//------------------------------//
// Interlude Two: Technical Difficulties 
// Story: The Conversion Bureau: Reality Break 
// by Fullmetal Pony 
//------------------------------//

	“Mom? You there?” I said to my computer screen.
“Oh hey John,” my mother said in her usual bubbly voice, “you feeling any better?”
“Kind of.” I looked back and flapped my wings. I was now in Nate’s room. It was just me and him right now, but Sean will be sleeping here as well from now on.
“Do you need us to send you anything?”
“Please don’t, I have enough cold medicine to last until the end of time.” My statement is probably more true than I wished it was.
“Hey, is your video not working?”
“The wi-fi on campus has been weird lately,” I lied. “I didn’t feel like dealing with internet troubles today.” My video may have been off, but I could still clearly see my parents. My house was still normal and they were still humans. It was hard to think I wasn’t even the same species as them anymore.
“Well, do what you want,” my dad said. “You probably don’t look that good after that cold you’ve been dealing with anyway.”
“Heh, yeah, it’s really done a number on me, had to miss a few classes.” I hadn’t been to class since last Friday. Grades, like money, seemed pretty inconsequential in the face of the apocalypse.
“Well you do what you can to get better. Although, you sound much better. Just keep up your grades, ok?”
“Yes dad,” the droll “I’m tired of your nagging” voice wasn’t hard to pull off.
“So?” Mom asked.
“So what?”
“Did you hear the news?”
“What news?” I haven’t seen the news at all today.
“About the radiation leak in Nevada.”
“What?” There’s no way something as catastrophic as that could happen in a day. Especially in Nevada, nothing ever happens there.
“Yeah, apparently Yucca Mountain started leaking radiation into the groundwater. Most of the state’s been closed off. They actually had to evacuate Las Vegas.”
“Are you serious?” Something isn’t right.
“It’s pretty nasty, but people said it should be contained to Nevada, but you know how politicians are.”
“You’re safe though, right?” Nevada touched my home state.
“We’re fine, you know, aside from your sister having boyfriend drama.”
“Again?” Evidently, some things never change.
“Whatever. Oh yeah, Japan was also in the news today.”
“It was?”
“Mmhm, apparently all of that anime street-”
“Akihabara.”
“Yes, that one, apparently all the power went out to it last night. But the rest of Tokyo was fine. They say it might have been a terrorist attack.”
“Ok.” The power grid can’t work like that, especially not for Tokyo. Something is happening.
“It's kinda weird, there hasn't been any video of what happened there and no witnesses have come forward who were actually in the anime town.”
“Are there any other details?”
“Well some people outside of the town, street, whatever, said they saw a blue flash in the sky and then a few minutes later, a blue blur running through the streets.”
“That’s odd.” My god, is it another seed? Did they blow Tokyo’s power fuse?
“ Anyway, how’s that pony show you and your friends watch going?”
“I-it’s going f-fine.”
“John, you know I’m fine with you liking that show. I mean, you and your friends seem to have fun getting together and talking about it. Just don’t get too into it ok?”
Mom, you have no idea. “Heh, yeah I know... hey mom dad?”
“Yes,” they both replied.
“I... I’m doing a project for my religion class. We’re analyzing how various religions respond to the end of the world. What would you do?”
“Well,” dad replied first, “we’d try to get to you and your sister. If the world was ending, I’d at least want us to be together.”
“Yeah honey,” mom now replied, “no matter what, we’d always want to be with you until the end. You’re feeling ok right?”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine.” It’d be so easy to hit the video button now. Should I tell them the truth? One way or another it’ll find them. “Thanks.” I couldn’t do it, not yet at least.
“Take care son,” dad waved as he walked off the screen.
“We’ll talk to you next week, hope you get better.” My mom waved as well.
“Thanks mom, see ya then.” I clicked off of skype.
Then I looked at my computer screen. I couldn’t really type anymore, but the scroll pad still worked with a hoof. I practiced a little on Sybil’s computer (nearly broke it), so I could still open stuff up. What use is it if I can’t type though? Then I saw my email icon jumping up and down, a sign that something was up with it. I scrolled down and clicked it.
[Gmail] message box is full do you wish to delete older messages?
What the hell? I just opened that thing up, there can’t be that much spam. I clicked No and looked through the emails. My heart stopped.
“Are you really a pony?”
“Where can I get the drink?”
“Is Celestia real?
“Where are you right now?”
“Is Equestria real?”
“Do you get to choose which race you are?”
“Have you changed your name yet?”
“How can we call you?”
The screen was filled with hundred of emails like that. “Holy Shit! Nate! Get over here!” Nate had been watching some anime with his headphones plugged in while I’d been talking with my parents. So I needed to yell a little to get his attention.
“What is it?”
“Someone talked!”
“What do you mean?”
“Someone has told the internet about me and they believed whoever it was!”
“Well, isn’t that what we wanted?”
“No! No, no, no! We can’t let this thing move beyond our control! That’s when the government takes notice and... they take me.”
“So what do we do?”
“We need to find the source of these emails. Check Equestria Daily first... that’s the worst case scenario.” Nate typed in the url and then I saw my face plastered on the front of Equestria Daily. “Oh F*&k.” The title above my picture was “Ponies, Are They Here?” Then there was a the blurb below it from Sethisto:
Oh man guys, I think I’m losing it here. But this is a pic I got a few days back. Everyone on the site has run it through the gauntlet, but we can’t find any proof of editing. Then we’ve also got the chat log from the TCB IRC, which is even more insanity. Apparently, whoever this was was originally a human. Then he drank some ‘pony potion’ and wound up like this. He even got a letter from Celestia that apparently says we’ve got an apocalypse on our hands.
I know, this sounds like a bad fic. Right now, we’re trying to get into contact with human-turned-pony, but as of yet we have not gotten any response. We are in very strange waters right now people. This may either be the greatest joke our fandom’s ever pulled off or serious business. Right now it’s all speculation.
“Nate, go to the IRC right now!” I was about to pop a blood vessel.
“Ok.”
I had him type in the requirements and then told him to write exactly what I said.
FMP: Who? Who the hell was it?
Intangiblepony: Oh hey FMP you see EqD?
DaBunnanaKing: Holy crap it’s him!
Cloudhammer: Dude you’re famous now!
FMP: All of you shut up! Who the hell sent that stuff to EqD?
Cloudhammer: You ok?
FMP: No! the government is probably gonna be banging on my door any second now!
Intangiblepony: Well the thing is a few days old
FMP: it’s on the front of the damn site!
DaBunnanaking: Neat huh? So is there more potion coming?
Midnight: It was Krass
FMP: What?
Midnight: he wanted to get the word out, something about how if the end was coming we better be prepared. I think he might have been drinking
FMP: You idiots! You signed my death warrant!
Krass: Heyyyy irts teh poiny of the hoyur!
FMP: where are you, you son of a bitch!
Krass: Whoa didsn’rt kjnoqw popnies coyuld usse trhat lanugagee
FMP: He’s hammered
Midnight: yep
Krass: I waabnt to giicve everyplonmy a lefg up ob the ens of the wotld.
FMP: you’re insane
Krass: Buyt I;’ll be a suevicor and yiu’lcl be iur guiide, praisse Celes-
I smashed my computer with a hoof. It was just an expensive tracking device now anyway. “Nate, get that thing as far away from me as possible.”
“You ok?”
“No! I’m not! Oh Jesus, they’re gonna come for me.”
“Ok just, uh, take some deep breaths and we’ll discuss it later tonight. Talking’ll help right?”
“I pray to god that it does.”

~~~

“Aww shit, man!” Sean jumped up and down, “You made it on the front page of Equestria Daily. You were always saying you wanted to get you fan fi-”
“Shut up Sean!” I hissed at him, “Now is not the time!”
“Well John, isn’t this what we need?” Summer asked. “Don’t we need to get the word out as fast as possible?”
“Not like this! For crying out loud! Look at Sean!” Sean was fidgeting around, he looked absolutely ecstatic. “That’s who you trust to tell everpony about the end of the... Damn it!” I’d said another ponyism.
“Summer,” Jane said, “I think John is right, this isn’t the way to go about things. We need something official, something from the gove-”
“NO!” I yelled. “The government is even worse. They’d want to know everything about us.”
“Isn’t that a goo-”
“Including our physiology, you really want to be dissected or better yet vivisected?” I cursed Bleach for teaching me what that was.
“John, please calm down,” Summer asked kindly, “Jane’s been through a lot today.”
“She’s been through a lot? Mary, I’m on the front of website that gets thousands a visitors a day! I know she and Sean are ponies now bu-” I stopped, something was off. “How were you two not in pain from the outside? A cloudy day nearly crippled me.”
“Well we were outside when we drank the stuff,” Jane postulated, “maybe it helped our eyes adapt quicker?”
“Ah man,” Sean’s ears perked up, “it still gave me a headache thought. But it wasn’t as bad as the ground. Seriously, you should be glad you were on synthetic stuff when transformed.”
“Synthetic?” Such an odd statement had made me loose my train of thought.
“Yeah, it doesn’t blow your mind like earth does. Especially desert, I felt thirsty just standing there!”
“Sean,” I looked at him quizzically, “what are you talking about? The earth was fine, I mean, the air was a little low in humidity, but it was a desert.”
“Hey, that’s right: you totally lied to us about the air, it felt the same after we drank the stuff.”
“Actually,” Jane said, “the air became a little loud when we got into the city.”
“‘Loud?’” Summer asked.
“Yeah, there were so many engines running and lights on and appliances being used and...” Jane stopped, her face was a little red now.
“‘And’ what?” I asked.
“I sorta blew up Dan’s radio.”
“Hey,” Dan interrupted, “I’m just glad you didn’t blow up my whole car. Kinda glad we were at a stoplight when that happened though. That freaked me the hell out.”
“Wait, wait wait!” I called out. “Sean, what could you feel about the ground?”
“Everything man, what it was made of, its pH level, the cactus sprout you stepped on...”
“I think I’d remember stepping on a cactus Sean.”
“Naw, see it was just a little spout, didn’t even have it’s first thorn yet. Gotta admit, it may have split my head, but at least it was interesting. This carpet gets a little boring after a while.”
“Ok, ok,” I then turned to Jane, “Jane, what could you feel about the air?”
“Well, at first it was just small things, like everyone’s cell phones, or the power poles that were along the freeway. Then we got closer to the city and I started to feel this buzzing in my head. The closer and closer we got to school, the more the buzzing grew until it was pounding in my head. We were at the stop light and someone pulled up to us playing some loud base. I couldn’t take it any longer and I just wanted the pounding to stop.” Jane blushed a little more out of embarrassment. “Then I felt a little jolt in my forehead and well...”
“My radio and his radio cracked.” David interjected. “I didn’t get a good look at his, but mine was just wrecked.”
“I’m sorry Dan, I really didn’t mean to!” Jane pleaded.
“It’s ok, who knows if I’ll ever even be using my car again.”
“Ok,” I looked over at Sean and Jane. I pointed a hoof at Sean first, “so you’re an Earth Pony now and you can literaly feel the earth?” I moved my hoof over to Jane, “You’re unicorn and you can now feel electricity?” They both looked at each other then back at me and nodded.
“John, what’s up?” Sybil asked.
“Well...” I brought a hoof to my muzzle and thought for a second, “each type of pony seems to have different senses about things. Pegasi like Ma- Summer and I are more attuned to events regarding the weather, heat, and light. Earth ponies like Sean can read the earth and all its components and unicorns... hmm...”
“What?” Jane looked worried.
“You might be a bit more tricky, but for now it seems that electricity is the closest thing Earth has got to magic. That’s why you can sense it.”
“Why electricity?” Nate asked.
“Magic one day could be technology the next,” I postulated. I watch way too much sci-fi. “If you went back two hundred years with a flashlight, everyone would think you were a warlock.”
“So I’m pretty much Magneto then?” Now Jane was giddy about having electricity powers.
“No, it’s probably more than that... actually...” Summer looked over at the stack of plastic cups on Sybil’s shelf. Her eyes lit up. “Hey Jane, you should totally try moving those cups!”
“Are...are you sure?” Jane asked nervously.
“Yeah, I mean, not using your horn is like not letting us use our wings.” Summer flapped her wings for show.
“I’m with Summer on this.” That was the first time I’d used Mary’s pony name. I was more interested in seeing magic actually preformed. “You saw how our wings got all twitchy when didn’t use them. I don’t want to know what happens when unicorns don’t use their horns.”
“Oh...ok,” Jane replied. She then focused on the cups.
“Aw man, this is gonna be cool!” Sean’s eyes were wide with excitement.
“Shut up Sean!” The rest of us replied.
Then Jane’s horn lit up. It was about the same color as her hair: red with a stripe of yellow going through it. We all simultaneously “whoaed” at it. Then we saw that it was Sybil’s TV covered in a magical aura, not the stack of cups. It lifted off its shelf and floated to the middle of the room.
“Um, Jane,” Sybil had a nervous expression on her face, “that’s my TV.”
“Sorry, sorry, but I felt the power going through it and it kept making me lose focus and-” The TV fell to ground and cracked.
“Aw! I was gonna watch Godfather!” Sybil morned her lost TV.
“Sorry! Sorry!” Jane cried out. “I didn’t mean to!”
Sybil sighed, “It’s fine, still, I liked that TV.”
“Jane,” I patted her with a wing, “I think next time we fly, we’ll have you practice on some rocks. But if anything odd happens, anything, we’ll leave immediately.” Jeez and I thought flight was bad, magic doesn’t even have a basis in physics.
“Ok,” Jane sniffed, “that sounds nice.”
“Speaking of next time,” Summer looked at the smiling sun on her flank. “What about Celestia?”
“She’s even more awesome in real life!” Sean really should have been the “Pinkie Pie” of our group.
“Well...” I felt the glasses around my head, they worked perfectly: the right fit and the exact prescription. “I’m not sure what to think... more potion is coming, but the entropy... I think it might be happening in Nevada.” I shivered at the thought that the universe’s death was only a few states away.
“Why there?” Dan asked.
“It’s something my parents said. Apparently Yucca Mountain, that place where they keep all the radioactive waste had a leak or something.”
“Didn’t the government close it down or something last year?” Nate asked.
“I don’t know, but there’s no way I could have missed that on the news, unless it happened sometime between Friday night and today. Something like that should have had speculation going for days before anything major happened. The EPA would have been on this like a parasprite on ap- crap!”
“John, you ok?” Summer asked.
“No, I keep saying these damn ponyisms, it’s driving me nuts... but there are bigger issues at hand. Anyway, I think that might be where the entropy is expanding.”
“Nevada is kinda close,” Jane looked worried.
“It’ll be fine,” I tried putting on a brave face, “you heard Celestia, she said we’d already slowed it.”
“Hey, what about the other ‘seeds’ anyway?” Sean asked, “I wanna meet them!”
“You might have to fly over the Pacific then,” I replied.
“Why?” Sybil asked.
“Because, at least one other seed may be in Japan and they blew out part of Tokyo’s power.”
“Seriously?” Nate’s face was just as shocked as everyone else’s.
“Wow, and I thought my horn was bad.” Jane brought a hoof up to touch her new appendage.
“Yes, what you just told me seems to confirm my suspicions. A unicorn in Japan and lord knows where else ponies might be in the world.” What if they’ve already been captured by their governments? I shuddered at that prospect.
“So now what?” Sybil asked.
“We wait,” I replied, “Celestia promised help and that’s what we need. Whatever she’s doing is probably better than any PR we can do.”
“But I don’t want to wait!” Sean complained.
“You will wait Sean!” I stomped my hoof to the ground. “Or do you want to die in the name of science or whatever BS the government comes up with for your dissection!? Guh! I swear, you’ll get a cutie mark of a pony jumping off a cliff with it’s eyes closed!” 
“Oh yeah!” Sybil interrupted. “We still need to celebrate Summer’s cutie mark!” She walked over to her food supplies and brought over a bunch of bags. “While you were with Nate, I ran to the store and got a bunch of stuff!” 
I couldn’t be mad after I saw what Sybil had brought, she had gone all out. Watermelons, cantaloupes, strawberries, dragon fruit. I didn’t even know they sold that outside of Asian markets. She had brought pretty much every fruit under the sun. Then there was also rice and oats and wheatgrass. Oh man, the wheatgrass: simple, yet incredibly satisfying. This is probably what Celestia eats every day.
“Summer, did we really look that that?” I looked at Sean and Jane go into ecstatic shock over the food. 
“You still kinda do!” Summer smiled before digging into a pomegranate. “Oh wow, that is so sweet!” A little bit of the juice dribbled down her chin. It was my turn to laugh. “Hey come on! You do it too!”
“Yeah, but you know what they say, it’s funnier when it happens to somepony else!” I laughed. 
“You watch yourself, I’m gonna get ya!” 
Meanwhile, Jane was whispering with Dan and Sybil. “Hey everypony!” She called us to attention. “I’ve been thinking, actually since you told me about this, and I’ve decided... I think Dawn Strider will be a good name from now on.”
“You too, Jane?” I frowned a little.
“Well, it’s been on my mind since Tuesday. I mean, you really shocked me then. But well, what if in Equestria, ponies don’t accept us for having human names?”
“Oh snap!” Sean interrupted, “She’s right, they’ll be like ‘oh you’re from Earth, guess you’re not really a pony then.’”
“I highly doubt that Sean. Celestia is probably preparing everypony as we speak.” I stopped and thought about how odd that was. “Jeez, that is weird thinking of Equestria is a real place.”
“But it’s probably awesome!” Sean yelled.
“Yeah, maybe the food is even better there,” Jane zoned off a little on the idea of even better food.
“Can’t be stranger than what’s going on right now,” Sybil said.
“Yeah, I don’t think I’d have ever thought I’d be sitting and talking to a bunch of ponies,” Dan stroked his beard at the oddity of the situation.
“Heh, Dan,” I chuckled, “there’s a time and a place for everything. It’s called college.” Everypony else laughed.
“Hey John,” Summer was behind me, “speaking of time and place, there’s something I wanted to tell you.” 
“Yeah wha-” As I turned around, Summer kissed me right on the muzzle. I stumbled backwards onto a tray of honey melon.
“Hey, I was gonna eat that!” Sean complained. I didn’t notice, my mind had gone on the fritz and my face had turned beet red.
“M-m-mary! I... you... what?!”
Summer blushed a little now too. “Well, it’s just being with you over the past few days... it’s been nice. Plus, you’ve really helped me get through this all.”
“T-that’s my line! But...but what about your boyfriend?”
“He...he never liked ponies and well I don’t think he’d really like me right now.”
“I...”
“I know it was sudden on my part, so you don’t need to say anything right now. Just... just stand by me ok?” She then kissed me again, this time on the cheek.
“I...I... ju-!” That was how I fell asleep that night, passed out on a spread of fruits and sweets. Did I mention that bizarre was the new normal?