Chapter 2: Not Friends
Twilight Sparkle
A human death, many pony lives lost; both sides had casualties last night, this cannot continue. So after much deliberation, my younger sister and I have come up with a solution: we must make a deal. We are prepared to order a cease fire of all paralysis on humans, but this being a deal, we must receive something in return. We want seven humans. Lefty, Mint, Ice, Rain, Raymond Maye and the two apparent leaders, Jacob Sanders and Hudd. I unfortunately do not know the true identities of most of them, but I do have their faces. These humans travel together in a group and are extremely dangerous and responsible for the deaths of many humans and ponies and causing harm to my sister. If they are brought to the Atlanta Conversion Bureau still alive and in good health, all paralysis will stop. 30 days will be given to comply."
I just stared at the bookshelf on my wall. I didn't want to believe what I had just heard, it didn't seem like my teachers words. I had never heard her lie as blatantly as she just had. I knew she was angry, but her tone hadn't expressed it. I was supposed to meet up with Fluttershy, but knew I had to see the Princess.
I left my room and weaved my way through the maze of corridors in the bureau's private underground section. Celestia had put a teleportation barrier down here, so that meant I had to walk everywhere. It was designed as a maze to confuse humans, should they find their way down here. This section had our living quarters, science labs and the Princess had even thrown in a decently sized library.
I followed the winding path towards the Princesses rooms. Their rooms were in the most secure part of the maze. Only a few ponies were allowed to get anywhere close to them. The guards smiled and nodded when they saw me, I was cleared to go anywhere in the bureau.
I had just passed the guard post when I spotted my first royal pony.
"Twilight Sparkle." Luna smiled when she saw me. She didn't look too good. Her usually flowing dark blue mane was now ragged and straight down. Her coat was littered with black marks and streaks, the biggest of which, was a blast mark on her flank.
"Princess Luna...Its good to see you again." I thought it best not to mention her current appearance.
"Likewise. I'll assume you're looking for Celestia to...discuss her latest message." She said discuss with a slightly angry tone.
"Yes, I would definitely like to discuss it with her." I replied, nodding.
"Well shes on the roof. She been up there since last night."
"Thank you, Princess." I said turning. Her voice sounded... weaker, whatever the humans did to her, it some how had an affect.
I quickly made my way up the stairs to the main level of the bureau. As soon as I opened the door, I used my spell to teleport me to the roof.
I brought a hoof up to my eyes, I had forgotten that it was the middle of the day. When my eyes adjusted, I could see Celestia staring off into the distance.
"Hello Twilight. I knew you'd come, once you had heard my message." she said, without turning around.
"Why would you do that." I tried to keep my tone as respectful as I could.
"Do what?" she asked as if she had no clue what she had done.
"Why would you lie about stopping paralysis? You told me when I had completed it that you would never stop."
Princess Celestia turned around and walked up to me.
"I haven't lied about anything, Twilight. The paralysis darts will stop, but only to be replaced."
"What do you mean?" I asked cautious.
"Follow me to the laboratory, there are somethings you'll really want to see."
***
Lefty
"WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT?!!" Raymond screamed.
"Calm down, Kid. We all need to talk about what to do." Hudd said a bit softly. I could tell he was nervous about Celestia's message, but he remained cool and collected, unlike Kid. He was shaking uncontrollably and it looked as he was on the verge of crying.
"If...If...If he finds...me ..again." He whimpered.
"That pony is not going to find you, so just-"
"She just put our fucking faces and names in everyone's mind! Of course he'll find me!"
I tried to stop him, but Mint was already upon him. He picked him up by his shirt collar and raised him above his head.
"Look Kid, we really have to talk about our game plan, so now is not the time to break down. Now you go sit over there and cry or do whatever you have to do, just do it FUCKING QUIETLY!" He let go of his collar and he dropped to the ground. He crawled over to his makeshift mattress and laid down.
Thank god.I thought.
"Now then, about that message." Mint gestured towards Hudd.
"Its a smart move, I can see why she did it." He said.
"You're right. She knows the biggest threat we can pose to them is together as a group. So it makes sense that she would try to steer other humans away from us. She fears us uniting, so she'll want to keep us isolated." Mint explained.
I was usually more of a quiet guy, but I just couldn't stay silent when false information was being spread.
"Its not isolation...well not entirely." All their attention was turned on me. Hudd nodded and gave a gesture for me to continue.
"Didn't you hear her? Shes offering to stop paralysis if we are turned in, and she wants people to do it. She doesn't want to isolate us, she wants people to come after us."
"Why would she want them against us?" Rain asked
"A lot of reasons. She no doubt pissed about last night's pony blood bath. She lost a considerable number. Our weapons trump her darts in landslide, no doubt about it. She only has her numbers on her side. Ponies outnumber the seven of us something like 20 to 1, but her weapons are so weak, that she'll want to avoid any kind of direct attack. That's why shes using false hope and the desperation of people to try and subdue us. If she can't hit us head on, she'll have people who are close to us do it." I answered.
"That makes sense, but why would anyone believe her lie about stopping paralysis?" Rain still was unsure.
"You have to understand, these people have resisted conversion at every turn, both as an option and forced. They have been on the run as long as we have. They're tired and desperate and just looking for a way to end it. They're not bad and they're not our enemy." Hudd's tone was back to its normal, confident level, Like he knew something the rest of us didn't.
"What are you going to do if people come after us?" Raymond had calmed down and rejoined the conversation.
"We can't kill them so we'll use intimidation." Celestia doesn't want them to hurt us either, so we will leave them alone."
"So where do we go now?" Jason asked.
Hudd looked down and sighed. "Well Lefty made a good point; we are heavily out numbered. So I guess we have no choice, we have to head back into the city. We need some more numbers"
My heart dropped. I had figured out Hudd's new plan. "No... We can't. We can't go see them again! You know what they'll do!" I protested.
"I know, I know, But we have very limited options now. There aren't many people we can trust now."
"You would trust them?!" I asked him.
"No, but I know that they would never turn us in. Now come on, its time to see some old friends."
***
Twilight Sparkle
"Oh my... What is that?" I stared at the bright green liquid in the test tube. I knew exactly what it really was, I just couldn't believe it.
"Don't act clueless, Twilight. You worked on this years ago, you know what this is." Celestia moved around to the other side of the table.
"Yes, but we scrapped it and I created the paralysis darts. There were just too many problems with the original."
"Yes that's true..." She trailed off as she magically lifted the tube up and got a closer look.
"How long have you been working on this?" I asked. I was disappointed that I wasn't brought on the project.
"A little over a year. I'm sorry I didn't bring you on, but you were so busy running the last of the bureaus." She sensed my anger.
I sighed, now that the serum was done, there was no need to get angry.
"It's fine. But how did you work about the development problems?"
"Well Its was thick that if was shot from a dart gun, it would just stay in the dart. This problem was fixed by warming the serum up to about 110 degrees. But to do that, we had to develop a new kinda of way to inject it. So we had to make a new kind of dart gun." Celestia moved over to a cabinet and pulled out a large, grey metal...thing.
"What is that?" I asked
She levitated it up for me to see. "This is the new and improved dart gun. It can warm up the serum so that it is actually effective and can shoot multiple vials in a much shorter amount of time. It can also shoot either the paralysis darts or the new conversion liquid."
"This looks like its ready for war." This new device scared me, it slightly reminded me our old guns, but resembled humans guns almost exactly.
Celestia sighed and turned around. "I don't want it to come to that, but I fear it may anyway. A large shipment of these will be ready in about 25 days and another three or four to distribute them."
"What is going on. Was your message this morning only to buy time?" It sounded like we were preparing for some kind of battle and I didn't like that idea.
"I must say that I do not expect them to come forth with the seven I asked for. Twilight, I cannot allow a repeat of last night. The humans are getting bolder, the paralysis dart are losing their mental effectiveness. They are not as scared as they once were. These new darts will skip the process of paralyzing them and convert them directly. "
"I know, but a battle with them just seems..." Celestia interrupted me.
"Twilight, there is actually more. Follow me." The princess put the gun down and walked out the door.
I was annoyed about being cut off. but followed her. On my way out, I saw a small, red pegasus standing in the doorway. We made eye contact and he quickly looked away. I could tell there was something...off about him, but I didn't think much of it and continued to follow Celestia.
We had been in one of the labs in the basement and we twisted through a couple hallways until we reached a plain brown door. Celestia opened it and inside was a huge, black, vault door. It wasn't Equestrian or magic, but still looked pretty secure.
Celestia stamped in a long code on the hoof sized buttons. It took the door about two minutes to swing open. When it did Celetia slipped inside and gestured for me to follow. I quickly stepped in beside her. There was only one small object in the middle of the vault. My eyes widened at the sight of it.
"Is that what I think it is?" I asked, both amazed and horrified.
"Celestia gave a short simple answer. "Yes."
***
Jacob Sanders
It took us about two hours to get back inside the city. I thought it was foolish that we were going back to the area we had just escaped from, but Hudd reassured me that it was the best option.
He said that he knew a "friend" who set up some kind of operation in one of the buildings around here. I doubted any of us could still call people friends.
Lefty didn't make me feel any better, he seemed very reluctant at the idea Hudd had. Whoever we were about to see, they must have met while I was in New York.
People, even ones that had been rescued from the bureau, followed us constantly. I ignored most of the threats and insults they threw at me, but they did make me start to think.
What if they we're right? I thought. What if we turned ourselves in and ended the hardship for the others?"
I knew that even if we did, Celestia would not stop the conversion, but the comments they shouted did start to get to me. They made me feel guilty, like it was all my fault.
A couple times they tried to get more violent with us. A couple of them would try to approach us with chains, 2x4s and pipes. A gun raised towards them usually sent them away running. It wasn't too hard to avoid people, but then again no one had threatened us with a firearm yet and I thought it was only a matter of time.
After about another three hours of walking through the city we came up on the target building. It was wide and had about 12 stories. From the outside the building looked like it might have at one time been a business.
"This is it." Hudd announced. Lefty gulped, but said nothing. I had a feeling that this was going to be bad. I raised my pistol towards the door, but Mint grabbed the barrel and pointed it down. He shook his head no and pointed towards every else who had already put their weapons away. I followed suit and did the same. Hudd walked up to the door and pulled it open.
It was unlocked, but didn't seem very welcoming. Hudd led the way through the first floor. It was dark and was cleared entirely of furniture. Hudd walked with confidence, but I was partly crouched. I could hear a noise up stairs, but I couldn't tell exactly what it was.
We walked to the opposite end of the building and found stairs. On the way up, Hudd gave us some last minute info.
"Ok so she may slightly have anger issues, so its best for now that you all do as she says."
"Slightly?" Lefty muttered.
Hudd didn't respond and put his hand on the second floor door. I could see a small amount of light coming from it.
"Most importantly, no guns, no matter what." Hudd added. He breathed in and out then pulled the double doors open.
All seven of us stared at the sight beyond the door. Dozens of people were spread out on the second floor of the building. Unfortunately, the closest ones had the barrels of assault rifles pointed directly at us. We all raised our hands and Hudd tried to speak up.
"Look I'm here to see- Unhgh!" Hudd was struck in the stomach by the butt of a gun. He crumpled to the floor and cable ties were fastened on his wrists.
"Wait a minu- oohfgm" I started to protest before I too was hit. I fell to my stomach and my hands were tied behind my back. While on the ground, I saw the other five in the process of being bound. I thought we were going to Celestia, I couldn't believe that it was going to be over that quickly.
To my surprise, we were not carried outside, but further in to the building. This was either really good or really, really bad and seeing as our hands were tied, it was probably bad.
We were dragged up a couple more flights of stairs to the 9th floor. There had been dozens of humans waiting to see us on each floor and the 9th seemed to have the most.
How many people are in here?! I thought as the crowd split. We had stopped before a short figure who was turned around, looking at something on a table. As soon as the crowd's noise died down, Hudd spoke.
"Hey Friend, haven't seen you in a while. I'll get right to it, I need a favor." Hudd sounded as if he hadn't minded being struck and tied.
"God Damn it, Hudd. I told you before we're not friends." The person's voice was serious and scratchy, yet still soft and light.
"I also said never to come by here." The person turned around walked up to us. It was a female. She had loose fitting jeans on and a black tank top. She wore no armour, unlike the people with guns who were covered from head to toe.
"You're not very good at listening. Now is really not a good time for you to show up." She knelt down next to him with her knee pressed against the side of neck. She pulled out a hand gun and rubbed it around his forehead.
"Stop it!" We turned to Ice. Who had just spoken his first words in a long time.
"Oh do you want some too?! You know shooting you would probably be a better end than whatever Celestia wants you for. Maybe i'll go to the bureau and tell her who I've caught..." She pointed the gun over towards Ice for a moment, then went back to Hudd.
"Ice, I've got this." Hudd still spoke with confidence, although I couldn't see why. "And you wouldn't turn us in to the Bureau, because you know that her whole "I'll stop paralysis" thing is a steamy pile of ponyshit. Although paralysis wouldn't bother you too much, would it Rebecca?"
"What?" I asked confused
"Rebecca here seems to think that she's immune to the effects of the paralysis darts."
"Shut up Hudd, I am immune."
"Well what if they were to stop using paralysis?"
Hers eyes widened with interest.
"What do you know, Hudd?"
"I know lots of things. Much of which I think you would find very appealing."
"Fine, if you have information, I'll need it, but we'll talk alone. Your guys will have to stay in the basement."
"How can I be sure they'll get out of there?" Hudd's tone turned deadly serious. Whatever this basement was, I knew it wasn't going to be good.
"You can't, but they will."
Hudd turned his head towards us, then back towards Rebecca.
"Fine, Now get me up."
She nodded to one of`the guys and he used scissors to cut off his ties. He rubbed his wrists for a moment then looked up.
"Alright, where are we going?"
"We'll go one floor up." Rebecca started heading towards the stairs with Hudd behind her. Before she went up the stairs, she pointed to us then pointed straight down.
Her guards grabbed us and we were dragged back downstairs. When we got to the second floor, the guard took us over to a computer. The computer wasn't on, but he typed in a sequence on the keyboard anyway.
Suddenly a small portion of the wall next to it swung open.
"Secret doors, good to know." Mint muttered.
We were taken down another flight of stairs down to a dimly lit room. The guard flipped a switch and slowly more lights started to illuminate the room. When I saw the area that we had to stay in, I wished the lights would turn off again.
It was a prison. About eight cells were on either side of the room. As we were led down, I could see both ponies and humans on the other side of the bars. The took us to three cells and pushed us with inside. I got paired with Lefty. Ice had Rain, and Mint got stuck with the whimpering Kid.
The guards went back up the stairs, we were locked in, but at least they kept the lights one. No one spoke for a really long time, the only sounds came the hum of the bulbs and the occasional groan from the other inhabitants.
After about 30 minutes someone finally spoke up.
"I knew coming here would be a bad idea." It was Lefty.
"Yeah, no kidding." I said trying to start a conversation. "Who was that lady?"
"That was Rebecca Bowen. We met her a couple weeks after you stayed in New York.Personally, I don't like her, but that could just be me."
"No its not." Mint stood up. "I hate that bitch."
"Of course you do after what she did last time."
"Why, what happened last time?" I asked.
"Nothing!" Mint replied quickly.
"She basically kicked his ass because he didn't believe she was immune to the paralysis."
"She could have just given a damn demonstration..."
"She did, remember?"
"Yeah, but only after she kicked my ass." Mint was angry at the memory, but we laughed anyway. It helped to lighten the mood in such a dark, dank place.
"So is it true, is she really immune?"
"Apparently so, that's the only reason that shes in charge of this whole thing. She uses that to attract people to follow behind her." Mint sounded disgusted.
"Yeah that and that fact that shes probably the best fighter in this place." Lefty added.
"What does Hudd know about the ponies stopping paralysis?" I asked.
"Well I've heard that he has an some kind of informant, but I've never asked about it. Best not to go digging through Hudd's dirty laundry." Mint said.
"Yeah." Lefty agreed. There was a pause, if could tell they both wanted to get off the subject. "Someone tell me where the hell Ice is?" He said, trying to keep the conversation alive.
"Over here, hes been asleep for like 15 minutes." Rain had spoken her first words for the night.
"Yeah I think Kid finally stopped his noise and feel asleep too."Mint lightly nudged Kid's back to ensure that he actually was asleep.
"Actually that's not too bad of an idea. We've all been through a lot today, so I think follow their lead." I said as I laid down on the cold concrete floor.
"Yeah I'm right behind you." Lefty said.
"Please don't say that when we're in a cell together." I attempted to make one last joke before I went to sleep.
I heard a chuckle, proving that my joke was successful. I smiled then closed my eyes, the ground was hard and uncomfortable, but after a couple minutes I fell into a deep sleep.
***
Lefty
"Wake up."
I heard a female a voice coming from over me, but my sleep mode was still activated so I my body didn't react.
"Wake Up!"
It was louder this time and I moved closer to awake mode. This time I pulled my arms and legs closer to my chest.
"I said to WAKE THE FUCK UP!!" A hard kick to my shoulder pushed my into fully awake immediately. I jumped up, ready to fight my attacker. I had a fist aimed directly at Rebecca's face, she had a pistol now raised at mine. She looked like she was ready to fire if I came any closer so I backed off and she put the pistol away.
"Nice reflexes, Lefty. Come on and follow me." Her previous face had melted away into something far less hostile. I looked around my cell and the ones nearest to me, everyone else from our from was gone.
"Where is everybody?" I asked, suspiciously.
"There already up stairs, now come." She was already up headed up the stairs. The fact that she had left me alone meant that she was in a good mood. Whatever Hudd talked to her about, must been some really good news.
Rebecca went all the way to the 9th floor and I followed behind her. Everyone else was huddled around a table and there were two spaces for us.
"Hey, Lefty, your just in time." Hudd also seemed to be in a happier mood. "Rebecca has agreed to my plan."
"Yes, well the outcome of a success means more to me that the consequences of a failure."
"What plan?" I was so confused. "What the hell is going on?!" I was a bit angry that I was given details to any of this.
"I'll explain the all the details later, but just know that the ponies have some thing of great interest to us. And the only way to get it is to raid the bureau." Rebecca sounded almost too happy.
"What?" Thier plan sounded like a suicide mission. "Why would we attack the same bureau twice?"
"I know this sounds crazy and ill explain later, but trust me, whats at the bureau is something we desperately need. It could completely change the tides in this." I could tell Hudd was getting more and more excited as he spoke.
"So just relax Lefty." Rebecca reassured. "Get some food, we've got plenty here. Go down stairs and meet some people, they're part of my group so they won't buy into Celestia's bullshit. I promise Hudd and I will explain later."
"Oook. If you say so..." I stepped away from the table an headed for the stairs. Their plan still bothered me, the devil was probably hidden in the details that they were not ready to share just yet. I turned around and asked one more question.
"You got a weight room in this place?"
Rebecca smiled. "Third floor." was her reply and I head down for it.
The rest of the day was spent more or less relaxing. I lifted weights, ate relatively good food and got pulled into conversation by the talkative people. Rebecca said that there were about 145- 160 people living in this building and that most were just regular people. I had even spoken to some of the guards, they had been cool guys, just following the orders given. It was a very good day, one that I had not had in quite a while. But in my life good things are usually followed by something horrible, This was no instance was no different.
I decided that I would finish my day off with a jog around the building. One the first two sides I saw nothing, but in the back of the building I saw a pony. I quickly ducked behind a car and had a look at it. It was red pegasus, he was small, but I had gone out side with no weapon so he still posed a threat. I could definitely tell there was something...off about him. He looked like he was waiting for something, or someone.
Sure enough a couple minutes later a person came from the opposite side of the building. I couldn't tell who it was right away, but as they came closer my heart started to sink.
"We're you followed?" The pony asked.
"I don't think so." The human looked back and forth.
"Ok here." The pony held out a single white sheet of paper. "Sorry this is the best I could do."
"Its fine, Hudd and the others will like this."
I watched as Ice took the sheet from the pony's hooves.
Ice was talking to the enemy. Ice was a fucking traitor.
End Chapter 2