supported by angled trusses. The entire mass loomed out over the street, connected by the endless over-street spiderweb of bundled wires and cables that supplied meager electricity and hypernet for two hours every day, an hour in the morning, and an hour in the evening.

On every level of every pile of the curious constructions were endless arrays of covered windowboxes. These had been carefully cultivated to grow anything and everything that could still be grown. It took great effort to generate living soil, and to keep it free of contamination. Each windowbox was a miniature greenhouse, covered with plastic bag tents to protect the plants inside from dangerous genetically altered pollen, nanotech particles, and the poison in the rains. Assiniboia was a city of hanging gardens, covered and protected, attached to the most extraordinary collection of eccentric dwellings imaginable.

Lillian had no idea where to go, or who, if anyone, she could trust. She was encouraged by the fact she had yet to spot a camera or see a drone in the air; perhaps Assiniboia was simply not of particular interest to the corporate world government. It was not an unreasonable thought - a lone favela built in the middle of the great wasteland of Saskatchewan that was the Last Crop. It was astonishing anyone could even live here; yet these people, ponies and humans both, somehow managed.

Lillian stood in an intersection realizing that she was completely lost. She was surrounded on all sides by the piled constructions and their associated little gardens, the streets busy with ponies and humans going about busy lives. Lillian felt desperately alone and directionless. What should she do now?

Something was softly sweeping around her left foreleg. She looked down, startled and slightly afraid. It was a cat. A dark black cat... no, more of a Prussian blue. A deep, dark blue. Lillian was startled; cats, like dogs, were uncommon to see at all - only the elite class could afford such animals anymore. Worse, there were so many poisons and dangers for small animals who might nibble or eat whatever they found that the owner of a cat or dog would need to keep the animal carefully sequestered away from the outdoors at all costs.

Yet here was a blue cat, purring and rubbing itself around her leg in the middle of in intersection in a favela town.

The color was not overly unusual; cats and dogs both had been genetically modified decades ago to express coat colors every bit as bright as the equinoids from Equestria. It had been a fad for a while, back during the gene craze. If anything, a midnight blue cat was fairly conservative. "Hello, little kitty! How nice of you to say hello!" This was the first pleasant meeting that Lillian had experienced since the PA, Olivia, helped her to escape the Bureau.

The blue cat looked up with nearly luminous, blue-green eyes, and studied Lillian's face. It almost seemed like the cat was sizing her up. Lillian felt a tear running down her cheek, soaking into her coat; it meant so much just to even have a cat being friendly right now. "Are you lost? Do you have a home? I have no home, little kitty. I am so very lost." Lillian bent down her neck and gave the cat a lick on the head, between it's deep blue ears. "Thank you for saying hello to me. It's the nicest thing that has happened to me since..." Lillian trailed off for a moment "... since I was... made."

The cat mewed at Lillian, and the expression almost looked sad to her. "Oh, little kitty, I wish I could find some friends somehow. Do you know anyone who could help me?" Lillian laughed bitterly at herself, inside her head. It was ridiculous asking a stray cat anything. Still, it was somehow comforting to just talk with anyone, even if it was a blue cat in an intersection. Loneliness and despair can drive a soul to seek comfort however they can find it.

The little cat suddenly turned and looked down one of the streets. It stepped forward purposefully, then turned back, staring directly into Lillian's golden eyes. It stared for a long time, and Lillian felt a strange chill down her spine. Cats are always mysterious creatures; one never knows what goes on inside their heads.

The cat turned and began marching down the street, slowly and deliberately. That was odd for a cat, but then again, with all of the genetic manipulations and designer engineering that had been done, cats weren't entirely cats anymore. At least not as they were described or shown in the old media. Lillian had no other ideas, so she decided to follow the cat. It was ridiculous, of course, but right now little in her existence made much sense to her in any case.

A gray pony in a trenchcoat followed a blue designer cat down the middle of a colorful, sprawling favela. This was life in the days of the expansion of Equestria on Earth.

Lillian didn't know when she had lost sight of the cat. She had been looking at the imaginative buildings and colorful efforts at decoration; when she looked down the cat must have run off. Oh well. It had been strangely comforting to have a traveling companion, even if for a short while. Once again she was lost in Assiniboia's maze of streets. Suddenly she realized that she was not alone anymore - she had been noticed and approached.

"You're wearing a coat!" the child was a human, beside him was a pony, a very young filly. The human was dark brown with a disheveled black mane and no tail, and the little filly was brick red with an equally messy golden yellow mane and matching tail. Lillian shook her head slightly; what an odd way to think about such things! Where had that come from? In the moment, she had thought it odd that the human had no tail. Suddenly she realized that she had for some time now been thinking of humans as 'other'.

"Um... yes. I... I think coats are cool! Besides... it was raining." Lillian felt glad that her first encounter was with young children, hopefully her stumbling words would not raise any suspicions in them.

"I like your coat." The little red filly smiled up at her; she was a cutie, make no mistake about it.

"Thank you... um..." Lillian didn't know what to call her. 'Little filly?', 'Kid?', 'You there?'

"I'm Simon and this is Amelie. We're best friends!" The young human boy stated this as if it were the most important thing that he could think of to say. Which it probably was. And, in this moment, on the run and alone in the world, it was somehow really nice to hear. Almost too nice to hear - Lillian felt her eyes trying to well up.

"Well, hello Simon and Amelie. I'm... new in town and I wonder if you know anyplace I could stay for awhile. Also anyplace I might be able to get some food and water." Lillian thought for a moment. This would be the place where she should rightly introduce herself to them, but it probably wouldn't be a good idea to use her real name. Her mind was blank on names at the moment. For the life of her she couldn't think of a single name! "Um... I'm... uh... Graycoat. Graycoat the pega.... unicorn. Just like my coat, see?"

Damn, but she had almost messed that up. Hopefully she hadn't messed that up. She really needed some water and food.

"I know! I know!" The little filly, Amelie was prancing about excitedly. She must be very young, Lillian thought, though she had no way to tell. She knew nothing about how to tell the age of a pony by looking at it. She knew nothing much at all about anything, really.

"You need to sign up at the center!" Amilie stopped prancing and began to recite "Every citizen must register at the closest Supply Center... um... immediately upon entering any location!" Amilie paused and briefly squintched her eyes to concentrate. "Only in this way... can each citizen be assured of... ah... getting... having... no... receiving their Guaranteed Daily Provision!" The little filly seemed proud of herself; it was quite a mouthful to remember.

"Um... I'd kind of like to avoid going to the center if I can. I... don't like the taste... of the... um... fabricated stuff." Lillian scrambled for a good excuse; the center would have cameras, sensors and god knows what else.

"Yeah. I agree. That stuff tastes like crap!" Simon said the word 'crap' with some pride, Lillian got the distinct impression that he probably wasn't supposed to use that word at home, and this was his way to show off in front of Amelie. This seemed all the more likely when Amelie giggled and began chirping "Crap! Crap! Crap!" then giggling some more. Simon beamed, a job well done.

"Is there an alternative - some place I could get some real food, maybe a place to sleep? I don't have much of value..." Money had all but ceased to exist in the post-Collapse world; barter and trade were the norm, now. Lillian remembered her Nanobars. They were old, but they kept forever. Maybe literally. And they were in perfect condition. Maybe a treat from the past might be worth something here. "I have something to trade though."

Lillian bent her long neck back and dug her jaw into the deep pockets of her trenchcoat. She snagged a bar by the wrapper and pulled it out, dangling it between her front teeth. "Thee? Nanodars!" She couldn't manage the 'B' sound, but the children got the idea.

Naturally they wanted one. They really, really wanted one. "You can hath thith one to thare if you can take ne to a tlace where I can thrade the resth, okay?" Lillian put the bar back into her pocket. "I want to trade my bars for room and board. Do you have any ideas?"

"You could come home with me." Simon seemed almost like an adult in the matter-of-fact way that he stated the invitation. "My dad runs a store. He tells me to always be on the lookout for things for the store. You should talk to him." Simon was trying very hard to be a good businessman, which was really rather cute in an eight-year old human.

Lillian considered the offer. She had no where else to go, these children were friendly, and a trading store was probably where she would end up anyway. With little Simon, she had an 'in' already; she might as well go. "Great! Lead on Simon! Let's go talk to your dad."

"Me too!" Amelie was pouting at being left out of the conversation for several seconds, Lillian had never seen a filly pout before and it was unreasonably cute.

"Absolutely, Amelie! Lead the way too!" Lillian couldn't help but smile.

This seemed to greatly please the little filly, and she began to trot through the streets ahead of Simon. "Come on you slowponies! Come On!"

For the first time since she became a pony... well sort of a pony... Lillian began to feel hope. It was a fragile hope, based only on the possibly unreliable offer of a human child, but it was at least something. If she could just find a place to safely hide out, even if only for a while, maybe she could think more clearly about what she should do. Maybe she could reason out what was really going on. Or maybe she might find out something that could help. Time. She needed time - everything had happened so quickly.

It shocked her to realize that this was only her first full day as... what she was. She had been converted yesterday morning. There was no way she could hope to make a truly rational decision about her future right now. She needed time to think, to learn, to consider options.

Simon and Amelie were friendly enough. No one in the streets was taking undue notice of her; her coat was a little odd, perhaps, to some. But it was clearly not a big deal. Maybe she could get away with this, perhaps she could keep her true status hidden. That's all she needed to do, for now.

Lead on, little Simon, she thought. And Amelie. She giggled inside her head; can't leave out little Amelie. She might get upset and pout.

5. A Warmer Place To Sleep

The
CONVERSION
►Bureau

CODE MAJESTE

By Chatoyance

A Warmer Place To Sleep

"Nanobars! My lord, I haven't seen these... well, since I was a boy. They stopped making them, but I have fond memories of the damn things. They're in perfect condition - they could have been made yesterday!" Anderson Ruffin let out a loud laugh "But then again, that was the deal with 'em. Claimed they'd keep near forever - where ever did you find these?"

Lillian was standing at the counter of 'Ruffin's Requisitions', the trading store run by Simon's father. Amelie was here too; trotting about excitedly, occasionally nosing at Simon, who was trying his eight-year-old best to stand still and act like a proper store owner. His jiggling leg betrayed the conflict in him between wanting to impress his father and wanting to run around with Amelie.

"I... well I found them in a corporate plantation. There was a lunchroom there, filled with vending machines. I kicked one open and stuffed my pockets. After eating my fill, first. I was... really hungry." Lillian couldn't help lowering her head slightly and grinning a bit; she felt unsure here, and a little embarrassed remembering her desperate late-night Nanobar chow-down. After everything she had been through, Anderson's friendliness was a little unsettling.

"Well, damn. I know that place, hell, everybody knows S1 - that's Saskatchewan One, the first and biggest of the farming prisons. Everybody and their grandpa's been over that ruin with a fine-tooth comb. You must be one lucky unicorn, I gotta say." Anderson was turning one of the bars over in his hands, studying it as if it were a priceless treasure. "I sure have missed these things. Used to love 'em as a child. My daddy'd bring me home one now and again, and it was always a treat. After all these years."

Anderson seemed to drift off for a moment in a sweet memory. "So, 'Graycoat' was it? You say you need a place to stay for a while and food to eat. Room and board. I think we can arrange something - in exchange for these babies, of course."

"Of course!" Lillian looked up with utterly unhidden joy at the prospect. She looked so relieved that Anderson couldn't help but grin at her.

"We'll get you settled, then, come along miss 'Graycoat'."

It was a dumb name probably, Lillian reflected, but she had been put on the spot. Trying to come up with a proper pony name had been the very last thing on her mind, and in the moment, she had frozen even trying to think of another human name to use. All she could think of was her own name, 'Lillian', and she did not want to use that. Using her real name would just be foolish. She was wearing a gray trenchcoat. It was the only thing she could think of.

So now, she was 'Graycoat the unicorn'. Fantastic. Well, at least her actual coat was sort of gray. Maybe it worked. Then again, she had the feeling that Mr. Anderson Ruffin somehow knew that 'Graycoat' was an alias. He didn't seem to mind much if so, though. It was more like he found it humorous, somehow.

'Ruffin's Requisitions' was once a recharge station, where electric cars could get service, repairs and juiced up, back in the days near the Collapse. Now it had been rebuilt as Mr. Ruffin's store. Above the main building was a haphazard pile of ramshackle structures. At least two transport containers had been piled up there and turned into apartments. Several rounded structures reminiscent of water-towers made for turret-like homes, and clustered around these were a bizarre assortment of cobbled shacks, sheds and what looked like barns. All were supported by a fairly dangerous looking mass of beams and trusses holding the entire assemblage together. Winding through the ramshackle stack was a twisting staircase that occasionally branched off in odd directions; it mostly had a rail, or at least ropes, where it hung out over the street below.

Mr. Ruffin opened the door to what probably had been a boiler, once. The large cylinder had been outfitted with round porthole windows on three sides, and provided with a big round wooden door. The cylinder lay on its side, the door set into what had once been the top of the boiler. "Here's your new home, my good pony; as fine an apartment as anyone could hope for. Rainproof, solid, and with a marvelous view of the city. It's also got a nice flat floor - put that in myself. In the back, there, you got some nice shelves, a pillow, and two comforters. One 'a them comforters is double thick, works just fine as a bed if you lay it out on the floor."

The shelves were cobbled together from old crates. They looked light, but sturdy. The floor seemed poured out of plascrete, and then covered with thick synthetic carpet fragments sewn together. The pillow seemed soft enough.

"Oh! Almost forgot -" Mr. Ruffin ducked down and went into the boiler-apartment, and lifted up an object on the shelf. "Wind-up LED lamp. Just wind this baby for a few minutes, and you got light for half an hour, maybe longer. We call this the 'Royal Suite'. If we still had a king, I'd be proud to have 'im stay here!" Mr. Ruffin grinned and put the lamp back on the shelf.

Long ago, before the Collapse, when there had still been nations and countries, Lillian vaguely remembered that Canada had enjoyed some connection with England - the Eurozone - and that they had been ruled by a king. There were no more kings, queens or presidents anymore. Just CEOs.

"Thank you very much, Mr. Ruffin! I really like it!" And she did, much to her surprise. It was strangely kicky, an eccentric little apartment that just looked cozy and friendly to her. In any case, it was wonderful just to have a dry place to sleep, and to feel that she was not being chased.

"I'll let you settle in; I need to tend my store. I'll send m'boy to call you for dinner. Come on, Simon, give our guest some peace!" The boy grumbled, but followed his father down the steps.

Amelie, as always, tagged after Simon. "Bye bye, Mrs. Coat!" and with that, Lillian was alone in her new home.

Lillian closed her door with her teeth. The handle was wide and easy to grasp. The room was quiet, all she could hear was a faint wind whistling at the edges of the door.

She turned carefully around in the narrow space and examined the shelves in the back - two comforters, one red and one blue. The red one seemed to be the thicker one. She tried to use the wind-up lamp. It was tricky to hold it with her hooves and turn the handle with her mouth, but she managed a few revolutions. In time she could probably get the hang of it. It was much harder to work the switch; that required biting and holding and was fairly tricky to do. She managed to switch the lamp off again and set it on the shelf with her hooves while resting on her elbows.

The porthole windows looked like they had been scavenged from a ship. They could be opened, but Lillian soon realized that she had no way to close them again. The porthole she had pushed open would require fingers to pull back from the inside; if she wanted it closed, she would have to exit the boiler and push the glass back in place from outside. Lillian was really missing her hands. She was missing being human. At the Bureau, they had claimed that not having thumbs would be no big deal, that newfoals would quickly adapt. They had lied.

Maybe, maybe in Equestria, where everything was designed and built for ponies to use, maybe having hooves was fine. But it wasn't at all easy for a pony on the run, trying to live among humans in the human world. At least it didn't seem very easy to her, right now.

Lillian was still damp, under her trenchcoat, and the rainwater soaking her coat made her back itch. She also found that her wings felt terrible; the weight of the coat made her bruised wing ache, and her feathers were still damp, and that made however they attached to her both sting and itch. She tried to fling the side of her coat up and over her back so that she could examine her bruised wing; after some effort she was able to expose it. Lillian carefully lay down to tend to herself.

The feathers were bedraggled and sodden; they seemed to have lost whatever had made them shine. A few small feathers had fallen out; they landed on her folded legs and then the floor. Lillian tried gingerly to extend her wing. It felt stiff in the joint where it attached to her shoulder blade, she could see that it was slightly swollen there.

Lillian used her teeth to gently nibble the most itchy spots on her wing. It felt so... damn... good. She spent quite some time just engaged in that alone; the self-grooming not only helped with the itchiness, but it also somehow was terribly comforting. After a while, she whipped her body to cover that side again, and struggled to expose her other wing. It too needed attention, and before long, in the middle of nibbling at the base of her longest feathers, she heard a knock at the door.

"Daddy said to come get you, Mrs Graycoat! It's dinner time!" The knocking came again, the insistent effort of an impatient child.

"Just a moment! I'm..." I'm what? Tending my wings? No. "Um... just a moment." Lillian struggled to flop her coat back down so that it covered both sides again. It took longer than she expected, so that when she finally opened the door, Simon was hopping from one foot to the other, upset at having to wait.

"I'm sorry, Simon." Lillian gave her coat a slight shake and a look over, just to make sure it truly covered everything. "I'm right behind you."

Dinner was served in the trading store itself. Shuttered for the day, the main counter of the store also served as a dining table. Chairs and crates had been arranged around it. The chairs were for Simon and his dad Anderson, the boxy crates lay on their longest sides and had pillows upon them; they were clearly for Lillian and... Amelie. Apparently Amelie lived with the Ruffin's, or at least she was having dinner with them tonight.

A wok full of stir-fry was carried out by Mr. Ruffin. From the smell the meal was vegetarian, which was a relief to Lillian. She understood from her Bureau education that all Equestrians were compulsory lacto-vegetarians. The stir-fry contained eggs. Ponies could digest eggs just like earthly horses could - back when earthly horses were commonplace. But anything actually made of animal flesh would only cause terrible gastric distress. Meat was no longer on the table for Lillian.

Simon was reaching into the wok to try to snag something red; possibly a bit of bell pepper. Mr. Ruffin grabbed the boy's hand and moved it away "What I tell you about reaching into the pot, huh? I don't want to see you doing that again, son, alright?" Anderson's face was stern but kindly; he just wanted his boy to learn some manners.

"Sorry, dad. I forgot." Simon looked down; his father's opinion mattered a great deal to him.

"Mrs Coat always wears her coat!" Amelie was rocking from side to side where she sat on her crate-and-pillow, giving a big pony smile to whoever might look her way.

Lillian was having trouble getting up onto her pillow-topped crate; the coat interfered with her legs, trapping them at the wrong moments.

"Looks like you're having a bit of trouble there, miss Graycoat. I can help you take off that coat, might make it a bit easier, dontcha' think?" Mr. Ruffin was already walking around the counter, ready to assist Lillian.

"NO! NO THANK YOU!" Lillian hadn't meant to shout the words, but the startled look on Mr. Ruffin's face made her feel bad. He was only trying to be nice. Lillian tried to think of what to say to make things better; she had to say something after such an outburst.

Briefly she considered just opening up to these nice folks. Mr. Ruffin surely wouldn't have any stake in her situation; he would probably be the kind of person who would be willing to help her. He just seemed ...nice. Then again, Lillian knew nothing about him. For all she knew, he could be a covert agent for the... what? The PER? Not likely; he'd be a pony if that were the case, certainly his son would be by now. The HLF? Not a chance; it was clear that Amelie was either part of the family or a very close friend.

Still, Olivia's words came back to her: "You can't trust anyone!" It would be so nice to have someone on her side, someone she could be open with. But it was too soon; she had just met the Ruffins... anything could be going on and she would have no way to know.

An excuse then. Some kind of excuse... but what? The truth, slightly bent. She didn't feel clever enough to fabricate anything decent. She's just have to bend the truth a little.

"Um... I'm really sorry for that, Mr. Ruffin. I'm sorry I yelled. I... I kind of have a reason for wearing this big coat." Lillian thought fast. She knew she wasn't the brightest of ponies, and she had never been good at telling lies; this was not easy for her. "I... had an accident when I was Converted." That much was certainly true.

"An accident?" Mr. Ruffin froze in place, in the middle of filling Simon's jam jar glass with water.

"Something went really wrong, and... I kind of came out sort of... deformed. I... I'm really embarrassed by it. It's kind of gross, too." Yeah, make it sound disgusting, that couldn't hurt "So... I guess I'm still kind of ashamed of being all messed up like that. I'd rather keep my coat on, if that's OK." It seemed to be working; Mr. Ruffin's eyes showed concern for her. "Besides, I don't want to upset anyone's appetite with... how I look." Surely that should do the job. Hammer home the grossness factor.

"Um... I'm very sorry to hear that, Miss Graycoat. Can I at least help you get seated?" A little help would be pretty useful; the damn coat kept trapping her legs.

"I don't know what you..." Lillian began, but already Mr. Ruffin was rummaging off in his store.

He brought out a short stepladder, just three steps, the kind of thing someone might use to get the cans on the upper shelf. He brought it over and set it down next to Lillian's crate. "This might help a bit." Mr. Ruffin gave Lillian a wink and went back to the counter and began dishing out the stir-fry.

"What's deformed?" Simon was as intellectually curious as he was uninformed about what counted as polite topics for dinner discussion.

"Heh, son..." Mr. Ruffin paused, tongs in hand and glanced in embarrassment at Lillian. Lillian had finally managed, thanks to the stepladder, to get seated, legs folded, on her crate. Mr. Ruffin put a bowl down in front of her. It smelled beyond wonderful.

"No need to stand on ceremony, dig in!" Mr. Ruffin began serving up his son and Amelie. Suddenly, Lillian didn't know how to act. How was she supposed to eat in this situation? Back at the Bureau, unicorns soon learned to levitate mouthfuls of food into their mouths, it was almost like eating as a human. Would they expect this of her? Should she just lower her head and start gobbling her meal? That's what her stomach was insisting on, and it was being quite adamant indeed.

Amelie was an earth pony, she was already wolfing down her dinner. To hell with it. Lillian lowered her head and began eating. After nothing but one meal of Nanobars, Mr. Ruffin's stir-fry was like heaven on a plate. Or in a bowl. Dinner must have been prepared from imported, Equestrian vegetables grown in the covered gardens and window-boxes that decorated every part of the city; everything was fresh and really tasty. There were definitely bell peppers, but also celery, carrots, onions and cabbage. There was also plenty of rice to eat. Mr. Ruffin had brought out a rice-cooker and had served them all up bowls of brown rice.

Rice was an especial treat - the Last Crop - or the 'Last Harvest' as the former Americans called it - had, in the end, exterminated all grains on the planet. Rye, buckwheat, oats, millet, and rice, of course, all were extinct on earth now. Lillian had tasted Equestrian rice and oats during her Bureau stay, the taste was familiar. Many cities grew crops from Equestria - a gift from the alien universe, turning a gray and brown world green again, one last time.

The rice was particularly wonderful, and Lillian loved every bite - ponies thrived on grains. They weren't called oat-burners for nothing.

Mr. Ruffin didn't seem to raise an eyebrow at Lillian not using her horn; perhaps he just assumed that if she was deformed, she also wouldn't be able to use magic. Or perhaps he had seen the damping ring, and understood what it was for. In any case, nothing was said, and that was just fine with Lillian.

"So what brings you all the way out to Assiniboia, Miss Graycoat, and what possessed you to rummage through that old plantation complex?" Mr. Ruffin was just making conversation, though of course it was only reasonable to be curious.

"So you can tell I'm not from around here?" Lillian swallowed another bite of her rice; it was clear she was hungry, Mr. Ruffin kindly refilled her bowl.

"There isn't a Conversion Bureau in Saskatchewan. At least anymore. Folks pretty much have to go to BC if they want to get Converted. 'Course we do have the PER come through every few months with a wagon full of 'potion. That's a fun time; a lot a folks get converted, as long as the 'potion lasts." Mr. Ruffin nibbled on a bit of celery.

"The PER!?!" Lillian was shocked. "The PER? Ponification For The Earth's Rebirth? The terrorist group? Every few months?" The way Anderson had described them, it was as if they were a group of traveling doctors out helping the poor.

"Yeah, some think of them that way. I hear some folks don't approve of 'em, but the ones that come here never make any trouble. They just come through, set up their little clinic and do conversions. Mind you they go through the streets all day with loudspeakers announcing themselves; some folks find that annoying. But there's never been any trouble. From them." Mr. Ruffin took a little more rice for himself. "Most everyone is kind of glad for 'em. They break up the monotony, and they save folks a long troublesome trip to Vancouver." Ruffin took a mouthful of rice and savored it.

"Well... wow. Just... wow. In Surrey, where I come from, all we hear is how the PER are dangerous lunatics, running around potion-bombing people and blowing up anything they think belongs to the Human Liberation Front. Wow." Lillian had never heard a kind word about the PER pretty much... ever.

"Well, you have to admit that we humans have pretty much ruined the earth; most anybody around here can't think about it anyway else. We're the center of the Last Crop. It started right at S1. That's where they first planted that wheat. It all spread out from right here. Now, nothing grows in the ground, and wheat, well, there just isn't any wheat anymore." Mr. Ruffin wiped his finger around his bowl, then licked it. "There aren't any forests anymore, and the oceans are all dead. Maybe more folks oughta be listening to the PER, rather than getting upset at them. Ponies are better than humans! You gotta agree with that, right? Wouldn't it be better if everyone was a pony?"

This was an unusual attitude from a human with a human son. Lillian didn't know quite what to say. Finally she asked the obvious. "Mr. Ruffin, if you feel that way, why... why haven't you been converted then? Why are you still a..." Maybe this wasn't exactly the right thing to be asking the person feeding her.

"A human? Why am I still a human? And my son, too? Simple enough question, Miss Graycoat." Anderson briefly picked his teeth with a fingernail. "The fact is that there are ways I can be useful... to folks... staying human, at least for now. And as for my son, well, they ran out of 'potion last time they came through. But I've got a promise that they'll save him some next time they come. Then he can join his best friend, Amelie, isn't that right, sport?" Mr. Ruffin looked over at his son.

"I wanna be a pony!" Simon proudly stated. "But I gotta wait until next time." He looked sadly at Amelie. "Sorry Amelie."

"It's OK." Amelie shrugged with her ears. "Can we be excused?" She was getting antsy now that dinner was over.

"Yeah, sure. Go on the both of you." Anderson waved his son and Amelie off. "But no screaming your heads off - we got neighbors, remember?" Mr. Ruffin ran his hand through his hair. "Sometimes they get to roughhousing. Kids, you know?"

The young boy and the younger filly ran from the table, and headed somewhere upstairs. Sounds of laughter occasionally echoed from above after that.

"Um... does Amelie live here too?" Lillian had been curious about the little filly's situation since the beginning of dinner.

"Yeah, she has her own room upstairs. Simon and her have been best friends since... well since Simon could walk on his own. Amelie got converted last year, when the PER came through, but they ran outta serum right before they could do Simon. Broke his heart. It was my fault, really, he made a big mess, and I had him clean it up before he could go, and, well, they ran out." Mr. Ruffin looked ashamed. "That was a bad call on my part - exactly the wrong time to be disciplining the boy. I think he forgave me, mostly, but I should have taken him right beside Amelie. Especially with what happened to her parents and all."

"Her parents?"

"She lost them the next day; we had a group of Human Front bastards roll through, trying to get the drop on the PER. They shot up a lot of of the town before... before we dropped them. That's one of the reasons I stay human; ponies can't do what needs to be done against scum like that." Anderson looked away "If only I'd been faster, better." He looked back. "So I took Amelie in. Now she and Simon can be together all they want, and she has a family again. She's a brave filly, the way she acts, you'd never know she'd lost her mum and dad. But sometimes... sometimes she cries, late at night."

This was pretty devastating to hear. "I'm... I'm really sorry, gosh... I..." Lillian had nothing more she could think of to say to that.

"So you're from Surrey?" Suddenly Mr. Ruffin changed the subject. "That's a long way from here. You must have had quite an adventure, Miss Graycoat."

Crap. She'd made a slip earlier. To say Surrey was a long way away was an understatement. Anderson would probably be curious how she had managed to end up all the way out here, alone. "Um, can I help at all with the clean up? This was a delightful dinner by the way, really good! I especially liked, well, everything!" Lillian gave a big smile, hopefully it wasn't too nervous or fake.

Mr. Ruffin gave Lillian a strange look, then his demeanor suddenly changed. They worked together to clear the counter and clean up the mess of dinner. When it became clear that Lillian didn't know how to wash dishes as a pony, Mr. Ruffin took over the job. "It's nice of you to offer, miss Greycoat, but I do this every night anyway. Why don't you go get some rest; it must have taken you all day to get to town from S1, that's an exhausting distance even for a pony like yourself."

Lillian said goodnight and went up to her boiler-apartment. As she climbed the stairs, she passed by a boxy room where Simon and Amelie were playing a board game by the light of one of the wind-up electric lamps; they were so engrossed that they did not even notice her pass by.

Once in her room, with the door shut, Lillian realized she could no longer stand the painful itching and burning on her back and in her wings. It had only gotten worse with every hour. Her coat was still damp, her feathers still moist, everything stung and it was all beyond uncomfortable. The waterproof trenchcoat just wouldn't allow her body to dry completely. There was nothing for it. She had to take the damn thing off. She felt like she was developing a rash; her back not only itched now, but actually hurt.

Lillian used her left rear hoof to step on her left sleeve and tried to pull her foreleg out of the coat. That didn't work. The coat couldn't stretch, so there was nowhere to go. She looked around the room for something, anything, that she could hook one of her sleeves over, to try to pull her foreleg out. She tried catching the sleeve on the edge of the shelves, which only caused them to tumble forward with a crash. The fallen shelves, she found, were not heavy enough to hold any part of the trenchcoat, sadly. The handle on the door had nothing to catch a sleeve on.

She couldn't get out of the coat. She was trapped in a trenchcoat she had no means to remove, and her back was itching and stinging, her wings were in agony, and finally she was in tears.

"Miss Graycoat! Miss Graycoat! Are you alright?" It was Mr. Ruffin, of course; the crashing of the shelves and the noise of her efforts, not to mention her wailing in frustration, had naturally brought him to her door. Lillian was too miserable to respond coherently; she was beyond the ability to cope at the moment. "Miss Graycoat, I'm coming in, alright?"

Anderson found her hunched over, tears streaming down her muzzle, and it took some time to calm her down. By then Simon and Amelie were peeking around the edges of the door to the small apartment, with worried looks on their faces.

There was nothing for it. Lillian needed help, and that meant she had to take a risk.

"Listen... Mr. Ruffin... I need your help. I need you to keep a secret, too. Please, I have nowhere else to turn, and I really need your help." Lillian still had tears streaming down, even though she was trying to speak calmly. "And... could we keep this private, between just you and me?" She nodded at Simon and Amelie, who immediately tried to hide behind the edge of the doorway.

After a short fuss, Anderson was back. "Those two really wanted to know what was going on. I made them promise me they'd stay in their rooms. I'll close the door, too, though it's a bit cramped in here for two, as you can see. Here, let me put the shelf back up, that'll give us a little more room."

Lillian swallowed hard, and decided to try to trust Mr. Ruffin. "Mr. Ruffin, I need your help to take off this damn trenchcoat. I'm wet and I'm itchy underneath; I got caught in the rain before I put the thing on, and I have no way to take it off." Lillian felt her heart pounding as she spoke. "I only sort of told you the truth that my conversion left me deformed. I'm not right; that's a fact, but it's not like I'm all gross and awful like I made out. That's the secret part I need you to keep. Nobody can know what I look like... what I am. Nobody. Not any pony, not any human." Lillian thought for a moment. "Well, other than you, I guess. But you can't tell anyone. Promise me? Please?"

Mr. Ruffin scratched his head. "I'll tell you what; if it doesn't mean any danger to my boy, or to Amelie, then I will keep your secret, whatever it is. But you got to understand; my boy means the world to me, so does Amelie. So if you are all radioactive or contagious or you got little replicators eating you up under there, I'm gonna do whatever I have to, to protect my family. I'm just being honest here, understand?"

"I understand, completely! It isn't like that. I'm not dangerous, and I don't have a disease or anything. I'm just... well, you'll see, I guess. Help me get this damn coat off... I just can't stand it anymore!" The desperation in Lillian's eyes was palpable; Mr. Ruffin wouldn't wish whatever she was experiencing on anyone.

"Ok, then. I'll help you."

Anderson Ruffin teased the trenchcoat up and off of Lillian's sodden back and over her head. She heard a soft whistle come from him, but beyond that outburst, he said nothing more. When the trenchcoat was over her head, he held both sleeves in his strong hands, while Lillian pulled her forelegs slowly out. In order to finish the job, Ruffin had to open the door and back out of the room, but in short order the coat was finally off.

Lillian's wings looked terrible; they were bedraggled and seemed ruined. This made her cry again. Anderson assured her that he had seen many pegasai soaked to the bone before; her feathers would dry out and with a little care, and a little oil, they would be good as new.

Lillian's back smelled just terrible; and after a short examination Mr. Ruffin confirmed that she indeed had a rash back there from the warmth and the wetness. In the end, Mr. Ruffin asked Lillian to trust him, and he drew a bath for her. The bathtub was the lower half of an oversize metal storage tank set in a room on the ground floor; she briefly was draped with the trenchcoat to get her downstairs unseen.

The tank was so built that Mr. Ruffin could heat it from below, as if it were a big metal pot on a stove. Soon Lillian was soaking in lovely warm water mixed with some kind of bath salts that Mr. Ruffin claimed would help heal the rash. It certainly felt wonderful, and it also seemed to stop the itch.

After the bath, Anderson vigorously dried her, taking special care around her wings. He draped a small blanket over her, and sent her back to her room; he wanted to deal with the trenchcoat - it smelled strongly of wet, unhappy pony. He said he would be up in a bit; Lillian was to stretch out her wings and try to let them dry as completely as possible.

When Mr. Ruffin returned, he carried with him a bottle filled with some kind of light oil, a cloth, and a brush-tipped applicator. With practiced ease, he applied oil to Lillian's feathers; first applying the oil to the shafts, then wiping it carefully along the feathers themselves. It felt heavenly, and the oil was lightly scented with a sweet smell.

The gentle attentions made Lillian cry again; by now she felt both exhausted and embarrassed at weeping so much.

"Thank you... Thank you so much, Mr. Ruffin. I... I just can't express how grateful I am. Just... Thank you." Lillian felt, for the first time since her conversion, that maybe being a pony wasn't such a bad thing after all.

Mr. Ruffin spoke in a quiet, almost reverent voice. "It's my great pleasure and honor, princess Graycoat. It's not every day that we get authentic Equestrian royalty in our little town."

6. Won't Get Fooled Again

The
CONVERSION
►Bureau

CODE MAJESTE

By Chatoyance

Won't Get Fooled Again

The next morning greeted Lillian with a feast. 'Ruffin's Requisitions' remained shuttered, occasionally there would be a knock at the door to which Mr. Ruffin would politely excuse himself and talk to whoever had come by. He must have been working all night; the amount of food presented to Lillian was prodigious and involved a great amount of work.

There were hay pancakes in mountainous stacks. Lillian could tell from the taste that the hay had been imported from Equestria, along with several accompanying baskets of Equestrian fruits and flowers. Oranges, apples, those weirdly large blue flowers that she never had gotten the name of - it was an entire Conversion Bureau At Hearth's Warming Eve Cafeteria Holiday Spread covering the shop's countertop. Lillian had no idea how Mr. Ruffin had managed such a banquet, or how he had obtained the ingredients on such short notice.

There was no sign of Simon or Amelie. The blanket used to cover Lillian on her way down the stairs to the store had been removed to make her more comfortable. "There's no one here to see or to bother you, princess, you may eat in peace, dressed only in your own glory." Mr. Ruffin was acting strange, but there was nothing for it - Lillian had no where else to go, also, he had not returned her trenchcoat. Apparently, he was having it laundered for her.

"Mr. Ruffin?" Lillian felt intimidated by the sheer quantity of food before her; there was no way she could eat even a ninth of it all. "Will Simon and Amelie be joining us?"

"No, your highness. I have sent them to stay with a close friend. Children can become bothersome without meaning to, and I sincerely apologize for any bother they may have given you. I wanted you to feel comfortable here, without the need to concern yourself with anything but your own enjoyment. I humbly hope this simple breakfast is to your liking." Mr. Ruffin was still speaking in overly reverent tones; he had been that way since last night, when he had helped her out of her coat and first seen what she was. It was starting to become creepy.

"Mr. Ruffin... " Lillian stopped. She wasn't sure what she could say, what she should say. She knew that this change of attitude was bothering her, she felt uneasy about the massive pile of food spread out in front of her, and there were other issues nagging at the back of her mind as well. Something was going on, but as usual, she felt clueless. Lillian hated feeling that way. Even as a human she had never felt on top of events around her; somehow it was worse to feel that way now. She had vaguely hoped that she would feel smarter as a pony.

"Yes, princess?"

"Um... could... well, for one thing, I don't think my Nanobars were worth this kind of room and board..."

That made Mr. Ruffin laugh out loud. "That was wonderful, princess Graycoat! Please, just enjoy your meal, I will return in a moment - uh, unless you need me for something now?" This was definitely getting strange.

"Could you stop calling me 'princess'? It kind of, well, creeps me out. I'm just... Graycoat... like yesterday, right?" Lillian wanted everything to be like yesterday very much. Although she felt vastly better - the itch was gone, the rash was nearly gone, her wings were beautiful again - she was beginning to regret having Mr. Ruffin help her last night.

"If you wish me to, princess... uh... um. How would you desire me to address you?" Ruffin waited, Lillian almost expected him to suddenly bow down, the way he looked at her.

"Never mind. Whatever you want. I just... nevermind." Lillian was still waking up, and this was more than she could deal with. There was food here, it was supposedly all for her, and she was hungry. To hell with the attitude change; maybe she could think straight with some pancakes inside her.

The hay pancakes were delicious! She had tried them on a whim when she was human at the Bureau - it was an entirely different experience as a pony. The fruits were glorious, but then that was true whatever species one was; no one at the Bureau could get enough of the imported, Equestrian fruits. She had also tried the flowers as a human, they had not impressed her favorably. They too were an entirely new experience now, and she found she loved them.

In the end, she was more than surprised to find that she had devoured nearly a fourth of the enormous breakfast; she had no idea that she could actually eat that much. Now she was much too full. She really should have stopped eating quite some time ago. Rather than feeling more alert, Lillian wanted to go back to bed now.

She woke from a half-doze at the table when Mr. Ruffin returned.

"Princess Graycoat! Please excuse my interruption, but there is something I really think you should see. I think you will greatly enjoy it. Please, if you would, could you follow me?" Ruffin was being weird again, but Lillian was too full and content to care at the moment. With effort she roused herself and clambered off the crate and pillow she had been resting upon to have her breakfast.

Mr. Ruffin led her to one of the side rooms of the store, where a carpet had been pulled aside, and a section of floor had been raised up. Stairs led down to a lighted tunnel. "We have our own underground means of travel, princess. Every important building is linked under the streets, and there are countless escape tunnels as well. As you can see, we have not been idle here in Assiniboia." Anderson said the words with not a little pride; the scale of the tunnel suggested that his pride was not misplaced.

The underground tunnel system grew more impressive as Lillian followed Mr. Ruffin. The walls were mostly plascrete, some sections had been artfully tiled. The floor was mostly plascrete as well, though some sections were likely ancient concrete. The lighting system was surprisingly professional. Some sections through which they passed could have been part of a proper maglev underground station. The amount of work was staggering.

"Nearly the entire town helped to create the underground - we used existing tunnels of course, but we also added our own - and of course we couldn't have done any of it without the constant support we receive from outside. There isn't much here in Saskatchewan anymore, if it weren't for... well, you'll see in just a moment."

The tunnel tour was allowing Lillian to gradually wake up from the heavy meal. She was alert enough now to wonder why she had allowed herself to be brought down here in the first place. Oh, yeah: she had no where else to go, she was dependent on Mr. Ruffin right now, and she had been half asleep when the journey through the tunnels had begun.

"Mr. Ruffin, where on earth are we going?" It was a reasonable question.

"You'll see, princess, you will see, we're almost there. I apologize for the long walk right after eating, but everyone is just so excited that, well, please understand..."

They had passed through a doorway, large double doors which Lillian suddenly realized were being held open by two very muscular stallions. What the...? Wasn't Mr. Ruffin supposed to be keeping her secret from...

"Mr. Ruffin!" Lillian felt angry and betrayed; it was clear that the human had not kept his promise to keep her status to himself. "You promised me you wouldn't tell anyone!"

"Princess, the moment you revealed yourself, I knew why you had come. I understood what you really meant!" Mr. Ruffin had a strange, wild look in his eyes. "And I have kept my promise! Nopony in this world knows about you except your own beloved people!"

The chamber was nothing less than a stadium. It had once been an indoor hocky arena, when there had been electrical power enough to run such a thing, and the stands were filled with cheering ponies and humans alike. There were more ponies than humans in this crowd, perhaps three to one, but all were cheering and clapping and clopping their hooves and shouting, apparently at peak excitement.

The floor of the rink had been covered with plascrete to form a solid surface, and the protective plexiform walls had been removed - it was clear that the arena was no longer used for hocky. Banners and flags from Equestria hung from the ceiling and walls. The flag of Equestria had been painted across the floor of the arena.

"FILLIES AND GENTLECOLTS ALL, TOGETHER LET US GIVE A PROPER PONIFICATION FOR THE EARTH'S REBIRTH WELCOME TO OUR OWN ADVOCATE GODDESS, PRINCESS LILLIAN!!!"

The arena loudspeaker still worked, and the sound overwhelmed Lillian, causing her to shrink. Wait. The voice said 'Princess Lillian'. That was her name. That was her real name. How did they know her real name?

The cheering rose to a deafening roar. Lillian could feel the impact of the sound in her very bones. Glancing behind her, she saw that the double doors had been closed. She couldn't run back to the tunnels, which she very much wanted to do. The two stallions guarded the doors, and she could make out no other apparent exits. They must exist, of course, she simply couldn't see them.

Lillian stood still, looking around at the packed stands, her hooves planted on the painted Equestrian flag in the middle of the rink. She wished they would stop cheering. She wished she could understand what was going on. Mostly she wished she could flee. What could she do? She briefly considered trying to remove her ring and see if she could somehow teleport again, but discounted that option almost immediately. She had no idea how she had done it, and Celestia would find her immediately.

She tried the only thing she could think of. She gradually spread her wings. Maybe it would be like a human raising their arms, maybe they would think she wanted to talk to them and they would settle down and shut up. She desperately wanted everyone in the arena to just shut the hell up. But spreading out her wings only seemed to inflame them more! With a sinking sensation Lillian realized that what she had really done was display her... difference... all the more prominently, and the crowd doubtless thought she was striking a dramatic pose. Dammit.

Lillian slammed her wings back to her sides again. This 'being seen as a goddess' stuff was complicated. Any motion she made could be misinterpreted. Maybe the best thing was to simply stand still until the crowd got tired or blew their voice boxes out. The latter thought made Lillian grimly chortle; she pictured the lot of them with exploding necks, meat showering the stands, blood on the ice... well there wasn't any ice, but still.

That gruesome thought confirmed what she had suspected; unlike normal newfoals, her mind had not apparently been affected by conversion at all. She could imagine people's throats exploding showers of blood and meat - more than that, she could still actually think it was funny.

Lillian had mixed feelings about this confirmation. The same dark, brutal imagination that could make her laugh at gore and horror also plagued her constantly with dark, cruel, and dismal thoughts. She had genuinely looked forward to conversion wiping all the darkness from her mind. Becoming an alicorn had stolen that blessing from her as well. There was no magical escape for her, then, from depression and suicidal thinking and violent, angry daydreams. She might as well have remained human. For a lot of reasons.

Enough! Lillian began stomping the plascrete floor with her right hoof. This seemed to get the attention of the crowd - after all, every eye was fixed on her. The crowd of ponies and humans rapidly quieted down, and fell silent, waiting.

That was awkward.

Mr. Ruffin was beside her, bowing slightly. "Everypony here is your subject, Princess Lillian." His words echoed from speakers around the arena. The crowd briefly cheered again; Mr. Ruffin had been radio miked. Lillian could see a small wire tracing his jaw, at the end of which was a tiny microphone bulge. Everything said would be heard by the entire stadium. It was likely that her own words would be broadcast as well. Remembering what had happened when she had spread her wings, Lillian decided to remain silent.

"We are all the P.E.R., princess. The entire city of Assiniboia is the primary staging base for the P.E.R. We seek to save the world by assisting princess Celestia's master plan; the ponification of the entire human species. Outwardly, she denounces and disavows us, as we know she must. We are her shadow warriors, acting in her behalf, the iron hoof beneath her velvet stocking. One day she will openly embrace us, and we finally have proof of this, for she has sent us you, our own guiding princess, our secret princess, our goddess in the shadows, to inspire and to lead us with your superior insight."

Ruffin turned to the crowd "All hail princess Celestia and princess Luna! All hail our own princess Lillian!"

Once again the crowd rallied, cheering and shouting praises all around.

When they had quieted, Ruffin continued. "Let me properly introduce myself, your highness. I was once Agent Anderson Ruffin of the Corporate Intelligence Agency. I was part of the same group originally assigned to infiltrate Equestria to support human interests and, if ordered, to assassinate the princesses. I was part of the mission support staff, so I did not receive the genetic alteration that permits retention of human traits after conversion. You wondered why I have not yet been ponified; when I am, I will lose the ability to act with force and deadly intent. I am therefore of more use to the cause in human guise - like many of us here - because I can infiltrate the human world."

Agent Ruffin bowed down to Lillian. "But know this, my princess; every one of us here still in human guise is truly a loyal pony in our hearts. We defer our conversion to our true forms only to serve your sacred purpose, and we all yearn for the day of our liberation from our monstrous condition." Ruffin looked up at Lillian, tears in the corners of his eyes, his face one of worship and hope.

"Assassinate the princesses...???" Ruffin's earlier statement had horrified Lillian, even if she was on the run from Celestia and Luna. Her face became a mask of upset and shock.

Ruffin laughed "Oh, princess, do not worry! The moment that those initial CIA converts awoke, they realized their true loyalties: they served only the crown of Equestria, much to the consternation of the human corporate entity!"

The crowd laughed at this, apparently it was quite the joke to them.

"The last thing any member of the PER would do is harm the crown! We serve our princesses with our very lives, doing the work they cannot be openly seen to do; the dangerous, dirty, covert work that all governments require but can never openly admit to. We make sure that Celestia's vision of saving humankind comes true, and we fight her enemies and any who would oppose her great plan. We are the ponies, and ponies-yet-to-be who retain the human power of violent action where it is needed. We have been denied the grace of pony kindness and joy so that we may serve the crown as no other ponies in her service can."

Lillian shifted her hooves nervously; the look in Ruffin's eyes frightened her, and the sweat beading on his head made him look strangely wild.

"I have some old friends for you to meet, to bring you joy, my princess" Ruffin waved his hand, and three figures were escorted towards them from somewhere in the stands.

Two ponies and a human woman approached, escorted by two large stallions.

The brick red filly with the golden mane was Amelie. The dark purple pegasus colt beside her was... "Dad! I'm a pegasus! I'm finally a pony!"

It was Ruffin's son, Simon. The pegasus ran to his father, who bent to hug him. "Thank you dad! Thank you so much!"

Lillian raised her head to look at the dark haired woman. Suddenly she understood completely how it was the crowd knew her real name.

The woman was Olivia.

"Lillian, oh, excuse me, princess Lillian - I am so grateful that you are alright!" Olivia made a surprisingly graceful curtsy. "We've been waiting so long for the birth of a new princess. We've had agents in almost every Conversion Bureau, waiting, just waiting for you to come along. Once we learned about Code Majeste, we knew it was a possibility. We also knew that we would have to be ready to help you; Celestia would need to keep up the pretense of going after you, to capture you, to keep the world government off balance. I knew she would let you escape; I was so worried that the HLF might intercept you though."

Lillian's head was reeling. "I... I saw you grabbed... or taken... or something, by Celestia! And you told me not to trust Celestia or ever to go to Equestria and... I don't understand... what...?"

"All part of the act, of course! Celestia needs you out here, on the Earth side of the Barrier, to inspire and uplift her agents. To use your power to accelerate the cause. In the Bureaus, there are cameras everywhere, monitoring devices in every wall; I had to make sure the humans watching were convinced that you were something Celestia meant to destroy. The princess cannot be perceived as openly sending all-powerful agents into the human world - the government would become frightened and likely go to war against Equestria. They would think that Celestia's actions were part of an active invasion, rather than a gentle effort to rescue humanity. They just aren't able to understand how both could be the very same thing!" Olivia looked regretful "I'm very sorry for misleading you; it was a necessary part of the plan for your escape."

"Celestia... grabbed you... from the door!" Lillian was trying to understand, she was trying to make sense of all of this.

"Oh, she gave me a proper dressing down!" Olivia giggled. "She was furious! It was amazing to see her like that. If I hadn't been a member of the PER, if I hadn't known the truth, I would have been terrified. I acted frightened, of course. Just my part of the performance." Olivia smiled, glad of her part in the grand scheme.

Was this true? Was princess Celestia actually behind the PER, with all of their violent activities, forced ponifications, infiltration of who knows how much of the human world - and was Lillian's transformation into an alicorn not merely an accident? It seemed far too possible; there never was a government without a secret service of some kind, and all authority ultimately stems from the threat of the sword. Still, things didn't add up. Her conversion dream - that was private, that wasn't any kind of show for some hidden camera or sensor.

And Celestia didn't seem at all as if she were acting, back when she had chased Lillian.

The more Lillian thought about it, standing there in the arena, the more she became certain that these PER types were living a delusion. Celestia had publicly denounced them, and they were desperate to justify their actions. If Celestia wouldn't openly embrace them, they needed a replacement, and they had seized on her.

Not only was her existence an insult to the crown; now she was consorting with Celestia's enemies. If not enemies, then surely what must be the biggest single embarrassment to her real, stated goals. In the newsfeeds, Celestia was always being hammered about the existence of the PER, and it was a constant issue as to what she intended to do about them.

Lillian looked around at the crowd. At Mr. Ruffin - Agent Ruffin, and his newly ponified son Simon. Little Amelie, Olivia who had helped her escape. Without Olivia's deluded assistance, it was certain that Celestia or the human government would have captured her already.

All these people. The stands full to capacity; an entire city of PER supporters. This was the main staging base for the PER! Assiniboia was the secret home of the PER - isolated, invisible to the world, the only way the city could even exist was because the PER supported it. Lillian felt torn now. Ruffin and Simon and Amelie and Olivia - they had shown her the only kindness she had known since her conversion. Celestia had rejected and pursued her. Yet she was an Equestrian now, and supposedly she was a subject of the crown, a subject of the twin princesses Celestia and Luna. What was her duty? What was the right thing to do about all of this?

Celestia might very well want to eliminate her. Lillian could understand that, after a fashion. Lady Jane Grey. Lillian was Lady Jane Grey; a little older at nineteen, but still in the same situation. A girl thrust into vying for the crown against her own wishes. Born royal, she didn't want the position - but others were only happy to use her for their own ends. Lillian was a pony version of Lady Jane Grey.

Lady Grey's mistake, the one that got her head removed, was that she had allowed herself to be manipulated. She was afraid to say no, so she went along with the gag. Lillian remembered reading about how she regretted that in her final words, stating that she was guilty of only one crime; going along with the gag.

History exists to learn from.

Lillian realized that in this moment she would have to decide whose side she was ultimately on. Did she want to serve the PER? Heavens, no. They were misguided. Violence was never the Equestrian way - Lillian felt certain of that. She had to believe that. She needed to believe that. Celestia herself had made it clear that she meant no harm to any living creature, and that ponification must be a free choice and never forced.

Then again, Lillian was running from Celestia out of fear for her life. Of course, she could be entirely wrong about Celestia's true intentions toward her. Until she knew for certain, though, she planned to keep running. In any case, Lillian felt confident Celestia would never harm ordinary humans and ponies. They could surely never be a true threat to such a powerful being - just an annoyance. Celestia would be kind even to the PER, though she surely would shut them down if she could.

Did she serve humankind then? No! Lillian had already made that decision the second she downed that cup of purple nanofluid.

Did she serve only her self? Lillian tried to imagine taking the crown of Equestria, but it was an impossibility. Alicorn she may be, perhaps in some way she might just possess the powers of a Goddess, but even if she did, she had no time to learn how to use them. Celestia and Luna both had more than a thousand years on her, a thousand years of experience and understanding of their power. Besides this, the last thing she wanted was to rule; she genuinely wanted a simple life as a happy, ordinary mare in Equestria. That was all she had ever wanted. Just a simple life of joy and happy thoughts and contentment. Power was anathema to that.

Then she must serve the proper ruler of Equestria. Even if Celestia was her personal enemy right now, the fact was that Celestia was the peace and prosperity of the land she loved, the world of kindness she so desperately wanted to be a part of. Lillian wanted to live, but she did not want to live at the expense of that beautiful, wonderful world. Not at the expense of the honor of Equestria. Not at the expense of her princess.

Despite everything, Lillian realized that she loved her princess still. Kind, gentle, beautiful Celestia. Even if it cost her her own life. Even if Celestia hated her. It didn't matter. She was loyal to her vision of Equestria, whatever the cost. If she was meant to fall, she would go down a loyal Equestrian. A loyal, true mare of Equestria.

The PER were an embarrassment to the crown. They threatened Celestia's peace, they threatened her political position with regard to the humans. They were probably her single greatest embarrassment.

Lillian bent her head low and placed her horn on the ground. She felt the sharp shock in her skull as the tip of her horn met the hard plascrete. She smiled at the realization; she was effectively bowing to the flag of Equestria, painted on the floor. Appropriate, considering her next action.

She raised her right hoof. With a bit of effort, she felt the edge of her hoof bite in at the base of her horn, pushing the ring away from where it had been tightly set. Loosened, the ring rattled down her horn until it hit the plascrete with a metallic ting.

Lillian lowered her hoof and leaned forward, taking the ring in her teeth. Raising her head, she sucked on the ring as she once had before. It was now her pacifier, and she needed one, because she felt very, very afraid, and very, very small.

It did not take many minutes before the feeling came. The strange feeling of approach, that curious pressure rising in the air.

8. Do You Really Want To Hurt Me

The
CONVERSION
►Bureau

CODE MAJESTE

By Chatoyance

Do You Really Want To Hurt Me

A man in a laboratory coat walked over the plascrete floor toward Mr. Ruffin, Simon, Amelie, Olivia, the two guardstallions, and Lillian - who was still sucking on her damping ring. The white-coated man carried with him, in a surgical-gloved hand, a small white cup.

Mr. Ruffin was nearly in tears as he addressed the crowd. "In honor of the arrival of our new princess, I have been permitted the gift of Celestia's Blessing by the Grand Knights of the PER! Oh, sweet Celestia, I have waited so long for this, and I wish to share it with you, and with our princess Lillian. I will be converted here, before you all!"

The crowd went wild as Ruffin tore his clothes off. His son, Simon was coltishly jumping and stomping about, and Amelie was running around in circles. Olivia clapped wildly; there was a look of deep envy on her face. The guardstallions scanned the scene dispassionately; they were clearly very good at their jobs. There would be no interruption of events.

The feeling of approach was very strong now. Lillian noticed a slight bending of light a handful of meters from where the group stood. The focal point was roughly in the direction of where one of the goals of the old hocky arena had been. No one else seemed to notice the distortion, either they were too excited at what they were about to witness, or such anomalies were invisible to ordinary eyes.

"I give myself to the cause of Celestia and the glory of Equestria!" Ruffin ripped off his mike and threw it on the pile of clothing beside him. Standing naked and without shame, he proudly took the cup from the labcoated man, and downed it in a single gulp. He raised the cup high when he lifted his arms in triumph; Olivia and Mr. Labcoat caught him as unconsciousness took Mr. Ruffin. They laid him carefully down on his side and backed away; his dark skin had already turned to shining, waxy dough, and his flesh was subtly writhing as the serum worked its strange technomagic.

Just as the former Mr. Ruffin's limbs were stretching and clubbing at the ends, his eyes submerged into his swelling skull, a blinding flash of light exploded from the far end of the arena. As the spherical glow shrank and vanished, the regal form of princess Celestia, ruler of Equestria, goddess of the sun and sister to the moon took a single step forward, surveying the chamber and all it contained.

Lillian froze, unable even to suck on her pacifier binding ring, fear clutching her heart. She could not move, she dared not move. Celestia seemed to ignore the humans and ponies and whatever it was that was going on; she moved with purpose now directly towards Lillian. Clearly, nothing else was of any concern to her.

Lillian bent her head and without thought tucked her ring under her left wing, and held it there. She tried to bow, then stood up again.

"Celestia! Look around you! This is the main base of the PER! This is their main staging center! Everything the PER does is supported from here! That's why I let you find me!" Lillian had shouted the words, her voice cracking with fear, and desperation.

Celestia looked deeply into Lillian's eyes, measuring her. "Remain here and take no action. Do you understand?"

Lillian understood. Completely. Celestia's calm words spoke more powerfully than the loudest shout.

The goddess of the sun of Equestria turned away from Lillian and walked forcefully towards the writhing, changing form of what was once Mr. Ruffin, now something halfway between man and pony. Celestia's horn was shining brighter and brighter, and Lillian felt strange forces filling the arena. Without her damping ring, the world seemed larger and Celestia's power was palpable, rippling through the air and flooding her very soul.

Suddenly, Lillian felt something on her back. Tiny claws dug into her coat, between her wings, as something scuttled up her spine, finally burying itself in her mane, clutching tightly to her long neck. Lillian half-bucked in surprise - only the stiffness of her fear kept her from thrashing about wildly.

A small, strange voice addressed her. "Celestia is distracted; this is a matter she must deal with. Thee must flee now, if thou desirest to live."

"What? Who? What are you? I don't understand! What do..." Lillian sputtered, unable to deal with any more. The tiny claws were digging deeply into her neck and back, and the voice was strange and Celestia was here and there was magic going on and...

"RUN NOW!" The tiny voice held some power of absolute command; Lillian's legs began to move whether or not she approved of it. She found herself dashing towards a break in the guard wall of the rink and soon she was galloping up narrow stairs set between the rows of seats, towards a shadowy doorway in the high wall of the arena.

In a few moments, Lillian was outside the arena, in a large, oval enclosure that surrounded the chamber. Pennants and flags hung here, as well as the remnants of booths, and piles of crates and boxes. As she fled, she could see that the containers held weapons and ammunition, as well as uniforms, preserved food packs, medical supplies, and other things she could not identify. The hocky arena must be one of the supply depots for the PER; there was enough here to equip an army.

The doors to the outside were sealed. Of course they would be; this building had been repurposed as a supply depot, it would have been made into a fortress. Lillian found herself facing a solid wall stacked high with crates and supplies, one end of what must be a horseshoe-shaped causeway surrounding the hocky arena. She could not see any way out. Perhaps at the other end...

"Listen to us, mare of Equestria! We will teach thee one thing; do not think beyond it, use it when we command, then crown thy horn once again when it is done." Lillian felt something enter her. It was almost like words, but she did not hear them with her ears. Inside her mind she saw reality itself as if it were a blanket, and she was shown how to fold the blanket with her will. Instantly she understood. It was like the sun rising to flood the sky with light - it was so simple, so obvious! A child could do it! She... could do it.

"Choose thou a place, filled with multitudes to be lost within, and then use what we have taught thee. Do it now! Her attention is turning thy way once more! Now! We command it!"

Lillian reached out her will, her horn glowing, and folded the soft blanket of the world. Light shone all around her, and she felt herself standing briefly between two equal heres, set in equal nows. She took one mental step, and one here replaced the other, the common now remained the same.

As the blinding light faded, Lillian remembered the ring, tucked under her left wing. Somehow she had grown inside. She felt different now, stronger, more confident. Without thought, without effort, the ring flew out from under her wing and hung in front of her, surrounded in a pale field of light. She grinned as it hung there in space; she made it dance to the left and swing back to the right, now it was slowly tumbling, sparkling in the midday light.

Even more intriguingly, Lillian could sense the magic imbued within the ring. It had a second existence just under the veil of the material world, like a soul inhabiting a body. She could see, somehow, the magic circling within the ring, making complex patterns as it swirled through the metal. It seemed alive in some strange way, as though the metal were a beast and magic the blood flowing through it.

Lillian looked beyond the ring and found her awareness expanding outward into the city alleyway in which she stood. She could feel the corners behind her, the garbage on the ground, the nest of mutie-mice busy grooming themselves inside the electrical conduits embedded in the wall to her left...

"Do not overreach thyself! Place the ring upon thy horn immediately!" The small voice on her back was insistent, and also almost plaintive. This woke Lillian from the simple joys of levitation and supernal perception, and she willed the ring to slide down her horn. As the ring was propelled along the shaft of her spiral horn, she lost the ability to hold it; also she lost the remarkable sensation of the power she was using. As the ring hit the bottom of her horn, it felt as if she had gone partially blind. She now knew that she had been sensing the world around her in some new way, as if she had been gifted with an additional pair of eyes and ears, which had somehow been covered.

Everything seemed small now, dim, less than it was. For a fading moment, she had entered a larger world, and a part of her yearned for it. She tried to clutch at the memory of what she had experienced, but it was vanishing like a dream. All she could recall now was that for a moment, she had been more than herself, and in that moment had seen behind and above the world in some way she could no longer imagine.

Lillian looked around her. She was in some great megalopolis, down some blind alley between several vastly tall buildings. The rubbish bin to her right was overflowing; decades ago all service had ended, the rubbish was antique garbage now. The walls of the alley were covered in grime, in some places it was nearly half an inch thick. No one had entered this alley for a very long time. It must be isolated somehow, otherwise scavengers would have gone over the trash many times over.

The claws disengaged from Lillian's neck, and she felt the moving weight on her back turn and pass between her wings. She felt a leap, and the weight was gone. Looking down, she saw a cat padding around to her front from the side.

It was a dark blue cat, and it looked like the very same one that had led her to Simon and Amelie the day before.

"Thank you." Lillian knew now that the designer cat could speak. That it knew how to teach her to teleport was even more curious. "Thank you very much for saving me. At least, I think you saved me. It had been my intention to try to talk to Celestia, that maybe in exposing the PER, she might be willing to..."

"No, little one. Thy intent was naught but good, but thou art mistaken with regard to why Celestia doth seek thee."

It was very strange to see a cat talking. A human or an Equestrian has a large head, with room for huge frontal lobes and all the mass of brain needed for rational thought. A tiny cat, though, with a brain the size of a walnut? Lillian could not imagine how such a creature could be so intelligent. In the middle of everything that she had been through, this small thing somehow truly disturbed her sense of reality.

"What... who are you? How can you even speak? How do you know so much?" Lillian hesitated, but had to ask. "Why... why are you helping me?" A tiny blue cat was her savior, apparently, and it knew more than she did. The world seemed to make less and less sense with each passing day.

"We are a friend. Canst thou not see that we are an artificed organism, such as thy genegineering facilities are wont to create, designed for such purposes as humans are known to have need of? We are nothing more; a mere artificial beast constructed purely for the vanities of Man." The strikingly blue cat's deep teal eyes bespoke a vast intelligence.

"I've seen designer animals before, but I've never heard of one that could talk. There's not enough room inside such a small animal! You'd have to have some kind of quantum chip inside you that..."

"So tis, little one! That is precisely our circumstance. Within us is... some kind of quantum chip. Thy understanding is exceptional, and we applaud thy perspicuity. It is thus that we speak and know much, and how it is that we can assist thee. There are matters of importance that we wish to impart to thee; for we have come to concern ourselves with thy plight." The blue cat sat down, but it did not groom itself as a cat would, nor did it purr; it simply sat down.

Lillian was getting used to being carried along by events. She hadn't yet had a plan of any worth, mostly because she had no real idea of what was happening. For the moment, she assumed that she must be safe. She might as well hear what the cat had to say. Lillian folded her legs and lay down in the alley.

"Alright... cat, tell me... um... wait. " This was already awkward enough. "What do I call you anyway? Do you have a name?" Lillian didn't want to be rude to the creature that had saved her twice; once with food and shelter, and again to escape from Celestia after she had trusted the wrong human.

The cat seemed mildly surprised. "In all that hast befallen thee, with so many questions to be asked, this is what thou first wouldst know?" The cat laughed, a pleasant sound. Lillian had never heard a cat laugh before. "Thou mayest name us whatsoere thou wilt, thy concern for our feelings is most gracious."

Lillian felt gratitude toward the strange cat. She could not help but consider the creature a person regardless of its shape or the fact that it had been manufactured. The cat could speak, it appeared to have a personality, and it... had laughed. Artificial cat or not; it was an intelligence and something not unlike life, and to Lillian, it deserved respect.

She tried to think of a name to call the artificial cat. Lillian was never very good with names, either remembering them or coming up with them. In her childhood, she had often named things after whatever she first associated them with. Lillian had been given a stuffed animal for her birthday once; she had named it 'Ribbon' because the box it had come in had been wrapped with a beautiful ribbon.

Later, when she had captured a mutie-rat to keep as a pet - despite the strenuous objections of her father - she had named the poor, two-tailed rodent after it's first meal. Earlier that day, her mother had managed to obtain some nanofabricated treats for the family; an assortment of replications of baked goods from the days when wheat had still existed, and bread had been a common staple of human food.

Even her mother - who was supportive of her wish to keep a pet - was enraged when Lillian's first feeding of her mutated rattie was one of the hard-won nanofabricated treats. 'Muffin' the rat was her best friend for the remaining year and a half of it's short life; the little creature became devoted to Lillian immediately after it's first, delicious meal.

"I'll name you 'Muffin' after... after my very best friend from when I was growing up." Lillian had not had many close human friends in her life; her little two-tailed rat had been one of the greatest joys of her childhood. Even at nineteen she still missed her little fuzzy friend. Muffin had liked to curl up on her belly when she lay down to read her holopad; occasionally it ran up and licked her on her chin. Although it may simply have been looking for more tasty treats, Lillian always thought that Muffin was genuinely showing her devotion.

"Then in honor of that friendship do we accept this name with pleasure." The little cat seemed to be genuinely honored, which made Lillian feel happy with the choice.

"Muffin, how can I tell Celestia that I mean no harm? I never wanted to be an... what I am. It just happened! I don't want any of it! I just want to be a good little pony, I just want to be kind and have friends. I am loyal to the princesses, really I am! I want to serve Celestia! I just want to... to..." Lillian was crying again, she couldn't help herself, what she wanted really wasn't that much, and it truly wasn't fair at all.

"We know fully thy true heart; exposing thyself completely to Celestia's wrath in pure duty to the crown was a remarkable act. It is why we are here with thee, now. We were most impressed with the depth of thy loyalty, gentle one, be assured thine honor and service is above reproach." The artificial cat stood and held out a paw, touching Lillian's hoof in support. Lillian saw this and could not help but smile through her tears.

"Then I don't understand! Why does she have to hunt me like that? She's all magic and stuff - can't she just make me not be... an alicorn... and make me into a normal pony? I'd love that! If she can raise the sun, and if she's all powerful and knows magic, surely she can just make me normal and let me go, can't she?" Lillian felt a little angry now. "I'd never talk - she could even erase my memory or whatever she wants! I just want to be a normal pony!" There was no doubt about it, Lillian was a little angry. Why the heck couldn't Celestia just fix her? What was the point of being a goddess if you couldn't fix stuff?

"It is because thou art an alicorn that Celestia cannot change thee. We can tell thee what thou truly art and why Celestia acts as she does; in this understanding we must trust thee absolutely to do what we command. Wilt thou agree to this?"

Lillian nodded. "I will do what you say."

"Lillian Alicorn, though thou knowest that thee hast untapped powers, thou knowest not the true breadth nor scope of their potential; in short time thou couldst rival both princesses without any intent on thy part. In becoming thus, thou wouldst have absolute power but no control withall; thy merest whim could melt the mountains or boil the seas." The little cat sat upright, serious as death and twice as grim. "Imagine thee such power, uncontrolled, consider having to watch and censor every desire, every thought, every hope or wish or dream for fear of tearing the very world asunder by the most fleeting of whims. Thou has not this power yet, but such is what thy very existence threatens; each time that thou shouldst remove thy binding ring, each time thee useth thine powers, thee edges closer to a precipice from which there is no return, one that would bring eternal chaos and destruction to both Equestria and the universe of Man."

The weight of this sank slowly into Lillian's comprehension, and as it did so she was filled with horror. "My... god! Muffin... I am a... a living hypernuclear bomb!" It was the closest analogy that Lillian could imagine; it was serviceable enough. She was a thing that could literally destroy the world whether she meant to or not.

"We have to get back to Celestia, Muffin! If what you say is true, I cannot be permitted to live. Get me back, Muffin. Get me back to her right now, or tell me how to call her here. I understand now. It doesn't matter if its fair, it doesn't matter what I want." Lillian was softly sobbing now, tears ran down her muzzle as she calmly spoke. "I was wrong to run from her. She's just trying to save everything and everyone! I had no idea. I had no idea." Lillian stared at the blue cat, the tears running, but her gaze was level and calm.

"Is thy ring of binding firmly ensconced on thy horn?"

Lillian lifted a hoof just to be sure, but it was more just to comfort herself; the diminishment of the world she had experienced had been proof enough alone. "Yes, Muffin, the ring is on tight." Lillian sniffed and wiped the tears from her muzzle with the sides of her forelegs.

"Dost thou believe that Celestia is both good and kind, and that she desireth only that all creatures should live in peace and harmony?"

There was no hesitation in Lillian. Of course Celestia was good. She was kindness itself. "Of course I do! That's why I need to give myself up to her right now!"

"Hear us then; the princesses can do anything. Nothing is beyond their power, at least within the demesne of Equestria. But while they are all but omnipotent, they are not omniscient; they cannot and do not know everything. They can be mistaken, they can be fooled, they can be in error." The cat looked down, uncomfortable with her statement somehow. "There may yet be a way to save thee, and it is our intention that this chance be taken. If thou wouldst keep thy promise to obey us, then it is our command that thee should remain beyond Celestia's reach for now, so that the means of thy deliverance may be discovered. This is our command to thee: stay thou free and hidden and giveth up no part of hope. Celestia works to save the multitudes at your cost; that thou art willing to giveth up your life honors you, but that time is not now, and it may yet be avoided. We assure thee that if Celestia knew how, she would save thee gladly."

Lillian put her head on her forelegs, confused and uncertain. "I felt the power, Muffin. I felt it growing in me." Lillian buried her muzzle between her knees, facing the garbage and plascrete beneath her. "I liked it. I liked how it felt." Her words were barely a whisper. She didn't want to say them at all.

"So long as the binding ring is not removed again, there is still hope for thee. Thy transport here must be the last time thine powers may ever be used, then. If thee remove thy binding even once more, we will no longer help thee, and thy fate will be sealed. Whatere may befall thee from this moment on; remainest thou bound and untempted. This also is our command."

Lillian suddenly realized that she could end it all, now, just by removing the ring. Celestia would come and do what she had to do, and both worlds would be saved and it would all be over. No more running, no more fear; and in doing this she would be a loyal and true mare of Equestria.

But Lillian had promised the cat. It was silly; a promise to a manufactured creature - surely the fate of entire worlds outweighed such a thing! But there was something about the small, blue creature. It knew too much, it was far too intelligent, it was unlikely that it should be here at all. Something else was going on, something she didn't understand. Something bigger than herself, or her problem.

Suddenly a doubt crossed Lillian mind. "Muffin; I need to ask you something and I need you to answer me with absolute honesty. You're an artificial animal, right, which means that you must have been programmed to obey humans. I used to be a human, once, and you know that. So I'm giving you a command: I command you to answer my next question with absolute honesty!" Lillian stared intently at the cat, looking for any sign of conflict or deception.

The strikingly blue, imitation animal appeared to be trying to stifle a laugh. "Thy input is accepted... mistress... we are forced by our programming to accede to thy command. We shall answer with absolute honesty. Ask thy question of us."

"Are you working for anyone out to hurt or overthrow Celestia?" Lillian stared even harder at the cat.

The cat seemed shocked at the question. "No! We would never... Celestia is our..." The cat squinted at Lillian. "Hear us now, plainly and with no deception; we in all things do work for the benefit of Celestia only, and never against her. Everything we do, we do for her best interest, and for hers alone. We work to save thee only because thy salvation would ease thy princesses' heart! Though she would end the threat you represent without hesitation, the act would plague her and sadden her for ages thou canst not even imagine."

The cat seemed sincere to Lillian, in as much as she was able to tell anything from the expression on the face of such a creature. The cat's words seemed to make sense to her. Lillian tried to imagine what it would be like to be immortal, and have to live with the knowledge of having to take the life of an innocent being, even if it meant saving countless billions of lives. The thought made Lillian shudder. Even more than before she realized that the last thing she would ever want to do was to be a princess, much less a goddess. No wonder Celestia always looked vaguely sad in all of those newsfeeds and holoprograms. Lillian knew she couldn't bear having to face such things.

Her respect for Celestia grew even more; to live forever, to have to make decisions like that constantly, and still to even be able to care about her people and all living things... the princess was truly wonderful.

"I don't want the princess to suffer because of me. I will try to stay alive and find a cure with you, rather than give myself up here and now. I don't know what you really are, or who sent you, but what you've said makes sense to me." Lillian thought for a moment. "I bet... I bet that Celestia has ponies in her court that try to look after her! All rulers do, don't they? One of her court must have had you made to protect her from herself. I bet that's your story, Muffin! And they have to keep it all hush-hush so she won't get mad at them. Yeah!" Lillian felt proud of herself. "That's how you know so much! And I bet you aren't allowed to tell me any of that are you?"

The cat remained silent, smiling slightly.

"Hah! I have you figured out, Muffin! They had to rush you out too, I bet, which is why they didn't have time to even give you a name. You must have been sent straight from a genetic factory right out to find me." Lillian looked with compassion at the artificial animal. "Listen, Muffin - when this is all over, if I'm still around, you can live with me, OK? I'll take care of you. Just because you're artificial doesn't mean you aren't alive. You can live with me, I'll make sure you aren't dismantled or anything, alright?"

The blue cat looked genuinely touched. "We... thank thee, our kind... friend."

Lillian smiled. "Super! Then it's settled! Where to now, Muffin?" Lillian raised herself to her hooves and looked around at the alley once more, seeking some way out. Walls surrounded on three sides, two had entrances that had been sealed long, long ago. One side held the overflowing, decaying rubbish bin, and the alley led away to what appeared to be an impassable blockage of broken beams, crushed crates, stacks of outdated, rusting consumer electronics, all backed by a tall metal fence that sealed off the blind alleyway.

"I'm not sure how to get out of here, Muffin, what do you..."

But when Lillian looked down again, and around, there was no sign of the blue designer cat. She had vanished again, as cats do, and Lillian felt very alone and let down by her sudden absence.

Lillian looked up at the gray smog blanket above, and watched the tiny flakes of ash that occasionally tumbled down. She could be anywhere on the Earth.

"What do I do now?" Lillian's words had no answer, for she was alone, unsure of what she should do next.

9. You'll Never, Never, Never Reach The Sky

The
CONVERSION
►Bureau

CODE MAJESTE

By Chatoyance

You'll Never, Never, Never Reach The Sky

Lillian had paced around the blind alley for nearly a half an hour, unable to find a way to exit the blocked space. That it had been sealed off from the rest of the city for some time became ever more apparent. Drifts of ashfall in the corners made small mountains, and the piles of long decayed consumer devices near the thick metal gate dated from at least a decade previous. She saw several products from the company that had made Nanobars in the rubbish bin; that business had been absorbed and dismantled long ago. It was clear that no person had set foot in the walled-off alleyway in at least ten years, and likely longer.

It was quite the thought that any part of a city could be abandoned so completely for so long. Lillian marveled at whatever her powers were that they would choose, somehow, to bring her to such a place of perfect isolation. If only those same powers had thought to make sure she could leave once she had arrived. The blind alleyway increasingly felt like a prison cell. Worse, it was a hot prison cell; wherever she was it was even warmer than post-Collapse Saskatchewan. That meant she was almost certainly south of where she had been.

She missed Muffin, the manufactured cat. Always her eyes scanned for some hint of dark blue. Somehow the feline had managed to escape the alley. Then again, cats could climb and move through tiny spaces a pony could not hope to follow; it was only reasonable that a cat would find a way out.

Lillian tried to assess what she had available to her, and how she might hide her status should she find a way to escape the alley.

She was surrounded by crates and boxes of various sizes. That they survived so long exposed to the elements meant that they must be made of nondegradable materials; likely the new pseudoplastics that were developed after the end of oil, during the Great Collapse. While she might potentially manage to pile them in such a way as to reach the top of the blocking metal gate at the end of the alley, the drop that must be on the other side would likely break her legs.

Briefly, Lillian considered attempting to fly over the wall. After all, as an alicorn, she had wings. The fact was that she was terrified of heights, she hadn't a clue how to use her new appendages beyond spreading them in dramatic poses, and her left wing base was still somewhat swollen and sore. Lillian pictured herself flapping lopsidedly to a frightening height, only to have her bruised wing seize up, followed by a fall and a broken neck... or impalement upon rusting metal. Going flying did not seem like something for the completely ignorant to attempt.

Lillian considered the large, blocked off gate. Even had she strong human arms and hands, and a strong back, it would take days to clear that exit; by then hunger would have weakened her terribly. Lillian felt glad of the huge breakfast she had enjoyed earlier; it was still with her and she did not yet need food. She was slightly thirsty, but it was endurable.

Three of the walls of the alley were made by enormous buildings that towered above; their tops lost in the smog layer above. The scale of them was prodigious. It was also possible that it was all one great building, the alley being a notch in the contour of it. Lillian could not tell, her perspective being so limited. There were two sealed entrances to the structure available; both doors were made of metal, and one seemed riveted closed. The other offered more hope; it did not appear to be welded or riveted, just locked in some fashion. Lillian judged this to be her best option and began clearing the pile of debris and junk that blocked it.

By mid-afternoon, the door was finally exposed. Lillian, for her part, was filthy and bedraggled; soot and ash mingled in her once cornsilk mane and tail, and the feathers of her wings, once shiny and oiled, were now powdered with dark splotches and patches of filth. Lillian's hooves were caked and striped with grime and her muscles ached from pushing, kicking and dragging garbage from the doorway. Her coat was soaked with sweat; right now being covered in horse hair - well, pony hair - was a distinct disadvantage.

Finally unblocked, the fully revealed smaller door was clearly not for deliveries by truck, but was clearly intended for use by human beings. Whatever handle it may have possessed had been removed or had never been; perhaps it was intended to be opened only from within the building. An ancient card slot, mounted in a panel, could be seen to the side of the door. Perhaps it had been an electric door, opened with the appropriate identification.

Lillian began to scour the alley for some sign of a tool she could use to open the door; a crowbar would be a wonderful find. No such tool existed here, as far as she could tell; indeed no tools of any kind were abandoned among the junk of the lost alleyway.

Returning to the door, Lillian, in desperation, tried using her horn on it. She was careful, very careful, not to dip her head, or to allow any chance of her ring escaping its station close to her skull, but she had hope that perhaps her horn might be magically sharp in some fashion. She imagined cutting the metal like paper with an impossibly dangerous tip. Alas, her horn was just a horn, and it was no sharper than any horn could be expected to be. The metal of the door remained unscarred - instead, she had only managed to reveal a bit of shine when her horn had scraped loose the scum that coated everything in this great city of Man.

Lillian stomped her hoof in frustration. What a state of affairs to be in! She had managed to teleport, to fold the very substance of space and time, only to be trapped by a garbage-strewn alleyway. The temptation to remove her ring, or to at least lift it a few inches along the shaft of her horn, just enough to regain some small measure of power, was intense.

It would be such a small thing, perhaps even invisible to Celestia, and the cat would surely never know... No. Lillian remembered how much she had liked the feeling of being more than she was. Whatever the power inside her was, she could feel that it was addictive; that tasting any more of such wonder would make it all but impossible to refuse. The power to make every whim or wish come true; how could anything be more desirable, or more dangerous? The cat was right. She could never risk using her power again. She was not strong enough to resist its fatal siren call.

Then she must escape this alley on her own, without supernal magics, without the powers of a god. She must find a way using only her own hooves and her own brain, and what was around her.

Lillian examined the metal door more closely. It was a soft metal, aluminum most likely, but how sound was it? The building itself must be old, and it was clear that it was uncared for and unmaintained; the sealed alleyway supported that conclusion. Lillian could see mold and rot and weather had damaged the concrete sections of the building; the structure had been made before the invention of plascrete.

She turned and faced away from the door. Looking back over her shoulder and rump, she angled herself carefully with regard to it. Turning her neck to face front again, she gave the door an experimental kick. Her rear hooves slammed the door with a resounding 'Whunk'. Looking back again, she saw that the metal had been dented. Yes!

Lillian began to buck at the door in earnest, pounding the metal with her hooves, kicking now with all of her might. The door began to buckle in the middle, and when she paused to catch her breath, she could see into the building through the bending edges where the deformation of the door caused it to no longer meet the doorframe. It would take effort, but she was beginning to have real hope of smashing the door open, or at least making a breach through which she might pass.

More kicking further bent the aluminum door. It was not that thick, and it was not very well constructed. Hammering even harder, Lillian finally heard a loud bang as the metal hinges tore loose from the doorframe, leaving the door itself nearly open. A few more bucks sent the crumpled door clanging and clattering into the darkness of the building. She had created a way out of the alley for herself.

Lillian peered into the darkness. The building was without power, like almost all buildings anymore, and there was no sign of habitation thus far. Certainly no one had come running to find out what all the noise was; this was a very good sign. Still, some kind of disguise was in order.

The trenchcoat was long gone. Lillian was rather grateful for that. It had been a trauma to put it on, and a greater trauma to finally have it removed. Still, it had served its purpose for a while; right now she was exposed and obvious to the world - an alicorn and no doubt about the fact.

Poking through the trash, Lillian selected a small box. Made of some synthetic material, it had once held racks of romballs; small crystalline spheres set into cubical containers. Romballs provided enormous holographic storage as they spun on tiny currents of air while being scanned by lasers. The romballs themselves were long gone, but the box remained, and the empty container was just the size to fit over most of her head like a helmet.

Lillian's horn locked into one corner of the box, giving it a jaunty look. The flaps of the lid settled down on either side of her head, helping to hold her new carton-hat on. She imagined the box must appear like some cubist interpretation of a toque; however it looked, it did the job of hiding her horn. Now, she was Lillian Fogarty The Pegasus. With a romball box for a hat.

It seemed she was cursed to look silly whatever she did.

The little gray, box-capped pegasus stepped carefully over the threshold of the damaged doorframe, and entered what appeared to be an abandoned kitchen of some kind. Stainless steel counters and sinks filled the space; the buckled door had landed leaning up against an old freezer hatchway. This building had definitely been abandoned and forgotten; the metal in this room alone could have made some favela dweller rich with items to trade or to use.

As she progressed through the old kitchen, the afternoon light rapidly faded. The dying light spilled through the newly opened door into the darkness beyond. Lillian realized she would need to make use of that light while it still remained. She needed to find a way through the building to the outside, where any hope of food and water might exist. At least it was cooler inside the scary, dark building. That, at least, was a happy blessing.

The back of the kitchen opened out, through a swinging door, into a large dining hall. Lillian began to think that perhaps this part of the building had once been a hotel. Beyond the dark dining hall was a small measure of light. Lillian made her way carefully around the dusty tables and chairs toward the faint luminescence. It surely must be a window - it was very unlikely to be artificial illumination. Unless it was some abandoned artificial intelligence, of course, running off of incredibly long-lasting cesium-foam batteries. Occasionally one would run across such devices; no longer with a job to do, they waited indefinitely for the return of their owners - or in the worst case scenarios, barked out for forgotten clearance codes before activating hidden security devices.

If it was the latter, anything from entrapping foam to deadly bullets could change Lillian's day for the worse. She shuddered at this, and calmed herself as best she could. It was a hotel. It was utterly unlikely that a hotel would have that kind of defense system installed. The worst she would likely have to face was some A.I. demanding that she scan in at the front desk before proceeding. It would be a poor hotel that killed or immobilized its guests.

Lillian briefly thought of her artificial cat friend, Muffin. Humans seemed very careless about creating disposable intelligent beings. Then again, considering the thoughtless, uncontrolled breeding humans engaged in, perhaps the creation of disposable beings was an intrinsic quality of humanity. There were nineteen billion living human minds out there right now, and almost every one of them were as devoid of future or purpose as any A.I. she might encounter in this hotel. She absolutely would not let Muffin end up abandoned, when this was all over. Muffin would always have a purpose: as her friend.

Remotivated by the feeling that her little cat friend depended on her, Lillian pressed forward into the dark. It always seemed easier to be brave for someone else than for one's self. More to care about, maybe, or perhaps caring for another lifted one outside of self-concern. However it worked... it worked. To give Muffin a home, Lillian would first have to save herself.

The dark was so profound now that Lillian was forced to proceed at the slowest of paces; even so she found herself bumping into objects, some hard edged and some surprisingly soft. Perhaps they were furniture; counters and sofas maybe. The dim light ahead seemed to come from around a corner; carefully Lillian made her way there. It was creepy in the dark, and she found her old childhood terror of ghosts and hauntings returning to her. Her superstitious fears made traversing the dark room far more of a heart-pounding adventure than it really should have been. Lillian feared ghosts far more than artificially intelligent, armed security systems - fear is seldom a completely rational thing.

As she rounded the corner, Lillian heard something moving very quickly on the floor in the dark! She reared in fright, ready to dash headlong in any direction. With effort she calmed herself, remembering the last fading trace of her taste of alicorn powers. She had sensed colonies of mutie-mice living in the conduits of the buildings. Struggling to think clearly about what she had heard, she had to admit that the scuttling was of something small. It was almost certainly either a mouse or a rat. Lillian remembered her beloved two-tailed mutie-rat, and this comforted her. Rats were not really a danger of themselves. Of course if they had fleas...

Lillian could not but help wonder if alicorns could catch plague. Entire favelas had been wiped out as various plagues ravaged the global slums. Every year there would be some newsfeed about a half a million or a million perishing somewhere. A drop in the vast sea of mankind, but Lillian always felt sad for such mass die-offs. To the overcrowded world a million people was nothing, but to the people themselves, it was everyone they knew or ever would know. Lillian's parents had thought her silly for fussing over people she had no connection with and would never even know.

To Lillian, however, that distance and separation didn't matter somehow, so her parents had finally resorted to limiting how much news she could watch. Just to keep her from becoming so upset over things she could do nothing about.

The light Lillian was seeking was the corner of a window. It was mostly boarded up with synthboard planks and translucent sheets of yellowing neoplasine. A triangular section, near the top of the filthy window, permitted a grayish-yellow glow to enter. Lillian considered her options.

At the most basic, she could try to kick open the window and simply exit that way. The planks and neoplasine sheeting should protect her legs from falling glass. It would probably work without too much risk of injury. She couldn't see much of the room beyond the dim source of light. If there was a proper main entrance to the building, she could not see it from here. The old fear of spooks began to bother her again. The building felt haunted and filled with malevolence.

Buck it, she decided, and proceeded to do just that.

In short order she had created much more light. With additional, somewhat frantic effort - she really did have quite a strong irrational fear of ghosts - she had made an opening large enough to leave the building entirely.

Carefully navigating her box-hat through the broken window, Lillian stuck her head out into the sunset light. The outside was empty of men or ponies. It was a rubbish-strewn street, in what was likely an abandoned section of whatever city she was in.

The smog layer above was almost purple. Streaks of pink and red gleamed off of every unevenness in the toxic mass of it. It was very dramatic, and Lillian had only seen such an effect before back when she had been at the Conversion Bureau in Vancouver. It was because the city there was by the sea. Occasionally the coastal weather would cause holes in the world-spanning smog blanket that allowed sunlight to shine directly, or almost directly, through. This city must be relatively near a coast then, where openings in the gray above could occur. At least enough to let the colors of the late afternoon sun illuminate things.

Thick columns surrounded her, supporting the overhang of the hotel. Lillian had broken through a window that had once looked out onto the entrance driveway of the building. Just a few meters away was the front doors. Breaking the window had definitely been the best idea - the entrance was heavily barred with a large metal gate. She could never have breached it.

Walking out into the street, Lillian noted that the abandoned, empty shops and stores had names written in Northamerizone English. She felt it was likely that she was on the same continent, which would place her somewhere within a dozen miles or so of either the East or West coasts. A sign on a damaged window nearby suggested the West Coast - "Palm Tree Lounge" seemed more like something one would find in that side of the Northamerizone.

Suddenly, an idea struck her. She trotted out to the middle of the street, box bouncing on her head, and followed it until she found what she was looking for - a manhole cover.

Property Of Corporate Utilities Anaheim California

The date was worn away, but the fact that it used the name 'California' instead of 'Pacifica Production Region' gave Lillian an idea of how old this part of the city was. The manhole cover had been installed either during, or just before the Collapse. This was easily the oldest manhole cover Lillian had ever seen.

Anaheim, Pacifica Region. Some still called it California, even today. There were no more palm trees, but there had once been, and they had grown in this region, and that explained the Palm Tree Lounge. Lillian was somewhat proud of how far she had teleported herself. Not too bad for a wanna-be alicorn from Surrey! Only... she wasn't a wanna-be, she bitterly reflected. She was a don't-wanna-be alicorn. A grumble in her stomach told her that her gigantic breakfast had finally worn off; next she realized she was terribly thirsty. It felt especially hot to her, after the relative coolness of the hotel. It was always warm everywhere in the world now, but Pacifica was closer to the equator than she was used to, and the heat was really starting to get to her.

Lillian began following the street, her head sweating under the romball box. She wanted to take it off, but if anyone was around, unknown to her, she could end up in the same sort of trouble she had just escaped from. The words of the artificial cat sent by Celestia's court were very clear; she couldn't escape like that ever again. She walked for hours. At one point she kicked in the door to a market and began what she expected to be a hopeless search for anything to drink or eat.

Much to her great surprise, she found sealed bottles of sterile water. After the Great Flu, water had been sold only after complete sterilization. The flu hadn't in any way been associated with contaminated water of course, rather it was just brilliant marketing to sell the idea of sterilized water being safer. This too was from around the Collapse, back when money had actually existed and had mattered to the average person. Since the rise of Equestria, coinage for the masses had returned to some regions; brought back by the seemingly inexhaustible Royal treasury - and the arrival of native Equestrians adventuring in the human world... or staffing the Conversion Bureaus. Lillian idly wondered how many Equestrian bits a bottle of sterile water would go for in a pony-run market.

The water, preserved and still potable, if not particularly appealing - it tasted strongly of chemicals and plastic - vastly improved Lillian's feeling of well-being. She was disappointed to find the store did not carry Nanobars; there was little in the place beyond the pallets of water in the back. Whoever had abandoned the market had probably just left the fairly heavy water bottles as not being worth the cost of transport.

Lillian briefly considered a small stack of 'Happy Pies', but they were decades beyond their pull date. Despite bearing the cheery, faded label announcing they had been 'Radiation Purified', she did not want to dare them. They would not have decayed in all of that time, but other chemical reactions would certainly have occurred. The salts and sugars and artificial flavorings in the pies would have interacted over many, many years on the shelf, and the result could very well be poisonous.

With her thirst slaked, Lillian headed out onto the street again, and continued seeking something, anything, that might help her. Highest on her list was an information kiosk; she could see whether her existence had been announced. That could determine just how much danger she was in from the general population. She wanted to know about what had happened to the PER, too. She couldn't help but worry for Mr. Ruffin, his son Simon, and Amelie. It was certain that Celestia finally catching and ending the PER forever would be a big news item.

More importantly, she imagined finding out something about what alicorns actually were, whether or not what had happened to her had ever happened before, and what the result of that might have been. If, of course, such dangerous things were allowed to be known at all. That was certainly an issue.

Lillian also wanted to research Conversion itself. Maybe there was some way she could be 'Reconverted' into a proper, ordinary mare. If the little nanomachines could rebuild a human into a pony, why couldn't they rebuild an alicorn into a pony somehow? At least it was a hope, and she needed hope more even than food.

The corner ahead caught her attention. There was light coming from around it, and the light was not from the setting sun. It was starting to get dark, and the clearly artificial light source stood out fairly well.

As she approached the corner, she heard voices; they seemed to be laughing. Laughter was good, maybe she would find a friend, or a block party in progress, maybe there would be food! Her slow pace quickened to a trot, then a canter; the thought of food made her stomach command additional speed.

Rounding the corner, Lillian saw humans standing around, lounging on the backs of trucks and cars, some sitting on the street itself. The light source was from spotlights shining from the tops of the trucks. They seemed to be drinking something from cups and bottles both. They were a jolly bunch, apparently celebrating some success. She could hear music playing.

Approaching closer - the rowdy group had not heard her hooves over their own din - she saw the party included ponies! They were all laying down in the center of the group. They seemed sleepy; all were laying on their side or their back. Some were laying on top of each other and that was when Lillian noticed the large painted letters on the side of the big white electric van, the three big black letters that spelled out HLF, Human Liberation Front, and it was clear that the ponies weren't sleeping at all and there were sure a lot of them and the long, black things she just now noticed leaning against the trucks and cars were automatic rifles and shotguns and other guns she didn't recognize because guns weren't her thing and oh god, oh god...

They had seen her now and the laughing had suddenly stopped and someone shut off the music with a click and they were staring at her like she was a ghost in shock then as she started to back up in horror the humans began reaching for their guns and that was when her bladder just let go, just like that, right in the street, and she could feel the warmth running down her rear legs but she didn't feel embarrassed only scared and that was the moment she realized she couldn't run away because where would she go but wait! Wait!

She had one option she hadn't tried before, and it would make her harder to hit, and so she spread her wings, she could do this, she knew she could do this, she had glided down the steps in Vancouver, after all, and she began running right towards them which surprised them as she had intended and then she was flapping her wings and somehow she was over their heads and there were a few shots but they missed and soon she was flying, she was actually flying like a proper pegasus! and she flew over the top of the building and across three streets of buildings, trying to get higher and higher to get over the big wall ahead of even taller buildings and that was when she finally felt the pain.

Oh god, the growing pain was in her stomach, but she hadn't eaten any of the Happy Pies, so it couldn't be indigestion, but the pain was getting worse and so she hazarded a brief glance back and down as she flew, and that's when she saw the pink worm bulging out of her side, the pink, writhing worm oh god they had shot her after all, she just hadn't felt it at the time and that was her intestine wasn't it, yet that was definitely her intestine because her side was all ripped out and she was amazed it wasn't bleeding, but that was probably because all the arteries had clamped down, she had read once that that could happen immediately after severe injury, but it wouldn't last long and then she could bleed out in seconds and she was feeling faint now, and began losing altitude, and if she passed out she would fall so she tried to head for the little courtyard on the top of the building ahead...

There was a light on in the penthouse, there were so many cute penthouses around here, it must be a rich area, a rich area abutting the dead old poor area and oh god she was feeling very dizzy now and she had to land and here came the courtyard and suddenly she had hit the table with the awning over it and knocked it over and it had smashed the metal chair and she was on the tile of the courtyard now and her side was really hurting now and oh god here comes the blood and there was only one thing she could do now, and she had to do it and she didn't want to do it because Muffin would never help her again but she was dying and she knew she was dying and she didn't want to die so she moved her forelegs up, and they were moving so slowly, why were they moving so slowly and she pressed her hooves against her skull, and she couldn't tell if it was working and then it was clear that it was working because she could feel the power coming back and so she decided she would just lift the ring up just enough, just enough to wish her body whole just enough to wish not to die, just enough, just enough, oh, god Muffin, I'm sorry but I have to, I have to, I have to...

10. I Am I Said

The
CONVERSION
►Bureau

CODE MAJESTE

By Chatoyance
The characters of John Norris and Azure Wind from An Azure Future are used with the permission of Krass McWriter

I Am I Said

John walked back from the kitchen, his firm-handed grip pushing a bar-cart load of beverages. He had swept through the stainless steel cabinets, racks, and all three refrigerators, chucking whatever looked vaguely appropriate onto the cart. There were several rare vintages of wine - if they even drank wine - some incredibly expensive, aged whiskey, that was mostly for himself, just in case, and a large selection of fruit juices and soda. His pegasus son Azure liked those, and probably they would too.

John normally didn't bother putting on the feedbag for clients. The usual way of things was that he would make sure his clients took him out for a good time instead. This served two important purposes; one, it was a free good time, and two, it established just who was courting who. Inevitably clients wanted a crack at John's figurative ass in the end, so he made sure he got kissed first. Then he made sure he was wearing his impenetrable plastic ass.

But these were not normal clients, and putting on the feedbag was absolutely appropriate in this case. Primarily because the clients were ponies.

And not just any ponies; John Norris was entertaining the royal sovereigns of Equestria itself.

They had appeared, without warning, in a sudden and somewhat startling flash of light. John felt miffed that they hadn't bothered to even call first - royalty, always acting so goddamn superior, like they owned the place - right in the middle of his penthouse. When they had arrived, Celestia and Luna had completely blocked John and Azure's view of their fifth watching of The Lion King. Azure enjoyed cartoons, and this had been the very first one John had ever picked out for him, so there was some sentimental value to the rewatching - and besides, frankly, John found the whole 'dramatic entrance' thing a bit on the rude side.

Still, they were clients, and they had bits to spare, and Azure certainly found them entertaining, so, what the hell - if pony princesses made his son squee, then he could put up with them.

At the last moment, John reasoned that pony princesses probably wouldn't be chugging straight from the bottle, so he tossed on a few bowls and glasses for good measure. Just in case. What the hell was he supposed to know about entertaining alien royalty? Trundling the cart into the vast living room, he saw Azure showing off his collection of Wonderbolts paraphernalia. The expression on the Princesses' faces was priceless. They were bored completely out of their royal skulls, desperately trying to be nice, and that was utterly fine with John - he decided to push the cart a little more slowly. It wouldn't hurt for the great Celestia to fully appreciate his son's favorite pair of Wonderbolt PJ's.

Always good to make sure the client is a little off base.

"Sorry for taking so long, your majesties, I have some liquid hospitality to offer; we have everything from fruit juices to some truly excellent wines and even some whiskey if you are so incli...."

"Human John Norris. I require your services for a matter of great importance to both Equestria and your own world. To say that this is a matter of life and death is not an exaggeration. But I require the most absolute discretion on your part. This is a matter that must be kept absolutely secret from both our worlds, a matter both private and profound."

Excellent. Secrecy always pays more, and Royal secrecy probably pays best of all. Not that John actually needed money; he was worth billions of bits, his wealth already converted into Equestrian currency - but that was not the issue. The thrill of a good deal, the satisfaction of coming out far ahead still tickled something in John. Besides, maybe he would have the chance to show his son just how he had earned his money. That kind of knowledge could only help the boy in the long run.

"Discretion, like all commodities, is available - and because you are royalty, I will give you a discount." John smiled pleasantly; inside he grinned. Looking down he could see the look of shock on his son's muzzle, he could almost hear his son scolding him for being so flippant with the Royal Princesses Of Equestria, but he could also see admiration in the little indigo pegasus's eyes. Admiration that his dad wasn't intimidated by anything.

"You are the creator of the artificial intelligences that cover your world, is this correct?" Celestia was being surprisingly direct and severe in tone tonight, not at all like her press conferences, all filled with smiles and loving looks.

John poured Azure a cup of pineapple juice and mixed it with some soda water; instant sparkling pineapple soda!

"Thanks dad!"

John shook his head at the princess. "No. I didn't create the software, I bought the company. I realized Intelligent Designs had the leading edge, and I bought them out. I got a lot of brilliant people for my investment, and they made artificial intelligence finally work. I own the basis for all artificial intelligence in the world."

"I should like to get to the point, then. Could we have some privacy, John Norris?" The princess seemed insistent. John noticed that her sister, Luna, had so far said nothing, and seemed to be uneasy for some reason.

"We are completely private, princess. I own this building; I have recently had numerous safety and security measures installed throughout it, this penthouse is my private dwelling and it is as isolated as it is possible to make it. Just a moment..." John looked up at the ceiling, high above them. "JIVES: housekeeper. Maximum security protocols. Full lockdown."

An artificial voice, deep and mellifluous, sounded from above. "Of course, John."

"I've just asked the house to seal us off. Nothing can get in or out; sensors will warn us of any approach, and we are shielded from any form of electromagnetic espionage known to Man - and I mean that. I have friends in the corporate government. Magical espionage is more your forte, you will have to take care of that. We might as well be on the moon."

The princess called Luna seemed to slightly twitch at that. John suddenly remembered what little he had learned about Equestrian history from his son's homework. Oops.

"I meant... your son, actually." Celestia seemed increasingly impatient.

"This is Azure's home, and he is my business partner. He stays."

The indigo colt looked up. "Business partner? Since when, dad? Really?"

"Since ten minutes ago when Simba was interrupted by two ponies that don't know how to knock. I want my boy to learn what I do, this is the perfect opportunity. He is my liaison to the pony world. You need my help, or you would not be here. I need my son's help, that's why he is here. Package deal." John wore his all-negotiations-are-over face. It was a formidable face.

Apparently even to a princess. "Very well, John Norris." Princess Celestia looked down at the pegasus on the couch. "And Azure Wind." Raising her head again she continued. "You are both to consider yourselves sworn to secrecy about everything I am about to relate; nothing of what I say may ever be communicated to any other being, be they Equestrian or Human for the rest of your days. No failure in this matter can be tolerated."

John always felt that princess Celestia looked just a little too sweet on the holoscreens; right now she just looked severe. It was a special kind of severe that John knew well. His father, a military man, had been able to pull off that look, and John could not help but cringe ever so slightly under it. Right now, Celestia looked like his dad, and it was a little creepy.

"Agreed. Azure, do you agree to keep Celestia's secrets with your life?"

Azure seemed more than a little intimidated. "I swear to keep princess Celestia's secrets... uh... secret, for the rest of my life, so help me... Celestia. And Luna."

John noticed a small, sly smile from the moon princess at that. Heh.

"OK, we're sworn in. So what is the problem, and what do you need from us?" John motioned for Azure to come join him on the big couch that sat in the middle of the large room. It was a sprawling leather monstrosity that predated the Collapse.

"It has been a recognized concern that the Conversion process could potentially create a new alicorn; a being like my sister and myself. The probability of this was infinitesimally small, but not impossible. This event has happened. Right now, a newfoal named Lillian Fogarty exists, somewhere in the human world, and she is an infant alicorn."

Azure let out a soft "cooool..." John considered what this meant for a moment, and why the princesses of Equestria would even be bothering him with this.

"You can't find her, can you?"

Celestia seemed mildly impressed. "That is correct, John Norris. It is absolutely imperative that she be found, as soon as possible. This is what I have come to you for. It is a vital necessity that the alicorn be found. Her power is rapidly growing and soon will be beyond her ability to control. she is a danger to both your world and mine; she will soon be capable of nothing less than the destruction of your entire species. Your own survival and the survival of your son, and all you hold dear depends on assisting me to find her."

John stood up, his mind racing. He may not have created the key to artificial intelligence himself, but this was not because he could not have; he simply did not have the temperament to be a proper programmer. He definitely had the intelligence, and then some. The situation was obvious to him.

"You don't want the world government to know there is a rogue alicorn on the loose. She's missing because she's choosing not to be found - she's running from you. You can't use the government to find her for you - even though they have eyes everywhere. Almost everywhere, not here." John pondered a bit. "You somehow know about my backdoor, don't you?"

This decidedly did impress the princess. "Comet Tail was not wrong about you. That is precisely what I want of you. I have been told that you possess a secret spell that can cause every artificial intelligence on the planet to become your spy; to relay to you all that they have seen and heard. If the alicorn is anywhere that the works of Man are, you should be able to secretly locate her. Is this not so?"

The backdoor. Once John had taken possession of Intelligent Designs, he had made sure the core AI program had a number of deliberate weaknesses known only to him. He had made several different teams of programmers each construct parts of his backdoor under the assumption that they were doing a separate project for the world government. He had taught himself just enough to be able to take their work and install it using a script. In this way he could be sure that he, and only he, had a secret key to every AI that used Intelligent Designs's core breakthrough, and that was reasonably close to almost every system on the planet.

There were two backdoors, actually. A known, universal all-purpose override and the big one, The unknown real doozy that would probably make a planetary pariah out of him if anyone ever found out. Nobody ever had; John was still alive, and that was proof by itself.

Problem was, if he ever dared to use the deep backdoor, there would be a real chance that the event would be discovered and traced, and if that happened.... well. John had a contingency for that, but it had originally involved a glass of whiskey and a gun sandwich. Dammit. He wasn't just on his own anymore; now he had a son to think about.

John desperately needed to think about this. He also desperately needed a cigarette. "Let me consider this for a moment. I need a smoke - I'll step out on the balcony for a bit, alright? Son?"

"Dad?" Azure was clearly shaken by such weighty matters, but he was holding up well, as expected. He was a good colt.

"Maybe the princesses would like to see your file of pictures and video of the Wonderbolts?" John smirked as he opened the great glass door to step out onto the balcony. Heh.

* * * * *

The bleeding body of Lillian Fogarty, alicorn, hung magically suspended in the night a meter above the tiles of a dark courtyard. Drops of crimson splattered on the tiles of the abandoned penthouse. They shone with the light that came from the next building over, another penthouse, inhabited and with power, light shining from its windows. Ripples and distortions within the very fabric of reality coruscated about Lillian's wounded flesh; powerful unearthly forces were at work.

The tiny entry hole on the right side was already beginning to close. The large exit wound on the right, with the coil of pink intestine, began to pull politely back inside of Lillian's body, allowing the torn flesh to begin to pull itself together and mend. Lillian wasn't dying at all; now she knew she could not easily die even if she tried. Her body had begun mending itself at an astonishing rate the very moment she had been shot. She had no way to know that she would heal; she had fallen victim to panic as any ordinary pony or human might do.

Being shot though, even for a biologically immortal alicorn, was not at all pleasant. It was awful!

It was also painful, and Lillian couldn't bear waiting for her body to repair itself. Without thinking, driven by the horror of her situation, she had simply... expanded. It felt like floating to the top of a swimming pool. As she approached the metaphorical air, above, her power grew, and the less she felt her body, and the more light and free she felt.

Waiting around to heal was such a foalish thing to do. Especially when the alternative was so obvious and simple!

Lillian realized that it would be so much more comfortable to just reach into the statistically larger number of potential alternate versions of reality - almost any nearby splay would do - and make a copy of the abdomen of that universe's version of her own body, then overwrite her own body with the copy, while automatically adjusting for any discrepancies between the position of cells, arteries and veins.

Briefly, Lillian's barrel and abdomen shimmered - she had taken a larger than necessary swath, just to be sure - as the perfect version of her flesh replaced the injured one. It tickled slightly as the edges matched up. The entire procedure took a tenth of a second in real time, because Lillian figured that the less she exposed her extradimensional cross-section - the one that expanded as her power expanded - to view by Celestia, the less likely the princess would be able to get a fix on her position.

She knew she had to have the self-repair event take up some real-world time or the cell walls wouldn't seal properly. She figured that a tenth of a second was sufficient, and she doubted Celestia could catch her in such a short space; the princess would be caught by surprise. Oh, the healing would be noticed; Lillian couldn't prevent that, but she seriously doubted it could be tracked. After all, Celestia had other things to pay attention to besides her.

Within the accelerated bubble of private time she had set her consciousness inside to perform the repair on her body, Lillian suddenly realized that it would be trivial to just turn her physicality sort of inside out, like inverting a stocking. If she did that, her flesh would turn to the stuff of magic itself, and she would become truly immortal and capable of any shape or form. She would be beyond all destruction entirely, because she would be beyond all physical law. That was what the princesses were, that was what Discord was, and once she had become that too, she would be completely beyond any fuss Celestia wanted to make. The sun goddess would basically just have to go and suck it, because there would be absolutely nothing she could do about the situation at that point.

Just a little twist, a little turn in that... other direction, the one perpendicular to the world. It would take no effort, no effort at all. No more pain - well unless she wanted to feel pain for some reason, who knows, eternity is a long time after all. Maybe pain would seem fun after the first eon, just as a change of pace, kind of how spicy food burns the tongue but it's fun to eat anyway. She would never have to get tired, she could never be hurt, never be trapped... well that wasn't exactly true. There were a few ways to imprison even a being made of pure magic. Magic could be crystallized, for example, and... there were a few other tricks, too.

That could be a problem, then. Celestia could get her sister to help her, and then it would be two on one, and Lillian wasn't sure she could handle that. She could end up like Discord, who she could sense, barely, behind the interface between Equestria and Mundis. She could end up crystallized. What ordinary eyes would see as being turned to stone. That would be very, very bad.

But, oh, how good this felt! It was beyond wonderful to be so intelligent, so aware! Things that had eluded her understanding were trivial to her now. Everything she had ever experienced was available to her newly perfect mind - every tiny sensation, every thought, every sight and sound. She could replay any memory at will. And she could focus on any one event, anywhere she wanted to. The temptation just to go looking with her new abilities throughout space and time alone was almost like a hunger.

But she could concentrate on only one activity... maybe two, if they were small... at a time. And that was her vulnerability. She could be distracted, caught unawares; that is how she would be undone, ultimately, if Celestia still wanted to do so. And Celestia was older and far more practiced. That was an issue. There was no denying that. Even though she now saw that her very worldline was being guided in some fashion by her higher, alicorn nature, even that was not enough. Fortuitous coincidence was not even close to being a sufficient defense against a being like Celestia. Or Luna.

Lillian still had a little more personal time left in her localized bubble of unreality. She had offset her consciousness by several thousands to one with normal spacetime; the magical tenth of a second she had created was not over yet relative to her. She spread her awareness out a little to 'see' her surroundings - her flesh was floating a meter above the courtyard where she had crashed, there was blood on the tiles marking her arrival.

She had missed the penthouse with the light on inside; instead she had landed on the next building over. Tendrils of her consciousness assured her that the building her flesh hovered over was empty. She would not be disturbed where she was by anyone. Good. She was safe.

Now, what should she do? Should she invert her existence and go fully immortal? The draw was strong, but she did fear Celestia, and there was the matter of learning to control her power. Right now, anchored by being mere flesh, just barely tapping her potential, she felt in control. But if, after conversion to pure magic, things were as different as they had been made out to be, she could end up destroying untold numbers of innocent beings entirely by accident. Even in this expanded state, Lillian cared about other living beings. Indeed she cared about them even more; they were all so terribly fragile and so desperately brief.

It was then that the realization hit her. It filled her expanded consciousness like some tiny bit of trivia, an obvious thing any supernal being would naturally know, but it hit the part of her that was just 'Lillian Fogarty from Surrey' like a punch in the muzzle.

The universe of Mundis, Earth's universe, had almost no magic at all. It had a tiny trickle, just a bit, tucked away between subatomic particles like so much forgotten pixie dust, but compared to Equestria it might as well be nothing at all. And that was a terrible, unimaginable tragedy, the most awful thing Lillian had ever realized in her entire existence. Now she fully understood why Celestia was so determined to help the poor humans, and why Equestria had bothered to invade the earth.

Humans were intelligent, fully self-aware, fully conscious, fully sapient beings. But they had been so unfortunate as to arise in a universe without any magic to speak of. Souls were only and purely magic. If anything at all in all of existence was a magical thing, a spirit, a soul, absolutely, completely was. These poor, naked apes were self aware, they understood their mortality, but they were little more than chemical machines. For this species, in this universe, dead... was dead. When the machine stopped, they stopped, and that was the end of them. Each precious one of them was an entire cosmos of dreams and thoughts and hopes and fears just by themselves, yet all were nothing more than chemicals and electricity banging around a primate skull.

Conversion turned that chemical robot into an Equestrian - that was the real reason behind powering the nanomachines of the ponification serum with the miracle of Equestrian magic. It wasn't merely to avoid conservation of mass issues, or to sidestep entropy, or to avoid generating heat. No. Ponification serum was what it was so as to infuse and transform those chemical, molecular-machine human minds with a truly living lacework of real magic, so that they, as ponies, could join the eternal herd. The true purpose of Conversion was to grace the poor ape robots with nothing less than souls.

Lillian reached out, far out, and found the group that had shot her. She bore them no ill will at all. She pitied them, those Human Liberation Front humans. She swept her expanded, magical consciousness over and through them, and found... nothing. Just molecules clicking mechanically into each other, nerves pulsing, neurotransmitters squirting across synapses. They had no thickness in the extra dimensions, no spirit duplicate of themselves flowing inside their living meat. They were self aware, but were just meat machines. It was too horrible, too awful to deal with.

Lillian snapped back to her perch just above and beyond her hovering flesh body. Those poor, poor creatures, with all their hopes and dreams and beliefs, yet they were just chemical machines from a mechanical universe, doomed to die forever. All those lost minds. All those lost selves.

If she hadn't gone to the Conversion Bureau... oh, sweet Celestia... she'd still be one of them. Even if Celestia killed her body now, she was part of the herd. In another Generation, in some guise, she could come back. She could always come back. Or, she could do... other things. If she wanted to.

It was just too cruel. Mundis, the universe that Earth was part of, was just too cruel! It was the most terrible cosmos imaginable. Just enough complexity to allow a creature to rise up and understand that it was doomed. It was beyond cruelty.

No, it was worse than cruelty; cruelty implied a being acting with malice. Mundis didn't even have a villain - a Big Bad chuckling over what it had done to the little naked apes. The true depth of the Earth's horror was that there wasn't even anyone to blame. Mundis, Earth, just was. Humans simply were, because they had risen accidentally from the thoughtless, uncaring physical laws of their mechanical universe.

The only thing more awful than being hated is not even mattering at all.

Lillian, overcome with sadness, with pity, drew herself down, back into her alicorn flesh. She shrank away from the painful, terrible knowledge, the horrible awareness of those poor, poor billions out there, all just wanting to exist. Just to exist! Such short lives, with nothing awaiting them. It was too much to bear. She could no longer face it, she did not want to see it, and if she expanded into pure magic, she would have to see it all of the time. Just like Celestia. And Luna, too.

No wonder Celestia had deliberately caused Equestria to expand into the cosmos of Man. No immortal being could permit that kind of unfairness. Yet even against such a thing, Celestia insisted that ponification be a matter of free choice. Lillian couldn't comprehend that right now. All she knew right now was how much it hurt to know the things she now knew, to understand the things she now understood. It hurt far more than the power felt good. It hurt more than the power to make dreams come true was worth.

Lillian forcefully sealed her consciousness back inside her pony body, and flattened down the part of her that stuck up into higher spaces. Like all ponies, she still had thickness, she was part of the eternal herd, and always would be, through all generations to come. Her dreams would never be lost, her personality would never be dissolved into nothing. She, was safe.

Those poor, lost billions! The countless generations lost forever before them, before the age of Conversion Bureaus. All the minds, all the people, all the humans who had ever lived. The aching empty horror was too much. But more than any horror was the sadness of it all. Lillian cared so deeply about everything, everyone, and it was just so unutterably sad and unfair.

The private bubble of time popped. Lillian slipped the ring back over her horn with simple ease. She gave the binding ring a little snap with her will, so that it slammed firmly against her skull, the velocity finishing the job after her power was sealed away.

Thankfully, the memory of what she had seen was fading. She wanted it to fade. More than ever before, she wanted to just be a simple mare of Equestria, living a simple life of love and friendship. Any lust for power she might have had was no longer there. She just wanted the nightmare to end. Lillian was crying again, the terrible truth of human life barely an echo in her mind, yet the sadness remained. Lillian was bawling like a lost and wounded child, only now, for the first time since she had begun her journey, she was not in any way crying for herself.

* * * * *

John had dropped the cigarette almost immediately. He moved to a more shadowed place, away from the glass doorway, and watched in awe as the rippling forces ran briefly down the hovering, upright shape. The wings and horn were clearly seen, even at such distance, though he had needed to blink several times to reassure himself that he was not hallucinating.

Not this time, anyway.

The alicorn - Lillian something, Lillian Fogarty, that's what the princess had said - floated down like a leaf into the courtyard of the building over. The next building over. It couldn't be chance. There was weird stuff going down right now, and it may even be over the great and powerful princess Celestia's head too. The alicorn was sitting there, hunched over, shaking. John tried to listen very, very carefully. The city was very silent at night now; with so many people either gone or gone pony, the constant drone of human machines was absent. Was that... crying? It was. John was sure of it. Faint, all the way across the gulf between the two buildings, but in the quiet night there was no mistaking it. The fearsome, dangerous, rogue alicorn was... crying.

That put a different spin on things.

Celestia had given the impression that this alicorn was some terrible threat to the world. The poor, weeping little filly over there did not seem like a dangerous rogue element to John. She seemed more like an unfortunate girl caught in a bad place.

Then again, Celestia had mentioned something about uncontrollable power destroying worlds...

To engineer a solution to a problem, one must first know the variables. John decided to find out some of those variables. Somehow he knew... he just knew that the alicorn would remain where she was. That was odd. That was very odd. But then, all of this night had been odd. As was his usual wont, John decided to just hang the sense of it and roll with things.

He quietly slipped through the glass door, back into the room.

"...and this is Spitfire doing a barrel roll! Whoo! Didja see that?" Azure was very excited. He was able to share his favorite thing with his favorite princesses! What a fantastic night! Living with his dad was AWESOME!

John could not help but quietly chuckle. Celestia was doing her best to appear interested, and Luna... Luna seemed for all the world to be... enjoying Celestia's predicament. There was some complicated crap between those two, John decided.

"One billion bits, delivered to my son when he reaches whatever the age of majority is in Equestria. Plus another billion upon delivery of the precise location of the alicorn, which I can provide to you in exactly fifteen minutes." Fifteen minutes should be enough time. Just enough to either get his bits or what he really wanted. "Oh, and one more thing, and this is not negotiable; I get to meet the alicorn and talk to her for ten minutes, in private. If this condition is fully met to my satisfaction, then I am willing to forgo the payment of the second billion bits."

Princess Celestia whirled up from the frontmost couch, the one closest to the screen. She used her wings to aid her, in an instant she was standing before him, eyes narrowed, her pupils small. Still, her voice was soft. It was very controlled. "Have you found her?"

"I can find her, I can tell you exactly where she is. To the meter. But first, I need to know some information. I cannot find what I do not understand. AI systems don't see the world the way organic beings do, princess. They scan and probe on frequencies and wavelengths nothing like how we, or at least I, see the world. I need to know what they have to look for, and it can't be as simple as 'look for a pony with a horn and wings'. It doesn't work that way." John tried his best to present his 'Helpful Knowledgeable Guy' persona. Inside his heart beat fast; he was lying to magical beings here, and he did not know how much they knew, or could know.

But it was pretty damn clear they couldn't sense the proximity of their target just across the street! That little factoid alone was information the world government would kill for. Good thing he was sworn to secrecy then; he might have been tempted to sell it to them.

Celestia eyed John. It was clear she wasn't buying everything he was saying. Worse, she hadn't complained about his outrageous price - that was a very ominous sign. A client that had no issue with price either didn't intend to pay, or had not been given a price high enough; either situation meant some kind of regret was going to be his. "What, exactly, do you need to know?"

John's mind already had the vague notion of a scheme for his own ends. In his life he had made money the old fashioned way - immorally and unethically. But there was one thing he couldn't overlook, ignore, or let slide - a child crying. That alicorn was no rogue monster; she was a little gray filly, obviously in over her head. Celestia had stated that she was a newfoal; she probably knew nothing about why she was being hunted by the princess. Newfoals, by and large, didn't know crap.

"What makes an alicorn different from a unicorn or a pegasus? They certainly look like both sewn together, but it has to be more than that. I need to know the real difference. No AI could possibly work with something so vague." That was a blatant lie. It would be trivial to tell all the artificial intelligences in the world to look for a pony with both wings and a horn. It was a simple AND operation. Even John could write that, all by himself.

Celestia looked doubtful, for a brief moment, then brightened. "Understand that it is my prerogative to erase what parts of your memory of this night I deem necessary."

John already expected this. "Agreed - but only after this situation is resolved, and not before. That is my condition."

"Very well." Celestia was too easy to negotiate with, and that bothered John. "The difference between an established alicorn and a pony is not something that any machine on your world could ever perceive. Fortunately, we are still after an infant alicorn, before she has achieved her true form. The thing that makes her different, besides having wings and horn, is her carbuncle."

Carbuncle. Wasn't that some kind of terrible skin condition? Or maybe it was a jewel. John had heard the word before. "Explain this carbuncle in detail. Leave nothing out. What is it, where is it, and what does it do? I have to understand it to find it."

"In a normal unicorn, the horn channels the magic they use. There is little else to this; an extension of their brain underlies the horn and directs it. But an alicorn is different." Celestia began to pace the room as she spoke, her glowing mane of light rippling in literally unearthly winds. "Under the horn of an alicorn, an infant alicorn, one still flesh and blood as you know them, lays a unique organ. It is bright red and at first quite soft, like a tiny heart."

Celestia stopped and looked levelly at John. "That is the carbuncle; it is magic made flesh. Over time, as the alicorn grows into her power, the carbuncle crystallizes. It becomes more and more dense, and more and more solid. In time it resembles a great ruby. When the stone is complete, when the last of the carbuncle has become solid and perfect, a change begins. The material world cannot tolerate the contradiction; magic is change and motion and life, and the crystallized carbuncle is magic made solid, frozen, unchanging and unalive, and the paradox pushes the alicorn entirely beyond reality as you know it. The alicorn becomes living magic itself. Like me."

And with that, Celestia was no longer a great pony with wings, crown, horn and shining hooves. She was entirely like her flowing, immaterial mane. In front of John flowed an impossible living splotch of light, pulsing and rippling in shades of violet, sea green, teal, and blue. A palpable superintelligence, ancient and alien, inhabited the chromatic region, powerful beyond all comprehension. He felt as if he might be swept up into the endless, sapient field of color. It felt as if he were staring up into a terrifyingly infinite sky, one into which he could tumble at any moment, unbound by gravity, to spin forever in helpless, perpetual freefall.

John bent forward and clutched his head, his hands over his eyes. But Celestia wanted to make a point, and his action had made no difference. She was still there, visible, overwhelming, whether his eyes were open or not. "OK! OK! Enough! Celestia! Enough!"

John pulled his hands down. He was shaking. The pony princess stood in front of him, her usual, pony princess self. "Can you find the alicorn now, John Norris?"

John controlled his breathing, as best he could. His heart was pounding. He looked over at his son, still on the forward couch with princess Luna. "You OK, sport?"

"Uh... yeah? Dad? Are you... alright?" Azure didn't seem like he had experienced the same moment at all. That was probably for the best, John reflected. Yeah, definitely for the best.

"Oh, just great, son. Listen, you be nice to Auntie Luna, alright?" This got a startled look out of the moon princess, which distinctly helped regain John's personal bravado.

John turned back to princess Celestia. "No. I can't. Not yet." John was entering dangerous waters now, but what the hey. Shoot the rapids. "What happens if this carbuncle is damaged or removed?"

Celestia wore a strange expression. "Why do you need to know that?"

"Machine intelligence cannot make small distinctions. Either a thing is, or is isn't, if I don't account for a set of possible intermediate states, I could get nothing back even if the alicorn was staring the damn thing right in the sensor." That too was a blatant lie; the whole point of artificial intelligence was to get around just that, to make decisions like a human might.

"If the carbuncle was removed or damaged, the alicorn would temporarily lose her powers, but would simply regrow the organ. Do you imagine that she may have bumped her head?" Celestia may have been mocking John, it was hard to tell. Her voice was always so calm and pleasant, and filled with gentle humor. It kind of annoyed him.

Now it was time to go for the kill. The big question. Oh well, what the hell. "Can anything interfere with that? Any material, any radiation or nanotechnology or anything at all - would anything stop the organ from regrowing, or block it?"

"Well, if it didn't have room to reappear, it would have to stop growing because the carbuncle serves the alicorn not the..." Celestia stared at John for quite a while. "I think school is over, John. Please find me my alicorn now."

One thing John understood was the art of the deal, and when negotiations were over. He was very good at such things. "Of course, princess. I believe I can find your alicorn for you now. You have been very helpful and very indulgent. Thank you for your kind assistance." This was absolutely 'Pleased To Be Of Service' time.

John stood up, and smiled broadly at Princess Celestia. Behind her was the large glass door that led to the penthouse balcony. As he had expected, the weeping figure, a pale gray speck against the dim smoggy sky was still there, across the street, exactly where she had been before. She was probably still crying.

"Well?" Celestia was kind of funny when she was impatient. John was enjoying the struggle inside her to remain sweet and calm, and soft of voice, when surely, she must be fairly annoyed by now. In this moment, he, John Norris, held all the power over the regent of an entire universe - he had what she wanted and no price was apparently too high. He could just grin at her - but not too long. No, not too long. Still, one of the benefits of the job. He'd have to tell Azure about it later. Much later.

"Directly behind you, across the street, about sixteen meters, same altitude." It was all John could do not to burst out laughing.

11. Doctor My Eyes

The
CONVERSION
►Bureau

CODE MAJESTE

By Chatoyance
The characters of John Norris and Azure Wind from An Azure Future are used with the permission of Krass McWriter

Doctor My Eyes

Celestia had done... something to John Norris's vault. She had insisted - despite John's assurances that nothing could possibly enter or exit the high security chamber. Apparently there were 'other directions' beyond the ones that were known to Man, and these had to be sealed off if John were to have his ten minutes with the small, gray pretender to the throne.

John had carefully put up a small fuss; in reality he relished the thought of free additional protection for his three billion, four hundred million Equestrian bits, all stacked in neat piles or packaged in tidy crates. It had once crossed his mind to simply spread the tiny, featureless golden coins out as one mass and swim through them. The Scrooge McDuck moment had passed quickly, but it had still made him briefly smile.

There were other items besides otherworldly coins in his private security vault. Assorted relics from the history of his family, a few not entirely legal treasures that should, rightfully, exist not in private hands but in a museum, and his father's small but rather excellent gun collection. One corner held a chest that had once belonged to an ancestor taken by the sea, back when the oceans lived and men sailed upon it. The elaborate chest itself was a fortune, even had it not held the priceless relics of a less than savory member of a more adventurous time. The chest was buried under a mass of ancient netting and glass ball fishing floats that still smelled of salt. For all John knew, they might have been used for the very last catch, before the end of fish.

John's vault held many treasures and wonders besides Equestrian bits; now it held perhaps the strangest rarity of all: the accidental alicorn who had once been Lillian Fogarty of Surrey, Northamerizone.

Celestia had been less than happy at John's wish to speak with the alicorn. She had reminded him of her prerogative to erase the memories of all involved, especially him. That whatever he expected to learn could not be retained, and that all he could possibly do would be to prolong the inevitable. She thought him cruel for his demand, but he had insisted, arguing that the alicorn had become his client as well. She had turned to him and begged for his help when she had been transported, in a burst of arcane light, to the center of his large living space. He had instantly agreed to represent her, and demanded full rights to do so on the spot.

In the end, it was Celestia's regal sister, Luna that had intervened; she had insisted that because the alicorn was a newfoal, it was proper that she have council from her own world. Luna reminded her sister that she had agreed to the condition. Celestia, ever devoted to Order and Law, ever driven to keep her promises no matter what, was forced to accede on that ground alone.

Besides, Luna argued, as long as the vault were secured properly in the higher spaces, even should her ring be removed, Lillian could not escape before action could be taken. The alicorn had been caught, and the chase was now over.

Celestia had seemed sad, though. She seemed regretful about the entire situation, and remained convinced that any delay would only cause needless suffering. But in the end, despite all risks, she allowed the private meeting. Thus it was that John Norris now found himself inside his vault, facing the back of a softly whimpering gray alicorn, with ten minutes - to the second - allotted to speak with her, in private.

"Lillian. My name is John Norris. I am here to try to help you. We have only ten minutes, and I do not know what the hell I am doing, and I have no idea whether the plan inside my head is brilliant or just fucking insane. But I do have an idea, and if you want, we can try it. In any case, in..." John checked his watch; he was old fashioned and had not had a permatech timepiece installed into the flesh of his forearm "...nine minutes and twenty...two seconds, that door is going to open and Celestia is going to do something about you, and according to the rumors I have heard, it probably isn't pleasant."

The alicorn turned her head back and looked at her hooves. Her ears drooped. "I do not want the living death of being crystallized, John. I would rather die than have that happen. It would probably actually be better if I died; being turned to stone is not as permanent as Celestia would like to believe. It can fail sometimes, and whatever is done with me, it needs to be permanent. I truly am the threat to both worlds that Celestia has probably claimed to you."

John was in the back of his vault, rummaging for the items he required. "She... um... described you as a threat... to both worlds. She said you could melt the sky and destroy all human and ponykind." The key wasn't working on the locked cabinet at all. Fortunately the cabinet was old and it never did lock effectively; one more reason it was in the vault, far from his son, Azure. John gave the thing a kick; the ancient plastic and metal door popped open.

"I'm afraid it's true. Without this ring, I could easily become a threat worse than Discord."

"Who?" John couldn't keep up with all the pony stuff his son brought home from school. The history of one planet was bad enough, two was just gilding the chronological lily.

"Think of me as a living, hypernuclear bomb. That is what I am. The ring on my horn might as well be the fuse."

John looked desperately around; he needed something small, but not too small, and it had to be smooth, and biologically neutral. "Hmmm... more like a nuclear grenade, then. Pull the ring and give you a toss, is that it?"

Lillian laughed. It was actually a sweet sound, despite the terrible situation. "Yup, that's me. Only when I blow up, all sides lose." Lillian's voice changed; it was no longer jovial. "John, I'm scared."

"So am I, Lillian. So am I. Celestia's going to have me gelded however this turns out. I'm really going to miss my balls; we've been really close for years." This made the alicorn laugh again, which was nice. John checked his watch: seven minutes and thirty-six seconds. Balls. Balls! "Ah!"

John took some of the spherical, hollow glass floats from the ancient fishing net piled over the old trunk. Glass was just silicon; it was mostly neutral, it was smooth, and the floats came in a multitude of sizes. John picked out several of the smallest ones, and made his way back.

By some unearthly luck, Lillian the alicorn still sat with her back to him, facing away. Currently she was playing with her hooves, as if she were trying to memorize what it felt like to be able to move them.

"Lillian... I need you to trust me. And to answer a few questions for me. We have to work fast, we don't have a lot of time left. It would be better if you... um... didn't turn around either, okay?" John tried to load the cartridges as quietly as he could, but there was no avoiding the loud clack. "You can't die, right? That's why Celestia plans on turning you to stone?"

"Before I landed on that building, I was shot by some humans. They blew out my side. But it healed. Actually, I made it heal in an instant. But it would have healed on its own. I could be blown to pieces and the bits would crawl or teleport back and form me again. No, I cannot be killed." Lillian hung her head very low; there was no escape for her, not even death.

"You're sure of that, really sure of that?" John had the sawed-off shotgun ready. He placed it at his feet, where he was crouching. He carefully set the glass floats on some nearby stacks of bits. The curious hollow sound of them caused Lillian to instinctively turn to see. She stared at the hollow, clear spheres.

"John, what on earth are you up to?" Lillian goggled at the floats. She had no idea what they were. Fishing had ended long before she had been born. "What are these for? They're kind of pretty." And they were, like big glass soap bubbles, shimmering in the vault lights. Lillian turned her head back, again staring at her hooves.

Five minutes, sixteen seconds. "Listen, Lillian - I managed to learn something from Celestia. I kind of tricked it out of her. There's this thing inside your head, she called it a carbuncle. It's what makes you an alicorn. It's the problem here. If you didn't have it, you would be a normal pony." John put a hand on Lillian's back, feeling her soft, warm coat. He brushed it gently, trying to comfort her. "You can't die, you just grow back. So does the carbuncle. Eventually the carbuncle undergoes a change, and then you do too, and when that happens..."

"I will become like Celestia, John." A tear rolled down Lillian's cheek. "Only I won't be able to control my power. With a single accidental thought, I might destroy the world. Both worlds. I understand why Celestia has to do what she is doing. I really do."

"I learned that if something blocks the space the carbuncle needs, it won't grow back." John waited just a moment for that to sink in. In that moment, he noticed something that surprised him very much indeed. The glass floats were doing just that; floating, just above the stack of Equestrian coins! The transparent spheres were bobbing about as if they were immersed in some invisible sea. There was no glow around them, as would be the case if a unicorn were levitating them. They simply hung in the air the way that ordinary objects never did.

"Are you doing that, Lillian?" John gave one of the floats an experimental poke with his finger. It felt like prodding a wobbly superconductor hovering over a magnetic plate.

Lillian turned her head to look towards John, but noticed the glass balls immediately. "No. Not consciously, anyway." She thought for a moment. "My ring feels warm. On my forehead. Would you check it?" The alicorn sounded even more frightened.

John moved Lillian's cornsilk mane away with one hand and looked at the base of her horn. The silver ring appeared strangely rusted, as though it were not silver, but ancient iron. John brought his other hand in to touch the ring, then thought better of it and pulled his hand back. "The ring is... it's not good. It looks like it's disintegrating. Slowly, but... it's falling apart." Grains of corrupted metal were flaking off as John watched. It was starting to look like a stomach tablet dissolving in water. "I don't think we have..." John checked his watch again "...five minutes and twenty-two seconds. Your fuse is going to go off before that, I think."

Lillian turned her head suddenly and forcefully away. She stared straight ahead, her back rigid. "John, do whatever it is you think you can do. You can't kill me, and right now I don't care if you hurt me. If there is any chance at all to save me, do it. Otherwise, get Celestia in here immediately. I need to... not think of anything, anything at all. Hurry!"

John picked up the shotgun. It was an old, shiny, black Benelli Super Vinci comfortech - 12-gauge, top of the line. Shame his old man had sawed the damn thing off. Unaltered, it would have been considered a masterpiece. Then again, for what John needed it for, it was just right. As Benelli had once advertised itself, the weapon was... perfect. "Lillian, I'm not a surgeon, but then we couldn't take you to a hospital or a veterinarian or whatever in any case so...."

"Shh." Lillian was clearly struggling. More objects in the vault were now hanging in space. A cloud of bits was orbiting each other like some vastly complex alien star-system, or a magical orrery. That such marvelous synchronization could occur from the alicorn's unconscious, all while behind her and absent from her vision, was both wondrous and somewhat terrifying. "Just do it. Quickly!"

The ring on Lillian's head was glowing red now, like melting metal. It made hissing and squeaking noises as the thaumatically imbued silver strained against the titanic forces opposing it. There was no time for niceties any more.

John didn't like guns; that was his old man's thing. If he could solve something without a gun, John would always choose just that. He never carried - it was insulting to him to feel that he could not think his way out of any predicament, rather than having to resort to force.

But that did not mean he could not use a gun. His military father had insisted on that, and there was no practical way to tell the gruff man 'no' on much of anything. John quickly inserted the earplugs he had taken into his ears. Lillian... she wouldn't need earplugs.

Four minutes, three seconds. But the ring on Lillian's head looked like things could go tits-up at any moment. John briefly wondered what being destroyed by a mad god would be like. Not fun, he decided.

There was nothing for it. John raised the Benelli and aimed it at the back of Lillian's head. Right between her ears, slightly lower down, where the base of her horn would be, on the other side. He angled the short barrel to roughly level. Suddenly he thought more clearly, and quickly sat, tailor-fashion on the floor, bracing himself. He didn't want to end up ass-over-teakettle from the kickback.

John steeled himself and re-aimed. The ring was sending up sparks, now; it must be burning the poor filly. Lillian let out a soft gasp. There was no other option but Celestia's living death in stone. There probably wasn't time enough even for that, at this point.

A single tear rolled down John Norris's cheek. He pulled the trigger.

Lillian's body did not slump over. It just remained there, the top of the head missing from the level of the jawline up. What had once been the upper three-quarters of her skull was somewhere behind the largest stack of coins, the ones in crates. It had hit the wall, that was very, horrifically obvious; there was a trail where the meat of it had slid down the wall of the vault, behind the crates. John was glad he didn't have to see the remains.

The instant he had pulled the trigger, the orrery of coins had fallen, likewise the floating glass balls had dropped back to the stacks of coins. Even with the earplugs his ears rang; the confines of the sealed vault had exacerbated the volume of the shotgun.

Something caught John's eye. Just as he had expected, the torn edges of what was left of Lillian's skull were pulsing and rising. John carefully rose to one knee, placing the gun on the floor after adjusting the safety. What was left of the alicorn's head looked like a shallow punchbowl filled with cherries jubilee, only the edges of the punchbowl were growing. The red mass inside was expanding in volume.

Lillian was growing back. She was doing so very rapidly.

Within a matter of seconds, John saw the beginnings of her eyes swelling out of the red muck, expanding to fill the boney sockets rising like curving fortress walls as he watched. It was like observing ice melting in reverse, only sped up. Already, half of the missing top of Lillian's head had grown back! It would take less than two minutes for her entire skull to be restored.

Lillian would be whole again three minutes and three seconds before the vault was opened. At that moment, the world would likely end, and both pony goddesses would be seriously pissed at the memory of him. John looked away from his old watch to the glass fishing floats. He selected two, one about the size of an apricot, the other about the size of an apple. He wasn't sure exactly when he should do this. The carbuncle would probably be the last thing to form, since it would be nearest the top, according to Celestia, and right under the horn.

Lillian's eyes were now complete. They were staring straight ahead, as if focused on infinity itself. They looked cold and filled with some unearthly, arcane wisdom beyond human understanding. John felt a chill run down his spine, and the little hairs on the back of his neck stood up. Those were the eyes of some elder god, some power from beyond time, and above space. John moved back, so he would not have to stare into the eyes of a superior, unearthly intelligence.

Lillian's head now resembled a jack-o-lantern, the hole at the top filling in. The reconstruction had not yet reached where her horn would be, though part of her ears was just starting to form. Now. Now was the time.

John selected the larger globe and thrust it in. He pushed down gingerly into the red and gray muck bubbling and squirming inside the regenerating skull. The muck grew up and over the glass sphere. Dammit, he had placed it too deeply.

The hole in Lillian's skull was growing smaller. Her ears grew out like leaves unfolding in a fast-motion nature show. John began to see the beginning of a boney plate forming, one that could support her horn. He jammed the second, smaller glass float into the skull, but did not push it down. Gray and pink material surrounded it almost instantly. He had to struggle to get his hand out; if the edges of the bone had not been so slippery and soft, he might well have found himself a conjoined not-twin.

There was nothing to do now but wait and hope. Lillian's skull continued to close. When it had finally sealed completely, her coat sprang up to cover her naked pate in soft gray. Finally, her yellow mane spooled out in cornsilk splendor. John struggled up, the better to see if her horn would grow back. If it did, all would be lost. There was no binding ring anymore, and he did not know if he had time to open the vault to call for Celestia before Lillian woke up.

John felt the top of Lillian's now restored head. It was flat. It was mercifully flat. Flat as the skull of an earth pony, flat as any normal pegasus. There was no sign of a horn. No sign at all. Not the slightest bump.

John slumped down, against the vault door. He removed his earplugs and cast them aside. His ears itched. They always itched from those damn earplugs. John used a finger and waggled it inside his ear canal. Ah... that was better.

The time. What was the...

The vault door opened suddenly, glowing with golden light. John fell onto his back, and his head hit the floor with a smack. Ow. He found himself staring up into the eyes and muzzle of Celestia, who looked at him quizzically.

"Celestia!" John nearly shouted. "Stop! Lillian isn't an alicorn anymore! She is no threat to anyone! Honestly! Look for yourself!" John didn't have a freaking clue if this was actually true, but he'd be damned - after using a shotgun on a helpless filly - if he would allow her less than a decent chance at her new life.

Celestia stared for some time at the quiet gray pegasus in the vault. John, still on his back, stared up at the underside of Celestia's long, white neck. He could see the wide, gold necklace - or was it armor? - around the base, a violet gem ensconced in the middle. On either side of his ears were heavy, gold-shod hooves. Celestia was huge, standing larger than John - and John was a tall man - but from the level of the floor, she looked like a giant.

Suddenly, John worried that she might get forgetful and step on him. He decided to roll to the side and stand up.

When John was on his feet again, he found Celestia had not moved. Luna was by her side, and both were carefully studying the new pegasus. John felt a tickle inside himself, somewhere. He suspected that the princesses were examining the pegasus with more than just their eyes. He had felt that tickle before, when he had visited the proximity of the Equestrian barrier. It was the burning tickle of thaumatic radiation.

"Dad?" Azure was peeking around the corner into the hallway that led to the vault. "Are you OK? Is the alicorn going to be OK? What's going on?" The indigo colt started to approach, but John held up his hand. "Dad?"

"My little pony..." Celestia addressed the apparent pegasus "Do you..."

The gray pegasus tried to stand up and turn around at the same time. Her forelegs managed to knock over several carefully stacked piles of coins, which tumbled to the floor of the vault with a musical clatter. Her hind legs accidentally kicked over three more stacks, which set off a chain reaction of musical clinking and clattering. John realized with some discomfort that he might have his Scrooge McDuck moment after all.

Finally the gray and yellow pegasus stood facing Celestia, Luna, and John. And Azure too, who had crept up beside his father. John looked into the vault and shrugged. Hopefully his son wouldn't notice the red, slick splotch on the far wall.

The pegasus tried to buck with innocent excitement, but instead managed to knock over a crate. As the crate spilled its contents on the floor of the vault, the little winged filly settled down and looked sad. "Sorry." Her voice was different, her apology faintly slurred.

Suddenly, she brightened. "Hello! Who are you? Can we be friends?" As John watched, one eye drifted downwards while the other remained fixed on Celestia. The rogue eye seemed to focus on Azure. The filly giggled. "You're big! and you're blue!" She giggled again. Apparently she was referring to Celestia and Azure at the same time. She tried to take a step forward, but her hooves slipped on the loose coins and she landed on her rump with a thud. "Ow! Oopsies!" This caused another round of giggles. Her eyes rolled and finally settled, each focused in a different direction.

Azure looked up at his father. "She's... She's kind of derpy now, dad."

John started to reprimand his son for his rude, but accurate, observation when Luna suddenly spoke up.

"She is indeed Derpy! We know this filly! We knoweth her from Nightmare Night of last year in Equestria! This cannot be! Sister, thou knowest thy subjects well, is this one not already known to thee?"

The little yellow maned pegasus stared suddenly, with both eyes focused, on princess Luna. She tilted her head, as if trying to remember a long lost dream. "Muffin?" she asked.

"This is beyond even me, my sister. I know this pegasus well. This is the one named Derpalina Ditzy Doo Hooves of Ponyville. I have known her for many years; she is a native child of Equestria, or so I have always believed." Celestia was nothing less than astonished. John reflected that it was not often a man got the chance to see a living goddess being astonished.

"I met her great grandmare in earlier times, before the founding of Ponyville. And her great, great, great grandmare in the days of Middle Canterlot. All of her kin looked the identical image of her, with eyes unbound and hair of soft yellow. And all bore the same unique cutie mark; a cluster of bubbles on the flank." Celestia's eyes were wide, yet her pupils were small. This was something beyond even the ruler of an entire cosmos. "Yet as I encompass her, there is no doubt. This is indeed our own little Derpy Hooves. I do not know how she can be here, and yet have lived her life in Equestria. I must know..."

Celestia raised her horn high, and a bright, shining glow emanated from it. "Derpy is not in Equestria. She is here. What was once the newfoal alicorn of our pursuit is suddenly now a pony we have always known. This is truly her, and she is... here."

Suddenly, John found himself the object of Celestia's attentions. "You have overstepped our agreement, John Norris! I should have expected such treachery from a human. Understand something! I have no idea what you have done with your violent effort to save this one, and if that does not utterly terrify you, I assure you it should." The look in Celestia's eyes made John feel very afraid indeed, but not for himself. He could tell she meant him no harm. Rather, he could see concern, even fear in those great eyes - something was going on, something cosmic, that was beyond the scope of a cosmic entity. John felt the way he had when long ago, in his childhood, he had climbed to the top of a ruined building only to find he had no idea how to get down again.

"Is princess Celestia mad at you?" Azure was worried for his father.

"I... don't know, son." John sat down in the hallway, his back to the wall. He put a hand on his son's withers, just above the wings. "I'm not sure what is going on."

The newly formed pegasus stepped forward and walked past Celestia and Luna to stop in front of John and Azure. "Hello!" She said. "There was... uhh... something I wanted to tell you!" Lillian... no, this wasn't exactly Lillian anymore... Luna and Celestia had called her Derpy. The pegasus's eyes rolled in her head as she tried to remember. "Oh!" She said suddenly. She leaned forward, her muzzle close to John's ear. She spoke softly to him, in a very faint whisper for a while. John's eyes grew wide and fearful. "WAIT!" she suddenly shouted.

John cradled his ear, the shout next to his ear had hurt quite a bit.

Derpy giggled and turned to Celestia. "I FORGOT!"

Celestia studied Derpy, puzzled. Moments passed. Finally the little pegasus spoke again.

"What I was gonna SAY!" Giggles. "Oops!"

Celestia laughed at this. "Very well, little one. Whatever has happened here tonight, I am convinced that all danger has passed. In time, I may find a way to unravel this strange and curious matter, but for now, let us get you..."

A cry came from the vault. It sounded like a baby.

All eyes, fixed and unfixed, turned to stare into John's vault. The crying continued, louder now.

Luna stepped forward into the vault, glancing back briefly at her sister. Some time passed, and the crunchy sound of hooves on coins was heard. Then a gasp. More crying and then more crunching.

When Luna returned from the vault, John saw that she had a tiny foal suspended in her magical grasp. She set the tiny infant down on the floor. It was a newborn foal. A newborn unicorn.

The infant was incredibly small, pale purple-gray, but with an unmistakable cornsilk mane and tail. "Dinky." Said Celestia, once again in astonishment. "Dinky Doo Hooves!"

"What?" Asked John. "What is going on? If I am the cause of this, at least let me know what 'this' IS!"

The pegasus now known as Derpy Ditzy Doo Doo Dingle Dongle - whatever, John thought - raced over to the tiny newborn. "Muffin!" She cooed. "My little Muffin!" The gray pegasus began comforting the crying foal; instantly it stopped crying. Soon it was smiling and giggling, along with its... mother. That's all she could be. It wasn't just because she was acting like the tiny unicorn's mother, no, it was more than that, John realized.

That infant unicorn had literally budded off from her parent's body. Alicorns were immortal, they could heal, even if they were reduced to bits. Dinky, if that was her name, had been born from the top of Lillian's skull. The part with the horn.

Stories of ancient Greek and Roman myths spun through John's mind. Aphrodite, Chronos, Zeus... children of the gods born from their foreheads or from body parts tossed into the sea. Suddenly those ancient, strange stories seemed vastly more possible to John. What wonders had touched the earth, if only briefly, before Equestria arose from the sea? Had other worlds bumped into earth in ages past?

Little Dinky Doo Hooves had been born from the forehead of her mother. Her mother, who had once been a goddess.

Eventually, John found himself in his living room once more, seated next to his son, Azure. Luna had transported the new pegasus and her daughter directly to Equestria. Celestia stood, horn glowing, scanning, for some time. Eventually she had seemed satisfied. Whatever had happened was truly and completely over now.

"John Norris." Uh oh. This was spankin' time. John was expecting a big ass whooping, and he couldn't say he didn't exactly deserve it. However, he didn't regret a thing. Maybe she wasn't exactly the same Lillian Fogarty from Surrey that he had first met in that vault, but she had gotten her wish - to live as a simple mare in Equestria. And he knew, beyond any doubt, that enough of her had survived to enjoy her new life. But he would never tell Celestia how he knew. Not ever.

"You asked to speak with my subject alone, and you used that boon to take dangerous action without my consent or blessing. It is true that you spared an innocent life, and that is duly noted. But if you had been wrong in your arrogance, you would have destroyed two worlds, and potentially condemned every life within them to a nightmare of chaos - or even oblivion. Do you fully grasp the terrible chance you took with the lives of every living thing?" Not even his old man could make him feel as small as Celestia now did. John's ass just wanted to dig into the couch like a mole, and keep digging until it had made it to the center of the earth where it could finally commit seppuku out of infinite shame.

John could only swallow. He didn't have what it took to cry. He wanted to, he just didn't have enough personal power for it.

Celestia stared at him for some time. Each second of that look drilled into John's soul like a rocket barrage; he had no armor left by the time the gaze softened.

Finally, he found something squeaky that resembled his voice. "I'm... sorry." John swallowed once more. "I won't ever do it again." Of course he wouldn't; a random alicorn was a once-in-forever event. But the real meaning was clear enough.

"Good." Celestia gave him one last glance to make sure the lesson sank in. His old man would do the same damn thing, John reflected. "Now, about your payment."

What the hell? He was still getting paid? Celestia was an odd duck. "W-What?" John was still having vocal problems.

"You did perform a service to the crown... though I think that your absurd price is something that a wise pony would immediately give up any expectation of."

John nodded. Still being alive after screwing around with the plans of goddesses was a pretty good paycheck right there. That said, John didn't get three billion in the vault by eschewing a chance to make a profit. Some of his old self began to rise again inside him. "Princess... I don't expect billions of bits. I'm sorry for that. But... there is something that..." John turned to his son. "Azure! Would you go downstairs and get me a Chromacola? You know, the machine I had installed in the lobby? I'm really thirsty. Right now! Please."

"But daaad..." Azure didn't want to miss out on any awesome princess time.

"Now, son. Quick. Please."

Azure grumbled away. When the elevator doors closed, John turned to Celestia again.

"My son's birthday is coming up. He's had a rough life, and I try to be a good father, but... I want to do something really special for him. Something that will impress his friends at school, something that might help him have friends and..."

Celestia smiled. "Let me guess. You can't find a way to contact the Wonderbolts?"

* * * * *

Derpalina Ditzy Doo Hooves was having a particularly good day. It had been many months now since... whatever had happened had... happened. For a while, she had gotten to stay with the princesses in Canterlot! Her little foal Dinky had run the marble halls and they had enjoyed a fine time. It was very nice of the nice princesses to have them over.

During the stay at the castle, Derpy had been asked many strange things that she couldn't answer, and shown strange pictures that didn't make sense. The nice Princesses seemed to think that she had relatives that she couldn't remember. Maternal ancestors that all looked exactly like her, even down to her unique cutie mark. She didn't remember having a grandmare who had lived in Canterlot before Ponyville had been settled, and who had somehow helped save the settlers during the great timberwolf incident. She definitely didn't remember anything about a great, great, great grandmare who had somehow been partially responsible for the peace pact with the dragons in the days of Middle Canterlot! And there were other ancestors too! One had even lived back during the very first years after the defeat of Discord. Always they had been around some super important event, unlike her.

But that was okay. Derpy liked her quiet, gentle life very much. She had everything she could ever want. Her house, her little Muffin, and all her friends, which was the whole town! Everypony liked Derpy! The princesses said so!

Derpy kept trying to remember to invite the princesses over to her own home, to return the kindness, but she kept forgetting. She forgot a lot of things all of the time, and sometimes it made otherponies upset with her. But it was alright. She still had lots of friends, and she knew she was an important part of the community.

After all, she got to do more different jobs than any other pony! Sometimes she got to help Bruiser move things with his moving company. Other times she helped out in construction. During holidays, she helped out when they needed more mailmares to deliver packages! And she always got to go fetch the Southern birds at Winter Wrap Up. The princess had told her that she was a Special Case, and that she would always be hired wherever she asked. It was a royal decree!

Of course, once she was hired, it always happened that she did such a very, very good job that pretty soon the job was all done and she would have to move on to a new job. Still, it was good to feel so helpful! Even if a lot of things tended to get broken or lost all the time, and someponies got upset sometimes.

The princesses made sure that Derpy always had a little money no matter what. It was a special dispen... dispanse... it was a prize for something she had done once that had helped them. Or something. There was always food in her house, and her house was always warm. And best of all, she had lots and lots of time with her beloved little muffin, Dinky! They would make cakes and oatmeal cookies and sing songs and have lots of fun almost every day. Derpy loved her life very much.

But occasionally, things would get even better! That's when her very special friend came to town. Some called him 'Time Turner'. He liked to just be called 'The Doctor' - but Derpalina had never seen him anywhere near the place where the medical unicorns worked. Derpy loved her special friend very much. He was always so nice to little Dinky, and they had such fun together. She could tell when he was coming because of the sound. The sound came and then the fun began again.

Derpy was galloping now, because she had heard the sound! The strange wheezing, scraping sound, like a key dragged slowly across the string inside a piano. She wanted to greet her special friend. He must be back!

Derpy ran down the lane, towards her house. Her special friend always showed up near there. He said it was because it was a special place... or was it because she was special? She couldn't remember. She did forget a lot of things. But it didn't matter, because nopony cared. She felt loved, and that was all that mattered.

Her little muffin was in school. That was sad, because little Dinky liked meeting their special friend. But maybe he would stay for dinner. Sometimes he did. When they got back. Sometimes the Doctor would take her places, and they would do... stuff. Fun stuff. Sometimes scary stuff. Derpy couldn't remember what it was, but it was really fun, she knew that much.

Derpy rounded the grove of trees at the end of the lane. There was her house! If he was here, he would be in back as usual. That was where he set his tiny little shed. He had a really nice shed. It was small and blue and had little windows. There was a light on top and signs that said 'PONY herd call BOX'. It looked very small, but once you went inside it was really, really big inside, and had all kinds of buttons and switches to play with!

Derpy rounded the house. The shed! It was here! Today was sure to be an especially fun day!

She fluttered her wings to reach the shed. The little door on the front opened, and her special friend ambled out. He was a soft, light brown, with a messy mane and tail, a collar and tie, and a little hour-glass for a cutie mark.

Yes, today was going to be a really fun day.

* * * * *

Azure was finally in bed. It had taken forever to get the little indigo pegasus calmed down enough to get him into his Wonderbolt PJs; even longer to get him settled enough to attempt sleep. It had been an exciting evening for the colt, filled with princesses and... something... strange that neither of them could remember. And then, somehow, a pegasus filly and her newborn foal had just appeared in John's vault.

Oh yes... it was coming back to him. The Princesses had explained it. The little foal was a unicorn. Sometimes baby unicorns experienced brief moments of astonishing magical power. It was uncommon, but it happened. The little unicorn had teleported her mother and herself during the act of birth. The teleport was random, of course, because what could a newborn know of the world? They had ended up by chance in John's vault.

That was why there was blood in the corner...and on... the wall. It was a messy birth. That was it. John would need to get the mess cleaned up. Tomorrow. John felt very tired.

There was something else, too. The little pegasus mom. She was quite a klutz, as John remembered. Funny eyes. John remembered thinking she was probably retarded. That was new; he didn't think that could even happen to Equestrians. It was probably very, very rare indeed.

She had leaned close to him. He recalled that clearly. She had come close... and whispered something in his ear. It was as if, just for a moment, she had possessed the wisdom of the ages. It was the damnedest thing.

What exactly had she told him? John tried to remember... it was something she thought was very important. Something that he needed to know. Why did she think that he needed to know... whatever it was? Huh. It was a very strange night.

Somehow, Celestia had agreed to get the Wonderbolts for Azure's party. That was a really nice gesture on her part. Just because his vault got messy. John decided that the Equestrian princesses were decent enough. Besides, anything for his son.

Something about that gray pegasus still was bothering him. What had she told him?

Whatever it was, it had somehow changed his mind about something he thought he would never do. Even though the constant expansion of Equestria had forced the closing of all the Conversion Bureaus on the West Coast, even though ponification serum was in short supply in the region, he knew he had to finally find a way, some way, ANY way, to get his ass Converted. It was incredibly important, he felt that now. Desperately important. Besides, he had to be there for his son in the future, right?

It was as if his very soul depended upon it.

The End

The Lost In The Herd Series:
One: The Big Respawn,
Two: Euphrosyne Unchained,
Three: Letters From Home,
Four: Teacup, Down On The Farm

The Conversion Bureau Novels:
27 Ounces: A story of eight and one half ponies
The Taste Of Grass
The Conversion Bureau: Code Majeste
The Conversion Bureau: The 800 Year Promise
The Conversion Bureau: Going Pony
The Reasonably Adamant Down With Celestia Newfoal Society!
Recombinant 63: A Conversion Bureau Story
HUMAN in Equestria: A Conversion Bureau Story
The PER: Michelson and Morely
Little Blue Cat
Cross The Amazon
Adrift Off Fiddler's Green: The Final Conversion Bureau Story

The Short Stories:
Her Last Possession
The Conversion Bureau: PER Equitum
The Conversion Bureau: Brand New Universe
Tales Of Los Pegasus
The Poly Little Pony

The very first and original
Conversion Bureau Group
archives only the best Three Rules Compatible stories!

Optimalverse Works:
Friendship Is Optimal: Caelum Est Conterrens
Leftovers: A Friendship Is Optimal Story
IMPLACABLE
My Life In Fimbria

Injectorverse Works:
I.D. - That Indestructible Something

The More Conventional Fanfics:
The Ice Cream Pony Summer
Around The Bend

PRIDE related works:
Transspecieality

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Alternate Universe Chapter 11 - by Midnight Shadow

The crux of Celestia's pursuit of newfoal Lillian Fogarty is the terrible danger that a new, inexperienced, uncontrolled alicorn would represent. Essentially a god unable to control its powers, Lillian The Alicorn could, with but a single uncontrolled, undisciplined thought, destroy both universes of Mundis and Equestria, killing everyone, everywhere, forever and ever. To not immediately contain or eliminate her would be the greatest possible crime against all life... and indeed reality itself.

John Norris finds a strange sort of happy-ending-for-everyone solution in last-minute shotgun surgery. But... what if he had failed? What if Lillian The Alicorn had achieved her full power and become a true, immortal, all-powerful alicorn god after all? Bereft of self-control, flooded with emotions and desires, uncontrolled, undisciplined and determined to survive at any cost, what actually would be the outcome of this worst-case, catastrophic scenario?

The exquisitely brilliant and superior Midnight Shadow offers us a powerful and disturbing look at an alternate universe where Lillian Fogarty of Surrey is not stopped from rising to wild and uncontrolled godhood, and instead achieves apotheosis. Lillian Fogarty, full fledged alicorn, equal to Celestia and Luna, but possessed of all the cunning and cleverness that a hunter-gatherer primate, the apex predator of earth is about to be unleashed upon two universes in....

CODE MAJESTE

Δ Alternate Universe Version
By Midnight Shadow

Doctor My Eyes
The following is an alternative chapter eleven to CODE: MAJESTE which has a very different outcome.

Doctor, my eyes
Tell me what is wrong
Was I unwise to leave them open for so long...
- Jackson Browne

Celestia had done... something to John Norris's vault. She had insisted; despite John's assurances that nothing could possibly enter or exit the high security chamber. Apparently there were 'other directions' beyond the ones that were known to Man, and these had to be sealed off if John were to have his ten minutes with the small, gray pretender to the throne.

John had carefully put up a small fuss; in reality he relished the thought of free additional protection for his three billion, four hundred million Equestrian bits, all stacked in neat piles or packaged in tidy crates. It had once crossed his mind to simply spread the tiny, featureless golden coins out as one mass and swim through them; the Scrooge McDuck moment had passed quickly, but it had still made him briefly smile.

There were other items in his private security vault as well, of course; assorted relics from the history of his family, a few not entirely legal treasures that should, rightfully, exist not in private hands but in a museum, and his father's small but rather excellent gun collection. One corner held a chest from an ancestor taken by the sea, back when the oceans lived and men sailed upon it; the chest itself was a fortune even had it not held priceless relics of a less than savory member of a more adventurous time. The chest itself was buried under a mass of ancient netting and glass ball fishing floats that still smelled of salt; for all John knew, they might have been used for the very last catch, before the end of fish.

John's vault held many treasures and wonders besides Equestrian bits; now it held perhaps the strangest rarity of all; the accidental alicorn who had once been Lillian Fogarty of Surrey, Northamerizone.

Celestia had been less than happy at John's wish to speak with the alicorn; she had reminded him that she had the prerogative to erase the memories of all involved, especially him; that whatever he expected to learn could not be retained, and that all this would do is prolong the inevitable. She thought him cruel for this, but he had insisted, arguing that the alicorn had become his client too; she had turned to him and begged for his help when she had been transported in a burst of light to the center of his large living space. He had instantly agreed to represent her, and demanded full rights to do so.

In the end, it was Celestia's regal sister, Luna that had intervened; she had insisted that because the alicorn was a newfoal, it was proper that she have council from her own world and that in the end, it was a kindness. Besides, as long as the vault were secured properly in the higher spaces, even should her ring be removed, she would not escape before action could be taken; the alicorn had been contained, and the chase was now over.

Celestia had seemed sad; she seemed regretful about the entire situation, and had given in to her sister, thus it was that John Norris now found himself inside his vault, facing the back of a softly whimpering gray alicorn, with ten minutes - to the second - allotted to speak with her, in private.

"Lillian. My name is John Norris. I am here to try to help you. We have only ten minutes, and I do not know what the hell I am doing, and I have no idea whether the plan inside my head is brilliant or just fucking insane. But I do have an idea, and if you want, we can try it. In any case, in..." John checked his watch; he was old fashioned and had not had a permatech timepiece installed into the flesh of his forearm. "...nine minutes and twenty...two seconds, that door is going to open and Celestia is going to do something about you, and according to the rumors I have heard, it probably isn't pleasant."

The small gray alicorn sniffed and looked back, over her wing at him. "She will crystallize me. Turn me to stone. That's what she does with things she can't deal with. That is her 'compassionate' equivalent to execution. Celestia won't kill, but she will imprison. I learned that... and a lot of other things... just a while ago." The alicorn turned her head back and looked at her hooves. Her ears drooped. "I do not want the living death of being crystallized, John. I would rather die than have that happen. It would probably actually be better if I died; being turned to stone is not as permanent as Celestia would like to believe. It can fail sometimes, and whatever is done with me, it needs to be permanent. I really am the threat to both worlds that Celestia has probably claimed to you."

John was in the back of his vault, rummaging for the items he required. "She described you as a threat to both worlds. She said you could melt the sky and destroy all human and ponykind." The key wasn't working on the locked cabinet; fortunately the cabinet was old and it never did lock effectively; one more reason it was in the vault, far from his son, Azure. John gave the thing a kick; the ancient plastic and metal door popped open.

"I'm afraid it's true. Without this ring, I could easily become a threat worse than Discord."

"Who?" John couldn't keep up with all the pony stuff his son brought home from school. The history of one planet was bad enough, two was just gilding the chronological lily.

"Think of me as a living, hypernuclear bomb. That is what I am. The ring on my horn might as well be the fuse."

John looked desperately around; he needed something small, but not too small, and it had to be smooth, and biologically neutral. "More like a nuclear grenade, then. Pull the ring and give you a toss, is that it?"

"So am I, Lillian. So am I; Celestia's going to have me gelded however this turns out. I'm really going to miss my balls; we've been really close for years." This made the alicorn laugh again, which was nice. John checked his watch: seven minutes and thirty-six seconds. Balls. Ah!

"Lillian... I need you to trust me. And to answer a few questions for me. We have to work fast, we don't have a lot of time left. It would be better if you... didn't turn around either, OK?" John tried to load the cartridges as quietly as he could, but there was no avoiding the loud clack. "You can't die, right?, that's why Celestia plans on turning you to stone."

"You're sure of that, really sure of that?" John had the sawed-off shotgun ready. He placed it at his feet, where he was crouching. He carefully placed the glass floats on stacks of bits; the curious hollow sound of them caused Lillian to instinctively turn to see what had made such a strange sound. She stared at the hollow, clear spheres.

"John, what on earth are you up to?" Lillian goggled at the floats, she had no idea what they were. Fishing had ended forever long before she had been born. "What are these for? They're kind of pretty." And they were, like big glass soap bubbles, they shimmered in the vault lights.

"I will become like Celestia, John." A tear rolled down Lillian's cheek. "Only I won't be able to control my power. With a stray thought, I might destroy the world. I understand why Celestia has to do what she is doing. I really do."

"I learned that if something blocks the space the carbuncle needs, it won't grow back." John waited just a moment for that to sink in. In that moment, he noticed something that surprised him very much indeed. The glass floats were doing just that; floating, just above the stack of Equestrian coins. The transparent spheres were bobbing as if they were immersed in some invisible sea. There was no glow around them, as would be the case if a unicorn were levitating them. They simply hung in the air the way that ordinary objects never did.

"Are you doing that, Lillian?" John gave one of the floats an experimental poke with his finger. It felt like prodding a superconductor hovering over a maglev plate.

John moved Lillian's cornsilk mane away with one hand and looked at the base of her horn. The silver ring appeared strangely rusted, as though it were not silver, but iron. John brought his other hand in to touch the ring, then thought better of it and pulled his hand back. "The ring is... it's not good. It looks like it's disintegrating. Slowly, but... it's falling apart." Grains of corrupted metal were flaking off as John watched. It was starting to look like a stomach tablet dissolving in water. "I don't think we have..." John checked his watch again "... five minutes and twenty-two seconds. Your fuse is going to go off before that, I think"

Lillian turned her head suddenly and forcefully away. She stared straight ahead, her back rigid. "John, do whatever it is you think you can do. You can't kill me, and right now I don't care if you hurt me, if there is any chance at all do it. Otherwise get Celestia in here immediately. I need to... not think of anything, anything at all. Hurry!"

John picked up the shotgun. It was an old, shiny black Benelli Super Vinci comfortech, 12-gauge, top of the line. Shame his old man had sawed the damn thing off. Unaltered, it would have been a masterpiece. Then again, for what John needed it for, it was, as Benelli had once advertised itself, perfect. "Lillian, I'm not a surgeon, but then we couldn't take you to a hospital or a veterinarian or whatever in any case so...."

"Shh." Lillian was clearly struggling, more objects in the vault were now hanging in space; a cloud of bits was orbiting each other like some vastly complex alien star-system, or a magical orrery. That such marvelous synchronization could occur from the alicorn's unconscious, behind her and absent from her vision and concentration was both wondrous and somewhat terrifying. "Just do it. Quickly!"

The ring on Lillian's head was red now, like melting metal. It made hissing and squeaking noises as the metal strained against the titanic forces opposing it. There was no time for niceties any more.

John didn't like guns; that was his old man's thing. If he could solve something without a gun, John would always choose just that. He never carried; it was insulting to him to feel that he could not think his way out of any predicament, rather than having to resort to force.

But that did not mean he could not use a gun. His military father had insisted on that, and there was no practical way to tell the gruff man 'no' on much of anything. John quickly put on the earplugs he had taken, into his ears. Lillian... she wouldn't need earplugs.

There was nothing for it. John raised the Benelli and aimed it at the back of Lillian's head. Right between her ears, slightly lower down, where the base of her horn would be, on the other side. He angled the short barrel to around 45 degrees. Suddenly he thought more clearly, and quickly sat, tailor-fashion on the floor. He didn't want to end up ass-over-teakettle from the kickback.

John braced himself and re-aimed. The ring was sending up sparks, now; it must be burning the poor filly. Lillian let out a soft gasp. There was no other option but Celestia's living death in stone. There probably wasn't time enough even for that, now.

A single tear rolled down Jonathan Norris's cheek. He pulled the trigger.

The multiverse is a strange place, when it comes down to it. Free will is, through the power of everything being able to happen somewhere, somewhen, entirely assured.

In one universe, John's mad idea may have worked. The thought that he could not outwit but maybe outmaneuver a god was, in hindsight, folly, but it must have had a chance.

Lillian, on the almost-inaudible signal of John readying himself, turned her head on her long, sinuous neck. John's aim, up until that moment straight and true, went wide. The shot, which would in all probability have taken off the back of her head, merely destroyed her horn. And the remains of the inhibitor ring.

"Oh crap." John remained quite still, sighting up the barrels of his sawn-off shotgun as the gently-weeping grey alicorn somehow changed. She turned, blood and bone reforming as he watched, her shattered horn forming out of pure nothing and elongating far beyond the normal unicorn length of a few scant inches.

The goddess lunged, flowing from sitting to upon all four hooves, standing proud above the now-cowering human, her horn piercing the skin of his forehead.

"You shot me." she said.

"I... I... you said..."

Lillian, or what used to be Lillian Fogarty, lifted her head as if tasting the wind before turning her head back to John. She gazed deep into his eyes, "I thank you, mortal, but shouldst thou raise again such arms as these against any of my kind, be assured, human, that such action would be thy last."

And then she was gone. The clap of sound as the alicorn vacated the vault rang in his ears, even louder than the gunshot. The lights went out, the air conditioning shorted and John wet himself. All in all, he reasoned, if there were ever a time he needed a cigarette, this would be it.

***

The shot rang out.

Almost instinctively Lillian folded spacetime around herself like a blanket. She was an immortal goddess, something deep in her bones knew that, but it didn't mean she no longer feared death or pain. No, those reflexes were far too well buried deep in her to be expunged by a mere few days of interrupted and damped god-hood. She eyed the shot as the cloud sped towards her, they seemed to hang in space, sliding like... she laughed to herself. She'd once won a competition, as a child, to go bowling at a bona fide bowling club. To all intents and purposes, this was as if... as if the ten pins were sliding towards the bowling ball. She would allow it, she decided.

She turned her head, the irritating, burning, glowing ring of metal which had so far kept her true self in check was a nuisance, like a burrowing tick or a blood-sucking mosquito. With the right angle, and the excess swept away to prevent undue pain, the shot would take care of her little inhibitor ring problem. She would lose her horn, maybe lose some blood, tear her skin. This was of no import. The issue would be that once the ring was gone, Celestia would know, but without the ring being gone, Lillian could do nothing to stop the terrible 'justice' that the elder alicorn would mete out. Intolerable, Lillian could see that now, it was intolerable. She was a god, an equal, the alpha and the omega. She was not some... petty doll to be toyed with and then put away in a stone-shaped box for an eternity.

Part of her mind was screaming, thrashing, hammering on walls that her id had thrown up in its own decision to enact her continued existence and therefore her survival. That part of her mind was, to all intents and purposes, silenced. It was no longer needed, it was the remnants of her human self. It was vain, stupid, petty, petulant, greedy... it could be negotiated with. Needs must.

The shot tore into the scalp of her muzzle, shattered her horn, and blew the red-hot and now ineffectual inhibitor ring into dust. Faster than the pain, faster than the thought itself, reality crystallized around her. All of creation, from birth to death of a universe, lay open to her. Her mind sported out amongst the cold, hard cosmos, and cavorted with the creation of suns, languished and slid amongst the tidal eddies of supermassive black holes, rejoiced with the music of the spheres itself. Her awareness blossomed like a rose, enveloping the small room her body found itself in, and analyzed it in every detail.

She snarled, in that moment of time that she bid stretch before her until she would will it otherwise, as exploration revealed that she was locked in. She could not go up, down, left, right, sideways, in, out, contrariwise nor wither and non. Infuriating.

No, no, not infuriating. It was a game, a puzzle. She was a god, anger was surely for lesser creatures than her. There was one direction left. She smiled to herself and Looked. Yes, yes, there it was. So simple. She would allow time to return to normal, before she left she would have to impress upon the creature who had decided to do her a favour how much she disagreed with such heavy-handed and violent tactics, despite the outcome. The means do not, she reasoned, justify the ends.

Time began again. She turned, "You shot me," she said.

***

Celestia paced back and forth, long having tuned out the babbling from the lovable - for she truly loved all her subjects, even ones so enthusiastic as Azure the young pegasus. Luna could deal with him, she had bigger fish to fry, as the humans said. She sniffed, fish may not be intelligent but eating them seemed rather... well no, cruel was the wrong word. Crude? Her ponies, she knew, sometimes ate fish and other forms of protein from animals, especially the newfoals, but rarely and without gusto... she mentally stomped a hoof. Wittering away to herself like some old nag. She was worried, that was it, worried what that thrice-damned human was doing in that ridiculous cubby-hole of a vault with the greatest threat to life, the universe and everything since Discord.

Her hackles raised at an unseen signal. She glanced at Luna and saw her younger sibling had felt it too.

Luna bowed, "Do as thou must, sister, but I weep for the youngest member of our family, even as thou endeth her short reign."

"I take no pleasure in this, Luna, but you know what she is capable of."

"As am I, as are you. I beg you... find a way?"

Celestia shook her head, "There is none, not now. The ring... That damned fool human, they know not what they do."

Luna smiled, even as she felt the growing power. She turned to the motionless Azure, caught in a moment he would not experience, and nuzzled him softly, "Ever it is thus with our children. Forgive them."

"I do, I hope they will forgive me." Celestia vanished.

***

John sat in the darkness, feeling the warmth spread down his crotch. He was glad there were no cameras and no witnesses. He breathed heavily, "Shit."

There was another clap of sound and a glowing figure appeared in the center of the room. She stood proud on all four hooves, horn glowing, wings furled. "You disappoint me, John."

John trembled. He'd upset his parents many times when he was a child, he'd upset teachers and police, and bosses... but never, ever, had he felt such a palpable wave of displeasure expressed in so few words. He was, he reasoned, glad to be sitting down. The question would be how he would get up.

"You mewling, pompous, self-absorbed, duplicitous wretch! Do you know what you have done?"

John smiled weakly, "I think I fucked up." he glanced down at the shotgun in his lap, he could see it now in the golden light from the alicorn's horn. It had one cartridge left. It would probably hurt less than whatever the princess had in store for him.

Celestia narrowed her eyes, "No, John, that's not something I'll let you do. Whatever deal you think we had, it's off. Be glad I do not seek reparations, for you could not afford it, not with all the wealth in the world. If I cannot repair this damage, John, there will be no world to repair. Think on that, human, until the end of thy days. Or until I take the memory of this evening with me."

John glanced around at the vault, "I'm... sorry, your highness. I've... not done much good with all this, and I thought... what sort of world would I want Azure growing up in, if it were born from the death of an innocent?"

Celestia shook her head, tears in her eyes, "I see that world, John, with every waking moment. Go now, go to your son. If... if I cannot stop her, any moment may be your last, and so it may be for every moment everywhere throughout the entirety of your universe. Not for nothing did I try to warn you, human. The sky may boil, the seas burn, the land melt."

John sat in his filth and swore. He threw the gun into a corner, where it impacted with a carefully stacked pile of bits, "Then what the blue fuck are you still doing here gabbing with me?"

Celestia looked at him, calmly, and for a moment he saw a naked eternity, "You do not understand, be content that you do not."

***

Lillian found herself travelling. One moment she had been Lillian, the winged unicorn, sobbing and preparing for a fate worse than death. The next, she was Lillian the goddess. The human mind, even one which has become pony, cannot handle such a thing. She sank into the expanded consciousness and let it dissolve her. Do what's right, she repeated to herself like a mantra, there should be no intended pain, no intended sadness, all that is beautiful in this reality must go on...

The part of Lillian which was now a goddess felt great sadness and joy at the same time. The trap had been ingenious, really, and rather thorough, but lacking in one single aspect. She had been unable to move through any of the dimensions, curled up or otherwise, that this reality afforded. She had even been unable to move into hyperspace. For a quintillionth of a second she had thought herself lost, but in that infinitesimally small speck of time, she had her answer.

It was ludicrously easy, really.

Lillian had been many places upon the earth, but to get there, even through the folds of higher dimensions, had taken linear time. Linear time which no longer meant much to her. She travelled back upon her lifeline, a being of pure energy and magic, no longer held back by the meagre bonds of space nor time. The perfect trap, with a perfect hole so that one pathetic human could converse with a trapped goddess for ten minutes.

Within a few non-linear moments, she was free. Her spirit, for lack of a better word, floated. The cold realization of the universe she found herself within burned like pitch. Everywhere she looked were machines made of talking meat, living automatons who would, ever so soon, end their brief exertions upon this mortal coil and cease. The shame and sadness of that fact brought her to tears. The HLF thugs, their irrational hatred was born only of the knowledge, deep down, that the ponies had something they could not accept. She gathered them up. They screamed, this was understandable. She held their patterns and cradled them softly, crooning to them. She knew it hurt, having their living essence captured in a non-euclidean matrix was pain like no other, beyond that of mere birth and separation from the All. She pitied them, they were scared, angry and violent. She would show them, she would give them her gifts. She would show them the Forever Herd. The pile of dead meat which had once been ponies saddened her, too. Lives cut short. Some were Equestrian, most were newfoal. None of them deserved this fate.

Celestia had not saved them, but she would. What was time, entropy or death to a goddess? She reached back along their lifelines and snagged their souls. The ethereal ponies screamed, their destination denied. She didn't blame them, they were scared, their final rest was denied. She comforted them as best she could, carried them like children, arms enough to swaddle the world.

She travelled further, now, further back. PER, those foolishly misguided souls. She reached out her will, and took them, every single one. She would show them what it meant to be a true pony. Choice? She was a goddess, they were hers, it was her right.

She could not stay long, she had to keep travelling. Celestia's eternal eyes were everywhere, and she had been in the PER stronghold, ergo she was still there, forever in that moment. Lillian left.

She travelled faster now, though distance and time meant little. She could feel the grasp of the other alicorns closing in. She had to find a way out! She travelled all the way back, to just moments from her awakening on the table. She could stay here, she realized, in this moment. Time was of no import, it could be a million years subjectively. Yes, she would use this atom of hydrogen as a home, make the nucleus her world. Her subjects would find themselves in an unfamiliar existence, but they would make do. With a million years, of a sort, they would have time to get used to it.

Lillian latched on to reality, examined the nucleus. Size was as much an illusion as space and time were, since size was just an expression of the one passing through the other. She reached out a hoof, so to speak... and found her will blocked.

"Stop." said the voice.

"Celestia!" hissed Lillian, and she gathered up her subjects and fled back, further back.

The dreamworld blossomed around her, but this time she could see her own proto-self on its endless journey. This had been a mistake. This was Lillian's birth, and it would be her death. This was Equestria, Celestia's domain. She was trapped here now.

The ponies around her bowed, flocking to her. As they tasted her essence, some recoiled, some surged against her. She was a princess, to some she was their princess. This was her crime, this was her transgression. She could remake the universe, she realized. Size was, after all, just an illusion.

Do what ye will, an' ye harm none.

The inner voice rang out, hard and solid. Her ethereal hoof-steps faltered. But... they were meat, weren't they? Hers to play with?

Nay, young one, this is the trap of all who tread the path thy find thyself upon. Their brief lives are cold, oft cut short, but they are theirs. Thou shalt not seek to take it from them.

The words were... not exactly words, but she recognized the tone, the timbre.

"Muffin?" asked Lillian, momentarily startled from her ever-growing fugue of god-hood.

Aye, little one, I be the one thou dost dub 'Muffin'. In truth, my name is Luna. I would see my newest sister live, but should she prove to be a base tyrant, I would see her gone from this or any other reality in an instant.

Lillian's heart beat hard and fast, which was strange as she did not possess a body. She saw her ghostly self fall under the gaze of Celestia, and felt the goddess move to snuff out that brief candle before it had even formed. Lillian swatted the movement away, and she felt herself wake up on the table, as she had, as she always would.

The world formed around her; Equestria, Canterlot, the throne room of the royal pony sisters. Celestia and Luna both sat upon their thrones. Luna gazed hopefully upon Lillian, and Celestia glared like a basilisk. It had been a trap, all along. The only way she could have gone was back, right back here, right to the seat of her adversaries power.

"Relinquish thy powers, Lillian." Luna said, softly.

"I cannot. You know that." Lillian's eyes teared up, she could never go back.

"Then I offer you entombment. An eon, an eternity, and then freedom at the end of time." Celestia said, gaze never faltering.

Lillian shook her head, "To sit and wait for forever? No!"

"Then I will end you." Celestia stepped forwards, her body glowing with that same otherworldy light as she tapped into the powers of creation itself. "I love my little ponies too deeply to let you subject them to your every whim. I love that cold, hard, senseless universe of man too much to let you crush it and mold it beneath your hooves as some plaything. I love you too much to let you become a monster."

"And you think trapping me in stone forever is a gift?" Lillian backed off. She was a goddess, it was true, but she had been one for a very short space of time. "I don't want to be a statue! I, I, I want to live! You can't have me! You won't take me!"

Lillian looked for a way out. She could not run. Not left, not right, not up, not down. Nowhere in the realm of Equestria was safe, and she felt the barrier to that other realm that had spawned her close even as her consciousness investigated it.

Celestia's light grew bright, brighter, brighter still. The floor began to bubble as the goddess who had seen the birth and death of countless realities brought all of her formidable, impossible power to bear.

"No! No! I won't! You can't! It's... so bright! No! NOOOOOOO! THE LIGHT!"

Lillian started screaming, her voice shattering the windows, crumbling the walls, cracking the foundations, disturbing the very pillars of the realm itself. It was so hot, so bright, it hurt! It burned!

Lillian would flee, she would run, she would... the barrier! That was it! She would hide; not this side of the barrier, not the other, but in the barrier, in that layer between the worlds. She swept her prizes around her like a cloak, comforted them, wept with them. The light was so bright, it hurt, it dissolved her very essence... if only she could avoid it, escape it...

The barrier was right there, she leaped for it, fled into it, pulled it up as a shield against that terrible, awful, painful, powerful light. She wrapped it tight around herself, filling the spaces, exerting her will for somewhere to hide to come into existence. She felt the fabric of reality shift, weakened as it was here between the two realms. She made for the rift, squeezed through it, dragging her children with her.

She would find peace, a new beginning, somewhere to grow, to feel love, to be - but first...

"LET THERE BE DARKNESS!" she cried.

And there was darkness. And it was good.

After darkness, there would be a need for light. She would have to make light. She would have to make a great many things, but she had time now.

She got to work.

1. They Smile In Your Face

This story takes place before Season Two, before Lauren Faust was forced out of MLP:FIM by Hasbro. It takes place in a version of MLP:FIM that has not suffered the curse of Every Girl A Princess, and the move to add more and more alicorns. There is no Cadence in this canon at all, and Twilight is not a princess yet, if ever. This story, like all of my stories, stays true to Faust's original conception of alicorns as being akin to Greek Goddesses.

The
CONVERSION
►Bureau

CODE MAJESTE

By Chatoyance

They Smile In Your Face

Lillian Fogarty held the small, white plastic cup in her hand, smiling at it. Inside the cup swirled a purple fluid, shining like oil. It danced with metallic sparkles and, as she held it close to her eye, what seemed like tiny specks of unearthly light. The cup contained 'potion' - ponification serum, a nanotechnomagical fluid made of human designed and manufactured microscopic machines powered by the unearthly energies of the alien cosmos of Equestria.

It had been two and a quarter years since the initial emergence of Equestria from the dead, gray, pacific ocean and the effort to transform humanity in order to save it from extinction was well under way. The earth had died long ago, with the last of the plankton in the poisoned oceans. The arrival of Equestria offered an escape, a lifeboat to escape that terrible day when the last human found the atmosphere not merely hot and smoggy - but devoid of sufficient oxygen to sustain them.

Billions had been already been converted, but this was only a beginning, and not every human agreed with the mutual plan of both the corporate world government and the twin monarchs of the invading cosmos. The Conversion Bureaus were everywhere, on every continent, and gigantic factory complexes had been dedicated to meeting the incessant need for serum.

Today was Lillian's birthday. She was nineteen, and inside the cup was her birthday present to herself; a one-way ticket to the thing she coveted the most in all of two worlds - the life of a pretty mare in the lush, green fairyland that was Equestria. She had done her required fourteen days in the Vancouver Conversion Bureau, and had been called for the coveted morning slot. In almost every Bureau, the morning conversion was considered the best time to be transformed because of the fuss made over the new convert at lunchtime. There would be congratulations, cheers, and of course the grand excitement of 'First Meal As A Pony'. Morning conversion essentially meant a sort of birthday party at lunch for the lucky newfoal that was selected for that slot.

Lillian felt very lucky today. Her parents had not found her, she had managed to arrange her conversion exactly on her birthday - the staff had been most accommodating on that matter, especially since she had made arrangements with them months before - and she had even been given the morning slot. This was easily the best birthday ever.

Her mother and father had not wanted her to 'go pony' - they were unconvinced of the necessity of ponification and still held great stock in the resourcefulness of the world government to find a way to reverse the total destruction of the biosphere. Surely the clever boffins that could make holographic televisions could find some means to fix the oceans! Appealing to some alien cosmos popping out of the sea seemed cowardly and weak. Things just couldn't have gotten so desperate, could they? Both had been adamant that Lillian should not ever approach a Conversion Bureau, and they were dubious about the entire enterprise.

"You have no idea what being one of those... creatures... is even like! They're not human, Lill! If you turn into one of those things you are certainly no daughter of mine!" Lillian's mother slammed her hand down on the table; her lips drew together in a cross between a scowl and a pucker. "You have your whole life ahead of you! You can't just throw it all away to become some... barnyard freak!"

Lillian stormed around the kitchen, her hands waving in frustration "MOOOMM! You just don't UNDERSTAND! What about Amblecanter - you know, Millicent Bourns? Huh? She's been your friend for years, and now she's a UNICORN! She's a freaking unicorn! You don't hate her for that do you? What's wrong with being that? What's wrong with MY being that?"

"I don't even know Milly! She's not my friend. She's never been my friend. We're just acquaintances because we live in the same building. What she does with her life is her business, and has nothing to do with you." Janice Fogarty turned away and began to make coffee. "You're my daughter, you're a human being, and there is no way you are becoming one of those... things."

"Amblecanter used to be your friend! You USED to go shopping with her and go on trips, you just dumped her because she became an Equestrian. You're a bigot, mom! That's what this is about! You're a god damned bigot!"

The slap surprised Lillian. It also surprised her mother too. Especially so because, in the back of her mind, Janice felt there was some truth to her daughter's words. "You may be turning nineteen soon, but that does NOT mean that you have the right to disrespect me in my own house! That's enough of this, Lillian. I'll have no more talk about these Bureaus any more! Is that understood?" Janice gave her daughter her meanest look - she wanted this to end, now.

Lillian nursed her cheek with the back of her hand and glared. "Fine." She held back her tears, she would not give her mother the satisfaction "Mom." Lillian didn't stomp, or shout or say another word. She simply left. She had plans already in motion. To hell with her bigot of a mother.

Now she sat naked on the stainless steel platform in Clinic 013, holding her birthday present in her hand. The cup smelled of grape.

"Are you OK? Are you having second thoughts, Lillian?" Doctor Treasen gave her a kindly smile, his small mustache lifting at the corners.

"No! Oh, no way, doctor. I was just... thinking. About how I got here and stuff. That's all. Here -" Lillian swallowed the contents quickly, as she had been told. "See? All gone!" She proudly handed the cup to doctor Treasen.

"Lie down, now. The anesthetic hits pretty quickly." Doctor Treasen's PA, Olivia, helped Lillian to lay down on her side. She was feeling the effects very strongly now. "Happy...birthday to....m..." Lillian's eyes closed for the last time as a human and within seconds her skin suddenly turned white as dough as the ponification serum went to work.

During her fourteen days at the Conversion Bureau, Lillian had seen many other applicants called to the conversion room. When they returned as ponies, they were sometimes groggy, sometimes they stumbled, still learning how to use their new legs, often they were excited and filled with smiles. But not one regretted the transformation, and all were happy to talk about what it was like, and some were willing to speak of the dream.

The dream was, as far as anyone could tell, universal to those who went through conversion. Even those who had suffered forcible conversion, say by the actions of the rogue PER - Ponification for Earth's Rebirth - had claimed a time of unconsciousness where they experienced the dream. Not every newfoal would tell their dream; some clutched it tightly to them, either as a treasure or as a burden, but none would state with conviction that they had experienced nothing.

The matter of conversion dreams was a source of endless debate; a conversation made all the more interesting by the fact that all conversion dreams held certain elements in common. There was almost universally the sensation of running as part of a vast herd of equinoid forms. There was a feeling of belonging. But above all was the experience of meeting, in some form or guise or representation, two great beings of power, beings that could only be the monarchs of Equestria, Celestia and Luna.

Lillian had looked forward to this experience the most; it was a matter of great fascination to her. She had spent all of her days at the Bureau wondering what her own conversion dream would be like, and she had become known for relentlessly questioning newfoals about their dream experiences.

Lillian was running, as fast as she could, across a vast green flatness. This was a common situation she had heard described many times by many newfoals, and she was astonished to find herself reflecting on this fact. She knew she was dreaming - and this was astonishing! Conversion dreams were lucid dreams! As she ran, she imagined her body going though changes on that table, somewhere in the 'real' world, elsewhere, not here. Wherever here actually was.

She waited for the expected arrival of countless ghostlike equinoid forms to approach and run beside her, to sweep her into the herd. This also was common in conversion dreams. There, in the distance, as she ran, she saw the herd, approaching. Thousands and thousands of shapes, not solid, but more the ideal, the essence of the equestrian form, running as one, all coming closer and closer to her. Soon she would be accepted, and run with them. Many newfoals described this, and she was thrilled to see it happening for her.

The vast herd came near. The etherial shape of a stallion-like entity regarded her. Suddenly it reared in shock. The herd stumbled and began falling over itself. Lillian found she could not stop running. In an instant the frightened, halting spectral herd was behind her. She looked down at her legs, her four, equine legs and tried to will them to stop, but they would not. She ran faster now, against her will. Her last vision of the herd was that of it bowing down as one, before she ran off what seemed to be a cliff. Lillian fell into some strange space, half glowing sky, half starlit realm.

Lillian suddenly felt cold, a chill that touched her very soul, and filled her with a terrible dread. She felt afraid to look up, but the choice was taken from her. Her spectral body rotated in space, as if held by some tremendous force, until she found herself staring into the vast eyes of two shimmering shapes that filled the bowl of the split sky.

The vast forms of princess Celestia and princess Luna, the absolute immortal monarchs, the literal goddesses of Equestria stared down at her, their expressions indecipherable, their gaze riveted upon Lillian. The vast eyes widened, the pupils shrank within them, and Lillian felt the force of their stare reach out and take hold of her.

Lillian felt herself being squeezed, crushed under the implacable glare. She felt her existence being diminished, as if she were the tiny flame of a candle, being snuffed by two vast fingers. Soundlessly, she screamed into the divided void, her own eyes rolling in terror from the dome that was night, to the hemisphere that was day.

Suddenly, something in her, something she had never felt and never known, something beyond her understanding or conception, rose up from within and violently opposed the crushing force. She wished only to flee, to escape this horror beyond space or time, and in that wish the something within her again took action.

Lillian felt herself dragged away from the monarchs, away from the divided space, and flung down in some direction she could not imagine, away, far away from the grasp of this horrific vision.

The next thing Lillian experienced was her own heartbeat, loud and fast, pounding in her new ears.

She violently opened her eyes, desperate to see, to escape the nightmare, to know that she was fully awake. Her breathing was rapid and gasping. She felt damp with her own terrified sweat.

"...You will follow procedure exactly on this, do you understand!" It was doctor Treasen. Lillian could hear him speaking with an angry, upset tone, his words clipped, his voice barely controlled.

"But doctor, she's only just a little girl, she has no concept of... " That was the Physician's Assistant, Olivia. She also sounded upset, almost pleading.

"Do. You. Understand?" Doctor Treasen's words were not a question, they were a command.

"I.... I understand, sir." Olivia's voice was almost a whimper.

Through this exchange, Lillian had not moved or made a sound. The terror she had experienced in her dream was still with her, and some instinct deep within her told her to play dead, to pretend to be unconscious. With effort she had closed her eyelids, though she could not manage to do so completely; she left just the tiniest of cracks open in her right eye, hoping no one would notice. She needed to see something, to feel aware of her surroundings, even if the only thing within her vision was a blank wall and part of a shelf.

Lying still, barely breathing now, she sensed someone leaning over her. She felt the hot breath of doctor Treasen hover over her head for a moment, then heard him move away.

"If she begins to regain consciousness, inject her with this." Lillian heard the sound of things being moved, passed from one hand to another with a tiny smack. "Do not wait, do not hesitate, do you understand? This is not just because of protocol, this could be a matter of life and death. But don't do it until you are sure - we can't be sure of what will happen. This is a last resort only. If it doesn't work, hit the button and get the hell out. I don't have to tell you why: it's armed."

"Yes... doctor."

"I'll make the call. Remember, this is a Code Majeste. This is the real thing. You know the protocol. Do not take any chances. This won't take three minutes, I'll be right back. Just keep watch, and do what you have to do. God dammit. A god damned Code Majeste! God... dammit."

Lillian heard the large metal door of the conversion room open and after a short pause, close.

Something was wrong. Something was very, very wrong, and she had no idea what to do about it.

7. I Can't Go For That (No Can Do)

The
CONVERSION
►Bureau

CODE MAJESTE

By Chatoyance

I Can't Go For That (No Can Do)

Princess Celestia paced slowly and gracefully on the marble slabs that tiled her main hall. The exquisite stained-glass windows showered the hallway in multicolored hues, painting the guardponies standing at attention by her throne in chatoyant streaks of light.

When she reached the end of the hall, before it branched out into the great reception chamber, Celestia turned and ambled back toward her throne room again. Back and forth, lost in thought and concern, she had been pacing this way since morning.

"Tia... please join me for midday meal. Thou wilt not come closer to thy goal wearing a rut into the palace floor." Princess Luna was trying to be whimsical in her approach, but the look on her muzzle indicated deeper and more complex concerns than lunch.

"She is out there, sister. Uncontrolled, uncontained. She knows to hide; her purpose cannot be good. Somehow she must be found. If she were here in Equestria the matter would be over, but out there, in the human world, I am blind and forced to wait." Celestia was being her quiet, serious self now; a facet Luna knew all too well.

"A frightened mouse always runs away from the cat; she is only a mouse, Tia. She has not used any power save to flee. If she had, thou wouldst know of it and pounce. Canst thee not consider this mouse to be without guile and driven only by the same wish to live that commands all hearts? Why cannot this new sister be embraced instead?" This was the first time Luna had directly confronted Celestia over the matter. For these ancient beings, such questioning was equivalent to an impassioned argument.

"Do you forget the reign of chaos?" Celestia had stopped her pacing and stared directly at her sister; the hue of her timeless eyes was colored by endless years.

"Beloved sister, Tia, this little foal is not Discord. I do not believe she is any kind of threat. Is there no love in thy heart for thine own unfortunate subject? She did not ask for this, I am convinced she doth desire none of it." A potentially dangerous admission; Luna calmed herself so as to betray nothing to her sister.

Celestia studied her sister intently. She felt a hint of more in her sister's words than mere speculation. She turned and faced away, the burning sun on her flank striped with hues from the windows. "When the merest whim, the faintest whisper of thought can reshape the world, innocence is less than a blessing - rather it is the very fount of calamity. Her innocence only compounds that peril which she represents to us."

Celestia turned her head back to look levelly at her sister. "The peril which she represents to us both."

The words were quiet, but the meaning they held was as weighty as the moon itself. Luna understood only too well what was truly being said.

A thousand years in the past, she and her sister Celestia had managed to conquer the great enemy, Discord. History recorded Discord's reign as lasting a thousand years; convenient round numbers were ever the comfort of the court historians. But those aged, arguing scribblers of tomes knew nothing, and understood even less.

Under Discord's reign, mountains could become pudding, and entire landscapes turn to twisting ribbons of silken lace within the time of one breath and another. Nothing was stable; nothing lasted. Space was a dream wrapped in candy, and distance a gravy-flavored snake that writhed back upon itself. Nothing material could be trusted: what was in one instant a simple home and bed could in another moment be a lake of liquid fire hanging in the sky, or a living, thinking beast made of spaghetti and doorhandles. Neither life, nor soul, nor substance, nor meaning could last for long; reality itself was constantly in flux and nothing ever remained unchanged.

Within such an insane cosmos, there could be no rational accounting of time. To say that the reign of Discord lasted a thousand years, or a quadrillion, or a mere second would all be truth; the ultimate horror of constant change had forever scarred both Celestia and Luna. They had suffered under Discord effectively forever and ever and never. Luna often thought that Discord actually wanted to be conquered, that even the tyrant of chaos was tired of his rule. He had certainly permitted his defeat to happen.

In chaos all things must exist, given enough time. Even order must occasionally spring from randomness; chaos contains all things as a subset of itself. Disorder inevitably births its own demise, because it must. In chaos is all possibility, and one such possibility is its own end.

The pony sisters had fragmented memories of something like a life, but they knew all of it may not have been real. There was no valid proof that they had ever lived before the moment they both found themselves aware. Celestia and Luna had often considered the possibility that Discord had simply brought them into being, with a fragmented memory of a fictional past to soften the blow of their sudden awakening - but there was no way to know for certain. It would be a long time before they deduced their true nature, and that of Equestria itself.

They had a vague and broken conception of having been sisters, of having lived as some kind of royalty within a castle; but neither of them could concretely recall parents or their own childhoods. The castle had always been ruins; surely it must have once been complete. Then again, perhaps it too had no actual past. They haunted it, though, for in the constantly changing world, the slowly shifting ruins offered something almost like stability. This was doubtless another game for Discord; the broken castle was a toybox into which they were permitted a meager island of relative persistence.

That he favored them as toys was clear. What they endured under his whim was beyond even their ability to comprehend entirely. That they found the Elements Of Harmony was suspicious; but then such artifacts were themselves random possibilities too, and given enough time, inevitable outcomes of Discord's ever-rolling dice.

The sisters had suffered many forms and many shapes, but their opportunity came when, for the sake of chaos, they had found themselves alicorns, growing in godly, supernal power with every passing second. Though driven essentially insane, they still had somehow together found a thread of mutual purpose, and between their own new divinity, and the Elements Of Harmony, just enough power and reason to bind and seal the tyrant Discord.

But even after Discord's defeat, the sisters struggled to refine and accumulate their sanity; to stabilize both the still-churning world and their own minds and hearts. A thousand years of chaos - a meaningless phrase, uttered by ignorant authors of empty histories.

For a literally indeterminate time, Celestia and Luna fought their every whim, every thought inside them. As alicorns, the merest daydream could instantly reshape the land or dissolve the sky. Eventually they found a peace inside, born of constant control and vigilance, enough to keep the land below and the sky above, enough to permit light and shadow, enough to grace a world with fragile life that remained and grew and finally thrived.

It took an iron will to settle themselves and thus the world into order, to keep reality itself constant and stable. Celestia, with her grim, determined mind was the undisputed champion of this terrible discipline, and she not only kept reality intact, she became the anchor for Luna, who struggled to remain balanced in time and space and meaning.

At least until that day, that terrible night, when Luna could no longer keep her own inner peace, and lost herself to her own anger and misguided passions.

Her time imprisoned as an aspect of her own moon had saved the cosmos. If Celestia had not imprisoned her, Luna knew how easily she could have dismantled reality itself, and how rapidly chaos would have again swallowed them all. A mere thought, a mere whim; this was the horror that such absolute power represented. They could not know everything, but they could do anything, and nothing could be more dangerous or terrible than that.

The generation of a new alicorn was a known possibility. The deepest secret of Equestria was that magic, despite the endless study of the unicorns, could never entirely be reduced to reason and logic. It was born of chaos, of the same mother that had spawned Discord, and patches of chaos still scarred the land of Equestia. The Everfree forest was such a scar; a permanent wound that reality itself had suffered during the original battle to defeat Discord.

The cosmos of the humans was, like the Everfree, a realm of chaos. Though seemingly orderly at first glance, it was founded on uncertainty and randomness at the finest level, and had originally sprung forth from that foundation. The dice rolls of discordant chaos shaped every event within the human's universe. Thus it was an understood possibility that an alicorn might potentially be created. Even one was too much.

Luna understood the threat such a being represented as well as her sister; but she also held pity for such an entity. She herself would not exist save for the pity of her sister. Celestia had risked the use of the Elements Of Harmony upon her, but she had been careful that Luna should not be destroyed, but only stripped temporarily of her deific power. Long enough for a second chance, long enough to feel what being vulnerable and helpless meant once again. Long enough to rediscover sanity once more.

Lillian had not tried to use her powers; Luna had seen this. The infant alicorn had diligently avoided their use, and chosen to simply hide. Another pony might have tossed the binding ring away and opened wide the fountains of creation; within hours a concerted will to power would have inevitably made such an ambitious creature no longer flesh. They would have been permanently transformed into a threat as dire and eternal as Discord himself, and thus become the ruination of two universes.

Yet Lillian had not done this. Celestia had good reason for her harsh intentions, but she was consumed by her well justified fear. Surely though, properly bound and nurtured, there was another path that could be trod with regard to the new alicorn. If only Lillian had not been created from humanity, Celestia might listen. But humanity was dangerous and self-destructive, and that was the only vision that Celestia now seemed to have of their kind. It was not her fault; humans had more than a little of the flatulent spirit of Discord within them, Luna could smell it; and the odor was intensely strong.

But Luna, if anypony, had pity for the lost, the abandoned, the disregarded. She saw in the new sister a reflection of herself, when she had been lost to everything.

"Tia... Celestia, my dear and beloved sister, I would ask of thee something most heartfelt; please consider the pity thou didst show to me, and the love thou hast found returned in kind. I beg thee to find such pity again, should thy path finally cross with that of our terrified, infant sister." It was all Luna could do, for now. Plant a seed of compassion in the hope that it would bear fruit in time.

Celestia turned fully to face Luna; her expression softened by a deep knowledge of precisely why her sister would be so strongly moved. "Lulu, dear one, you know that I..." Suddenly Celestia stopped, her face lost in concentration. Her ears panned the room, she tilted her head as if listening. Within her, Celestia saw beyond seeing, and sensed a sudden change beyond the boundaries of her cosmos. The 'northern' hemisphere of the strange, spherical, human world. The middle of the region they called the 'Northamerizone'. Celestia's vast consciousness focused in; she could now envision flat plains interrupted by a human city. Going closer still, she found a single building, and within it...

"There!" She said with quiet excitement. "Gotcha."

And with that, the room filled with blinding light, as Celestia vanished into the strange places beyond normal space, to run through the secret passages behind the curtain of reality itself.

Alone, save for the curious guards by the throne, Luna understood what happened. Lillian must have removed her binding ring, and become visible to Celestia again. Luna could also feel the presence of the newfoal alicorn, like a tiny candle seen at the edge of vision in a vast, dark room. She could also perceive the bright glare of her sister racing to meet that candle.

No. Celestia was caught up in her chase, in her passionate concern for the welfare of every living being. Certainly the danger was real and the threat was indisputably dire, but Luna could not accept that there was only one safe outcome. Celestia had taught her friendship and love; her older sister only needed to be reminded of the full scope of her own lessons.

That was something a truly loving little sister was honor-bound to do.