//------------------------------//
// Bureaus 
// Story: My Little Fortress: Friendship for the Blood God 
// by jaked122 
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The Saga of the Bureau began one day three years after the Summer Sun festival that celebrated the return of Princess Luna, formerly known by the derisive title “Nightmare Moon”, during which our normally most cogent Princess Celestia decided to do something which lacked the typical benevolence and choice which is the basis of her regime. Princess Celestia, 3 ANMM, made the pronouncement that Equestria would begin the long period of migration through universes that had once been a long standing cycle. 
        She gathered all the denizens of the realm whose fidelity to state were sufficient to motivate the migration. The important thing to note is that the entire land of Equestria is moved to the new universe; so that included most, if not all of the various ponies who had not settled to the outer lands possessed by other races than our own. 
        She did not, as I learned later, actually perform the ceremony which usually accompanies the migration. There was something off immediately when we reached our destination; Equestria was now surrounded by an ocean. This ocean stretched thousands of kilometers in all directions. We were on a world that was going to be unaware of us for a long time. A fact that saddened our Bright princess. She sent scouts out; the pegasi are perfect for the task, given an inflatable rubber raft and a week’s provisions, they were able to endure a journey of around six hundred kilometers before they found land larger than a small island. The small islands were composed of silicate sand, various calcium based compounds from the erosion of a large number of coral reefs. 
        Anyway, our princess set up a boat, something the pony society as a whole had mostly ignored; boats are useless without a large body of water and the presence of something that is too heavy to be flown by the far more efficient pegasi. She did this because the typical flying carriages would be too surprising to a race which seemed entirely stuck upon the ground.
        Therefore, using techniques passed down from our forbearers, we constructed the finest vessel ever produced by ponykind, it was almost two hundred hooves long, fifty wide, the largest pony built vehicle ever produced.



“Sorry to interrupt, Twilight, but I was hoping for more of a personal narrative, this is fun and all, but most of your history text books are slightly less boring than this… Story.” The dwarf finished his construction of a book lounge. “You have a real story, one that you lived through, how can I learn to appreciate the trials that you have endured if you treat it like a historical text?”
        “Fine, fine! I’ll just rewrite the whole thing later” 




        I was almost overwhelmed by the ocean. It surrounded us, it seemed too large for anything to tame it; and we had to cross it the slow way.
“What do ya’ll think will be out there?”  By this point, I knew it was a rhetorical question; it was not hard to imagine that they were fairly like us. The griffons were fairly similar to us when you think about it, they are easier to comprehend than the dragons, but that’s mostly due to their extended lifespans.
        “I don’t know, but at this rate, we’ll never get there. Why did we have to use this ship again?” Whether by Derisive tone, or the sheer impatience, it was not hard to imagine Rainbow getting antsy on the boat; there wasn’t that much to do, mostly because Rainbow couldn’t wait until the boat was built before she read the most recent Daring Doo book.
        “Rainbow Dash, you know just as well as the rest of us that the distance is difficult for most pegasi.” Rarity read a magazine, probably for the twentieth time. “Anyway, it hasn’t even been a full week yet Rainbow Dash, Why don’t you read that book that you were praising so much?” 
        “I already read it.” She grumbled. “Why did anypony build a ship in the first place?”



“You can skip to what happens when you meet whatever race you are talking about. Sorry Twilight, but you just need to focus on the interesting things, not necessarily for your book or whatever, but it tends to be more difficult to listen to someone telling you a really boring story in person.”
“I don’t give a pony; just let me finish the story.”
        “Wait what?”




        A low reverberation swept over the ship. Our scabrous captain grumbled about hailing calls and appropriate protocol, apparently nautical tradition reached back for a much longer time than I had expected. Metal ships painted white, spewing dark smoke, approached our  too small vessel. 
        “Ah do not like where this is going.” Applejack said succinctly. I shivered; these creatures had extensive industrialization. The briefings that the Princess gave us indicated that in the past, most races that have been encountered were not particularly industrialized; giving us an advantage. Now that cannot be said to be the case; these ships lacked the haphazard ingenuity seen in Equestria, such as the dubious constructions of the Flim-Flam brothers. They were made of iron, or something similar enough that an all wooden ship would no doubt look archaic to them.
        “Can we reply to them?” I asked our scabrous captain. 
        “Missy, I know what I’m doing. I’m also captain of this ship, so don’t contradict me.”
        “What? I wasn’t contradicting you; I was asking if we are able to respond to their hailing.”
        “Oh, that… Probably, should we?”
        “Yes!” I became frantic. I could feel myself breathing harder than necessary. 
        He pushed past me calmly. Somehow, his haste reassured me that I was in good hooves.


 

        “Sir, one of the forward watches has found a ship!” The officer burst into a cabin whose mahogany desk, polished to perfection, conflicted sharply with the captain who possessed it. An older man, gruff white beard, barely trimmed. The beard alone would lead anyone who did not know the man to believe that he was some kind of Thoreau, living in the woods for unspecified periods of time; that was before taking into account that he wore full dress uniform, even while putting his feet up on his desk, and drinking whiskey. 
        “Why does that concern me? We are travelling on common trade route. We don’t actually own the Pacific, yet.” The captain shrugged, “What makes it odd? I know you haven’t gotten this excited over most of the ships we’ve passed.”
        “Well… Sir, it’s made out of wood, it seems to be partially gilded in gold, and the crew seems to be a bunch of… well according to Ensign Clark, multicolored horses. It is a sailing ship sir; nobody’s used one that large for the last ten years.”
        “Officer Mulligan. Hail them; you know the protocol, you certainly don’t need my judgment as to whether we investigate this. After all, by Executive order #432, we are to investigate all ships carrying unusual creatures that we have not yet exploited. That is a bit irrelevant because that protocol was in place so that you don’t have to bother me with your cockamamie watchmen’s reports. Do you understand?”
        “Absolutely sir!”
        The panicked officer left the cabin, prepared to yell at the appropriate crewmen. The captain chuckled and went back to sipping a bit of whiskey. “That kid will never get far if he doesn’t learn to laugh it all off.”



        The mast creaked as a bell rang heavily across the sea-laden air. The ship groaned as it tacked into the wind, pushing forwards towards the other vessel. Colorful whirls appeared on the other ship; communication commencing. Ignorant of the communication, we continued sailing towards them. Our understanding at the time lead us to only pursue the most obvious method of contact, crossing vessel to meet them face to face. We were aliens. The only communication I could imagine would be to meet them face to face; speak until we understand each other. Then I could learn from them. 
        Applejack chatted with a sailor. Assured that nothing could go wrong. 
        Pinkie Pie prepared her cannon. For the party that could go wrong.
        Fluttershy cowered moved by fear. Comforted by Angel, that nothing could go wrong.
        Rainbow Dash rustled feathers, preparing for a fight. And yet I knew disaster awaiting us to do it wrong.



“Nice application of Epiphora.”
“…”



Rarity prepared. For vanity could not do her wrong.
        And I stood near the helm, pondering it all. Perhaps it would go right after all.
        Sea spray bridged the canyon between the ships. Hooks deployed, barbs caught. Reeled in, Vessel sought. Flags spin. Cannon shot.
Cracks and booms extend from the horizon. The other ship takes up staves. Rifle shot. What have we done?
They board us, ignore us. Too stunned to speak, we watch. Looking down the length of wood and iron, what is it they have in mind? They search the ship, but fail to find what they are seeking.  They discuss the possibility of smugglers, hiding in the woodwork. What would they smuggle?
        I approach one, bars on his chest. I have no idea what it means. 
        “Hi.”
        Eyes soften. Staff lowered. “What in tarnation?” uttered blindly. 
        “I’m Twilight Sparkle. But do you have a name?” He stared at me for a moment.
        “Just call me Officer Mulligan.”


“So what ended up happening?”
 “I don’t actually know. Something about a trading chest I think, maybe a trading cabinet, either way, they were bringing us to a place they called “The bureau of foreign trade”. The closest branch was in San Francisco.”
“Let me guess, when you got there, the ground began to shake and belch flame?” The dwarf mused awkwardly, twirling his beard. “Sounds like a large earthquake, almost certainly unrelated to your arrival, at least personally, it is possible that the arrival of a large landmass created a pressure on neighboring tectonic plates, causing a large faultline to shatter.” He shrugged. 
“How did you know?”
“Easy, you and your friends are nice, none of you is important enough to precipitate an event such as that.” The dwarf laughed, “But honestly, I doubt that was your fault.” Spike walked in, yelled “Ha! It’s a pun because you said a word twice!” and left. 
Twilight shook her head. “Sometimes I wonder what goes through Spike’s head.” She sighed. “That wasn’t the problem though.”
The dwarf’s eyebrow did an impressive imitation of a worm rearing up to strike at a bird. “What was then?”
“We tried to use the Elements of Harmony to fix the problem.”


The street around us shattered as the ground shook, buildings began to crumble or burst into flame. Rainbow Dash looked at me, eyes filled with hubris. “Well, I’ve got this covered.” She pulled out the various Elements of Harmony and distributed them. 
“Why do you have these Dash?”  I was a bit more than curious; usually we had to recover the Elements of Harmony, confronting the problem head on before finding them in an obvious place.
“I figured that nothing could go right with the boat, so I brought them along just in case. Anyway you can thank me later.”
If you’ve ever been struck by a candlestick, you know what it is like to use the elements of harmony. They aren’t painful, but they are annoying. The sensation, beyond that is indescribable, power flows through you in a way that is difficult to comprehend. 
Waves of the typical pinkish-white light travelled throughout the ailing city before a white flash made it very difficult to understand what happened next. Regardless of this effect which seemed to only have the effect of making it impossible to quantify the operational mechanism of the magic used by the Elements of Harmony. 
The city which appeared to us afterwards seemed wrong, somehow, too wholesome. Too colorful, it didn’t alter the structure of the city significantly, but the subtler characteristics seemed off. The bodies of the apes, which had littered certain parts of the street only a second before were gone. Replaced by ponies. The others were astonished at first, but after snapping out of it, they were enraged. Especially Officer Mulligan
        “You… ponies… What have you done?” The officer was almost without words, his face was white, I’m not quite sure why though.



“Twilight, the blood vessels in the face constrict when there is an abundance of fear, conserving blood for the possible fight or flight that may occur afterwards.”
“Interesting.”



“You’ve killed all of them.” He gasped, “You’ve ruined our city. What do you have to say for yourselves?”
“We didn’t kill any of them. They’re getting up right now, see?” Applejack pointed her hoof towards one of the new ponies who was working on getting on their hooves. I couldn’t quite make sense out of it. The Elements of Harmony have never acted in this manner before. The “new” ponies would have to be interrogated to find out whether or not they retained any of their personality as a human, if they didn’t, then we would have been responsible for killing thousands of humans on our first interaction with them.
“They aren’t human, the only thing that humans transform into in their lives is corpses. I don’t know what you’ve done to the corpses, or the city for that matter, but they certainly aren’t right.”
Rainbow dash crossed her forelegs, “Well, they had already transformed into corpses, and now the buildings look about right.”
Rarity and Fluttershy were both trying to stay out of the conflict. Pinkie Pie, being Pinkie Pie, bounced around behind us, interacting with and frightening the “new” ponies.  
        “You don’t seem to understand, there is only room on this continent for one species of intelligent mammal.” Officer Mulligan threatened, shaking his finger at us.
        “Hey Twi, you want to try using the Elements of Harmony again?” It was tempting, I wondered what effect they would have this time. None of the possibilities were particularly friendly, or, at the very least, advantageous to our relationship with the humans. 
        “Men, surround them, we must detain them for their trial later.”
        “Um, sir… would it be possible for us, if you don’t mind, to send Dash here to contact our own government? It would be, um, advantageous to our trading relationship.” Officer Mulligan began to stare down Fluttershy. Possibly a mistake. “And it might ease tensions between our species if we could um… obtain appropriate representation and perhaps trade for the mistake which has saved the minds of so many humans.” So it wasn’t a mistake. 
        Officer mulligan scratched his chin, I doubt that he had ever had such a  large decision to make before in his life.
        His men pointed their rifles at us, I didn’t really want to learn how they worked if I was on the receiving end. “I’m really sorry, Sir, we didn’t know what these things would do, we just expected-“
“What? That they would magically fix everything?” I nodded.
“Are you dumb or something?”
“These things are as much a mystery to us as they are to you.” I admitted. I realized that I had a nervous smile, which I then suppressed.
“So I can add weapons testing as the crime inflicted on our city.”
“Shut up Mulligan!”  The voice came from behind him. A grey Pegasus wearing a uniform trotted up to him.
“Who the hell are you?”
“Well, now, that’s hardly the way to be talking to your captain.” The Pegasus snarled. “I should have you court-martialed for mutiny. They saved my life. I don’t even think they understood that they would have that effect, but I’m your captain, and son, you had better recognize that.” He laughed.
Officer Mulligan just stood there slack-jawed. “Well… That’s one way to settle it.” He mumbled to himself.  “Well, Sir, should we still call on the federal government to tell them what has happened. Also, if you would not mind answering me, were you dead?” 
The Pegasus nodded. “Mulligan, you should probably contact the federal government, I’m sure that when they see the work they’ve done here, they might even award them a medal.”



“Did that ever happen?”
“No, they didn’t like the idea of what they called ‘Another minority’ living in the bounds of their country. Their government was apparently full of jerks. They were also concerned about something they called ‘Religious implications’, whatever that means.”
“What happened to the ponies that were created that day?” 
Twilight’s expression darkened. A tear dropped from her left eye. Her legs started to tremble. 
“They rounded them up, called them aliens. They put them in a military base, and then promptly refused to acknowledge the existence of our government, us, or the universal rights of sentient creatures. Well, until the seventies.”
“Is that the world that we are in now?”
“No, we left them to stew in a terrifying “Nuclear holocaust” of their own making. Supposedly, they are not doing too well today.”
“Would it be a good idea to visit them?”
Twilight shook her head. 
The dwarf laughed. “Well I knew that much already.”



Meanwhile on the aforementioned world…
        A man with a head wrapped in cloth, respirator donned, walked across the barren desert that had once been a similarly barren desert. The main difference was that before, there was a distinct lack of homicidal Technicolor Equines. He carried a gun, but knew that it would do little good if any of them had the desire to end his life.
        A scorpion, a small one, crawled across a rock in front of the man. For some strange reason, he felt a strong urge to smash it with his pistol and eat the remains, careful to avoid the venomous stinger. His stomach rumbled, urging him on once again. He submitted to the urge, smashed the scorpion, sat down on the rock to enjoy the spoils of being significantly larger than the arthropod which he had just smashed sufficiently well to make himself feel better, being the apex predator of the planet.
        Eating a scorpion is like eating any other large insect, not bad if cooked properly, but this was not one of those times. He cursed his stomach for giving him such awful advice. 
        Something fell to his feet. He looked down. It looked like it was made out of wood. It had a short stem which curled up a bit, leading to a cylinder with scales which had some purpose which he could not quite imagine. He picked it up, and bit it warily. It tasted like Pinesol. He spat it out. Where the hell had this come from, he thought.
        “How dare you insult the Great and Powerful Trixie by refusing to eat her pinecone!” The man wondered why whoever was talking was referring to themselves in the third person, but was caught off guard by the pinecone comment. Odd, he thought, it doesn’t look like a cone at all. 
        He reconsidered his action, and bit into the pinecone again. This time it tasted like Pinesol. The man wondered where he had tasted pinesol before. It didn’t matter, if his probable hallucination was insulted he would attempt to sate it. 
        “Finally, someone who recognizes a pinecone for the fine culinary dish that it is.” 
        “But where’s the dish? all I got was this food of questionable digestability.”
        He turned around, a blue Technicolor Equine was staring at him with improbably large binocular eyes. He had seen proper horses before, and he was sure that they neither came in the blue color, or had such impressively binocular vision. More significantly, they didn’t have light up dildos sticking out of their heads. The man thought again, where had he seen a dildo before. He was having one of those days with improbable vocabulary springing to mind.
        “So I see that my hallucination is visual too. Hi, nice to see you.” He stuck out his hand, why not? After all, how could a Technicolor Equine with a dildo attached to its head be offended by a confused gesture? 
        “Charmed, I’m real though. I am the Great and Powerful Trixie.”
        “Oh, so you’re the one who was insulted that I didn’t ingest this piece of wood. Cool.” The man smiled, showing her the splinters now stuck in his gums.
        “Yes.” The man smiled at her. 
        “So, you free tonight? cause I’m willing to bang any hallucination, other than that annoying Geico Gecko.”
        “Do not suggest that the Great and Powerful Trixie would degrade herself by mating with such an inferior life-form.” 
        “I don’t have to be inferior.”
        “No… I suppose you don’t.” Her head-dildo glowed. He suddenly felt like eating a pinecone would not be the worst he could do for food. “So, sexy, you want to come to my place?”
        “Sure.” The man heard his own voice, and it didn’t quite sound right. It sounded a lot more like the hallucination in front of him. “Well, then, I see that I’ve lost it completely, let’s go to your place, do you have water there?”
        The blue-dildo-headed horse nodded. “Nice.” The two Trixies walked to a shack, filled with eight more Trixies, all suitably confused, and aroused.



“Yeah, they have a bit of a Trixie infestation. Not the most pleasant thing to deal with, especially considering that it’s getting worse every day.”


        “Fine.” The dwarf smiled after a moment. “So, can I be a pony or not?” The dwarf smiled, clenched his fists and held them out as though he was holding on to his anticipation.
Twilight nodded.



Next Time on My Little Fortress: Friendship for the Blood God:
Confusing time-travel plots,
Confusing jokes, Discord?