> TCB: He who stands at the top of the Food Chain
>  by Sweetmiss2121
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Chapter 1: A deal with Mister D.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

New York – Rooftop - 

Here it was! The culmination of Alex Mercer’s plan! The turning point he so wished for!

One of the two possible endings to his plan actually.

He had saved humanity from the Blacklight and a whole city from a nuke, once done that he had traveled the world saving as much people he could, helping countries and tribes and villages and so on so forth to demonstrate that he was NOT a monster!

Yes, he was no human, yes he was just a sentient ‘Bio-Weapon’ humans had created for their dirty wishes of power, and yes...He had stolen the identity of the real Alex Mercer when the man tried to have the Blacklight Virus (his true name) on the population out of some crazy wish of revenge.

But NOBODY! Not even Doctor Mercer had understood how adaptive, how Complex, the Blacklight Virus truly was...So much that once consumed completely Mercer’s body it had reached sentience, he had gained a mind and a SOUL of his own.

And honestly, the real Alex Mercer was a piece of shit (and the Blacklight often apologized to the poor fecal matter for putting it on the same level of that human); unworthy of the small recognition he had, unworthy of being alive and most of all, unworthy of his sister’s Dana’s love.

So, when Blacklight became Alex Mercer, and once learned his true origins as a virus/bio-weapon, Alex wanted to prove himself BETTER than the former owner of his name…

From there things went down the drain.

No matter what he did, to him humans felt corrupted, dirty, literally FLAWED! Any good you did to them, more often than not was repaid with betrayal, any time one of them saw their power and wealth increase they immediately started wanting more and more! Violence was never enough, hunger was never satisfied and rage never quenched...But when he met her Alex knew humanity still had some saving graces, could still be allowed to exist.

This Her was a young woman, a humanitarian doctor in Africa: a hopeful-looking, weak little thing believing to save the world one Malaria-infected-sod at a time, so he helped her; No sickness or Virus could hope to match the Blacklight, the thing was MADE to triumph over every other ‘common’  attack unless the attack was specifically-engineered to fight Blacklight (even if in the end that countermeasure too failed, as his armour form could testify).

He purposely injected himself with several strands of illnesses and ‘sweat-off’ a counter, a cure whenever necessary...Easy to say soon Pharmaceutical Houses everywhere immediately went nuts in order to gain the miraculous cure to everything the young woman found and categorically refused to tell the source of, especially since she dated said source and had more often than not talked about future marriage with.

Then it came the day pure greed helped those money-hungry beasts in the form of one of the ungrateful bastards she had cured selling the information about Alex being the source of the panacea he gained by chance.

And in order to capture Alex, Her had to go, permanently.

Alex...He went mad. In his mind every time Humans entered the picture, his life would be ruined, so as soon as he saw Her being dead...He retaliated...Furiously; starting by finding the asshole that sold the information to kill him...then destroying his home village consuming every life-form down to the smallest bacteria until nothing in the area remained and even plant life would NEVER return, then he attacked the Pharmaceutical house commissioning the job, then the mercenary group they had paid to do the deed...Then the Families of the mercenaries and of every employee of the now-eradicated Pharmaceutical House...and then their neighbors, and the neighbors’ neighbors, and the city AND the city immediately after.

Too mad at everything even barely resembling something Human The Blacklight Virus known as ‘Alex Mercer’ or ‘Zeus’ began his campaign: release the Blacklight Virus on the whole damn planet, Cure humanity of their Flaws (Greed, Rage, Envy and so on) and every other illness existing and making sure everybody would just live in peace free of any form of distinction old humanity created! in short:

Creating a Utopia! Alex’ ideal Utopia, the one his ‘HER’ had always wished for.

Here enter James Heller: the perfect candidate to either be Alex’ lieutenant in his plans to give humanity a ‘second chance’…or to become the one finally killing Alex so that he could be once again together with Her, either option was equally good; even if after all the bad deeds he had done, the living Virus really preferred death sentence in the privacy of his mind.

“Will I even be reunited with her?...No. Probably she won’t ever want to see me...Huhuhu! Ironic, I did all this to have the world become like she wanted it to be...and she will probably hate me for it. But considering I tried to do it on the flesh and blood of innocents, I cannot blame her.” Alex thought chuckling at the irony of his thoughts as his final battle with Heller finished with the man pinning him down poised to deliver the finishing blow.

“Any last words?” Heller asked growling.

I am sorry.

I did it for her.

Tell Dana I am sorry.

Use the Virus well, I couldn’t.

I regret doing all this, but I just tried to save humanity from self-destruction.

Be careful, now they will come after you, you’ll never find peace.

Protect Dana, I beg you.

I am sorry for your wife, I hoped to save her during the attack but I didn’t make it in time…

“...Welcome to the top of the food chain.” Of all the things he wished to say, those words, said with a soulless dead tone, left his mouth and he could swear even Heller paused for an instant at hearing him saying it like that before plunging his claws deep in Alex’ chest making the world fall into darkness.

Sometime later - 

“Uhu?” Alex thought as he found himself floating somewhere dark, somewhere smelling like rotting matter.

He curiously couldn’t even tell the shape of his body, as if he was semi-liquid in consistence.

“So this is what it feels to be consumed?” he wondered as he found-out he could not speak.

“Surrounded in shit, not exactly dignifying...” he thought as with a soft thunk! A bent and half-rusted can of soda hit his head.

“Eh?” finally forming something resembling a mouth the Living Virus muttered in shock.

“I can’t consume metal, and neither could Heller...what is happening here?” he said with a weak voice.

Feeling extremely weak or not, he needed to see what was happening, so ever so slowly, he used the few energies he still had to have some of his Blacklight cells turn themselves in the components of a human eye to see...damp walls with barely enough light filtering by the ceiling.

“I am...In the sewer system?...I swear, if somehow Heller ‘expelled me’ like feces heads will roll!” what remained of Alex (barely a small pool of black goo not different from what was of him after the bomb’s explosion) hissed in contempt.

“I am a semi-solid blob of goo, it must be the reason why I am floating instead of going down like a rock. Whatever. I need bio-mass to return human, luckily rats are abundant here. It will be only a matter of time!” he said managing a smirk with his small cavity-like mouth.

Something akin to more or less two weeks later – (Hard to say with just one eye and floating inside the sewers) - 

“WHERE. THE FUCK. HAVE. THE RATS. GONE!?” Alex shrieked in blind rage as not a single rat had even walked closer to him, and the newly-grown antenna on top of his goo-head could not detect the critters moving no matter how sensible he made the appendages.

“I am in the sewers of New York! For fuck’s sake there should be more rats here than humans up there in the streets!” he said incredulous, by-now no more offended at being reduced to look like a black slug the size of a small dog with a single human eye between its antennae.

“...Something is not right, I can’t hear a noise here, no critters around and silence above. Either they are still waiting for the aftermath of me and Heller playing around passed or-” his musing stopped when the noise of heavy machinery echoed all the way down forcing the cringing Virus to tone his hears down to human sensibility.

“Ask and you shall get...that sounds like tracks, maybe they are finally rebuilding and-”

Ratatatatatatatata!

“...No. that’s an automatic riffle. They are definitely fighting up there.” Alex finished saying in a deadpan tone.

“Good, and in my status I can’t even ‘borrow’ some bio-mass. They will capture me or destroy me too easily for my tastes. I’ll just give a look and dive for a hiding spot should the worst happen.” he muttered as he slowly crawled up the wall following his earlier ‘slug joke’ with his body secreting a similar slime to stick to the wall.

“Let’s see...I never tried consuming a dead body, but in my state I cannot...be...picky...” Alex drawled as he saw, once peeked outside with an overly-long eye, a human soldier fight with a pastel-colored pony wearing an armor seemingly made of pure gold.

Forgive him if in the shock he slipped down the wall to stare upward towards the badly-closed man-hole from were he was spying outside, but he was feeling a tad overwhelmed.

“...LSD should not work on my immunity system, nor on my brain...maybe the eye is rotting?” he wondered as he broke-down the antennae to re-create his eyes with brand new cells.

Once returned to spy outside he saw other soldiers join the first one with tanks while now WINGED pastel-colored ponies descended from the sky at mach speed while pelting the soldiers in vials of purple stuff transforming the soldiers into MORE pastel-colored ponies and getting torn to shreds by the humans’ machine-guns in retaliation.

“W-W-WHO! WHAT! WHERE! WHY?!” Alex bellowed as he returned on the floor of the sewers to escape the ricocheting bullets and sprays of purple ‘Pony Juice’.

“THAT was not result of Blacklight infecting horses! I do NOT make cute creatures!” Alex, in a surprising flash of pride from his being a Bio-weapon, said in denial.

He needed information and he needed them soon! But the only way he knew was through consuming either a human soldier...or a pony one.

“I swear if eating one of them turns me pink I will find a way to self-terminate.” he muttered while whacking his gooey brain for a plan for some very-needed consuming.

As if the heavens heard his plea/whining, a big chunk of wall above him exploded fiercely inundating Alex and a great part of the sewers in dust and pieces of broken bricks as a tank overhead had been up-turned by a lucky shot of the attacking ponies a second before it could fire, making the road collapse and causing two heavily wounded soldiers (one pegasus and one human) to fall close to the Living Virus.

“...You DO know I still believe you do not exist, right? I will chalk this up as coincidences.” Alex muttered while looking up towards the sky.

“Augh!” the pony soldier groaned in agony as he still tried to move the bloody stump where one of his wings used to be.

“Never there has been a better time to say: ‘Don’t look at a gifted Horse in the mouth’!” Alex said sighing as he slowly crawled up the pony’s body towards his face.

“Just do me a favour: don’t chew.” he asked as he crawled down the horse mouth to consume him from the inside while ignoring his weak protests.

“M-M-M-MERCER!” the human soldier shrieked in fright as he tried to drag himself away ignoring his broken legs while the purple unicorn got covered in tendrils soon leaving room to a perfect replica of the animal but without a single scratch on his body and still wearing the hoodie the Human Mercer was famous for.

“Uuuuhm! It’s a nice start. But I still have space for dessert!” the horse said in Mercer’s voice making the soldier shriek louder and paw his body for his gun.

“NO! NO! WAIT! PLEASE WAIT!” he begged.

“Sorry, but I need info about what is happening here, both Human and...Equestrian...Stupid name for a country, by the way.” the horse replied opening his mouth wide and filling it with fangs a horse SHOULD NOT have.

“GYAAAAAAAAAH!” the man yelled in fright as Alex pounced to consume him in a single bite.

Once recovered even more bio-mass and returning to his old human body, Alex broke free from the sewers as soon as he reached an isolated-enough area to come out and then climb a near sky-scraper to survey the war-zone from its rooftop.

“Okay. Let’s make a recap of the situation.” he said sighing as he watched fighter jets and choppers battle pegasi while ground troops fought Unicorns and Earth Ponies.

“I was out in a coma-like state for three months, probably feeding on whatever garbage I could come across floating in the sewage and so with not enough bio-mass to completely heal and wake-up. In those three months and two weeks a nation of talking, magic-using ponies appeared in the middle of the Atlantic ocean and started professing Love and Friendship to all living things and even offering the chance to convert humans to ponies...” Alex mused as he distractedly kicked away a missile a near chopper misfired to have a near group of pegasi explode to bits from the rebound projectile.

“Something happens with the potion and it gets poured in the main water source of New Orleans forcing the change on the whole place...And by the Pony’s memories it may very well have not be an accident. The Conversion is discovered altering the mind: personality remains unchanged...but every Negative traits (or what those horses see as negative) is forcibly removed…In very rare cases leaving the subject half-catatonic. Their Leader Celestia (What name is that?) then comes-out fully...They will save humanity from itself by forcing the change, but with the excuse of the humans declaring war on Equestria first because they are savage war-mongers.”

“...But why I am here? Why I was not consumed?” Alex finally asked aloud what was nagging his mind ever since he woke-up.

“That would be because of me. I needed you to not die so to speak with you.” a new voice said amused.

“Who-no. WHAT the fuck are you?” Alex asked turning his hands in the sharp blades of his Claw Form.

“Name’s Discord. And I have a job for you.” the mismatched creature, sporting parts of different creatures in place of what he was supposed to have, answered smirking.

“A job?...I am listening.” Alex said with narrowed eyes.

“I want you to stop this war between Ponies and Humans.” Discord said simply.

A long silence fell between the two filled only by the warcries of the two races, the gunfire and the agony screams of either wounded horses or mid-conversion humans.

“Stop this war? Anything easier? Like finding El Dorado, The Graal or Atlantis?” the Living Virus asked sarcastically.

“You want a different task? Then tell me who’s best between Coca Cola, Pepsi and Dr. Pepper.” The creature countered with a challenging tone.

“Stopping the war it is then. But WHY the embodiment of Chaos and Discord wants me to stop all this to begin with?” Alex asked coldly.

“And how do you know who I am?” Discord asked back very curious, before snapping his fingers and turning the missile flying towards them into a toaster Alex then kicked back at the chopper making the thing start falling down without control.

“I consumed a pony, he knew something about you, so now I know too.” the man answered.

“Uhu! You steal memories too other than Magic then...” the Draconequus replied impressed.

“I steal their body as well, and sorry but I don’t believe in Magic, that would be giving the middle finger to what I believe about Science and the Laws of Physics, Nature and Common Sense.” Alex said annoyed.

“All laws that are ssoooo out of style too!” Discord said as he somehow came out from Alex ear to circle his body until he remained standing and giving the man a one-armed hug.

“Please get to the point.” the Living Virus begged groaning.

“I want you to stop this for a reason: I do NOT condone genocide.” Discord said with a grave tone.

“Xenocide. We are talking about the WHOLE human race, not just a ‘sub-group’.” Alex said as both walked to sit on the side of the rooftop and watch the massacre unfolding under them.

“The fact remains that I do not like this.” the Draconequus answered unfazed.

“This is Chaos, Disharmony. And you do not like it?” the other asked.

“I like the chaos where people and pony survive. Not ONCE somebody died after I finished with them, even in my worst moments. The worst I did was turning a few into statues, but contrary to when it happened with me, they were not conscious nor could they tell they were trapped in stone, and after I broke free the first time, I had always made sure of that. It is not a nice feeling.”

“I have a passing memory of you ‘grilling’ ponies too.” Alex said nonplussed.

“The fire was cold. If I can make so that clouds rain chocolate and turn LIVING rabbits in bunny slippers, I can very well make cold fire...In fact, I can testify that the ones depicted on that glass panel in Celestia’s palace were all ponies that instead of burning marks came down with the flu.” Discord answered huffing.

“Then why are you not stopping this yourself?” Alex asked.

“Do you see that mare?” he answered pointing in a far away point in the horizon.

“Where?”

Sigh! “Wait, I am zooming the image.” the creature answered grabbing...Space and enlarging pointer and thumb on it as if enlarging a picture on a tablet making a winged horse with a horn (Alicorn, the consumed memories supplied) appear before them.

“Is that...Celestia?” he tried saying, while also ignoring every scientists he ever consumed cry in agony for all the laws of physics that had just been raped by Discord as if it was nothing.

“Personally surveying this attack, if I even just sigh too close to her soldiers I will have the Elements of Harmony on my tail instantaneously and I will be back to decorate her garden as a statue.” he answered.

“Elements of Harmony.” Ale said nodding as he already knew what the other was implying.

Six mares (teenagers, even) holding the condensed power of Harmony itself, practically something out of a kid-show since it meant they could shot friendship at their enemy.

“I am an entity of Chaos, and those things are my exact opposite, as long as they exist and the Bearers listen to whatever Celestia says as if God’s gospel, I will have to limit myself.”

“Want me to kill them?” Alex proposed simply, kinda surprised to see the other turn to glare at him fiercely.

“I would like you not to. Unless you want to cease to exist.” he hissed coldly.

“Are they your friends?” the Living Virus asked.

“...” the other simply looked away and refused to answer.

“Yes they are then, no need to vocally confirm it. Any other reason you want me to help the humans? I do not exactly like them myself.”

“I don’t want my brethren to disappear...”

“I beg you pardon?” Alex asked confused.

“Being of Chaos.” Discord said pointing at himself.

“Being of Harmony.” he then said pointing at Celestia.

“...Beings of Chaos.” he pointed at Mercer and then at the humans.

“We? Chaos?” Alex asked.

“One of the reasons Celestia wants humans gone, the others is still too soon for me to disclose.” the other answered getting up.

“No. you are not going anywhere without telling me what you want from me.” Alex said growling.

Sigh! “So be it.” the Draconequus said making Celestia’s image disappear.

“Celestia is trying to bring here her ponies, all of them and a great part of their territory, forcefully annexing those pieces of land to the Earth.”

“Okay...”

“The Barrier you see down there, that pink dome of energy, is ‘overwriting’ a portion of human territory with Equestrian equivalents, that barrier is ‘making room’ for a piece of Equestria to be brought here, soon more barriers will appear to teleport pieces of the pony kingdom here.” Discord explained.

“Then why it is expanding?” Ale asked as he could tell from the soldier’s memories that a month ago the dome he could see outside the city used to be smaller.

“The expansion is artificial, the dome was not supposed to enlarge, Celestia is using it to both defend her ponies and ‘delete’ humans, that is why the conversion is the only way to survive it.” Discord answered.

“She is bringing Harmony-based beings in a Chaotic environment, contaminating the system. One of the two needs to be ‘formatted’ in a way to sustain the system, and she is forcing our native one to change to accommodate Equestria instead of the other way around.”

“Exactly, and I like it here. Here there is Chaos Magic in the air, I would almost not need to be chaotic to exist, but I would do it all the same because I enjoy bringing chaos.” Discord explained smiling as he made every soldier, pony and human alike, stop fighting to just dance the macarena while wearing mariachi costumes.

“This should stop other deaths, and since I attacked both, hopefully Celly won’t be too mad at me.”

“We have Chaos Magic here?” the Virus asked surprised.

“Yep! You have it and you can’t use it, and that is a pity let me tell you, and even if I feel more powerful than ever HERE, I would not trade it for what I have in Equestria. But I fear there are some plans of Celestia for this place I will not like. And I need you to stop this madness.” he asked.

“How?”

“By the looks of it...In three months Celestia will finish turning enough humans into ponies to force the ones remaining to surrender and accept being turned to not succumb. Then their Conversion will forcibly stop them from expressing their resentment. What Celestia’s Dear Student Twilight didn’t have the courage to admit is that her potion does not Erase the negative traits, it suppresses them in a way that the New-Foals won’t be able to express them. They won’t lose themselves, but they won’t be able to really fight back either. Then the Barrier will make a rapid passage on the whole planet to be sure nobody remained human and the final stages of her plan will begin with the arrival of the first ponies from Equestria.” Discord explained.

“...And Dana?” Alex asked in dread.

“She willingly took the Conversion Serum, she said that humanity took away her brother twice: once by killing him and the second time by turning him into a monster, she resents humanity for turning you into a monster twice. She is okay and has not been forced, once done I suggest you two talk.” Discord answered.

“I see...What is the plan then?” the other asked sighing.

“As I said, the Final Phase of Celestia’s plan won’t start until the total conversion of this planet is completed, I want you to stop THAT final phase from happening. By now is too late to save Humanity from conversion, but you can help me create a Safe Haven for the New-foals to return Humanity to its old beauty...Sure with ponies bodies, but everything else will be as if this never happened, if we do a good job I will be free to also give back to the Converted what the potion suppressed, but not the body as I doubt those would not break apart in the new Harmonious/Chaotic hybrid Magic of this place.”

“All this so that you will have Chaotic Magic to feed yourself without disseminating discord?” Alex asked unconvinced.

“As I told you already, I see much similarities between Humans and me, so I would hate them to truly be gone.”

“What about Heller? He would be more motivated than me to save the humans.”

“The coward?! The darned idiot only focused on protecting his daughter and turning uncaring for the others, as long as they were together the world could have burned for all he cared!” Discord replied growling.

“I find it hard to believe.”

“He never said that openly, but I could see it inside his spirit. So I removed the Virus from him turning him into a human, I forced both him and his daughter to drink the Serum and unceremoniously (and literally) kicked them through the Barrier. If they only cared for themselves then they could do it as ponies.” the Draconequus answered with a tone of pure vitriol.

“...” Alex stood in silence as he digested the thing, surprised by both outburst and how easy it was for the creature to dispatch the Virus he was made off.

“I want you to go through the Barrier, find a cozy place and wait for total Conversion of Humanity to happen. In the meantime study what you need to know about Luna and Celestia and how to create the Haven for the New-Foals. I will take care to not have more dead popping-up by pretending to help Celestia in exchange of not being imprisoned.” Discord said.

“That I can do, if the new Magic that she is bringing here is dangerous for humans just like radiation...I fear we’ll have no other choice than to live the Conversion happen. Anything else?”

“The Elements Bearers I forbid you to kill, maim, Consume and the like. They are off-limits, they MUST stay alive, I will deal with the source of the power of the Elements themselves by myself.”

“Want me to kill Celestia and her sister?” the Living Virus asked making the other cringe.

“Let’s leave that as a last resort if things REALLY get bad and we have no choice, but Luna is clearly following Celestia’s plan against her will, so I will be more lenient with her at least.”

“Okay. How am I supposed to pass the Barrier?” Mercer asked.

“It was made to repel Humans and human weapons, but even if you are a ‘Bio-Weapon’ per se...You think, you feel and you can reason by yourself...You are alive. And I saw you consume and turn into a pegasus. If you stay transformed the Barrier won’t hurt you, and once inside, you will be able to do as you please.”

“You DO know that I will have to Consume AT LEAST once an earth pony and a unicorn so to at least have a base from which create a new identity every time I need?” Alex said coldly.

“Create?”

“You people have a more malleable DNA than Humans, I just need to change pigmentation of fur, mane and eyes to blend-in. I think I can even fake a Cutie-mark with enough practice. If I can create a hoodie with real pockets, I can create a tattoo that should tell people what my talent is supposed to be.”

“...”

Sigh! “I do not like murder. But I guess it will come to it all the same...I will give you a list of ponies I would like you to NOT use as snack.” Discord said making a piece of paper appear in Mercer’s hands.

“Feeling desperate to ask a monster like me for help, eh?” he asked with a mirthless chuckle.

“It’s either this and have few victims or see what I thought was my friend commit the ultimate sin and erase a whole race. I will contact you as soon as I learn more about Celestia’s plans and motivations.” Discord answered as he covered Alex’ mouth with a hand to force him to swallow something.

“That was Heller’s Virus. I think you will need the extra power-up.” he said before popping away like a soap bubble.

“BLEARGH! YOU BASTARD!” Mercer screamed in rage as he barely stopped himself from puking while he subconsciously absorbed the altered strand of Blacklight.

As he saw Celestia finally approach to stop the impromptu dancing session of Humans and Ponies, Alex’ body broke down into shapeless bio-mass and then recompacting into the same pegasus soldier he had Consumed, sans the armour but with the hoodie.

“Here goes nothing.” he muttered as he gave a tentative flap of his new wings to see them work and his flying unobstructed high in the sky.

Flying extremely low to not be seen by the furious Alicorn coming to fix Discord latest joke, the Living Virus slowly made his way towards the Barrier, and once tentatively touched it to no ill effect he plunged inside, as he was told moving unharmed through Celestia’s ultimate defense thanks to his being recognized by it as a real Pony.

“This needs more investigation...” he muttered curious as he made his way towards his first destination, Manehattan city.

“God, so mane bad horse puns for names...Who named those places?” He thought grimacing as he took altitude while already trying to understand where to play around with the Pegasus DNA he had in store to change fur colour and the like…

Failed that, he will return to his old Modus Operandi: Consume whoever he needed to blend-in and every time he needed a new identity; as long as he respected Discord’s ‘Do not Kill’ surprisingly long list, he had nothing to worry about from the mismatched creature.

“Done this new good deed, I will become a hermit somewhere hard to reach and Consume whoever tries to disturb me! I need a vacation!” he said annoyed.

The nerve of those horses! Forcing Humanity to change what they were so to fit THEIR view of perfection through DNA and Mind manipulating formulas that would technically erase what they didn’t like of Humanity! It was Preposterous! Maddening! Monstrous! Unforgiv…

“...Shit it’s my exact same plan only with Ponies instead of Blacklight Virus!” Alex cursed with a low voice as he FINALLY caught the irony of him of all people being tasked with stopping Celestia’s plan.

“Hey you! This is no place for civilians!” a Unicorn guard yelled annoyed under him.

“Do you have a wife? Marefriend?”

“No I am single, why?” the lone soldier asked.

“I hate to leave behind widows.” Alex answered before pouncing on the guard to Consume him, he needed it both for the Unicorn DNA and for quench his annoyance at his predicament.
> Chapter 2: Planning.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

He who stands at the top of the Food Chain Chapter 2: Planning.

Equestria – Canterlot – Royal ‘War Room’ - 

Celestia was grimly looking at the maps detailing the Barrier’s advancing on the human world with random sighs and/or groans, her horn was also going on and off as she recalled or banished charts, reports and files to cross-reference between the map of the territories occupied by ponies AND the ones on Earth occupied by humans.

“Too big...It’s all too big…Too wild...Too Independent! The food chains is all based on ‘Might makes it right’, the weather is so interlinked that a gust of wind north can ideally birth tidal-waves south...animals are savages, weather is savage, the earth is savage! The wind and the water too! Everything wants to says its own thing without listening to others!” Celestia growled tiredly as she summoned a new cup of coffee.

“Normally you can make it snow in Ponyville and keep full Summer in Manehattan without troubles...On Earth if a Pegasus slightly rises the wind strength too close to the Barrier’s border on the opposite side of the planet the weather too changes...and the Gulf current is balanced so precariously that a sneeze and the whole thing collapses...T-There is too much Chaos!” she muttered in disbelief as she finally couldn’t take it anymore and simply walked to one of the balconies above the castle gardens.

“Chaos...All is Chaos on Earth...The planet, the animals, the Humans, the weather...All is Chaos...” She muttered aloud as her eyes moved in the general direction of a certain magical tree.

“Your Highness?” a Unicorn soldier timidly asked interrupting the Alicorn’s thoughts.

“Y-Yes?” she asked finally reconnecting to the world around her.

“Just got news from our front in the Human world, as for this morning at dawn...T-The Humans are drawing back from pretty much every fighting zone to regroup...Eight hours later every human soldier as retreated behind their forts. We just got confirmation of our scouts, timed one hour ago.” the soldier said unsure.

“I take that many were happy of the victory then,” the Sun Princess offered nonplussed.

“To be honest, your Highness, nopony feels certain that it is a retreat at all.” he answered.

“What?” the other replied with a curious tone.

“Five minutes after the last tank left the fighting zone in New York a single plane started dropping leaflets. Apparently the humans in charge of the army were notified first...Then the message went delivered to the masses, and us.” the stallion answered producing from his saddlebag a small unassuming yellow piece of paper.

“Can I see it?”

“Of course, your Highness. I came here just to show it to you.” the soldier replied.

Said that the mare’s horn lighted-up to levitate the paper in front of her face, the message and the militia insignia of a human hand crushing a skull on it made her eyebrows shot high and her eyes widen slightly.

“Greetings pony invaders, forgive the interruption of your precious ‘War’ against humanity, but we have an announcement to make:

Our Humanizing Serum is almost completed and soon it will be deployed everywhere on Earth AND Equestria, as we found a way to make it pass through the Barrier, thanks to our Companions altering the effect of the Original Pony Serum to fit our sacred Mission.

WE ARE THE GAIA ORGANIZATION!

WE ARE THE CHILDREN OF ADAM AND EVE, THE GUARDIANS OF HUMANITY AND THE HAMMER OF GOD PUNISHING EVIL!

We are Gaia! 

Vengeful messengers from the depths of Hell. Abandon hope all ye who enter here on our mother Earth or betray her! 

If corrupted politicians and weak-willed traitors plan to destroy Humanity, then Gaia shall arise to return the lost children to our beloved mother Earth!

Beware you all who chose the abhorrent race of ponies as your Masters! Beware you Invaders coming to steal what is rightfully ours! The H-Serum shall force upon you the Humanity you stole or discarded in your blind blasphemy, it will make no distinction and only the worthy of Mother Earth’s love shall survive the change bestowed by our Holy Water.

When we hunt, we kill!
No one is safe!
Nothing is sacred!
We are Gaia!
We are the last children of Earth!
We will burn our own to hold the line of Humanity,
it is the last line to ever hold!

Might this message reach far and wide, the hour of judgment and liberation has come and Gaia will be the hand casting divine punishment on thy sinner’s souls...” Celestia red aloud gulping in dread.

“The humans soldiers are all being called back just in case that stuff is deadly to humans as well since by the Group’s very words the thing may also be lethal other than...Than able to turn us into humans. They are even now fortifying their cities and issuing Curfew for the civilian population as our spies had rapidly confirmed when we asked. Can they really do that, your Highness? Can they really reverse-engineer our Potion to turn us into them?” the Unicorn soldier asked worried.

“They wouldn’t boast this openly without being sure of their creation, even if flawed and in their minds simply letting only the ‘Worthy’ survive the change, even among their own kind that was already Converted. What we have fought up until now were Human soldiers still following some sort of code of honor...But this Gaia...They are what Humans call a ‘Terrorist Group’...Fanatical mad creatures even humans refuse to consider as members of their same species; they are men and women that are ready to do everything in their power to achieve their goals, no matter the senseless loss of life and destruction they would leave behind int their steps. The fact that ‘normal’ soldiers too retreated means that they too fear this weapon.” Celestia answered.

“What should we do then?” the now-way-paler horse asked.

“We will start by calling back our own soldiers and the other ponies out there, have all of them retreat behind the barrier and fortify the border between us and them just in case.”

“But they said-”

“I am aware they are saying that they are sure their weapon will pass through in virtue of it being a modified version of our potion, but the Barrier will protect us from other attacks the soldier may try to launch just to take advantage of our retreating. If we are lucky enough Pegasi should be able to command the wind on our side to blow away their serum if it is air-borne...I just hope that we’ll have enough time to develop a screening spell to detect it should they use it on our water or food...” The Sun Alicorn answered tensed.

“I will make sure everypony knows and obeys, your Highness.” the Unicorn answered snapping to attention.

“Perfect, we still have time as they said that their weapon is ‘Almost Ready’ meaning they are either giving it the finishing touches or simply mass-producing enough of it to soon start their plan, we must hurry.”

“We will be ready for them, your Highness.”

“Good. Have somepony deliver a message to Twilight, I need her and the other Elements here as soon as possible, they too can help in facing this new threat.” she added.

“Yes, your Highness!” he answered before rapidly leaving the room.

Sigh! “In another situation I would have tried the ‘Enemy mine’ angle...But I have nopony I can trust surrounding us...” she muttered deflating.

Meanwhile, outside the room, one of the two Pegasus guards standing immobile at the side of the entrance smirked in victory as he could still listen what was being said inside, welcoming grateful the switch coming to change guards securing the area; the good news making the stallion hum a rather dark-sounding tone as he calmly walked towards the soldiers quarters where he waited patiently for it to empty before dropping his armor while showing a feral smirk.

“Phase 1 is completed, the war is stalled until Gaia will deliver their next message and their attack starts; this also mean that ponies and humans will be too distracted by preparing for a new threat to stop Phase 2 from coming to fruition.” the soldier said as his dark-blue fur changed colour to turn light-grey, his mane switching from white to black and his wings melting into his body so that a long horn could pop-out of his forehead.

“I just hope they will keep Blackwatch out of this, last thing I need is those psycho adding to the mess.” the now-Unicorn finished saying plastering his most convincing smile on his face as he walked outside since he still needed to leave the place to turn into a more comfy form.

“At least I confirmed my suspicion, they still don’t have a way to tell that the pony they are talking with is not the Real one but me, even their precious ‘Princesses’ don’t seem to notice, even if they never really looked at me...I just hope they don’t get their hooves on those Bio-Scanners the others used to have. Even if it wouldn’t be the first time I have to hastily ditch an identity to run away while Consuming whoever stands in my way.” he thought sighing in annoyance as he moved towards the exit while greeting every pony he met to keep on the facade of the identity he had stolen...Even is the temptation of simply going Claw Form and slaughter them all was very tempting.

All that smiling was making his face hurt.

Let’s take a little step back – Ten days earlier – Sky above Manehattan – Equestria -

A lone stallion Pegasus with black fur and white mane (although the latter covered by the white hood of his black jacket) and a red ‘DNA Double-helix’ cutie-mark was silently flying towards the big city with a frown on his face.

“Stupid equine race and its need to be ALWAYS cute and fluffy. Stupid need of a stupid marking detailing their talent that cannot be modified and FUCKING STUPID Lizard-drawn-by-artist-under-LSD Discord threatening me with death if I do not help Humanity! I am a living Bio-weapon of Mass Destruction...NOT A FUCKING PONY!” Alex thought in fury as while he could change everything he wanted of himself while in his ‘default’ face as Alex Mercer, or the Equestrian Version of it, unless he was fully mimicking somebody he was forced to sport a double-helix Cutie-Mark as the locals called it no matter what.

Fur Colour? He could choose in detail the colour he wanted (black).

Mane? The same, he choose pure white no problems, same going with the red eyes; he choose a colour and he got the exact same shade he wanted.

But that mark? No! The bastard wanted to be a red double-helix and nothing could be done against it! Alex could only either show it or ‘bury’ it under his flesh...But that would attract even more attention since he was an adult pony and so SUPPOSED to have one.

“Best guess is that the Magic (ugh!) I consumed is influencing my body when I mimic a pony one, so while I have full control of it, when looking like Alex Mercer the pony I have that ‘Talent mark’...Maybe it should represent the fact that I can manipulate my DNA as I wish. If they ask, my talent is in Genetic...If they have Geneticists here in the land of sugar and rainbows...” The Living Virus muttered sighing as he landed near the entrance of the city close to a small group of guards.

“Halt! Name?” the guard asked sternly.

“...Black Light.” Alex answered grimacing again, between that and ‘Alex Mercer’ his original name looked like the more acceptable in that place.

“What Cutie-mark is that?” another guard asked confused.

“I am good with genetics.”

“Eh?” the earth pony replied in confusion.

“I am an expert in DNA and genetics...What makes your body work I can tell in detail.” the Living Virus answered annoyed.

“Woke-up with ruffled feathers? IDs, please.” the first guard said gruffly making his partner fall silent with a glare.

“I have none.”

“Why not?” the guard replied as he and the others not-so-subtly took a more defensive stance.

Groaning in annoyance Alex sneered in anger and tried to make his voice sound as much as a growl as he could.

“Look.” he hissed with narrowed eyes.

“I barely got away from some humans trying to capture me for who knows what sick experiment and I have been flying for hours ever since I escaped them just to return here. I am tired, I am hungry and thirsty. I have lost my papers since my saddle-bag is still in their possession in some military base. I! WANT! TO! ENTER! AND! GO! HOME!” he then roared making the guards shriek and jump back.

“Okay! Okay, horse-feathers!...You just had to admit that the humans tried to ponynap you and lost your documents. But why?” the guard asked.

“I am an expert in Pony DNA, maybe they wanted what I know to better kill us.” Alex answered scoffing.

“Wouldn’t put it past those psychos...” a unicorn soldier muttered shivering.

“I see. You are free to go, but if I were you I would hurry to renew your ID.”

“It will be the first thing I will do tomorrow. Now I need a shower and my bed.” the Living Virus said opening his wings wide to fly up and move towards the city.

“...Follow him, Sky Drill. That stallion is hiding something, maybe humans did get something from him. Discover what he gave them.” the same guard asked to one of his partners.

“Sure thing.” the Pegasus answered immediately flying up to follow Alex.

With Alex - 

The Living Virus was silently flying above the clouds when a cloud twisted on itself to gain a very familiar face.

“We need to talk.”

“Good evening to you too, Discord.” Alex answered sighing.

“A guard is following for you, fly down and into the pent-house with the pool shaped like a diamond, I will distract the guard.” Discord-cloud said as a near cloud shifted to look exactly like Alex and fly in the opposite direction soon followed by a pegasus guard.

“As you wish, boss.” the Virus said in acidic sarcasm as he hurried down towards the hideously-expensive penthouse to find the glass door opened and Discord waiting for him sitting on the wide couch next to a thoroughly tied-up and gagged Unicorn mare with pale-lavender fur and black mane. Though her horn had been detached from her forehead and left on the short table in front of the two.

“Feel free to turn human, Alex boy. As for this moment this penthouse does not exist, so to speak, so here it’s Chaos to rule, not Harmony. They won’t even see anything out of ordinary if the look through the windows” Discord said pushing forward an ice bucket with beer cans floating inside.

“...”

Sigh! “At least try to trust me, okay? We are on the same side, I made sure you survived being eaten alive!” the Draconequus said rolling his eyes.

In answer Alex growled something resembling high-tier blasphemy under his breath before returning into being HUMAN Alex Mercer to take one of the dozen beers from the bucket.

“I am human thus I drink beer...It’s racist by the way.” he then said opening one to take a sip and enjoying in cruel amusement the mare watching him as he was Satan in person standing at barely a feet from her.

“I don’t see you refusing either.” Discord answered opening one himself.

“This is Antarctic Nail Ale, it is sold at 1800 dollars per bottle. Of course I accept the offer if you treat your employees so well.” the other said impressed

“Equestrian beer is not very diffused, and it’s not THIS good (too much diluted if you ask me). Several new-foals are making a killing in using the old human beer establishments to keep producing it just like how they did it before voluntarily choosing to get hooves. They just have to find a way to have non-unicorn open it since cans and bottles are fierce foes if you have not magic or thumbs.”

“Who’s the girl? She looks like about to pee herself.” Alex finally asked as he knelt down to look the mare in the eyes making her draw back trying to bury herself in the couch.

“Meet Fluffy Cake, once known as Meredith Lehemann. Half American and half German young woman that sold her kind to forced Conversion in exchange of...Money, to put it in simple terms.”

“I thought new-foals were confined in specific areas until they could finish ‘registering’ all of them, it is why NOW IDs are so important, to differentiate between Noew-foals and Ponies.” Alex said running a finger on her jaw-bone making her let-out a muffled shriek.

“Considering she helped advancing Conversion and her employer’s plans, having her get a fake ID saying she is a proper Pony and get a nice penthouse and more money than what she will likely be able to spend in her entire life-time...I wouldn’t be as surprised as you are.” Discord answered in disdain as he opened a new beer.

“How did she do that?” the other asked curious.

“She helped making sure most people in Santa Monica came to appreciate having hooves by spicing water and food with Conversion Serum, over thirty thousand new-foals in the first week only, THEN the numbers really started going up in Converted humans with her bank account growing accordingly.” he answered in disdain.

“Why? And how come nobody noticed?”

“Many ponies involved with at the head of this group Celestia’s own nephew Blueblood, he and his other rich (and spoiled rotten) friends covered everything and accepted paying Miss Meredith this outrageous tip for a simple reason: Real Estates.”

“...Forcing Conversion and then move the new-foals out their houses and into the ‘controlled’ sectors means freeing all that wealth for a pittance, then take the houses of rich humans and sell them at twice the price to rich Ponies that will then have the bragging rights to have a new Villa in an exclusive resort on their new planet.” Alex offered.

“Ten times the price actually, not twice, and they already seem to have a lot of requests. Celestia doesn’t suspect a thing because she is too worried with the war against Humans while the whole selling is done in secret...you know...For reasons of taxes.”

“So they are aiming at the coasts?”

“For now at least, but they want every ‘Rich’ area on the planet under their control as well to continue this little game of money ongoing. I heard they are having troubles in Italy though, even Conversion seems unable to reign their Mafia in, last week they found another Pony ‘accidentally’ drown in cement inside the wall of mall that was being renewed, with nobody the wiser...They are actually making more victims than the local army.”

“Small country doesn’t mean weak country. So why did you call me here?” Alex asked.

"Blueblood is only one of MANY that are using Conversion and this conflict for their own personal agenda; sometimes even sparking new fights to speed things up. THEN there are the ones simply predating Humanity for all the new stuff they have to offer, all stuff taken without asking first of course! For example: a still-unknown mare has recently emptied the Louvre Museum, and they suspect the same mare is behind the emptying of the Library of Congress...Dear Twilight can be sooo predictably one-track-minded I am honestly shocked she isn't even in the 'Top 100' of possible culprits in the guards mind. Rarity instead has just yesterday 'borrowed' the Crown Jewels and both have already set their eyes on several other places that will feed their obsessions with new 'exotic' collections...Even Applejack and the others are not-so-subtly commandeering this or that from the human world, and I find it quite saddening." Discord answered sighing.

“Okay, go on.” the other prompted.

“I need you to stop all those small groups, but not by simply go there and Consume them. It needs to be done in a way that scares every human and pony leader into giving this war a pause, we need a common enemy acting on both sides of the Barrier.” the Draconequus said.

“And then how do you want to do it if not by ‘Just Consuming them’? Let’s hear.”

“Ah-hum!” at that Discord cleared his throat to sing in a very off-key way.

“Do you want to build a Terrorist?
Come on lets go and play
I never see you anymore
Come out the Barrier
It's like you've gone away...
We will be like best buddies
Since now we're not
I wish you would tell me why!
Do you want to build a Terrorist?
It doesn't have to be a terrorist-”

“You watched Frozen, don’t you?” Alex asked grumbling and face-palming as he interrupted the other. 

“I am this close to have the new-foals at Disney and Pixar accept continuing working even if now they are unicorns...Their stuff is golden.”

“Sing ‘Let it Go’ and I will hand myself to Celestia to get killed. You want me to become a terrorist? I am one already.”

“Not a terrorist actually, but a Terrorist group.” Discord clarified.

“I beg you pardon?”

“You can turn from human to pony...Let’s use this.”

“Ookay?”

“Imagine this, Humans and Ponies are at war pretty much, even if it’s not only fights everywhere with soldiers of both factions going at each other throat; most of this war is actually fought through politics, under-hand(Hoof) tactics, guerrilla, sabotage and so on...A mess, so to speak. But then a third party appears, They are a bunch of lunatics that want to turn Ponies into humans and New-foals back into Humans...They target everybody and everypony without distinction with THEIR Conversion Serum, but their weapon is unstable and has high mortality rate and they DON’T CARE…Are you following?”

“You want panic?” Alex asked incredulous.

“Yes and no. The problem will be that you will have to talk with the humans in charge of the army to organize this, this group would be A THREAT for the ones wishing the Conversion to spread faster (both humans and ponies), it will attract all the nut-jobs towards it as it will pose such a huge danger to their plans for money/power/Conversion/Etc that the destruction of this Terrorist Organization will come first. This also means that Celestia will be forced to also hunt down the members because they will show that they have members even among ponies so Equestria itself, her precious land, will be in danger of Humanification. I am pretty sure that if we exclude the humans really wishing to be ponies, every other human will be more than happy to look the other way since the main target would be ponies and new-foals pushing for forced Conversion.”

“They just came out from the Black Light infection, a new round of curfew and militaristic regimen shouldn’t be anything too new...What about her?” Alex said eyeing the mare curiously.

“Oh! She is here because you will need her identity to use this place as your HQ, she won’t be missed as she almost got her own family Converted, they didn’t take that well. She personally cut every tie to become a REAL Equestrian.” Discord answered making the mare pale considerably.

“Good for me. Any last words?” Alex asked removing the gag from the mare’s mouth.

“Only that this is the best that ever happened in my life, okay?! When I was a human I had lost my job because I refused to suck the dick of that old fart I worked for and got fired without proofs! I lost my house because the bank wanted their money back and I lost my boyfriend because his new girlfriend had bigger tits! Humans suck! Here ponies are all friends, I got a new job just because I asked and a nice house because I needed one! Then Mister Blueblood came and offered me all this and I took it! Why? Because for once I wanted to be the rich bitch having the perfect life where I can stay all day without doing a thing and just sun-bathe! No work! No responsibilities! Only luxury, fancy stuff and stallions selling their souls just to date me!” she answered angrily making Alex eyebrows rise a little in surprise.

“I returned her Bad Traits to her, she is more honest like that.” Discord answered shrugging.

“Makes sense. As for you, do you know who I am?”

“I just know you as Alex.” she huffed annoyed.

“Alex Mercer sings any bells?” the Living Virus asked with a fanged smile.

“...HOLY SHIT THE CANNIBAL TERRORIST!” the mare shrieked in fear.

“Yes, and I will take your place, farewell.” he answered grabbing her head to lift her from the couch.

“NO! NO! WAIT! I WON’T TALK! I WILL PAY YOU! I WILL SLEEP WITH YOU! ANYTHING YOU WANT JUST DON’T KILL ME!”

“Money I will take along your identity once Consumed you, you won’t talk because you will be dead...And even if technically I am an asexual living virus, I wouldn’t touch you that way even if it was the only thing able to keep me alive, I have standards.” Alex answered plunging his fist deep inside her stomach piercing her body all the way though and then Consuming her body completely.

“Disgusting. Did it work?” Discord asked gagging as he reconnected the horn to the body’s head just in time before it could completely disappear.

“It did.” the Virus answered compressing its bio-mass until it turned into a perfect replica of the Unicorn mare, even perfectly mimicking her voice and cutie-mark.

“Good, so you like my plan?”

“It’s good as any other, the problem will be convincing the human authorities...But I will take care of that.”

“Feel free to ask for my help, just in case.” Discord said getting up and stretching.

“What about you?”

“I will go annoy Celestia and Luna, to keep them occupied. You used that highly recognizable pony shape and it will help immensely.”

“Why?” Alex asked with narrowed eyes.

“Black Light is your name as a Bio-weapon, and your appearances are infamous between humans, I just need to move things a little to nudge towards Celly and Lulu the news of Alex Mercer being here.”

“WHAT?!” the other asked roaring.

“The humans are playing on defense, the ponies are the ones more active in this battle. They will need another threat roaming around to keep them occupied, you are basically a Changeling’s wet dream since you share similar abilities but yours are pumped up to eleven. You can be anypony and by stealing memories as well other than appearances you can blend-in perfectly, you have NO allegiances outside yourself and you hold no love for either humans or ponies; you managed to pass though the Barrier without Conversion and so may as well start your plans all-over again like you did in New York. Celestia won’t spread panic making the news of your presence here known...but she will still move the Elements and few trusty ponies to hunt you down. She will stretch herself thin in dealing with both you AND the Terrorists, leaving very little soldiers to march on Earth, only the bare bones to hold the situation under control.” Discord explained.

“Same going for the humans. Alex Mercer alive with a grudge against Humanity and terrorists that may or may not decide to not attack only ponies and new-foals.” Alex added.

“Military skirmishes are resource-expensive and both sides will have more pressing matters to worry about, in the meantime we will work on a way to convince the others to accept Conversion and remain where they are for Human Society to continue existing without turning into “Neo Equestria” I will show some good faith by returning the Bad Traits to few of the new-foals so they will know we are not tricking them but just trying to save humanity from death by ‘incompatible habitat’...As I said, by now the Barriers are too widely-spread to stop Conversion now.” Discord answered.

At that Alex took in a huge breath and spent a couple minutes pacing around the living room, his frown contrasting fiercely with the pale-lavender and feminine mare face he was sporting at the moment.

“So we will know that the few still going around are either desperate or people/ponies still trying to keep their dirty affairs ongoing while the authorities are distracted...”

“Pretty much.”

“I will need you to write-down all we said here, please.” he finally said.

“Why?”

“I have an idea. It’s REALLY BAD, but it is also the only one I got to make this work.”

“If you say so.” Discord answered shrugging as he snapped his fingers making a thick folder appear on the near table.

“Thank you.”

“I just hope you know what you are doing, once I am gone everything here will return to normal so remain a pony, just in case.” the Draconequus said sighing before popping out of existence.

“That is exactly the problem...I don’t know what I am doing...” the mare said sighing in annoyance.

A week later – Human Side -

“You do know this is crazy?” the man sitting in the empty office said to the man standing behind his back without moving his eyes away from the folder he was reading from.

“I managed to get here, disable the guards and I am now standing behind you with a combat riffle pointed at your head so you will comply calmly and read instead of asking for help...Crazy has been left behind a long time ago, we are in an all-new territory here.”

“The plan is a recipe for disaster, it won’t work.” the other human replied with a calm and detached tone.

“In fact the idea is to make it work, somehow. We are saving humanity here, we have to try everything.”

“Your friend will really give back to the Converted their Humanity?”

“Is more like Bad Traits, people are still what they used to be even after being turned into ponies...They just can’t express their hatred, anger, lust, envy and all that.”

“...You sure we REALLY want those things back though?” the man asked honestly curious.

“I exist without most of them by default so I can’t be a judge for that, I know for certain that anger and hatred I can very well live without now that I resolved my issues...But I guess you Humans may still resent having somebody else taking away what’s yours, even if just your ability to hate something/somebody just because you want to.”

“Sadly I cannot deny that, Mister Mercer. For now we should focus on making this Terrorist Group believable and have our guests discover you exist and can walk in and out their precious Barrier as you please. As you and your friend said, this fake Terrorist group if properly monitored will help us in finding out the more dangerous elements in our society, terrorists of other groups especially. We will make sure the group will appear very well equipped and so dangerous and ‘appealing’...In exchange though I may want you to take care of some recovery missions for us.”

“Like?”

“Like the soldiers that had been forced into Conversion, their family want them back; they don’t care if they are horses, if that really is Humanity’s future then it would be better to have a peaceful chance to get used to it slowly instead of being turned all at once be and told to suck it up.”

“I’ll see what I can do. How long it will take to establish our Terrorist Group?”

“Two weeks at best, we’ll start small with some ‘stolen’ equipment, we also have few dead pony soldiers frozen in several secret bases around the globe we took for study. The ponies do not know they are dead by our knowledge so they will be the perfect victims of few bombs, as a way for our Group to present themselves, to show they mean business.”

“Need a hand in knowing how they work? I Consumed a few...”

“If you don’t mind. In exchange I will personally see to it to have the Bio-scanner destroyed and the plans erased, nobody will be able to re-create them during this operation.”

“And Blackwatch?”

“IF they crawl out from whatever hole they had hidden themselves in after the New York incident, I am giving you permission to use them, and ONLY THEM, as a snack; if you get hungry use the Equestrians, not us.”

“May as well, as a show of good faith...And by the way, this riffle is empty, sir.” Alex said moving to stand in front of the man to show the empty clip.

“You don’t exactly need guns.” the other replied chuckling and relaxing a little.

“And yet I didn’t Consume you either, and I had PLENTY occasions to do it.” he countered.

“True. But you are our last hope against those horses as you can work on both sides with perfect disguises...You sure you are not interested in joining the Army? You got thousands years worth of experience thanks to all the soldiers you ate.”

“Over my dead bio-mass.”

“A pity, you would have gone far. Be at this address in a week and we will register the first video message to the ponies about the Human Serum, and two week after that we will work on the explosion of the pony soldiers, we’ll need time to find a proper place for it.”

“You better not betray me, I am still good at killing and Consuming.”

“I am not here because I am an idiot, Mister Mercer. We are trying to salvage humanity, so if I have to trust a mass-murdering bio-weapon because it’s the only option we have left then I will.”

“I thought Longinus was your last option.” Alex asked smirking.

“That or Icarus.”

“Those are military secr...You Consumed the people in the know, of course. I would prefer us not reaching that point, to be honest...Neither the Russian want to use their ‘Top Secret’  Jäger warships or the chinese and their prototype Kill Satellite with the first giant (and unstable) plasma cannon ever seen outside works of Fiction.

We are all this close at seeing nukes being deployed by the hundreds by the more unhinged Country Leaders, so you two and your plan are the last try before we decide to crack the planet in two ourselves with enough nukes to have the Sun itself blush in envy at the resulting heatwave. This plan MUST succeed...Otherwise there won’t be much left to save, even by the Magic of Friendship unless they can survive the void of space or even a black-hole.”

“A black-hole?”

“The Japanese Government has hinted that they are ready to create one and let it swallow the whole planet along the ponies if we lose, they would hypothetically just wait we others to give them the permission since it would very likely also extinguish half the solar system as collateral damage so they don’t want to shoulder the full blame of the extinction of the human race.”

“...”

“No, Mister Mercer. I am NOT joking.”

“Then yes, we better be successful.” Alex muttered impressed.

“Is that all? I have several calls to make if we want to put this show on the road, and Time is maybe the only thing we don’t have.”

“If things go as we want them to, the advancing of the Barrier should slow-down to a crawl.”

“I hope so. Good luck out there, Mister Mercer, after this the United States of America and the whole damn planet will be in your debt. Forever.”

“If Humanity won’t decide they want me dead for forcing them to turn into ponies.”

“That is also a possibility, but at least my daughter will be awfully happy, she loves ponies.”

“That is not fun, mister President.”

“To me it is, Mister Mercer, to me it is.”

Two Weeks later (Present time) – Human Side - Times Square – Manhattan - 

Surveying the busy streets under him Alex Mercer watched as every screen started showing statics at the same time until they turned completely black shocking the few civilian ponies passing through to reach the safety of the Barrier and the soldiers acting as security force to stop humans from attacking.

“Celestia?” he asked aloud to his radio.

“She is watching, she is watching. She wants her precious ponies away from human territories so she is personally surveying everything through screening spells and strategically-positioned crystal balls; unfortunately for her the whole operation will take time and today’s announcement of the H-Serum existing will make it even more difficult. But at least only the ponies that can’t leave behind their dirty affairs and the soldiers will remain roaming about.” Discord answered.

“And the Elements.”

“Yes. I think I will offer Celestia to have the ones still in Equestria see this, just to make it clear that it is dangerous to wander outside the Barrier.”

“Do what you think it’s right. It’s starting.” Alex said as a loud cruel laugh blared from the screens as a tall man with broad shoulders, wearing military clothes and a gas mask hiding his identity appeared on every screen.

“Greetings Pony Invaders and Traitors of the human race.” the soldier that had been tasked with the role of the Terrorist Leader said with a deep voice speaking coldly at the camera immediately making every pony stop to look at him.

“He is a darn good actor.” Discord said impressed.

“You may wonder who am I, and the answer it’s easy, I am the Leader of the group that sent you those nice messages of warning about our answer to your coming to steal away our Humanity. Well, I decided that actions do speak louder than words so I am here to give you all a small preview...THIS is the H-Serum. THIS is the hammer of Justice that will strike down the evil that is Equestria.” the masked man said showing a vial of pale blue liquid in clear glee.

“What did they inject you with?” Discord asked curious.

“Water with blueberry-flavoured food colouring mixed in. It felt funny to taste it from my veins instead of mouth.” Alex answered.

On the screen in the meantime the camera had switched to an earth pony mare (Alex) tied to a chair with two masked and unrecognizable Unicorn soldiers keeping guard so she could not escape (two Converted human soldiers that were even too eager to stick it to the horses) as another human wearing a gas-mask took the vial to fill a syringe and roughly injecting the content in her neck.

“The Pony soldiers you see that have already joined our ranks will sadly have to wait before turning human as they wished to since we’ll need “somepony” in our group to bring the Serum past that Barrier of yours, yes, it can pass through as have already tested the defense. And if you are wondering, our Holy Water works very well as a gas or mixed with water and food too, but for this demonstration we needed our friend to not hold her breath or spit out what we give her.” the Leader was heard say with a conversational tone as the mare started screaming and wildly spasm on the floor once freed.

What the horrified ponies saw was Alex then purposely going very slow in switching into a human woman: meaning that the spectators could see skin tear apart and change colour, bones grow and rearrange themselves, the cutie-mark dissolve and hands and feet take the place of hooves as the now naked woman, after few long minutes filled by clearly-agonizing pain, slumped to the floor unconscious to be covered by a plain sheet and then hosted on the shoulders of a third masked man to be took away off-camera.

“She will live and rejoin her brothers and sisters on Mother Earth’s soil as a human. Was it not nice? An ignorant mare will finally understand what it feels like to be on the other side! We are not killing you, we are removing the flaws of your Equestrian form to turn you into a more acceptable shape. Your Cutie-marks and your differences as Earth Ponies, Unicorns or Pegasi will all disappear, we will all be equal! We all will be a single family living together! You are trying to take away our Humanity? Then we will raise the ante and take away your being ponies...Soon we will launch an all-out Conversion Attack, our Brothers and Sisters here are ready to the ultimate sacrifice and nothing will stop us! Nothing will Convert us! The time for Gaia to raise and help Humanity retake its rightful place has come!

The choice is yours: Humanity or Death!”

“HUMANITY OR DEATH!” every masked man and woman or stallion and mare in the room, in and off-camera, yelled as one with a roar as the image switched to the yellow shield with a human hand crushing a skull on it sporting Gaia written under it before the screens again showed statics and then turned-off.

“Wow.”

“Yep, at the White House they have very good PR Experts.” Alex confirmed as ungodly chaos erupted in the streets as every single pony of all three races started screaming in complete and absolute panic, even the guards that SHOULD be there calming them down.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!” the various screams echoed all the way up to Alex’ hiding spot making him chuckle amused.

“OooOh!”

“Tell me that is not an orgasm what I am hearing.” he then begged to his radio.

“...” a very low unintelligible muttering was heard in answer.

“...You are disgusting.”

When a week later still to the news of the Terrorist Group Gaia making their public appearance, and of even more ponies (again, still Alex) being discovered having expressed the will to join their ranks, went added the news of Gaia using a truck filled to the brim in explosive to reduce a human base several Pony soldiers had took control of into a smoking crater with barely enough pieces to recognize the victims, Celestia was forced to accept Discord’s suggestion the Draconequus made as a joke and have everypony take refuge behind the Barrier.

All for the third bad news popping up about Alex Mercer being still alive and kicking bringing further panic to both sides barely a day later.

A week later – Penthouse – Tea with Discord - 

The Draconequus was calmly using his tail to fill two cups of perfectly-made tea for him and Alex, the latter once again free to take human form, as the two sat on a small round table next to the pool.

“I bet they all take the news of my return very badly.” Alex asked curious.

“On the Pony side? They don’t know if they should fear you more or Gaia, especially since some willing new-foals that managed to survive dealing with you told Celestia, Luna and the Elements some rather graphical anecdotes about your escapades...You can be quite the death machine when you want to.” Discord answered impressed.

“I once emptied a whole military base by Consuming every staff member one at a time without rising a single alarm and nobody noticed.” the other said sounding ALMOST proud of himself.

“Yep they told them that AND about the other times when failed stealth you just slaughtered and demolished everything on sight.”

“Not always subtly was easy to accomplish.”

“I can imagine. They are now on high alert and IDs are on an all-time height of importance, and dear Twilight is working no-stop on a way to create a spell able to find you no matter the identity you wear, she is taking ideas from the Bio-scanners those new-foals talked about. Even Sunset Shimmer was recalled from her exile to help. And in order to regain her permission to be a pony that mare is ready to do everything to stop at least you.”

“They can try, but I know how to deal with that SHOULD they manage to create such a spell. What about phase 2?” Alex asked.

“I moved the trucks and the container ships in the accorded area, soon we will be ready to get the new-foals that had been forced to change there so they will be free to rejoin their families, done that Phase 3 will start.” Discord answered.

“How will we be able to tell apart the ‘victims’ from the ones that choose Conversion on their own free Will?”

“Celestia is not stupid, just having the Bad Traits removed or suppressed won’t be enough. Whenever a human came voluntarily to be Converted they prepared their ID on the spot and made it coloured in blue; during the fights where people either civilian or soldiers were Converted their ID were made in block AND coloured red, so there are two different registers listing names and description of every pony of either of the two groups. And they are keeping the two groups separated just in case, in fact, the Blue Converted are already mingling with society back in Equestria, as a way to entice more to transfer on Earth and to help the New-foals to leave behind their old lives as Humans.”

“The ones forced may still vocally resent the Conversion and so become detrimental, and Celestia NEEDS to have her ponies to be willing to come here, thus the need of keeping blue and red separated.” Alex said nodding.

“Exactly, she has a very tight schedule, by the end of the year every pony MUST be moved to Earth and every square inch of land belonging to Pony Territory brought here, no later than that.”

“It’s her fault if she reached this point, now her hooves are tied.”

“This doesn’t excuse her for attempting Xenocide.” Discord replied hotly.

“I am not excusing her, just putting the blame where it should go.”

“Right. I would start tomorrow to organize freeing the new-foals if I were you.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

“Good to hear that, and good choice of tea as well.” Discord said before disappearing making Alex hurry-up to turn into the mare owning the penthouse.

“...” in the silence that followed Alex slumped on his chair with a long draw-out groan.

“Several hundreds of thousands of people to save...God, this will be hard to do.” the Living Virus moaned in tired despair.
> Chapter 3: Alex Mercer VS Celestia.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

He who stands at the top of the Food Chain Chapter 3: Celestia VS Mercer.

Undisclosed location - 

“I hate this.” Lyra Heartstrings said as she wore the spy gear Bon Bon gave her.

“It took me a while to convince everypony that you are NOT part of Gaia like that piece of manure tried to frame you as, but I had to make a concession in exchange of help making sure everypony knew you were innocent...” Bon Bon answered answered sighing.

“You mean forcing me to become a spy like you?” the mint-colored mare said snarling.

“You were one of the few that openly and thoroughly studied the humans and their culture...YOU DO KNOW more than most about them...And I always wanted you to join me in being a spy...” the other answered blushing a little.

“You’ll have to train me in this as we go through it though.” Lyra said sighing in defeat.

“That is why I insisted in you being my one and only partner. We’ll do this together.” Bon Bon said trying to cheer her friend up a little.

“And my code name?”

“Well...I am Sweet Drops...And you are Sweet Tunes.” Bon Bn answered with a fiery blush.

“...”

“I swear I had nothing to do with choosing the names! That is all the HQ’s doing!” she added immediately at seeing her friend’s narrowed eyes.

Sigh! “FINE! What is my first mission?” Lyra finally asked while shaking her head slowly.

“Help me locate a dangerous criminal, not something rookies normally do, but I trust you to take this seriously...We will probably put our own life at risk doing this by the way.”

“Oh!...Nice...Who’s the guy?” the mint-colored mare asked in sarcasm.

“Pretty much a genius. An expert (or even, THE Expert) in Chemistry, Biology, Bio-Engineering, marksmanship, guerrilla tactics, torture, interrogation, espionage and counterespionage, hand-to-hand combat, hacking, infiltration, psychology, Mechanics, robotics, assassination, demolit-”

“WHOA! WHOA! WHOA! Nopony can be a Master in all of those things!” Lyra stopped her friend in shocked horror.

“Yes if the guy can Consume everypony he meets and steal their identity and their whole life plus experiences and knowledge, he doesn’t need to study if he can simply absorb somepony already an Expert in those fields and then add further knowledge by Consuming other experts to his mind.” Bon Bon answered gravely.

“...Bon Bon?...Who the hay are we trying to track down?!” Lyra asked in dread.

“Celestia herself wants us to find Alex Mercer, also known as ‘Blacklight the Living Virus’...She wants us to find him, follow him and record in detail what he is planning and report what we find directly to her without passing by HQ.” she answered.

“Why I feel like I should know him AND fear him?” Lyra asked gulping.

“Because the target we’ll have to follow and monitor very closely without being discovered (since he will probably kill us on the spot if he does discover us), is the one behind the events of yesterday at Canterlot’s train station.”

“Oh, God.” the other answered whimpering in horror.

“Yes, we have been forced to take a suicide mission in all but name...I know...Sorry for dragging you into this.” Bon Bon answered grimly.

The previous day - Train moving towards Canterlot – reserved wagon - 

The train was running at full speed towards Canterlot, the surroundings blurring almost into a featureless mass of different colors unseen by the few ponies inside that were instead too much occupied by their own problems; especially the two pegasus twin brothers that had took a whole wagon for themselves so to talk freely without others listening uninvited.

“A whole wagon, brother?” the brown stallion of the two asked half amused and half annoyed.

“In times like this I want what we say to remain between the two of us only.” the cream-coloured one replied with narrowed eyes.

They were Stock and Load: The ‘Price Brothers’, owners of pretty much THE biggest shipment company in Equestria whose tentacles reached Canterlot, Manehattan, Las Mares, Neigh York and many others all the way to Neighrope countries over the ocean...A capital worth of Billions of Bits more than half of which coming from side affairs less-than-legal in nature.

“News from the others then?” Load, the brown Stallion, asked tersely as he understood his twin brother was talking about their partners in the ‘Human Money Game’ they had ongoing.

“Situation on the human side is dire, brother. Between Gaia and the regular soldiers, not many pony-friendly humans are around, and this is hurting our plans.” Stock answered leaning forward to whisper, although the anger in his voice was still clearly present.

“Then be ready to get angrier.” Stock answered grimly.

“What?” the other asked with a tired growl telling of an incoming nervous breakdown.

“I had to corrupt few guards, and it cost a lot...But there may be somebody else joining this mess.” the brown pony hissed looking around frantically.

“Another one? Another human group?” Load asked clenching his teeth tighter, every day they slowed down meant millions being wasted, and he hated that.

“No.” the other answered shaking his head and gulping.

“Ponies then? More human sympathizers?”

“Neither.”

“Then who? The Griffon? The Bison?...The Changellings?...Please tell me it is not about changellings.” the stallion begged tiredly.

“None of them. He is none of them.” Stock said shaking his head and shuddering.

“...Then who the hay are we talking about?!” the twin asked getting furious at his brother’s pronoun game.

“Things seem complicated and only Princess Celestia, Princess Luna, the Elements and that darned Discord know the full details...What that guard knew and told me is that we are dealing with a Virus.”

“A Virus? An epidemic attack?!” Load asked disgusted.

“Worse, this one apparently can Think and Plan, it’s smart AND deadly.”

“A smart Virus?” he asked confused.

Tack-la-clang! The train in that moment shook light as something heavy landed on the roof above the two twins.

“What the hay?!” Load asked surprised as he looked up.

Clang…clang...clang...clang…

“S-S-Steps.” Stock said paling considerably and leaning back more in his seat.

“Nopony sane of mind would land on a speeding train...” Load whispered as he followed the noise until it stopped right above them.

SKRIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEH!

It was in that moment that a thick blade seemingly made of bone pierced the roof of the train as if it was butter to roughly open a hole to let a black Pegasus stallion wearing a hoodie with a white hood calmly float inside.

“What the buck?!” Load yelled jumping away and looking ready to faint as the newcomer’s wing broke-down to fuse with his body and let a unicorn horn pop out of his forehead slightly lifting his hood to show blood red-eyes and pure-white mane.

“M-M-M-Mercer…B-B-Blacklight!” Stock shrieked as he ran towards the door to the next wagon finding it jammed by something.

“It won’t open, I jammed it.” the now-a-unicorn answered showing a cruel smirk filled by sharp fangs.

“Who are you? How dare you come here?” Load asked glaring at the intruder.

“H-H-He is the third player I was talking about!” Stock said while desperately trying to open the door or at least call for help.

“You said it was a Virus.” his brother replied watching Alex unsure.

“HE IS a Living Virus! A human weapon that then started thinking! A Monster!”  the other answered in hysterics.

“To be fair: the right term is Bio-weapon. I was created to be the Ultimate tool of death and destruction, a way to unlock humanity’s next step in Evolution...And the result of several mad-men wishing to play God…Unfortunately for them I have long since surpassed even their wildest expectations right after developing sentience AND a deep hatred for people like them.” Alex replied chuckling darkly as his front right hoof turned into the blade of his Blade form scaring Load and Stock down to their core.

“We have nothing to do with the humans! On the contrary, we hate them! Right, brother?!” Load said with a trembling voice and forced smile.

“HE KILLED SHIPPER, YOU MORON! HE HAS PONIES AND HUMANS AS TARGET! HE IS AGAINST ALL OF US!” Stock yelled in answer as he was now bashing the door with his whole body in the hope to break it down.

“Y-You killed her?!”

“I Consumed her, that is why they never found her body but only lots of her blood...She is with me now...She is PART OF ME now...” Alex said amused as his body turned into that of a pretty Unicorn mare with deep-blue fur, pinkish-white mane and a ship cutie mark.

“It’s incredible, Stock! I am part of everypony! We are one and the same! WE ARE ONE!” he then said imitating fully the mare’s voice and showing a deranged smile.

“KYAAAAAAAAAH! Nononononononononono!” Load in the meantime was already crying as he bashed the door harder and harder uncaring of his broken, bleeding wing or of the blood hid hooves were leaving behind as he punched the door in despair to escape.

“W-W-What do you want from us?! Money? Mares? HUMAN women? A ship to go somewhere?! Ask! Ask whatever the buck you want! We will sign everything we own to you! J-J-Just go away!” Stock begged as the mare in front of him returned being male unicorn Blacklight.

“You and the humans have a lot of things in common, you all think that waving checks around will save your life in every situation, honestly, I find it quite baffling. No, I will need just two things from you twins then I will be satisfied...Let’s say three even if 2 and 3 are strictly linked.” Alex answered simply while putting away the blade form.

“W-What do you want?” both twins asked as one while grasping fully to that slight spark of hope they felt.

“Simple! Your deaths, the knowledge inside those rotten skulls of yours and where you are keeping those poor new-foals you helped shipping away under Celestia’s nose so to cover your poisoning the water reserves and force the Conversion that helped this whole War start in the first place. See? Request two and three are strictly related, and while I got Miss Shipper’s side of the prisoners, I still need you two to find the second third AND the identity of who took care of the last third of Converted.” Alex answered simply.

“P-P-Please no!...No I beg you...” Load said in despair.

“No can do. Goodbye Stock Price and Load Price, I fear nobody will really miss you two that much...” the Living Virus said mockingly as he jumped them.

“GYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!-GURGLE!” the last thing that could be seen from outside before the train entered the final tunnel towards Canterlot was Alex pouncing and a thick spray of blood covering most of the windows in that reserved wagon.

Two hours later – Canterlot – Royal Castle – Throne room -

Luna was a wreck, mane barely held in check and dark bags under her blood-shot eyes showing she had barely slept few hours in weeks, she was also shaking visibly and faltering in her magic.

“Sister…” Celestia said sadly as she forced the Moon Alicorn to look away from her papers and sit on the throne while passing a brush on her mane in a soothing manner.

“We made a mistake, we made a mistake and now everything is slipping away from our hooves...” Luna kept repeating while sobbing.

“It’s for the well-being of our beloved ponies, we need to be strong, we will manage! We will push the humans back enough for Equestria to come here and THEN we will fix every loose end. But for now, those people will either comply willingly or be forced to stay put until we are done, and that too will be fixed once everything is over.” Celestia said gently as she hugged her sister making her start sobbing uncontrollably.

“We are acting worse than Nightmare Moon! I look like the Corrupted Version now! Not the Original!” Luna wailed in sorrow.

“Once done I will shoulder every sin, every curse and all the blame. You won’t have to feel guilt, but we have not the luxury to wait for the humans to accept this situation, we ponies need to move here and that’s final. It’s too important!” the other answered.

“...We are turning them by force...” Luna tried saying.

“They need to change otherwise our Magic will kill them, the lack of Bad Traits should be a blessing to them, but I secretly admit that taking away from them the choice is bad, but that side-effect as well is what we need to finish moving on this world. So please, be strong! For me, for Equestria, for our subject old and new. We need to stay together, in Harmony.” Celestia said whispering as she rocketed her sister back and forth until she finally fell asleep in her hug.

“Once done here you’ll see a brand new world full of new stars and constellations to wave and dreams to explore, I promise you.” Clestia muttered levitating Luna on a make-shift bed the two had the guards prepare on the room due to their over-clogged schedules often demanding all-nighters from the two Alicorn mares.

Knock! Knock!

“Just let them in, you know this is a losing battle.” Luna said groaning as she opened again her eyes.

“At least lay there a little. Enter!” knowing that fighting it was indeed useless Celestia looked at the Sun Guard enter with a frantic expression to look at both sisters.

“Yes?” the Sun Princess asked.

“There has been a new attack! Somepony assaulted one of the trains directed here...T-T-They sl-slaughtered two ponies, b-b-by the crossing of the names we believe the victims are Stock Price and Load Price.” the poor guard asked looking ready to puke.

“Led to believe? Why?” Luna asked getting on her hooves immediately.

“Lots of blood, but no bodies. Just like with the Shipper-Co incident.” he answered.

“...Mercer.” Celestia tried saying making her sister shiver.

“He was one of the first possible culprits we considered, the attack happened while the train was still moving and Human soldiers can’t pass the Barrier; so it’s either that monster or some of the ponies that joined Gaia,” the soldier answered.

“I see. Take me there and call the Elements, he may still be around admiring the results of his work,” Celestia ordered.

“We already contacted them along isolating the whole train station, nopony will enter there, your Highness.”

“Good, we will go there immediately,” Luna said nodding as she marched towards the door.

“You are-”

“We have a monster roaming around, sister. We’ll need all the power we can amass just in case he decides to attack other innocents...or the Elements themselves.” the Moon Princess said making Celestia’s eyes widen in horror.

“Twilight!” she yelled in fear.

“He knows they are our biggest assets, maybe he wants to see if he can attract them all in a single place so to deal with them all at once.”

“Then we have to hurry! NOW!” Celestia yelled as she flew out of the room at her top speed.

“Right behind you!” Luna added rapidly following her leaving the poor soldier in the dust as he was forced to follow them on foot since as a Unicorn he lacked wings to begin with.

Thirty minutes later – train station - 

Flying as fast as they could, the two Alicorns arrived just in time to see Twilight and the other Elements of Harmony descend from the personal carriage they had been collected with and escorted by Twilight’s brother Shining Armour himself.

“Princess!” the purple Unicorn said happily as she saw the Sun Alicorn nearing her with barely-restrained apprehension momentarily flashing on her face as the Princess landed very close to Twilight and discreetly check her from head to tail.

“So you do have a weakness, Celestia...I wonder if there are more you keep deeply buried under your so-called ‘Godhood’...”

“Princess Luna, you are here too?” Shining Armour asked surprised.

“An attack so close to the Castle was bound to attract us both, especially considered WHO may very well be behind it.” Luna answered.

“Maybe your sister too, even if she is on par with you in power, she is still younger than you.”

Celestia kept her mouth closed and acted naturally, but she could feel something in the air, a faint taint of malicious intent she could not pinpoint but still knew was directed at her and the others.

“Somepony is watching us.” she thought with narrowed eyes.

“Captain Shining, Your Highness Luna and Celestia, please this way, but I should warn you...It’s not pretty to look at.” the guard that had been evidently tasked by analyzing the crime scene said nearing the group.

“Please stay close to me, Twilight.” Celestia whispered.

“Your Highness?”

“Please.” she pleaded.

“O-Okay.”

The insides of the luxurious train, a more high-class model than the ones usually covering the same track, looked still pristine clean, not a single speck of dust to be seen nor a scratch on the high-quality wood or the drapes inside or the comfy red cushions of the seats.

“I always wanted to ride this one.” Rarity couldn’t help but mutter in wonder.

“If we manage to resolve this, I promise you you others will be free to ride this train all you want.” Celestia answered sighing as she already saw the guards acting as border between the clean wagons and the ones where the killing happened.

“This way, your Highness.” one of the guards blocking the view said grimly as he and his companions moved aside to show something out of a horror movie.

Contrary to the previous wagons this one was a mess, wide sprays of red covering everywhere up to the ceiling and completely obscuring the windows in a thick sludge of already-coagulating blood.

Needless to say Rarity and Fluttershy fainted almost instantly while Pinkie simply emptied her stomach violently before curling into a whimpering ball to not look further, AJ and Dash instead were valiantly trying to not follow their pink-maned friend and clearly coming close at losing control themselves; the scariest one was Twilight as she simply watched everything in morbid detachment.

“They used a sharp blade to cut a hole in the roof...The same blade has cut somepony in half, the sprays suggest high-speed too...” she droned with empty eyes.

“Twi.” Shining said immediately as he hugged his little sister tightly to help her overcome the sight as she tried to ignore the scarring image by over-analyzing it.

“Luna? Can you take care of the blood? I’ll Add Mercer. This is his work, Gaia would have left some marking of their insignia to reclaim the kill.” Celestia said once swallowed hard to reign-in her bile.

“Yes.” Luna answered with a forced even tone as her horn flared to life making the two mixed blood come alive to form the shape of two distinct ponies standing near the door.

“What magic is this?” Shining asked in awe.

“Blood Puppetry, it animates the blood to replay the owners last moments before death, Starswirl was forced to create it when a young noble was found dead under mysterious circumstances...But where was Mercer, sister?” Luna answered.

“There is a clean spot on the floor.” Twilight muttered with unblinking eyes as she pointing at the only small area of the floor free of blood on the thick puddle in the middle of the wagon.

“So he was there, he has absorbed the blood falling on him other than the two victims, so around him it’s clean.” Celestia said as a translucent copy of Alex pony body appeared in the middle of the clean area.

“Go, Luna...” Celestia said gloomy, making her sister’s horn light up so that one of the two featureless puppets of condensed blood could fall to the ground with its mouth open and a giant hole appearing in its stomach before jerking violently high in the air to be cut in two (Thus returning the blood in the same position it was when the group arrived).

“The new-foals say he can turn parts of his body into weapons, a single blade one is between his powers, he must have used that once pounced on one of the twins.” Shining said somberly.

“The other twin...What was he doing in the meantime?” Celestia asked as the scene restarted from the beginning, only this time the second puppet too started moving as it raced towards the door trying to open it and slamming both hooves on the space where its solid wood used to be when closed.

“He tried to escape leaving his brother behind to die.” Shining said frowning before the second puppet too stopped and a similar hole opened on its chest.

This time though the body went slammed on the ground and something then slammed against its head making it explode.

“He stomped on the victim’s head.” Luna said grimacing, finally making AJ and Dash too puke at the image.

“Brutal and efficient, but I guess real Violence is not something you others are used to see.”

“The door was pierced too, isn’t it?” Celestia asked in detached curiosity.

“All the way through, sturdy iron that didn’t stand a chance to his blade.” another soldier answered.

“I see...Let’s return to a more clean habitat.” Luna said as the group returned to the previous wagon so that the girls could sit and catch their breath.

“I am sorry I forced you to see this, but I needed to have you understand that we are dealing with somebody completely different; somebody cold and ruthless, but also calculative and smart more than what you others may believe.” Celestia explained as she took a bottle from the wagon’s bar to pour few tiny shots of alcohol.

“Just for this time. The situation is dire enough to close an eye on your age.” she explained as the Elements downed the shots shivering and choking at the strong alcohol slamming on their taste buds making even their brain burn for an instant.

“How can somepony able to do this be considered intelligent?” Rarity finally asked in disbelief.

“That is his brutal side, but you need to remember that he assimilates everyone of his victims, he gains all they are and all they know: training, memories, knowledge and we fear even Magic...But why attacking Stock and Load?” Shining explained.

“We think he was behind the death of Express Shipper as well...It means he attacked the leader of the biggest shipping company by sea and now the twins owning the biggest one covering land and air...but why?” Celestia asked confused.

Shick-shick-shick! The sound of a shaker being vigorously shaken made the group jump and turn towards the small bar.

“Discord!” Luna yelled furious at seeing the barman-dressed Draconequus mix himself a cocktail with the utmost care, pour it in a wide glass and even add a small colorful umbrella to it for himself.

“Good morning, Celly, Lulu and you others. This is what the humans call a Bloody Mary, quite fitting isn’t it? Considering what happened next door.” he said nonplussed.

“Why you are here now?” Twilight asked.

“My reasons. As for dear Alex, he probably needs routes, names, places, contacts...Or maybe he discovered some more ‘obscure’ details from Shipper and wanted to know the side of the story the Price Twins knew about,” Discord answered simply as he calmly sipped his drink without a care in the world.

“...He could have done a more clean job thought.” he then added looking at his glass with critical eyes.

“What are you doing, you idiot?! Don’t give them details!”

“You know the real reason, don’t you?” Twilight asked with narrowed eyes.

“Maybe I do, maybe I don’t.”

“Then tell us!” Shining ordered growling.

“Or what? you’ll turn me to stone? Hey, Celestia! How many ponies lost their lives during my reign in Equestria? Come on! Give me a number! An estimate!” Discord answered leaning on the counter and resting his head on his lion paw arm.

“...Nopony died...They changed form, went Discordified, petrified, jellyfied, turned to furniture or garden decorations or turned into glass panels you used to decorate the windows...Among other things...But there have been no victims.” she answered with clenched teeth.

“And how many died ever since you started this crusade of yours against the humans instead?” the Chaos Master asked simply as his body walked in front of the counter while head and lion paw remained on the table in the same relaxed position.

“...”

“So?”

“...Hundreds.”

“What does this have to do with everything!?” Luna asked hissing.

“Just wondering if I am still the evil guy, after all, at every opportunity you dangle the Elements in front of my face to make sure I behave and yet you all go around trying to erase a whole race to make room for ponies. It just makes me wonder if I am missing something.” Discord answered in grim amusement as he reconnected his head and arm to the rest of his body.

“Those are extreme measures but we are-”

“You are doing what’s best to make the transition peaceful, Celestia? Have ANY of you tried to see things from THEIR perspective? We came here ‘By Accident’ and at the first occasion start changing them en masse with the threat of disintegration should they refuse to turn into ponies...The fact that we are suppressing their Bad Traits we don’t like it’s only a plus we simply failed to mention of course.”

“So coming here was not an accident, eh? Interesting!”

“Suppress?” Celestia asked confused.

“I could not make the potion remove them completely, so I opted for total suppression...They are still there, but the Converted cannot express them, nor feel them...At all.” Twilight admitted ashamed.

“It’s okay, I am not mad.” Celestia answered with a reassuring smile.

“Of course not! It doesn’t change anything for her after all! Why would she care?”

“DISCORD!” the Sun Alicorn yelled scandalized.

“Oh please spare me! You still believe that your beloved ponies are the most gentle, friendly creatures ever! Above any guilt and flawless! Do you also think that they poop rainbows perhaps? Must be great to wear such lovely rose-tinted glasses!” Discord said clapping his hands mockingly.

“Get to the point!” Celestia roared.

“Stall her, distract them all. Just five more minutes!”

“Okay.” Discord thought in answer as he cleared his throat.

“Slavery, Celly. I am talking about slavery.” the Draconequus said simply.

“What slavery? Slavery is illegal in Equestria!” Luna answered immediately.

“It is? Then why several hundreds of New-foals have been Converted by force, took away from their homes as soon as they turned into ponies and roughly transported into secret locations? Locations where they are supposed to be trained into working for their new Masters? It would not be your typical Slavery, but it would be something going pretty close, and very influential ponies are involved in this newly-developed ring of low-cost personnel for filthy rich ponies to use that will never rebel against their mistreatment…Most of them are even too much tempted by the New-Stallions and New-mares too, let me tell you.” Discord answered.

“And how would this happen, eh?! How would nopony notice?” Dash countered with a challenging tone,

“The Cargo ships!” Shining said gasping in shock.

“The two biggest companies around can cover the delivery of prisoners without rising a single suspect, just the fleet of flying ships the Price Twins could count on would have been able to move hundreds of New-foals unseen by covering them with the normal chaos of their deliveries.” Twilight said faintly.

“And if they send some by sea too, Ah can bet even less pony would notice.” AJ added disgusted.

“No! No! No! I-I-I refuse to believe this!” Celestia said in denial.

“Then check it yourself, Celly! Just spare five minutes to go through their stuff! And by the way, how do you define indentured servitude with no rights, no hopes for freedom, miserable conditions and little to no pay? Just the basic needs to survive and no warmth whatsoever?” Discord asked smirking.

“...Slavery.” The Sun Alicorn answered grimacing.

“Our new threat apparently has some goal that required him to eliminate those ponies...Or maybe a small part of him still has some goodness buried deep under. Fact remains that he already has the how the Newfoals were captured and the why, now he needs to know where they are kept and Who is behind everything.” Discord said chuckling darkly.

“We would have discovered it ourselves,” Luna said stubbornly.

“Not with how well it was hidden, Lulu. Some of the biggest contributors are ponies you won’t suspect want to use the New-foals forced inability to rebel to gain few more thousand bits. Maybe we should suppress ponies Bad Traits too, as a security measure.” Discord answered making Twilight flinch, her potion was probably the reason why the New-Foals could not even verbally rebel and denounce their captives and she now knew that.

“I AM SORR-” KABOOOOM!

What Twilight was about to scream while crying went eclipsed by a tremendous explosion that shook everything violently and had even the train windows explode forcing Celestia and Luna to raise a quick shield to protect the others from the shards of glass.

“T-T-The Castle…” Celestia said in horror as more than half the titanic construction was already collapsing along part of the mountain and the train tracks under it and micro explosions seemingly happened behind every window while the crumbling of such massive construction generated a micro-earthquake.

“The Tower!” Twilight said with wide eyes as the tall construction too slowly fell to the side in a deafening explosion of flying bricks.

“What happened?!” Luna demanded in shock as the explosions finally settled down leaving only giant clouds of smoke behind as the final pieces of the collapsing structures finished submitting to gravity leaving only probably a third of the Castle still standing albeit precariously.

“You should take a page from the humans and learn to better control who buys certain types of chemicals and fertilizers.” A cold voice said in amusement as a Unicorn was seen fall from the sky in a splattering of breaking bones.

“H-H-Help!” the old Stallion begged dragging himself with his only sane hoof while leaving behind a thick red trail.

“Money Bag!” Celestia said in shock as the director of one of the biggest banks of Equestria slowly dragged himself towards her.

“P-P-P-Princess! Help M-GUAH!” the old Stallion tried begging before five dagger-sized blades fell mercilessly on him piercing his head and jaw and almost beheading him, all in front of the Princesses and the others’ horrified eyes.

“Hello there, Celestia.” the new-comer said chuckling darkly as the pony once knew as Money Bag went broke-down and Consumed until nothing remained.

“MERCEEEER!” the Sun Alicorn roared in absolute fury as her mane almost turned into pure fire because of her rage.

Cliffhanger! Yes, hate me! I am a cruel bitch and I am proud of it! Bwhahahahahaha!

Under her the closing extra: “Tea with Discord” 

Thank you for reading my story, I hope you liked the “twist” I am giving on the TCB Genre...Please tell me I didn’t buck-up! :(

Until next time!

Tea with Discord – Before the attack to the Castle - 

Alex Mercer was once again free to return human while perusing the penthouse in Manehattan he took by a New-foal Mare posing as a ‘proper’ pony she got for helping in Converting humans.

“Lemon, Discord?” the Living Virus asked pouring a cup for the Draconequus.

“Few drops, thank you.” Discord answered using the fluff of his tail to grab the cup and drink from it.

“You wanted to tell me you have a new target?” he then asked.

“Oh, yes! I think I will demolish the Royal Castle of Canterlot.” Alex answered with a chilling smile.

“Spruuuut! YOU WHAT?!” Discord asked once spat out what he was drinking.

“I want to demolish the Castle to attract Celestia’s attention on me, hers and the attention of Luna, the Elements of Harmony AND as many guards I can.” the Living Virus explained.

“WHY? Have you any idea of how many innocent victims there will be?!” Discord asked still shocked by the preposterous offer.

“No innocents will be harmed, I have absorbed several Night and Day Guards, if I use those few identities to spread the order for every single pony present there to move to the gardens then there won’t be deaths...I cannot promise no wounded because of the erratic nature of explosions, but I can assure you no deaths.” Alex answered smugly.

“...I better help you with that, just to be safe. But won’t Celestia subvert the order and grow suspicions?” Discord answered with narrowed eyes after a short pause of thought.

“She will be away from the castle by the time the time bombs go off, I’ll be sure she and both her beloved sister and Elements will be where WE wanted them to be.” the bio-weapon answered simply.

“And how will that happen? And what do you plan to use to demolish the Castle? Those walls are sturdy, there is a thin layer of Magic reinforcing it, you may damage the inside, but the walls won’t go down easily.” the other asked.

“Is that Magic in the rocks of the mountain where the castle was built too?” Alex asked smirking.

“I...I don’t think so...” The Draconequus started saying before growing unsure.

“It’s a common mistake, reinforce the door but not the wall around it. A big enough bang and the rocks under the castle will turn to dust, then the whole weight of the structure and the weakening from the explosions inside will do the rest, that if the bombs I will prepare won’t blow-up the walls first.”

“It will need to be one hell of a bomb to do that.” Discord commented unsure.

“Would sixty human-sized barrels filled by a mixture of gasoline, propane, nitrometane and fertilizer put in structurally weak location be enough? You need to tell me now if I need to make more.”

“Fertilizer?”

“The Ammonium nitrate extracted from the fertilizer, to be precise. I got the idea when you told me the Elements were taking liberties with human possessions...Dear Miss Applejack and their family have raided several hundreds of thousands tonnes of human-made fertilizer for their apple acres (along few samples of apples we had so to cross-breed with theirs and create new exemplars). They may have had few experts remove what they believed being the toxic parts of those before storing and using it, but even doing that they didn’t remove the ammonium nitrate contained in it. You others should start seeing the merits of science instead of using only Magic, you are lagging behind and missing a lot of nice things.” Alex answered amused.

“And how much explosive you made with what you took?” Discord asked.

“Enough to make the Ok--homa City Bombing look like a firecracker went off in comparison.”

“I have read about that...But how do you plan to take those barrels-”

“They are in the Castle’s cellar already.” Alex cut him off.

“HOW?!”

“I turned into several guards to get clearance and enter and then pretended to be just a delivery pony bringing new human wine to Canterlot for some celebration I was not invited to since I am not into high society. Then during the night I used few Night Guards identities to bring everything inside without being noticed. As soon as Celestia and Luna leave the Castle and all the staff is in the gardens I will move the barrels to their locations and activate the timer.”

“The trick will be have the two Princesses and the Elements go away from the Castle.”

“There is where YOU enter the picture.” Alex said simply.

“ME?!”

“You love to talk and aggravate everybody you come across, spin some bullshit about them, their decisions and this war against humans...I don’t know, you just need to talk to them and make them angry enough to waste time until the bombs go off. I will then make my grand entrance and literally tell every pony that I indeed exist and can attack everywhere and become whoever I want, Celestia has done a good job in hiding my existence, but we need the fear of me being around to stop further raids on earth...And we need the diversion.”

“Diversion?”

“Can you be in two places at once, Discord?” Alex asked.

“It’s confusing and tiring, but it is also easy enough, why?”

“As soon as I appear you need to pop in one of the camps where the Converted human soldiers are and give the back their Bad Traits, they will do the rest; just make sure every pony you would like to see survive will be far from that camp as they won’t be gentle; and make sure it will look like a raid of Gaia, we also need Celestia to wonder if I am joining force with them or not.”

“They will be the ones acting as Gaia soldiers and become your source of distractions for future missions, I see...” Discord said in understanding.

“If we make only videos they may grow suspicious, we need real ponies to give this Terrorist Group some credibility.” the other confirmed.

“So we only need a proper bait to attract Celly, Lulu and the Elements away. But what?” the Draconequus wondered.

“I already know what to do, I already know that two of our targets, Load Price and Stock Price, have been invited at a brunch in Canterlot by mister Money Bag, director of the Equestria National Bank...Probably to celebrate the freeing of new houses and the acquisition of more money to fill their pockets. I will attack the Twins, alert the Princesses myself along suggesting that Alex Mercer is the probable culprit along telling them the Elements too have been called. If things go as I expect, Celestia should worry enough about her precious student Twilight to rush there at maximum speed...I just hope she really cares about that Unicorn like you said and that Luna too will join.”

“She loves Twilight, even too much actually, even if she will never admit that. And Luna will go, ever since this war started she is obsessing on finishing it quickly before new deaths happen, and you are a giant threat so she will do her best in removing at least you from the scene.” Discord answered.

“What an honor! A horse deity wants me dead.” Alex answered sarcastically.

“We’ll manage. Give me directions about what camp I have to free and I’ll be sure transportation for the civilians will be there to take them home back in the human side.”

“Here is the map, now if you excuse me, I have to go. I have a train to catch!” the Living Virus said taking a folded map out of his pockets and then transforming into a Pegasus to rapidly fly away.

Sigh! “...What the buck am I doing...I am supposed to bring Chaos and have a laugh at everything and everypony, not be a hero and trust a mass-murdering weapon of mass destruction with the fate of two races...Celly...Why?” Discord asked aloud sighing before disappearing with a snapping of his fingers and a miserable expression on his face.

Chapter finished! WOOOO! I am awesome! I am cool!

…

I am afraid I am writing a story with a quality comparable to feces…

Help?
> Chapter 4: Alex Vs the Elements
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Canterlot – train station - 

"MERCEEEER!" the Sun Alicorn roared in absolute fury as her mane almost turned into pure fire because of her rage.

"Yes?" The Blacklight Virus mimicking a pure-black unicorn stallion with white mane and red eyes also known as 'Alex Mercer' answered with a calm tone as the frothing-at-the-mouth Princess nailed him with a glare of pure loathing.

"What is the meaning of this?!" She demanded furious.

"War." the Living Virus answered simply, making Celestia almost recoil with the pure colloquial tone he used to answer.

"War?"

"Not  mine of course, but of you ponies and the humans, and my involvement  with it." Alex answered while calmly trotting away until two brave  guards moved to stop him.

"NO!" Luna yelled with wide eyes as her  magical shield went summoned around the two just a fraction of a second  before the Virus' pony tail whipped forward turning into his Whip Fist to cut both stallions in two.

Skriiiiieeee!  The metallic sound of the bone-made tip of the whip scratching and then  rebounding on the barrier had the ponies present flinch at the high  volume it reached.

"Step back." Luna ordered making the soldiers hurry to leave room for the Virus to move.

"What  have the humans offered you? I know well you hate them, enough to try  and have their whole race go extinct. And almost succeed in doing this."  the Moon Alicorn asked while ignoring Celestia trying to silence her.

At  hearing those words the soldiers and curious onlookers around the  Alicorns and the Elements could not move away as rapidly as they clearly  wished as they scampered away, soon leaving a WIDE area for Mercer and  the Princesses to freely walk on as the closest group of eavesdroppers  was several meters away and behind various barriers raised by the few  willing Unicorn soldiers.

"Huhuhu!" the COLD chuckle of Alex in  answer to that question made more than one mane or pair of wings get  ruffled in primal instincts of guard.

"I am not involved with those apes, nor with the Gaia group, they are just as bad as Blackwatch  was if not more, and I bet you have met few of the remaining soldiers  of that faction as well," he answered making Celestia herself flinch  minutely at the memory.

She remembered well those people, many  victims of the pony side had been because of their extreme hate for  everything not human and their willingness to hurt whoever stood in the  way of their Mission, whatever that was at the moment they moved.

"And while what I did can be seen as me trying to make Humans go extinct, I instead simply tried removing 'the fallacies' of their race, turning them to a shape that would satisfy MY ideals...I just tried erasing their Bad Traits...Sounds familiar, Celestia?"

"I AM NOT LIKE YOU!" the Sun Alicorn bellowed in disgust.

"You  sure? What I saw in the memories of Money Bag, of the Price brothers  and of Shipper tells me another story." he asked simply.

"He is not nervous or afraid..." Dash muttered.

"He  has thousands of minds and lives inside himself, emotions are not  something easily escaping his control, especially if he believes he can  survive Celestia's wrath." Twilight answered as, to their surprise, the  Sun Alicorn had kept silent while violently biting her lips.

"And can he survive an attack from the Elements?" Rarity asked.

"..." at That the purple Unicorn stood silent as she herself worked her brain at full power to answer that question.

"I-I  am not like you! The humans we Convert will live! Nopony will suffer  from this!" Celestia finally answered, to her dismay though she saw Alex  notice the faint, practically-inaudible staggering in her voice she  knew nobody else noticed, not even Luna standing right next to her.

"They  will live? How? With the complete inability to do, think and say  anything negative? Can that even be considered normal life? And what  about the ones whose brain shut down from the shock of that? Is being  reduced to a vegetable drooling on themselves a good way of living?"  Alex asked simply, making the listening ponies mutter between themselves  unsure.

"...Something tells me they didn't know of that tidbit of  trivia about Conversion. Very bad for you to do this, Princess." he  added tutting condescendingly while his 'Princess' held a level of mockery never before heard.

"I-I-I..."

"I  have Consumed thousands of psychologists, cultists and mentalists,  Celestia. Their combined years of expertise in reading and manipulating  psyches almost surpass the years you have been alive...And you have  spent more than half that life surrounded by people eating everything  you say like a gospel from the Heavens, that had you getting sloppy." Alex thought pleased by the tiny spark he saw in her eyes she so desperately tried to hide from him.

"So  you didn't just kill the humans, as you had not the guts to go through a  true Eradication...You preferred having their hearts keep beating even  if the personality, the Will and the mind simply collapse. They would be  alive, but at the same time they will be dead. Let's say that they will  just be 'Background characters' in your new, perfect world of  Ponies and for Ponies only...Because no Gryphons or yaks, or any other  race will come here. Right?" Saying that the Living Virus stopped  abruptly to take a step towards Celestia.

And to the ponies' shock, she took one back just an instant later.

"Those  races do not deserve this place, yes? Not even the humans do as they  are spoiling this world, even if they had earned their place here  millions of years ago...Every other race outside Ponies is dirty!  Stupid! USELESS!" he said filling his mouth in sharp teeth and again  turning his tail in the Whip fist so to threateningly move its barbed head around like a scorpion.

"SILENCE!" Celestia finally yelled with her voice booming like an explosion.

"THOU  HATH SAID TOO MUCH! TWILIGHT!" reflexively falling into Old  Canterlotian dialect, the Princess turned to look at her precious  student and at the other Elements.

"Aaah, yes! Miss Sparkle..."  Alex, completely unimpressed by the Alicorn's rage, said with a  colloquial tone that seemed to make the area's temperature drop of  several degrees.

"W-What?" the young mare asked as Celestia's  order died immediately as soon as she perceived the Virus' attention  move to the Unicorn.

"The brilliant mind that came up with the  Conversion Formula...Prized student of Celestia and the highest score  ever registered in that little school for 'Gifted' ponies your Princess herself endorses..." he said with a small smile of malice.

"Many  consider you to be the second coming of Starswirl, you know? A Pony  that will unravel the mysteries of Magic still going unanswered...I bet  you only cared about creating the formula itself and the possibility to  make history because of it, pleased to know that someday you too will be  in one of those books you love and have stallions and mares read about  you and be inspired to do great things. After all, you DID create  something that helped a poor, violent race know Harmony for the first  time and survive a great crisis...The few 'bumps' can easily be  forgiven as soon as the Converted Humans learn to live with their Bad  Traits suppressed, nobody needs to live a life filled in rage or  violence after all, they will surely recover and become 'Normal Ponies'." Alex said clapping his hooves a little.

"Don't listen to him, Twilight! just-" Luna hissed with narrowed eyes.

"Just  use the Elements, that is what you are going to say." the Virus  finished saying for her making the Moon Alicorn grit her teeth in anger.

"Please  do so and act like the attack dogs you and our friends are! Please use  them, the Elements of Harmony, Equestria biggest asset." Mercer said as  he walked away of few steps and then stopping to address the Princesses  and mares behind him without turning to look at them, instead fixating  his eyes on the still-smoking ruins of the demolished royal castle.

"Every  pony I killed died for a reason, Celestia. I saw what they did in the  open and in secret, things even you and your sister know nothing about;  all just little extras I gathered while I was looking for what I really  needed, but still, I deserve being hit full force by your 'Secret Weapon'  since even the Barrier you are using against the humans is useless  against me...But..." he said, again chuckling darkly and sending the  listeners on edge.

"But your precious Elements better be able to  fully destroy me." he turned around rapidly, nailing every mare with a  cold gaze that had them shrink a little.

"Applejack..." he said making the farm mare hiss at being addressed.

"You  think Mac will finish fixing the third step of the stairs in the barn  today? You tripped rather badly on it yesterday." he asked sounding  honestly curious and making AJ go wide-eyed.

"H-H-How?" she demanded shaking.

"I  saw and I heard you whine about it, and he tends to let his guard down  when around Miss Cheerilee...Same going with dear little Bloom, I would  just need to Consume the pretty teacher to get both, and after them,  Granny Smith." he said simply.

"YOU MONSTER!" AJ roared barely restrained by Twilight's Magic to stop her from attacking Alex.

"Yes,  yes I am. And tell me...If the Elements WON'T destroy me...What will  then stop me from going after them and THEN you?" he asked showing his  front hooves turn into sharp claws.

"N-N-No! Keep Bloom and Mac out o' this!" she replied sounding way more submissive this time.

"Glad to see you understand." the stallion answered pleased before focusing on a new target and ignoring AJ pleas.

"Dear  Rainbow Dash, instead...How's Scootaloo? Still trying her tricks with  her scooter? Would you actually be able to tell if she is the real one  you are talking with or if it will be me mimicking her before I attack  you?" he asked.

"You...You...You..." the Pegasus hissed with moistening eyes.

"And you, dear miss Rarity Belle…"

"No! Not Sweetie! Everything but not her!" the Fashionista immediately begged.

"You  catch up rapidly, very good! What about you, Pinkie? Would you throw a  party knowing that one of the pony present may be ME waiting for your  dear sisters to get too close? Or maybe I will go for the Cakes!"

"..."

"What about you, Fluttershy?"

"I-I-I..."

"Even  Discord is appalled by you helping them doing this, I don't care about  the humans and openly admit my dislike for them...But you always  professed your love for all living things, what is so different about  humans to not be worthy of a second, third or even fourth chance like  your dear Draconequus friend was?"

"ENOUGH!" Luna roared in fury.

"Yes  it is...I guess it's high time I move to my next target, I wasted even  too much time here." Alex replied nodding along the Princess' words as  he walked away.

"You are not going anywhere!" Twilight hissed as  she gathered magic in her Element, to her dismay her friends instead  were taking slightly longer than usual to do the same.

"They know  what will happen if the Elements fail to erase me completely, Twilight.  You may be Celestia's beloved attack dog blindly obeying to everything  she wishes and ask, but they have other things to worry about...Or will  you too be sad if I Consume...I don't know...Spike or Sunset Shimmer? Or  even your new student! What's her name? Starlight?" he said with a  deranged smirk, making the mare pale considerably.

"They speak  and act so similar, a-and yet he is the polar opposite of my sister, he  is the antitheses of Celestia! Her Corrupted version!" Luna thought shocked as she watched the Sun Alicorn and the Virus Pegasus closely as Twilight behind her snarled in fury.

"DIEEEEEE!"  With an unhealthy roar of the Purple Unicorn the Elements of Harmony  went shot with unusual fury towards Mercer that simply smirked in  victory as he seemingly waited for the blast to hit.

In truth, as  soon as the light-show really caught him one of his back hooves  (weighted by super-dense biomass) stomped down making a huge chunk of  the floor under him collapse letting the Magic pass over him as he  disappeared underground.

"STOP HIM!" Luna ordered as her horn lighted-up eradicating the street in front of her in a blast of blueish light.

"He  is escaping through the sewers!" Celestia, by now almost literally  blinded by her own rage, barked as she launched herself to the chase  underground uncaring of everybody else asking her to wait.

"Find  him! Find him!" Luna in the meantime screamed madly making Sun and Night  guards hurry-up to comb Canterlot in its entirety.

"...He knew  there were sewers under him, as he talked he kept searching for a good  spot to break through for his escape...Fighting us or the Princesses was  never in his plans to begin with..." Twilight whispered in realization.

"W-W-We  attacked him! We attacked him and failed!…SWEETIE!" Rarity screamed in  horror as she tried to run back towards Ponyville.

"W-We'll go together! We will stop him!" Twilight tried saying.

"How!?  He can turn into everypony he eats! And you said you can't find a way  to tell where he is because he becomes who he eats completely, Magic  too!" Dash answered as she looked in apprehension towards their small  town.

"Applebloom, Twi! Dat monster wants tha kill Applebloom! He  will if Ah help ya! A-A-Ah'm going home, Ah can't lose her and BigMac  too..." AJ said while looking about to puke.

"That's what he  wants! he wants us broken, the Elements may really be able to stop him,  that is why he tries to have us break apart and do not use them!"  Twilight tried saying.

"He is making good points to convinces us to do it, Twilight." Fluttersy admitted with a low voice.

"H-He won't touch our families, I-I won't let him!" the purple mare answered.

"How?" Pinkie asked making her friend snap her mouth closed unsure about how to answer.

"I'll find a way. If not me, Princess Celestia will, I am sure."

If  only she could actually see the troubled expression flashing for an  instant on her own brother's face as she said that, she would actually  grow even more unsure about it.

Meanwhile – with Celestia - 

"Where  are you, coward?! Show your face!" the Sun Alicorn ordered as she kept  seeing the tail of Alex sharply turn the corner just in front of her.

As  soon as she had followed him she had seen him grow wings to turn into a  Pegasus and fly up out of the sewers, moving the chase to the streets  of Canterlot and showing that even if slower than her own Alicorn speed,  he had actually studied how flying worked for their species as she  could not make sharp turns like he could as she had not claws to plunge  on the walls to force the direction like he could, making her waste  valuable seconds just to readjust her trajectory.

But now she had  pinpointed him well enough for a bout of teleportation, and to her  satisfaction she managed to appear right in front of him, only for the  Living Virus to redirect most of his Biomass on his front hooves to  create his old Hammer Fist, with the  added weight of the super-dense biomass making him plunge vertically  down the ground and inside a small alley demolishing a great deal of the  street and upturning various dumpsters in a giant cloud of dust.

"Where  is he?" Celestia hissed as she scanned the area from above before  descending and sending her Magic to clear the alley of broken pieces of  road and garbage and getting in answer only the angry squeals of few  rats scurrying around.

"He is not underground...Then...Where is  he?" she muttered as she looked at the street filled by ponies running  away scared of the explosion Alex' landing produced.

"He could  honestly be anyone of them...Damn him! DAMN HIM TO TARTARUS!" Celestia  boomed as she flew away to return to Twilight and Luna just in case he  tried to attack them once she was distracted.

In truth one of the  rats that had been screeching about the Princess arrival had not run  away once she left but decided to follow her movements until she was out  of its field of vision.

"...Is she gone?" one of the rotten apples in the dumpsters asked using the bite mark it had as a mouth to speak.

"Squeak!" the rat answered in indignation.

"Right,  sorry." the rotten apple answered sheepish as it transformed into  Discord while the rat returned being Alex in Pegasus form.

"Better,  thank you for the help. Everything went according to plan?" Alex asked  once stretched his wings while his fur turned pale red and his mane mint  green.

"The soldiers that had been Converted recovered their Bad  Traits and made minced meat of the guards holding them in cages, as we  speak the last cargo ship of forcefully Converted Humans are making  their trip to the accorded areas for the Humans to recover and return to  their families, at the same time the guys pretending to be Gaia  followers are leaving behind marks and traces to suggest they did it,  they have even left something to make the others thing few ponies went Humanified and that the Magic of Equestria killed them immediately after." Discord answered sighing.

"Good  enough. Do you think Celestia will look into Money Bag's affairs by  herself or will she need some prodding to do it? You want her to finally  see what is happening, but our need to have them fear me and Gaia enough to not move war to humans may back-fire and keep her focused only on me instead of cleaning house."

"Just  in case I will nudge her a little. Who was that Pegasus?" the  Draconequus asked as Alex finished forming a Cutie Mark of a sun covered  by clouds on his flanks.

"A meteorologist mare, she wanted to see  if she could make the Conversion Serum rain on the human world by  polluting our own rain clouds, a soldier shut her down and the Russians  had been experimenting on her ever since. Since she was half-dead once  they were done they gifted her to me just in case I needed an extra  identity to blend-in. Real nice on their side." Alex answered with a  female voice that made him wince in annoyance.

"I see." the other said grimacing in discomfort.

"There is a war ongoing, niceties have been cast aside."

"I can tell…Listen..."

"Yes?"

"You won't really attack their families...Right?"

"I  needed them to lose focus, you said the Elements depend on their Users  and their mental health, I wanted to see if I could make them weak enough to survive a blast and try create a form of resistance to them." Alex answered.

"You can do that?" the other asked surprised.

"I  have no idea, and I didn't want to risk being hit yet, as for now we  still have a lot to prepare before I can risk an experimental shower of condensed happy thoughts. But I am pleased by the fact that agitating them, threatening and scaring them (and angering them in Twilight case)  showed nice results all the same. You have been blasted by those mares a  couple times, did you see any strange thing?" Alex asked.

"...The light was dimmer...And the colors paler!" Discord said with wide eyes.

"Yes.  Those things are dependent on the "emotional health" of the users, I  scared them and put in their heads enough doubts about their powers to  influence the resulting shot, if I can come up with something acting  like a lightning rod for Magic, even should I be blasted, I should be  able to redirect it somewhere else...that if the inherent 'Good' of some minds I Consumed won't shield me just the same." the Virus answered pleased.

"And you dodged it, I didn't know you could do that." Discord said.

"You never tried? In my case it moved in a straight line so I just dropped under it. You can teleport."

"...I was too surprised to dodge." he admitted almost ashamed.

"Aaah! Deer in the headlights, I get it." the other commented nodding.

"Small things aside; I think it will be better if you stay low and act as a normal Pony for a couple of days, we'll let Gaia  act up and let Celestia and Luna go through your victims' stuff to  finally learn about the dark deeds going on under their nose." the  Draconequus said sitting on an upturned dumpster.

"Okay, anything else?" Alex asked as he started taking altitude to fly towards the penthouse HQ in Manehattan.

"There are two mares I want to introduce to you tomorrow, they will join our little quest."

"We can trust them?" Mercer asked with narrowed eyes.

"We can, we can. I assure you." the other replied smirking.

"So be it." the Living Virus answered nodding as he zoomed away at high speed.

"Now...Let's  see what dear Shining Armour wants to talk about, must be something  pretty dirty if he is whispering my name like that! I can smell some  secret deal!" Discord muttered rubbing his paws before popping away like  a soap bubble.

The next Day – Money Bag's office – National Bank -

Celestia  was sitting behind the excessively-rich-looking desk of Money Bag and  fervently looking through a high stack of paper folders she evidently  took from a hidden safe behind herself if one looked at the completely  destroyed wall behind the desk and at the pitiful remains of said safe  that had been utterly torn to pieces.

"Shipper-Co...Price  Twins…Shipper-Co...Price Twins..." the two names kept popping-up more  and more the longer she kept reading, to the point that whenever she  read those her Magic started lashing-out a little breaking a piece of  wall or uprooting part of the parquet on the floor.

"I found what Shipper was hiding in her office," Luna said with a low voice as she slowly entered the demolished office.

"And what about the Price Brothers?" Celestia asked with a void tone.

"..."

"What about them, Luna?" she asked again.

"They  weren't exactly as bright as Shipper and Money Bag were in hiding their  business, they didn't even try to come-up with alternative names or codes to cover what they were doing."

"So?"

"I...Me and my guards found a list of names...Of Ponies and Recently-Converted Humans helping them...The Incident was not an incident...It was staged, from the beginning." Luna said with a low voice.

"The Conversion of New Orleans that started our WAR with the Humans WAS STAGED!?" Celestia screamed with her wings opening wide just like her eyes.

If  not for Luna's fast acting summoning a shield around her sister to  contain her burst of anger, the building and probably a big chunk of the  territory around it would have been swallowed whole and turned to ashes  by the thick explosion of flames that surged from the Sun Alicorn's  body that momentarily turned the small barrier into a furiously-swirling  ball of fire lasting several seconds.

"I HAD TO SPEED-UP OUR  PLANS! I HAD TO HURRY-UP CONVERSION WITHOUT GIVING TWILIGHT ENOUGH TIME  TO STOP THE CONVERTED FROM TURNING BRAIN-DEAD! WE GOT A WAR WITH PEOPLE  NOT AFRAID TO KILL EACH OTHER AND SO HAPPY TO USE THAT "TALENT" AGAINST NON-HUMAN TARGETS FOR ONCE! AND ALL FOR MONEY!?" the voice coming from between the flames was FAR  from the usual motherly warmth it was known for, in fact, Luna was  actually afraid Celestia would finally go Nightmare from the looks of  it.

"Not only money." the Moon Alicorn said calmly.

"What  else?" Celestia asked tiredly, looking spent after her moment of anger  as even her usual ever-flowing mane hung limp around her head.

"As  Discord said, cheap servants for rich families AND the confiscated  lands and properties of humanity too were nice incentives to do this."  Luna answered sighing.

"Somepony else is doing similar affairs,  isn't it? I am starting to think that I don't actually know my ponies as  much as I believed to..." she asked in dread.

"It is possible  that others are trying to exploit our Conversion to appease their greed,  yes, but others may try to speed things up for even darker reasons  instead,"

"You mean those who openly dislike humans?" the Sun Alicorn asked.

"Many  of our ponies mistrust other races, Celly; Gryphons, Dragons,  Changelings...Even Crystal Ponies are looked at in slight mistrust,  those ponies are out there." Luna answered sighing.

"But they are just a small fraction, right? Not the majority!" Celestia almost begged.

"It takes only one rotten apple to ruin the whole basket, sister." the other answered hugging her sister.

"They  are nice people, they can be artists, poets, painters, designers,  architects, dreamers...I saw what their ancestors left behind and their  theories. They have not Magic, but that never stopped them."

"But they are not ponies...And for some, that is the only flaw needed..." Luna admitted in defeat.

"So we are not that different?"

"Mostly,  they are a little more perverse when it comes to Mating...But I can't  blame them, I guess that for hyperactive minds like theirs, the Standard Positions do get boring after a while." Luna quipped smirking.

"Luna!" Celestia gasped shocked, but finally cracking a small smile.

"I  know, I know. We should not be joking considering the horrors this war  has unleashed, but if we give-in to despair, even worse tragedies will  come...What happened with the New-Colts first and foremost." the Moon Alicorn said sighing.

"...Their Down Syndrome reacted quite badly to the Conversion..." Celestia muttered shivering.

"What  I don't understand though, is where Mercer fits in all this..." Luna  commented to herself, too engrossed in her thoughts to hear her sister.

"What?" caught off-guard by the thing the Sun Princess asked.

"Mercer, why is he even here?"

"He may be helping the humans,"

"Unlikely, he had tried to exterminate them once, not too long ago."

"If what he said is true, he tried to do what we are doing now...Converting them..."

"So why attacking us? Is he angry because we are interrupting his second try?" Luna asked.

"Maybe, but he targeted Money Bag, the Price Twins and everypony else in this business of Converted Humans."

"And he destroyed our castle." the Moon Alicorn added bitterly.

"Yes,  but somehow he talked everypony into evacuating the place, other than  minor wounds, nopony died...then why he choose these four and who worked  for them to finally show himself?" Celstia said unsure.

"I refuse to believe he did it out of the goodness of his heart." Luna said growling.

"His  methods are brutal, yes. But he also must have a mission, what we have  been told showed that he was not just a mindless killing machine, he can  plan and manipulate and use whoever he can reach for his  goals...Consuming it's just a way to reach his goals faster."

"We  had no news of other deaths matching how Money Bag died, Mercer either  did it in a very covert way leaving no trace behind, or he started with  them to kill us."

"But then, why THEM? They are strictly linked,  one of them can be excused as chance, but he actively hunted them all  down, and with Money Bag being the last one of the small triangle of  slave sellers he found, he even made his death a spectacle to present  himself to us...why?"

"Mercer has no attachments we know of in  either our world or the Human side, he is a living Virus that likes to  impersonate people and ponies. He is not something that somepony or somebody would love unconditionally." Luna said unsure.

"...Even calling him a 'He' instead of 'It' is forcing it..." she also added with a lower voice.

"Alex Mercer isn't even his real name, we are talking about a Virus humans created and called 'Blacklight'...Mercer was just one of its creators the creature then started imitating..." Celestia added.

"For a while it believed to be Mercer, if we believe what we were told." Luna confirmed.

"Ehm...Your highness?" a new voice asked meekly from outside.

"Yes, Miss Bon Bon?" Celestia answered with a gentle smile.

"Me and...Well, Me and Lyra may have found something about Mercer..." the young mare said unsure as she entered.

"Already? Very well! I love when results are fast to come!" Luna said excited as her wings too fluttered in happiness.

"Please elaborate," Celestia asked once calmed her sister down with a light clearing of her throat.

"He supposedly has a sister and-"

"A sister?" Luna asked in surprise.

"Yes,  Princess. Dana Mercer, his younger sister. She willingly took the  Conversion Serum three weeks after the events of New Orleans, but we  have lost every trace of her several weeks ago, right after Gaia  made its appearance, nopony has seen her ever since as she failed to  register her ID during the according dates." Bon Bon answered.

"His sister?" Luna muttered.

"He must still consider her part of his family...T-The list!" Celestia said gasping in horror.

"He  was looking for her through Shipper's memories! Since he didn't find  her name in there he moved to the Price Brothers!" Luna added equally  shocked.

"And failed that he went to the pony behind the whole  thing, Money Bag. We need to see if they really got her, otherwise we'll  have to find who took her away and why...I hope neither Gaia or the Anti-Human ponies were found her first," the Sun Alicorn said as she hurried towards the door.

"Miss Bon Bon, you and Miss Lyra keep looking for Mercer and be sure to keep us informed of his movements,"

"Yes, Princess!" the mare answered immediately.

"What about us, sister?" Luna asked as she moved to follow Celestia.

"We'll  check if those three got Miss Dana, done that if we didn't find her we  will FINALLY look more deep in the secret affairs of our beloved Ponies,  blindly believing their being pure and innocent won't cut it anymore.  We also need to monitor Gaia, their recent visit to one of our 'camps'  for red IDs and the massacre of the guards there remembered me that we  are dealing with ruthless enemies as well, just because regular soldiers  are not attacking us anymore it doesn't mean we are out of trouble."

"We  also have to keep and eye on Mercer, for now he seems to focus only on  finding his sister, once found her Harmony only knows what his next  actions will be...He is not afraid of the Elements either, they too will  be in danger." Luna added.

"Twilight...What are your plans,  Mercer? What do you want from us?" Celestia muttered shaking in  suppressed anger at even just thinking her beloved student to be in  danger.

Meanwhile – with Alex – Manehattan – Tea with Discord - 

"The  plan went without an itch, perfect execution!...Minus all those dead  guards, I would have preferred that not happening." Discord said sighing  as he watched Alex turn human to sit on the couch with his legs resting  on the short table in front of it.

"The Bad Traits were needed  for those soldiers to break free and take the other Converted with them  back to human territories, that they also used the suppressed anger to  take revenge was an extra we knew would have happened." the Living Virus  answered shrugging,

"Sadly true. Either way, Celestia and Luna  are also finally looking deeply into the secret affairs and money games  taking place here and on Earth, between you, Gaia  and this they will be sufficiently distracted to leave us move to the  final Phase of our Mission." the Draconequus said crossing his arms.

"The  Human leaders I talked with have finally agreed to our plan, they are  now mass-producing their own Conversion Formula, when the time will come  they will start the controlled Conversion, meaning that you will need  to be there to give back the Bad Traits like we promised. How long  before the planet will be completely covered?"

"Five to six  months, the shelters are almost ready and so are the countermeasures and  the defensive perimeters around the parts of Equestria they are moving  here. Remember, once the planet has been fully Converted we'll have  barely two weeks before Celestia makes her final move, the ponies can  move here, but we can't let her go through with her plans fully."  Discord answered.

"I get it, I get it. We won't let her play with  that shiny tree of hers, I got that part to memory. Next move I think I  will pay a visit to each Element of Harmony separately, just to keep  them on edge and see if I can have one or two openly promise to never  cross me in exchange of me not Consuming every pony they hold dear. A  chain is just as strong as its weakest link." Alex answered.

"Just don't go overboard."

"I know what I am doing."

"I hope so, we have almost done moving the Converted back to their homes, we can't fail now."

"And we won't. So? Those two new recruits?" Alex asked.

"Ah,  yes! They were a nice finding, they apparently had a similar idea to  save the ones that had been forced to change, they only lacked our  sponsors and equipment, and yet they managed to save quite a lot of  Converted. Once explained to them what we were doing and why they  immediately asked to join, and actually demanded to meet you in person,"  Discord answered motioning to two mares to join them, one ice-blue and  the other light-brown.

"Meet little Trixie," the Chaos Entity said with a flourish.

"Nice to meet you." Trixie said nodding.

"And..."

"Blacklight." the other mare said somberly.

"Dana." Alex replied nonplussed.

"So you are still alive." Dana Mercer said coldly.

"Things  like me don't die, we are worse than cockroaches." the Living Virus  commented simply as Discord and Trixie looked at each other in  discomfort at the coldness now filling the room.

"..."

"..."

"Soo...Milk or honey in your tea?" Discord tried saying with a weak and forced chuckle.
> Chapter 5: Deception and Honesty
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The one that stands at the Top of the Food Chain Chapter 5: Deception and Honesty.

Manehattan – Penthouse – Living Room -

It was late in the evening in the luxurious penthouse Alex Mercer and Discord had commandeered as their HQ from which try to counter Celestia's plans while also trying to contain Humanity's answer to the invading forces of Equestria to a minimum.

Although, the Dragonequus was at the moment sitting aside with the traveling mare Magician Trixie (new recruit of their small movement) as both stood in a quite-awed silence as Dana Mercer, now a mare herself, went through the second hour of her non-stop vitriolic tirade against Alex, AKA the Blacklight Virus having reached sentience, looking always more angry at the Bio-weapon lack of response and/or care about what she was saying until she FINALLY ran short of breath and had to stop to recover.

"Impressive." Discord was forced to admit impressed.

"Feeling better?" Alex asked still reclining on the low sofa.

"You still wear Alex' face...You killed my brother and now you go around parading his corpse." she answered sounding still bitter.

"And that makes me a Monster, I guess?" he asked curious.

"What do you think?" was the sarcastic answer.

"What do I think? I think that at in the end, I am no Monster, Dana. I am, de facto, the perfect representation of Humanity at its finest and purest form!" Alex said jumping to his feet and walking towards the window to bask in the sun's blinding light.

"You are not."

"Unfortunately for you, I am." he said simply as he turned around to look at her and opening his arms wide so that the light could cast an almost-holy halo around his whole body.

"I am the poster-child of Humankind. I am its proudest achievement AND its perfect reflection!"

"Humans evolved a lot through the ages, hardened and perfected through trial-and-error by Mother Nature itself. Look at sharks and crocodiles, with them 'Fine Tuning' wasn't necessary because they already have what they need...But with Humans? With you others Nature took its time and carefully tried to see how far things could go and created humanity at it is now as a result...And millions of years later your dear brother Alex and his friends managed to re-create the final result by themselves in their fancy laboratories. Me."

"I don't follow." Dana replied stubbornly.

"I am the finest example of what humanity really is. A Virus, something that does not merely set down in an environment like every other being does, no, humans spread like normal animals, but then like a virus, they CHANGE their surroundings to match their needs and tastes, going as far as burning down whole forests and flattening mountains. We (Viruses) do not settle-down, we Conquer and Assimilate." he explained as he walked forward until he towered above the mare.

"Humans had always Consumed everything that stood in their way, they make it submit and become theirs, a part of them, just like I do..." the Blacklight Virus said leaning down until he was at eye-level with Dana.

"Stop your day-dreams about your dear brother being a saint and accept the truth: if I am a Monster, then he was Doctor Frankenstein." he said harshly making her recoil slightly.

"It was not me to tell him to take a vial of the Blacklight Virus (his proudest achievement) and bring it to a crowded train station hoping to release it and infect THOUSANDS OF INNOCENT PEOPLE just because his pride had been wounded, and it was not me to pull the trigger that killed him, releasing the Virus the first time and causing all the mess you others went through. I am simply a byproduct, I took over his face and his memories were the first I Consumed, all things that in a bout of chance I believed to be mine to begin with. Your 'beloved' brother Alexander Mercer was FAR from being who you believed...And deep inside, you know it." the Living Virus said getting back up and walking away.

"I was your brother back there, more than the real Alex ever was! I moved Heaven and Earth to save and protect you and I was the one that risked his life to stop a nuke or other monstrosities from destroying the city. I was more 'Human' than the real deal, and I was born in a laboratory in a secret facility. Quite ironic, isn't it? Before you people forced my hand, I was a living weapon more compassionate than the humans that created me!" Blacklight said with a mocking laugh filled by acidic sarcasm.

"And what you tried to do after that, eh?! You tried to have us go extinct! EXTINCT!" Dana yelled in answer.

"Do not play the martyrdom card with me, Dana. I know every single thought Alex ever had, I saw/heard/felt everything he had ever since the day he was born just like with EVERYONE I ever Consumed. I can dissect all those different 'Lives' down to the smallest detail thanks to my living through them and the ability to observe them from outside at the same time. What I did was just trying to switch a Virus with another, one where everybody would be connected, EQUAL...Considering how humans acted before Celestia's coming I thought that maybe a hive-mind would have been a nice way to fix them, among removing pesky things like sicknesses, hunger and genetic defects. But now we will never know if that would have worked, unfortunately."

"Why? You won't try again?" the mare asked sarcastic.

"Celestia is already modifying Humanity to her needs, and should she win, very little of what makes a Human what it is will actually remain...Even I am not so deranged to also add Blacklight's low success rate in 'uplifting' on top of that."

"Then why you are actually helping humanity?"

"I am not helping Humans, at best I am making the transition less painful. As dear Discord here may have already told you, by now Conversion has to happen, I am only helping along in making it so that humans do not just go Extinct, but simply get through a small remodeling to fit in the new Management of the globe."

"To be fair, we are also trying to have as less casualties as we can." Discord felt the need to add.

"Why are you helping them, instead?" Alex asked honestly curious.

"..."

"Want me to ask Discord to ask you, Dana? So you won't have to answer the Monster."

"...Conversion is killing humans, mentally I mean. They turn 'frail', the smallest bump and they shutdown for a couple minutes to process what is happening. Partly because the Bad Traits are forcefully suppressed and then because they are in denial of their new shape. I want to stop Conversion before others go completely insane...Somepony-UGH! SOMEBODY actually slammed his own head against a wall to death just to not hear the voices telling him what a good pony he was and how nice it was to be friends with everyp-EVERYBODY." Dana answered.

"..."

"The voices are one of the few temporary side-effects, it usually stops a month after Conversion." Discord explained to answer Alex surprised look.

"There are rare cases of short relapses, but those too then stop after another month." Trixie added.

"You are one of those cases." Alex said.

"Yeah, so what?" she answered bitterly.

"Nothing, it just makes it more personal." the Virus answered shrugging.

"Tch! As if you care."

Sigh! "We are going nowhere. You take care of briefing them on what we are doing, in the meantime I'll go visit a couple mares." Alex said turning into a pale-red Pegasus and flying away at top speed.

"..."

"...You know? I believe he still cares about you." Discord tried saying.

"Pfft! Yeah, right." Dana huffed in answer.

"Girl, I am the embodiment of Disharmony and Discord (It's in my name even!), I am an expert in bringing disharmony whenever I want and break apart friendships if I so wish. And in order to do this I need to be able to see what there is for me to Break. He cares about you, and I am ready to bet more than the real Alex Mercer ever did, more than you know and more than even HE HIMSELF knows. You two are just bickering like spoiled foals, and while I would normally appreciate it, now I kind of see the need for you to stop playing ostrich and take your heads out of the sand and admit each other's mistakes. For your sake and nothing else." the mismatched Draconequus answered waving her pettiness off.

"..." at that Dana simply looked outside the window Alex used with a troubled expression.

"Now, small matters aside, let me give you a rapid run-down of what me and him have been up to since his return." she barely heard Discord say as he went through his speech.

Meanwhile – Human Side – run-down apartment complex -

The roads were completely deserted, few cars abandoned with most of them having being burned down by revolts of civilians against the initial Conversion centers Equestria tried, and failed miserably, to create to accelerate the turning of people into ponies; many walls still littered by graffiti of dozens of colours made by people and pony against Conversion or happy about it.


Friendship is a Lie.



Humanity's Rebirth.



Embrace Harmony.



Don't trust the Invaders


Some seemed to be repeated more often than the others, probably coming from established 'Groups' of both sides and of both ideologies.

"Found it." a human soldier said smirking as he and his pals finally found the base of one of those groups.

"Hallelujah." another soldier, this one a brown unicorn, answered sighing.

"Hey, Johnny!" another human asked.

"Uh-hu?" replied the pony.

"How's having hooves?" the other asked laughing.

"Screw you, man! I miss my hands! And I can't reach for anything back home unless I use this horn thing (And that is creepy to see), the only good thing is that my daughter is having a blast at having a cute pony for a father, for a three year old, that's a dream come true." the stallion answered huffing annoyed.

"Well, there are also good sides in being a horse! Your wife must be smiling a lot lately!" the first human added smirking making the rest of the group with them break into wild catcalls.

"Ha-Ha-Ha. Jokes on you, I fear my dick got smaller instead."

"Modest aren't we?" a third human said making the whole group start laughing at the pony expenses.

"Okay, kids! We had our moment of fun at Johnny's expenses, but now it's time for business. In there there is yet another group of sickos that want us to turn to ponies without remain mentally human so to worship their 'Beloved' Celestia. You know the drill: we get in, grab them and get out without too much of a fuss, all this by leaving behind enough Gaia paraphernalia to make our Terrorist Group look still relevant." the group's commander ordered sharply making the laugh die down instantly.

"And if they resist arrest? Or worse, if they attack us?" the only pony of the group asked.

"In the latter case...Well, we only need them alive, if in in the meantime they turn quadriplegic or even lose a leg or two, incidents happen." the Commander answered.

"Yessir!" the group answered.

"The bastards have been sold by a furry, even they have morals then..." one of the soldiers was heard mutter in the back-lines.

"Just shut-up, Carl!" the pony soldier answered annoyed.

"We start now, kids. From this moment, we are members ofGaia, so get in character." the Commander ordered with a very low voice and giving the signal for all of them to silently approach the complex.

One hour later – Pony Side - Apple Family Acres -

"AJ?" BigMac asked aloud.

Thump! Thump! Thump!

"AJ?" the stallion asked again.

Thump! Thump! Thump!

"AJ!" Mac's scream finally came through making the mare stop mid-bucking to look at him with shocked eyes.

"W-What?" she asked confused.

"Tha tree is empty, ya've been buckin' an empty tree fer ten minutes straight, what's happenin'?" her brother asked concerned.

Very few things could shake BigMac himself, especially when having a sister used to fight for the safety of their world on a daily basis and his being pretty much the 'Stallion'of the house thus the main pillar holding the barn up, using Granny Smith's own words…

But to this day, he would say nothing else will ever have his stomach lurch like seeing his sister's eyes fill in tears, the feeling of his bowels turning to ice would actually take a while to go away after seeing that.

"I am okay." AJ answered trying to sound the usual confident and cocky self.

"Yah're not bein' honest." Mac tried saying with his most convincing gentle smile to not aggravate her more.

"...But, can the Element of Honesty actually lie?" a new voice asked in mock curiosity, and Mac's heart skipped a beat at seeing AJ's eyes turn into a mask pure fear.

"Hello, AJ." Alex said as he descended from the sky already looking like his infamous 'Pony Persona': pure-black fur, white mane, blood-red eyes, hoodie and DNA Helix red cutie Mark.

"Who are yah? This' kind of a bad moment tah visit." the stallion answered unsure.

"STAY AWAY!" AJ yelled as she moved to stand between Alex and Mac.

"AJ?" her brother asked confused.

"I was just passing by, nothing to be worried about...Nice plan though, hiding little Apple Bloom  in Manehattan under fake identity, I am sure nopony will guess Miss Sunshine's 'niece' is actually your little sister." Alex said with a mocking clapping of his hooves.

"H-H-How do you know?!" AJ asked.

"Let's say that her neighbor will take a while to return from his sudden trip to Las Mares." the living Virus answered with a smirk filled by sharp fangs worthy of a wolf.

"You monster!"

"Oh, yes. I am one, so what?"

"So he's tha one ya said wants to hurt Apple Bloom?" Mac asked with narrowed eyes.

"Hurt her intentionally? No. Consume her whole being and wear her like a mask as a last resort to finally reach dear AJ and kill her? Yes, if I must, that is." Alex answered simply.

"Stand aside." the stallion growled.

"NO!" AJ answered horrified.

"Nono, let him do his thing, it's his right." the Virus answered switching from being a Pegasus into becoming an Earth Pony himself.

"What in tarnation..."

"Mac! He's not a pony or-or a human, h-h-he is some monster that can eat everypony, he's not afraid of you, or of the Princesses or even the Elements! He will eat ya! Just run away, he wants me!" the mare begged.

"Nay. Ah'm not goin' anywhere until Ah bucked his head clean off." BigMac answered walking around AJ to stand in front of Alex.

"You are ready to lay down your life to save your sisters?" Alex asked sounding ALMOST impressed.

"Eeyup." the other answered with narrowed eyes.

"Then give me your best shot. Here, under the chin." the Virus said lifting his head slightly.

"EEEEYUP!" Mac roared as he charged forward.

"NOOO!" AJ yelled with wide eyes as he brother rapidly spun around to us both back hooves to kick the Monster with all his strength.

WHAM!

And while normally a kick like that would have almost beheaded anormalpony, to the Mare's horror Alex' head merely moved slightly back.

"My turn now." the Virus said coldly making Mac start sweating.

The embodiment of Blacklight's answer was to engorge in bio-mass one of his front hooves into a thick and HEAVY ball of hardened bone in his old Hammer Fist and use it to hit Mac's face to launch the stallion away in an impromptu fly against a tree, uprooting the plant and making the unconscious Mac rest on top of it with empty eyes.

"MAAAAAAC!" AJ yelled horrified.

"YOU MONST-"

Sling!

Her tirade stopped though when five long blades closed around her head as soon as she turned around, forcing her to stay quiet and lock eyes with Mercer.

"He is still alive. Now, let's talk." he said simply.

"About what?" she replied with narrowed eyes.

"This little crusade of Celestia, and your involvement in it."

"My friends-"

"I asked about YOU. Forget your friends, Celestia, Equestria and all that shit. I am asking the opinion of Applejack of the Apple family and nobody else." Alex said cutting her off.

"..."

"I am waiting." he prompted.

At that her body seemed to shiver heavily for an instant and her eyes get cloudy in tears along her lips trembling.

"So?"

She tried to shake her head and close her eyes shut tight.

"APPLEJACK!"

"AH HATE THIS, OKAY!?" the mare finally answered.

"I am listening, go on." Mercer said poking her cheeks with two blades for an instant to let her feel the sharp edges.

"This' not right, 'kay? We are comin' to other people's home and force 'em to change or die...Ah'm no killer, Ah don' like to think we are takin' lives. I-I-I mean, yeah, Ah've bucked a couple timberwolves to pieces, but they're not Alive per se, right? We never...We never had to take a life, even the Changelin' Queen never died when we faced her, or Discord...Sombra simply went poof and tha Princess said it was because he was no longer a pony after all he did..."

"But then this started and humans and ponies started dying." Alex said making the mare wince heavily.

"A-A-Ah saw few friends from other orchards march happily to help humans accept Harmony, a-a-and then a week later Ah saw their families cry over-over a wall with their pictures on as War Heroes because the humans left nothing for them to bury...What is when there are fake news about victory and hope and very bad things said about the other side to have more ponies join the cause?"

"Propaganda, AJ."

"That, everyday yah could hear somepony chuggin' down those messages like cold cider in a summer day, if not for him bein' needed here, Mac too would have joined. But Ah was afraid and stopped him."

"And what about you?" Alex asked coldly.

"...If tha orchard is safe and the trees produce apples Ah'm happy, if Bloom takes a good grade at school Ah'm happy and when Granny Smith takes out of the oven a new pie Ah'm very happy...If then there are humans too hanging around Ah don't care, if they keep to themselves then Ah keep to mine, can't see why we have to change 'em NOW if they had been like they were until we arrived, they looked happy in their sorta strange way."

"If they do not change, they die. It had always been like that for them, they just lament the fact that the thing is being FORCED on them when it comes to Conversion...And the threat of going brain-dead if they actually do."

"So it's true? Pinkie said she saw some Converted trembling like crazy and droll a lot."

"Those are convulsions, AJ. It is usually VERY BAD to go through them."

"Ah know what those are, but Ah didn't think almost half o' them could get some...Then she said she saw them laugh and cry and scream, in the bad way, and sometimes all at the same time...Others...Others instead stand there lookin' nowhere, Ah saw those ones...Lights' on and nopony home...Is all that Twilight's doin'?" AJ asked looking extremely worried.

"Yes. If voluntarily or not I can't say." Alex answered bluntly.

"A-A-Are we..."

"Yes?"

"...Are we tha bad guys?" AJ asked with a very low voice and a disgusted expression.

"It depends, from Humanity's point of view, yes. For Equestria? You all are saviors, it depends on who you ask." the Living Virus answered uncaring.

"Yah don't even try sugar coatin' it, eh?" the mare asked looking miserable.

"I am a third party here, to me both humans and ponies are far from being perfect, so I can't judge, I am biased."

"And you are perfect?"

"Far from it, AJ."

"Ah see...That is why ya are killing us? Because we are imperfect?" she asked.

"Sometime ago I would have answered yes, without even a second thought. Now I have other targets, another Mission. And I need you and your precious friends to stay put, I have no intention of killing other targets than the ones I already planned for."

"Targets? So ya..."

"I am not a mindless killing machine, Applejack. I may be a Virus, but I am a natural disaster that can DECIDE when and where to strike. I have my reasons for doing what I am doing and the less bumps I find on my path the better."

"Tha Princess will force us to stop ya, you know? The Elements of Harmony and all that."

"But had you the chance to choose?"

"...Ah just want this madness to be over, if the Humans will join us as they are or as ponies Ah don't care, 'slong as we all are happy tha shape doesn't matter."

"Then I suggest you to gently forget how your Element works when and if the time to use them against me will come."

"B-B-But Twilight…The Princesses..."

"Or you do this or, should the Elements actually pose a treat to me, I will convert myself to spores and contaminate Equestria as a whole. Can you imagine that, AJ? Trillions upon Trillions of pollen-like spores of Blacklight Virus spreading everywhere causing whoever breaths them to die or mutate into flesh-eating living corpses, millions of innocents will die just in the first few days before the first ravaging pony-eaters will appear. How many do actually have a chance of defending themselves against that? And you REALLY believe Celestia can and will actually spare the resources to save them with humans at the other side of the Barrier waiting for the few desperate enough to seek salvation there to capture and/or kill them?"

"Threatenin' me with Extinction is a low blow..." the horrified mare muttered gagging.

"So? Your answer?"

"Ah will stay put, yah don't need tha kill all of us, Ah was already lookin' for an excuse to drop this thing. Ah don't like this as much as the humans do...They make good apples and treat their orchards with good stuff, they may put a bit too much strange stuff inside their fertilizer, but tha passion is still there." AJ answered.

"Very well. Any other friend of yours you think is against this war?"

"Pinkie probably, she didn't mind until she saw those Converted and she took it badly, Ah still wonder why she still hangs around with us and help us."

"Maybe she hopes to stop you from dying."

"Ah hope so, yah can talk with her, shoulda not take too much to convince her...Just...Just please do not hurt her."

"I'll see what I can do." he answered coldly.

"Thank you."

"The others?"

"Dash is too much into being a Hero of War as yah said, Fluttershy simply loves human pets too much and believes humans mistreat them too much. Ah heard the few couple times she tried taking away the dogs from soldiers and police barracks she got attacked."

"They probably saw her hurt their partners, those loyal beasties never take that well."

"Yah can bet on it, one almost got her good, the guard with her lost a wing for that."

"Good doggie. Almost makes me want to get one myself." Mercer replied in cruel amusement.

"What about Rarity?"

"Feh! Yah would almost think Discord got her again, as soon as she saw all tha dresses and jewels of the humans she turned deaf to mah reasonin', Ah never told anypony...But Ah saw her collect a lot of stuff when she thought nopony noticed...Ah was just too darn loyal to her to say a thing, she's getting a bit too greedy for ma tastes...Not that Dash is any better, Ah saw how she looked at few Converted Stallions, yah know Conversion do not affect their...'Timing'?" AJ answered bitterly.

"You mean how long they last before ejaculation?" Alex asked with a scrunched nose.

"Before wha?"

"Before they come, AJ. For fuck sake."

"Yeah, that. Ah keep hearing stories about soldiers and mares alike using the New-Foals thing about not fighting back to talk them into doing that, and now a few are starting tha drift towards Converted a bit too young to make ma feel comfortable."

"Disgusting."

"Quite."

"I meant reproduction in general, AJ. Never was a fan of it."

"Eh?"

Sigh! "I am a Virus, AJ. I do not need sex to multiply. To me is a waste of time."

"Oooh!"

"What about Twilight?"

"Lost cause."

"..."

"...That's it?" he asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Too much deep into Celestia's" Cough! "Butt for you tah reach her anytime soon." she answered clearing her throat with a red face.

"Quite the nice choice of words."

"Until yah don't resolve this mess with Humans and ponies, Twilight won't listen to yah...Unless yah have such HUGE proof of this being very very wrong, Twilight will always listen to the Princess first."

"And yet I can't feel the same anger you had when talking about Dash and Rarity."

"Twili's misguided, she's followin' her Hero blindly. She is not evil and knows she did bad, but she loves tha Princess too much to go against her. She is almost kinda obsessed. Ah fear before we came along, Celestia was the ONLY friend she ever had, so Ah can understand...Can you help her?"

"Are YOU asking ME to help your friend Twilight?" Alex asked confused.

"Yah are not evil."

"..." a long, disbelieving silence fell between the two at that answer.

"...I beg you pardon?"

"Ah can tell now, just spent enough time with yah. Ah can't say if you are lyin' or not as Ah'm not a Lie Detector thing, but Ah can still tell if somepony is hidin' something from me. And yah are not Evil. Ah feel it."

"I have you at claw point and probably gave your brother a concussion."

"Eeyup. But Ah'm still alive and Mac's alive too. Yah can steal memories so yah just needed to eat me to get 'em and more, and yet yah didn't. Ya are not killing everypony but just the ones that tried to use humans as slaves, the Castle was destroyed but nopony died because SOMEHOW they were all told to leave...Yah act all tough and evil with Celestia, but deep inside yah're not a big monster like tha Converted say yah are. Not anymore at least."

"Tch." Alex said removing the claws from around AJ's head.

"Why yah consumed that stallion that knows where Applebloom is hidin'?"

"He was one of the 'providers' of the Price Brothers, the ones bringing New Foals to them for shipping in exchange of some bits, I felt there was no need for somebody like him standing around when I instead needed another identity to wear and blend-in. That he knew about your sister was just an unforeseen bonus for me."

"Did he suffer?" AJ asked growling.

"He was eaten alive by a mass of Blacklight that Consumed him a cell at a time, and there are as many cells in a pony as stars in the sky."

"Good riddance. Thank you, as Ah said, yah are not Evil, Ah can tell. Just like Discord: two big meanies and chaotic messes, but not evil for tha sake of bein' evil."

"Whatever." Alex said walking away.

"Yah can pretend all yah want, but Ah still believe yah can be a nice-" Sling!

"Shut your trap." Alex growled as he grew a pair of wings and flew away.

"...'Kay..." AJ whimpered as she slowly looked at the tree behind her that had been cut in two by the Virus whipfist that had slashed right above her head barely missing her stetson hat.

"I am not a damn Hero, and now I'll need to kick a puppy or something to fix my image." Mercer thought in annoyance as he flew towards Canterlot to see if he could find the whereabouts of his next target.

Meanwhile - Canterlot – Royal Palace rebuild site -

Celestia sighed as she kept watching unicorns and pegasi come and go to take measurements while earth ponies with talents about engineering/building studied what had remained of the castle to see if some of the original materials could be recovered.

"This was not the remodeling I envisioned few centuries ago when I wished to 'update' the Castle, I would have been happy even by just changing the curtains and paint the corridor's walls in a new colour...Like cream or a very light shade of blue for example, or even using a nice flower wallpaper." she said to herself sighing once more.

"Sister?" Luna said nearing her.

"Found more?" the Sun Alicorn asked.

"A couple, want to be with me when we first crack their leader's head open?" her sister answered coldly.

"Yes." she answered before turning to the construction squads to flash her usual 'Maternal Smile', faked to perfection.

"My dears, I need to go with my beloved sister to smooth a couple of small issues, please do not work too hard." Celestia asked with a gentle tone.

"We won't, your Highness, but be sure we'll have the blueprints for the new castle ready in a jiff nonetheless!" one of them answered immediately.

"Thank you, my little ones." the Sun Princess answered grateful an instant before she left Luna teleport both to their destination.

Human side of the Barrier – secret holding Facility -

"So?" Celestia asked as soon as she and Luna reappeared in an old and abandoned human prison the Alicorn sisters had took and used to create their personal holding cells for 'Misbehaving ponies' in its underground areas.

"Other three pony groups have been found smuggling Conversion Serum to their human partners in the other side, one of which unfortunately has been recently 'visited' by Gaia that decided they didn't like it one bit. These ones though did it not for money, apparently there are some human extremists that want Conversion to happen out of sheer hatred for their own kind." Luna answered as both walked through the silent and dusty corridors until they reached their destination.

"Now THAT KIND of people is popping-out as well?" the Sun Princess asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Just like we have found ponies pushing for us to turn human because THEY see ponykind as flawed and in need to reach a superior form, the opposite is happening as well. Yet another thing making Humans and us alike: we both have sociopaths that were only waiting for the chance to freely spit around their deranged ideas and hatred without fear of repercussions." the other replied as the Moon Princess motioned two guards to bring whoever was in one of the cells to them.

"I see. So you were helping those groups of humans to Convert everypony? All because you believe humans to be flawed?" Celestia asked aloud as she saw the night guards of Luna drag out a beaten unicorn with a burlap sack on his head and a black ring around his horn.

"Did you ordered him to be tenderized, Luna?" she added confused by the miserable state of the prisoner, especially by how his horn seemed ready to fall to pieces with how many cracks there were on it.

"I never ordered him to be beaten black and blue. The beating comes from a human man, they Converted his daughter and tried to do the same to his wife, it took two of my guards to pry the foal out of that man's grasp before he killed him. As you can imagine he refused our help and simply took his family away, we had no heart to try and reason with him, we felt we had no right or way to apologies. So I just ordered a few of my guards to discreetly follow him as an escort until he met few human soldiers to be taken to safety." Luna explained.

"This voice...Princess?" the Unicorn asked weakly.

"Remove the sack." Celestia ordered so to clearly see the two swelling black eyes on the prisoner's face.

"Hello, dear." the usual greeting of the Sun Alicorn held not even a spark of its usual warmth, and the night guards holding the wounded pony in their magical hold swallowed loudly in dread because of it.

"Your highness?"

"Do you know why you are here?"

"There has been a mistake?" the pony asked with a hopeful tone.

"Yes, but on my side. I should have not trusted blindly my ponies being completely above reproach." Celestia answered destroying the stallion's hope to dust in an instant.

"It may have escaped your notice, again I blame myself for that, but we are at the moment in a situation of FRAIL stalemate with humanity, one where me and my sister need to save both our kinds from spewing further blood. And the last thing we need is more terrorists groups outside Gaia going around mocking the few steps forward we did in Converting this world peacefully."

"Mercer going around Consuming everypony is not helping either." Luna added snarling.

"True. Now, how many of you are still out there?"

"We...We are just helping along, your Highness! Gaia has the right mindset, but the target is wrong! I SAW IT! Humans came out wrong! The good intentions are there, but it simply came out the wrong way. The Conversion will fix those small details and once changed them, between them and us a new generation of Ponykind will be born!" the stallion said with wide eyes of fanaticism.

"What load of rubbish are you blabbering about?" Luna asked shocked.

"We complete each other, your Highness! Can't you see it? They have the genes of superior predators but lack the more refined details of our kind's superior social race! If we can Convert them and THEN produce offspring with them, the result will be a super race! An ideal one! Free from every downsides both Humanity and 'old' ponykind have!" he answered making the guards holding him look at each other uneasy about being THAT CLOSE to a clearly insane stallion.

"Who was the one that talked you into this madness?" Celestia asked appalled.

"It was a sign, your highness! I was just about to sign-up for the army in one of the Conversion Bureau in the human side when-"

"Sign up? Where? When? Nopony can sign-up like that! Requests have to come through me before being officiated and validated!" the Sun Alicorn interrupted him.

"Your highness, apparently a few captains have been closing an eye when accepting new recruits in order to boost our numbers against the human armies without waiting for the proper papers being signed." one guard answered.

"We have also cases of illegal alchemy labs where few dissidents tried to replicate the Conversion formula...With darn bad results, it's a wonder the humans managed to create their own version without knowledge of Magic." the other guard added.

"Do we still count something, Celly? Everypony here is going crazy and moving behind our backs!" Luna muttered horrified.

"What is happening here? Why everypony here is losing their darn minds!" Celestia bellowed furious making the room tremble.

"Either we have been really blind to our subjects hidden darkness, or it's really the natural Chaotic Nature of this world that brings out the worst of both humans and ponies alike, it would mean that they too are simple 'victims' of the madness this place cause." She heard Luna's projected thoughts in her mind in answer to that.

"Who is the Leader of your various groups? I want their name. Now." The Sun Alicorn hissed with a low voice as she neared the petrified prisoner until her nose touched his.

"P-P-P-Prince Blueblood, y-your Highness." the poor, frightened pony answered, scared out of his mind.

Never in all her long life she felt so betrayed then as a cold feeling of pain settled in the pit of her stomach making her take a step back.

"Say it again." she asked with a void expression.

"Sister." Luna muttered in sadness at watching her sister's completely broken expression.

"Prince Blueblood, your highness. He came to us personally, each one of us, he showed us where we were wrong in our hatred for humanity and what we could really achieve if we could just coexist and breed together. We all heard about Mercer, about how humans created him in a quest of achieve perfection, and in a way they did! They created life! A being representing their next step of Evolution before it completely lost control! Why can't we not do the same, but better? They are geniuses but misguided and we have Magic but very limited science because we need to have a Talent/Cutie Mark for each and every side of science while humans are free to explore each one of them as they please. If we could just unify our races and erase the few Bad Traits remaining, the result would be a superior race, a perfect one! Why don't you join us, your highness? You are already perfect, help us too reach you in godhood!" the pony pleaded.

"...Toss him back into his cell, I'll make it soundproof so he won't pollute anypony else, once he calmed down we'll interrogate him again." Celestia ordered as she turned around to not look at the stallion.

"As if I will listen to this buffoon's dung another minute." a guard muttered in disdain.

"Same here, brother. Maybe we should have left that human finish kicking his teeth in before stopping the struggle." the other answered as they dragged the prisoner away.

"In hindsight."

"..."

"What's in your mind, Celly?" Luna asked sitting on her haunches next to Celestia.

"What are we doing? W-W-What's this?" the Sun Alicorn asked sobbing.

"War. And the madness that follows it." Luna answered sighing.

"Blueblood. My nephew. T-Talking about Racial Supremacy! Why!?"

"I don't know."

"And what about-"

"I finally got some news from Cadence. She openly stated she is washing her hooves about this whole ordeal and sealing the Crystal Empire shut. If any Converted needs a safe heaven they can look for her, we others instead are on our own...Also, she says we can keep Shining until he finally stops kissing your...Well...I will say cutie mark, but she used far less nice terms."

"She is the Princess of Love, War is her exact opposite. I can't honestly blame her from taking distance, but if we don't stand together, we are going to be crushed between two forms of Oblivion."

"One coming from home and one from here." Luna confirmed sighing.

"Let's go back, we still have lots to do." Celestia asked as both returned to their temporary HQ to meet, of all stallions, Shining Armour and other various guards already there waiting for them.

"Yes, Captain?" the Sun Princess asked tiredly.

"I-I have bad news, your Highness." Shining said looking disheveled and worried sick.

"What happened?"

"We...We have finally found the disappeared Fleetfoot and Spitfire."

"They have been reported as missing for a week and we should celebrate their return, then why you look so stressed-out?" Luna asked confused.

"Because while we have certain it had been a 'Pony Hate' group to ponynap them, one with both Human and Pony members in, we are also sure Rainbow Dash herself had been captured just the day before the other two have been found." Shining answered shivering.

"BY THE STARS ABOVE! How's she?!" Celestia asked immediately.

"We do not know."

"HOW!?" Luna demanded.

"We have been bought to the abandoned storehouse where they all were being detained by Spitfire herself, there they have been beaten and tortured by the group for their taking part to the battles against humanity...Then Dash had been bought there as a new guest along few others." Shining explained.

"She freed them then?" Celestia asked hopeful.

"No, your highness. Apparently Mercer found the place as well and he then proceeded to do his thing with everypony in there bar the ones ponynapped." the captain said making the guards behind him gag in disgust.

"...Is she dead?" Luna asked while next to her the Sun Alicorn already started shedding tears of sorrow.

"We only know that she is not dead thanks to Spitfire's description of what happened, he seemed happy to just slaughter the humans and ponies of that group along few animals they were keeping around as well. As for Dash, he simply took her away, our guess is that the Human Leaders offered him some form of compensation for taking her alive as he was heard muttering about the annoyance of not being free to simply kill her." Shining answered shaking his head.

"They must know about the Elements, and know that by holding Rainbow Dash hostage we cannot use them to their full power." Luna said sighing frustrated.

"But will they keep her alive?" Celestia asked aloud gritting her teeth.

"It's a possibility, your Highness, even just for leverage of some sort." Shining offered in answer.

"We need to alert Twilight and her friends, they must be on high alert." The Sun Alicorn said immediately.

"At once, your Highness." the guards answered as one before hurrying away leaving the two Alicorns alone.

"The situation is getting worse by the minute." Luna said with shaking breath.

"We have to act fast, we have to either speed-up Conversion either by convincing them to accept it willingly or...or...Or FORCE THEM through it..."

"They have gone quiet, Celly. We can't no longer pick-up and spy messages of sort, few Converted said that maybe they are using their Internet to exchange messages, especially what they called Deep Web." Luna answered.

"And we can't..."

"Monitor the WHOLE Internet? When I suggested it the Converted started laughing and didn't stop for hours, apparently the thing is so massive nopony can effectively monitor it, especially if their Hackers have all joined forces to keep said info secret from us to help their Leaders."

"So it is not only a collection of videos of cute puppies and funny kittens?"

"Apparently not, Celly."

"Be as it may, we need to find Rainbow Dash and make sure nopony else gets kidnapped, either by soldiers of Hate Groups. We are CLOSE to finishing Conversion and fully cover the planet with the Barrier, we are almost done."

"I know, sister...Just...Where did all the humans go? Our scouts find less and less everyday." Luna asked confused.

"And at the same time our numbers increase, luckily it seems like our ponies are not suffering from their moving from Equestria to Earth, they even seem to like their new neighbors."

"A spark of something positive happening, I never thought I would finally see one." Luna muttered sighing.

"One step at a time, sister. Now let's find Dash and then we'll continue trying to make this transition smooth. One step at a time."

"One step at a time." the Moon Alicorn answered nodding.

Human Side – New Orleans – (Converted area) -

"Miss Daisy, good evening!" a mare, from Equestria, said with a wide smile as she waved happily at her neighbor.

"Hello there, Sunshine. Good evening to you too!" the other mare answered with a gentle smile as she and her daughter entered home.

"...Ugh! Pretending to be Equestrian is sooo lame!" the mare's daughter huffed annoyed as soon as their door closed.

"I know, sweetheart, but you heard those generals, until this war is over we have to pretend we are ponies from Equestria instead of Converted. At least Mister Discord helped us remaining human inside!" the girl's father replied gently as his horn lighted-up to bring his newspaper closer to his face.

"Pony or not, you still need glasses, dear."

Sigh! "I know..."

"But is lame! I have to, like, be a pastel pony! I AM PINK! I stopped wearing pink when I turned twelve! I liked my red hair and my new boots no longer fit me anymore!" the girl said whining.

"Come on, honey, cheer up! I heard Monica too has been Converted, her family bought the apartment right next to this one, actually, so next week they will move here." the girl's mother answered smirking.

"REALLY?! Thank God! At least I will have somebody nice to go shopping with! Those Equestrian mares are all...Girly." she said euphoric.

"To be honest they remember me those characters from that old Saturday Morning Cartoon you were obsessed with when we were kids, what was the title? Pretty Warriors of Friendship?" her brother answered laughing uproariously.

"MOOOOOM! Tell that dork to stop!"

"Ah-haaa! You hate it because you look like a boy compared to them."

"That is so not true!"

"Aaah! Teenage rebellion, some things never change even when turned into a pony, that's good." the girl's dad muttered happily as he gladly returned to his sport news page.

Tea with Discord – Manehattan – Penthouse -

"How's she?" Dana asked worried as Trixie kept passing a wet cloth on their new guest's forehead.

"Still having nightmares, whenever she doesn't wake-up to cry, that is. Trixie...My magic is not very advanced when it comes to healing, but I patched her wings at the best of my abilities, they will recover, especially with he medicines we managed to get." the showmare answered.

"Did they?" Dana asked with a choking tone.

"No, he got to them before anything happened, it was just the scare, the beatings and part of the stuff they injected her with."

"The original plan was turning her into a heroin addict, just to be sure she would comply. Curiously it was the human side of the group to shot down the idea." Discord answered bringing a new basin of water in the room.

"What will happen now?" Dana asked.

"Now? Now as soon as dear Rainbow wakes up you will help her recover a little and we'll talk her into helping us, she owes your brother a big debt, they were not about to simply kill her." the Draconequus answered with a grimace of disgust.

"Are we making the right choice? Giving them back their Bad Traits?" she asked shivering.

"You should tell us, you went through both situations before I found you raving and convulsing in a ditch after a bout of rejection of the serum. What do you think?" Trixie asked her back.

"I-I don't know, before Discord gave me back all that I felt trapped in my own head, knowing I had to feel something, but without even knowing what that something was, and the more I tried to understand, the more scared I got. Then the headaches and the nausea would soon follow along this nagging feeling I should only be happy and friendly, even if I normally shouldn't." Dana answered.

"But this is disgusting." she finally said while moving a hoof towards the sleeping, bandaged pegasus.

"And disgusting was their death, nobody will miss them." Alex said from the door frame.

"Thank you for saving her, and the others." Dana said with a low voice.

"Bah! They were in Discord 'Do not kill' List, I had my hands tied." he replied scoffing.

"Since you are here, I talked with few Human Leaders, their Conversion is going smoothly, the few ponies we infiltrated in the Conversion Bureaus are creating the fake IDs to have everypony believe the New-Foals we are making are instead original ponies coming from Equestria, luckily Celestia's tight schedule is helping us in slipping them in the huge crowd of Equestrian moving here every day, and a bit of confusing Magic from me helps smooth the rare bumps we meet as well." Discord explained.

"Nice to hear, AJ decided to stay put, she won't use her Element if asked, we just need to hope Dash too will do as we ask since I stopped those men from turning her into her toy. Tomorrow I will go talk with Rarity and Fluttershy, to see if I can threaten them too into non-action." Alex Mercer answered nodding pleased.

"Again, PLEASE do not harm them. As for Celestia and Luna, I added a new distraction for them, just in case."

"Which is?"

"Blueblood and his friends have been recently using several groups of deranged idealists Pro-Conversion to speed-up the change in humans so to free more states for them to sell, as usual. BUT! I happened to come by a few of those psychos and made sure they would get captured AND spill the beans about Blueblood being their Leader."

"...Wait...You managed to turn a secret group of spoiled kids playing around with the Real Estate Market...Into a secret society of Racial Supremacists that want Conversion to happen jut because they hate humans? AND you make it so that Blueblood (barely one of the participants) appears to be the absolute Leader of the whole Group/Cult?" Alex asked in disbelief.

"All in one morning, yes. You are good at killing and destroying, I am good at bringing Disharmony, we all have our own talents. Like that Celestia should FINALLY move to dismantle the Hate groups and the ones using Conversion for their 'get rich quick' schemes." Discord answered smugly.

"...I should have asked you to help me back there instead of Heller, working with professionals gets shit done." Alex muttered shaking his head as he walked away.

"If you make some tea, I want mine with honey!" the mismatched dragon asked smirking.

"ALEX!" Dana called-out making him stop abruptly.

"Thank you, for saving her." she said unsure.

"Tch!" he replied as he waved her off annoyed.

"You are doing great...Brother..." the mare muttered with a low voice once he was out of earshot.

End of the chapter.

So! another one done! Next one will cover what happened to Dash, Alex' talk with Rarity and Fluttershy AND Gaia soldiers in action against the cliché 'human hate groups' this branch of fandom seem fond off, or at least required to use at least once! XD

I hope you enjoyed this new chapter just like I enjoyed writing it.