//------------------------------// // 11) Suspicious Minds // Story: The Conversion Bureau - The Return of the King // by Dan_s Comments //------------------------------// The Conversion Bureau - The Return of the King Suspicious Minds by Dan's Comments Disclaimer: My Little Pony is the property of Hasbro, Inc. Godzilla is the property of Toho Company Ltd.         The glow from the Tree of Harmony was dimmer still. Discord smiled. "So, Harmony means the crushing of all dissent? Rampant chaos caused you to act. Now you see what rampant Harmony and order will do. I must say, simply standing out of the way and giving you everything you desired has paid greater dividends than fighting you."         The glow of the tree dimmed further.         "The humans, they had an entertainment with a spectacular recurring character. The same entertainment had a recurring villain. Do you know what this most hated and feared enemy's war cry was? Not 'exterminate', because death would be an end. It was 'you will be assimilated'. All hope was stripped away, and you'd be made to serve the ones who destroyed you. The entire army composed of nothing but those mentally screaming at their endless rape of spirit and soul. Celestia has taken the first step and it was like a sip of water in a desert. She'll want to bring all into your light. To force all to submit, and be harmonious. To serve the goddess over all. Even death will not be a bar to Harmony."         The light of the Tree of Harmony faded more. ------------------------------         Twilight went over the equations again as she fluttered before her chalkboard. Unicorn Spike kept moving in case she got tired, and Rarity dragon was moving with him with the grace and artistry of a dancer. Twilight would lecture Spike on how he used to make Rarity feel, now that he was on the receiving end. But he's not taking advantage, she thought, Good for him.         "It is impossible for such a creature to even exist," she pronounced and let the small piece of chalk down. "It would burst like a balloon if we could use the Elements of Harmony on it."         She barely noticed Pinkie, Applejack and Fluttershy arriving. She did notice and was a bit glad they'd all resumed their normal appearance once the guards shut the doors. "So how did your idea go?"         "Discord has the, had the Elements," Fluttershy said, "Thanks Applejack, I like being myself again."         "Twern't nothing Fluttershy," Applejack said, "Little selfish on my part. I was startin' ta look at you that way. You're as handsome a buck as you are adorable a filly."         Fluttershy blushed but grinned.         "Why won't the Princess listen to us?" Pinkie asked, nearly tripped over Rainbow Dash, then realized Dash wasn't napping but wide awake. "Hey! I can give Dashie her wings back!" Pinkie said, and shied from Applejack and Twilight Breezy's stare. "With everypony's help of course."         "We aren't ponies anymore," Dash said.         Celestia arrived, and Twilight beamed as she displayed her work. "We can beat it, with the Elements. Once we get them."         "Ah, how misguided," Discord said as he arrived. He stared at the blackboards covered with Breezy-sized equations. He made a face and shook his head sadly. Then put it back on his neck.         Twilight looked from the equations to his dull expression and back. "What is it? What do you see!?" she demanded as she glared at him.         Discord sighed and looked at Celestia. "I see a rather dim child throwing a tantrum that the sparkly toy doesn't work after she murdered the previous owners, and that her betters somehow took their secrets to the grave." He looked at Celestia as she glared back at him, then he told Twilight, "That's what I see. A master parasite, a maggot feeling superior for feeding off a corpse."         Twilight was shocked, both with his comments, and that he had voiced such a low opinion of Princess Celestia.         "I have nothing to lose, more than I've already lost," Discord said to Twilight, "You weren't picked by Her Highness for your brilliance. Like her, you are a rather dull intellect. You were selected for your credulity and pliability to be molded by Her Highness. There's nothing special about you. She wanted a protegee incapable of asking the hard questions and thinking any thoughts Her Highness didn't put in there." He pointed at her head. "Your expertise in magic is that of a superb mechanic. Well able to play the notes, but unable to make the music. There is no original philosophy to anything you do or think." He gestured at the blackboard Twilight had spent hours slaving over. "Everything is a mere technical exercise of fitting it into the right box. The creativity, the ability to play with ideas or even new realms of knowledge is lacking in you."         Discord pointed at the others as they glared or growled at him. "She would have never picked Rarity, because a quick mind like that would wonder about the interplay of things she had never tried before. Would wonder about exceeding what had been done before or striking out into territories untrod by others. She wouldn't have picked Blueblood, who would always have space in his heart for himself and would wonder how something would redound on him. She wouldn't have Pinkie Pie or Applebloom, for whom play, and new ideas and experiences are to be embraced and mixed with existing lessons to create the new and unexpected."         Discord stared at Twilight as she withered under the lash of his scorn. "You merely want to understand what your betters have done. You are exactly who and what Celestia wants, a clockwork wind-up toy who will do as and only what she's told, will go as far as ordered but no farther, and will never demand any explanations or information beyond what has been provided. Applejack and Rainbow Dash I had to crush under the full weight of their Elements. Rarity I had to beguile with her love of beautiful things. Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie I had to twist into a mirror opposite of who they were. But you, all I had to do was change the rules, and you flew apart like an overwound watch. It wasn't until Celestia retaught you all the things you supposedly learned on your own, then you recovered."         Twilight was near tears at the leaden delivery, and that Celestia hadn't spoken in her defense. Even Spike stared in pity at the Breezy and in fury at Discord.         "All of this is wrong, and meaningless, because it stems from an underlying lie," Discord said.         "Discord," Celestia said angrily.         "Oh please, even if I tell them, will they remember? Poor Dash seems the only one who is starting to remember. That airliner full of refugees."         Dash whimpered and drew her tail tighter around her body.         "But Pinkie and Applejack don't remember setting out food for starving fugitives, then potion bombing them while they ate. Twilight doesn't remember what she led her brother into against that group of tanks, or what she did to that team of operatives who were immune to the regular potion. Or what happened to all those scientists, ponies and humans, who were trying to develop a reversal formula. Poor Lyra and poor Trixie trying to reach 'the real you' or your 'better nature' while you were destroying them. Never realizing they were seeing the real you the entire time," Discord laughed as all the others stared at him in horror. "Poof, all gone, scrubbed clean."         Twilight felt a growing horror. She looked to Unicorn Spike, who wasn't looking at any pony in the room, but staring at the tip of his tail as is it were the most important thing there was.         Discord gestured at the chalkboards. "Do you wish any further help with your problem? I need to fix lunch." He stared at her. Waited until she shook her head. When she did, he excused himself.         "My Little Ponies," Celestia said quietly, "Don't believe his lies. Sowing discord is what he does."         Twilight smiled as she fluttered up to her equations and began spelling out her plan. ------------------------------         In the kitchen, Fluttershy confronted me. It made me glad she was my friend, and that it gave me a way to undo what Celestia had done to her and the others.         "Discord, why did you do that?" She glared at me.         "Because she wants what was never hers and demands the humans assist with her quest," Discord said, "None of you deserve what the intellectuals among the Newfoals know. And demanding they give it to you is not going to change their minds."         "What are you talking about?!" Fluttershy demanded as I made the sandwiches. Each pony got their favorites.         "Celestia told all of Equestria that humans couldn't survive here, because of the high magic? How did ponies survive there? How did drab nothings like Jet Set and Upper Crust, to say nothing of Flim and Flam suddenly become tank busters? How did mediocre fliers like Cloudkicker suddenly become able to dodge missiles coming in at mach five? Because Earth is filled to bursting with magic. Humans would starve to death if they came here. The reason they're so advanced is because they can imagine like blank-flank children, and organize better than Twilight. That's their magic. Are you honestly telling me that you, who has tea parties with bears, and pulls thorns from the paws of angry manticores, couldn't come up with a better solution for saving the humans than extermination? Please, my friend Fluttershy may be timid, but she's not stupid."         "No," Fluttershy said.         "Do you know why every Newfoal, every one, holds their foals close when you walk by? Or most when they just see you?"         "No," Fluttershy pleaded.         "Because you specialized in children," Discord told her.         "No," Fluttershy said and shied back.         "Oh, you were convinced that making them ponies was the kindest thing you could do for them. But even after the conditioning the Newfoals get, they still remember 'child-stealer'."         "No," Fluttershy said and shook her head, "I wouldn't." She raised her head. "Why are you doing this?"         "For the same reason I took the Elements and put them . . . never mind. I don't want you as part of the cannon fodder for Celestia's new war. Dash is starting to remember all the things that happened, all the terror, all the blood, and how joyous you were to be agents of it all. The Newfoals could have created a Krell machine to show all you ponies, all at once, what you're really like inside, but they didn't. They did not assist those who exterminated their culture for the crime of being nonequine in destroying themselves. They summoned a protector, one willing to negotiate and be gentle, to a point. Think about that. Ninety-thousand tons, ex nilhio, out of nothing. Completely alien biology, psychology and it all works. The Elements would be useless except to make him angry, and single you all out as targets."         Fluttershy had gone beyond tears into stunned incredulity by this point.         I knelt down and took her cheeks in my hands. "Fluttershy, I know it hurts, but understand, this is for the best. This is like cutting flesh to pull out an infested splinter. Except this splinter is in your mind, and the minds of your friends. Rainbow got hers pulled when she got transformed, and she may never recover. You and I are going to have to pull it out for the others. And it's going to hurt, and hurt a lot, if you're going to save Equestria."         "Save it?" Fluttershy asked.         "Do you think the other nations are going to accept being ponyfied? Do you think Celestia is going to stop with the humans?" I asked, "The Newfoals' protector just needs to know there's more people to protect than he was summoned to. That's what you and Applejack need to do."         Fluttershy nodded. "I - need to lie down."         "Can you take the sandwiches?" I handed her the platter and let her go.