//------------------------------// // Chapter 5: Human Trials Part II // Story: The Conversion Bureau: New Tactics Part II // by no sh*t sherlock //------------------------------// Chapter 5: Human Trials Part II Twilight Sparkle "We have eight free spaces on floor 2 side B." I said, looking at a clipboard I levitated in front of me. "That's it?" The earth pony asked. "We still have too many." I sighed. Celestia's surprise attack had gone well and the pegasi had brought back more than a hundred humans. It had been a long time since we had a surplus as we did now. I once again had duties as overseer of the Conversion Bureau. My organizational skills had finally been put to use again. "There's another empty 20 rooms on floor 3 sides A and B and and an additional 25 rooms total on floor 4." I said pointing out different locations. "In the mean time, give those in line for conversion double dosage, we need to speed things, but not send them into shock." "Even with that, we'll still have about 25 to 30 unaccounted for." The pony said. "For now, I guess just double them up." I shrugged. "Within a couple hours more open spots should start to open up. Now if you'll excuse me." I walked away from the pony and went over to the Princess. She had been standing at a railing watching me for some time. "I had almost forgotten how good you were at running this place." She said as I came closer. I smiled warmly in response and stood across from her on the other side of the rail. "Did you need something?" I asked, my cheerful voice returning. "Yes, I was actually looking for you" She said. "What for?" "I was hoping you could assist me with an experiment." She said sounding hopeful. "Oh well I uh..." I wanted to help her, but I still had much to do. "I want to, really I do, but I have a lot to do around here." I said, feeling like I had just let her down. "Oh." she said, turning around. "I just thought since you didn't have a hand in developing it, that you could at least get a chance to help me test the serum." "What did you say?" I asked. Interest and excitement filled my head. She stopped and turned her head. "The serum I showed you a few days ago, I thought you might want to see it work first hand." She shrugged. ,My heart rate increased. I had been slightly disappointed about her secrecy on the project, but I still had become very intrigued by the new substance's possibilities. I wanted to perform tests and conduct more research on it. "Well maybe I could have somepony else fill in for me." I said, grinning. "I thought so." She smiled. "Join me in the same lab when you've found a suitable replacement. I'm hoping it will be quite an event." She gave me another smile and headed towards the descending stairs for the maze. A suitable replacement... I repeated to myself. "Hmmm...." A Few Minutes Later... After having took a few wrong turns, I eventually found my way to the laboratory. What used to be a simple, quick maze had become more complicated. That could only mean one thing: there were humans down here. The maze had been designed and built by Princess Celestia. To keep any humans from getting out, she enchanted it so that it increased in complexity based on the amount of humans present. However, it also gets slightly harder for ponies too, but whats complicated for a pony, could be an impossible labyrinth for a human. Outside the lab, there were about 4 or 5 roll tables to which unconscious humans were chained to. A small, tough looking team of guards watched the door, but smiled and let me passed when they realized who I was. I went in and stood a good distance from Celestia, who stared at the ground in front of her. "Twilight, you made it!" She said without looking at me. She was completely fixated on whatever was in front of her. "Come over here... I found this interesting." she called. I cautiously walked over to her side to find a pony at her feet. He was unconscious and his head was twisted in an odd way touching his dark blue wings. What I found odd was his cutie mark. It showed the sun just beginning to rise over the ocean. I had heard of converts having weird cutie marks, but this one was much different. The scene was incredibly detailed, the colors looked amazing and you could even see the suns reflection in calm morning water. It looked perfect, like a picture had been imprinted on his flank. "Whoa." I said quietly. "What do you think his talent is?" I asked the Princess. "I do not think this shows a talent." She replied "What then?" "I believe this to be some kind of message." She said. She had not taken her eyes off him as if trying to read it. "A message?" I asked, not seeing it as a possibility. "Yes, I interpret it as the day has ended for humans and now the sun rises again for ponies. But that may just be wishful thinking." I thought about her interpretation. It went along with her words when she gave messages. I thought about the possibility of human converts having messages or visions for cutie marks. It almost sounded like form of unicorn magic, although I had never heard about it and the new convert was a pegasus anyway. "But enough of that, we have work to do." She shook her head quickly to snap out of her stare. She levitated him onto a table and straightened his body out. She fastened his limbs to the table with chains then turned to me. "Twilight, could you get him on the monitor while I get the stuff?" "Of course." I said. I took a white band from a machine and when I went to wrap a band around his hoof, I noticed the tight metal chains keeping him to the table. "Are these really necessary?" I asked. "Oh yes."Celestia called back. She was past the black, bank vault style door and was retrieving the serum inside. "This has never been tested on humans before and I'm not entirely sure how he will react to it. The restraints just ensure that if a violent reaction should occur, we will not be put in harms way." I nodded accepting that answer as valid. Though it would really be only me in harms way. I put the smaller band on his leg just above his restraint. When I turned that computer on, a heart monitor began. The intervals on screen came in nice steady beats. His heart rate was nearly perfect- about 34 beats per minute. "Are we ready?" Celestia asked as she came over with a syringe filled with the black liquid. "Completely." I nodded back. "Well lets get this going." She said. She checked the syringe again to make sure it was the proper dosage, then positioned it at his front right leg. "Now Twilight" She said looking up at me with a very serious tone. "When we tested on ponies, the serum worked...but afterwards an assistant described it to me as frightening. Hes bound to wake up through all this, so I just wanted to give you a warning before we inject him." I nodded. "I'll be fine." I said confidently. "Good." The Princess smiled. She examined the convert again. "Shame." She shook her head. "He never even used this body." With that she pushed the needle inside and pushed down. Almost immediately after he had been injected, a visible shudder went across his entire body. His heart rate increased by about 3 bpm- nothing to serious. He still seemed to be out cold. But then, after about 30 seconds, I noticed something happening to his wings. His feathers were starting to fall off. First it was just one, then another, then 5, then 10 and so on and so forth. But what was weirder still was when then feathers hit the ground. They stared to crumbling away into dust. There was already a layer forming on the sides of the table. I tried to catch one for a closer look, but it turned to dust in my hooves. I held the dust in my hooves up to Princess Celestia with a confused look on my face. She looked anxious and focused on the convert, but still did not ignore me. "Oh yes, that happened before. That could be a good sign." She said optimistically. I smiled back, for now at least things were going alright. I crouched down to get a better view for the feathers. If I had been paying attention , I would have noticed his bpm had increased by another 10... and slowly kept climbing. Very suddenly I heard a terrible sound. It was the convert...he let out one long, continuous scream. It was one of absolute horror. I jumped to my feet just as he whipped his head up, still screaming. I had been paying so much attention to the feathers I hadn't noticed the new change to his body. His hair looked like it was singeing off of his body. You could hear a terrible sizzling sound as his blue hair turned black then fell away from his body. It looked very painful, but Celestia simply watched him so I just assumed that things were happening like before. However, when his heart rate jumped from around 50 to near 100 and climbing, I was less sure of the situation. His crisped hairs started coming off in large clumps and left a bald pink patches. When he hit 125 bpm., things started to turn even more violent. He started thrashing and yanking against his chains as hard as he could. But all he managed to do was slightly rotate the table, which Celestia quickly straightened out. When that didn't work he started banging the back of his head on the table. On one particular slam, he arched his back and his feather-less wings jutted out on either side. They began to vibrate and convulse and it shook through his body. Suddenly I heard a crack so loud that it made me jump back. I looked at his wings and saw that the bones inside were breaking as they began to fold up against his back. His screams grew much louder and though they were not much better, they did drown out the sound of breaking bones. I watched as what was left of his wings melted into his back. His body seemed to absorb the large mass and used it to grow a couple inches longer. His hair and wings were now gone, but there was still the most drastic changes left. By now his heart rate was close to 160 and he was sweating like crazy. Oddly enough, his yelling stopped and was replaced by a heavy cough. It grew heavier and heavier, sounding very wet, until finally something came up. He stared coughing up blood. It wasn't too much, but that fact that it was happening at all, couldn't be good. I looked to Celestia who calmly raised a hoof to reassure me. But his cough sounded so terrible that I thought one of his lungs could come out any second. The skin on his mid section began to bubble and shake and it was at this point that I heard the most horrible sound yet. There was no more coughs or screams, just a horrible bodily noise sound. It was as if he had to puke up something enormous and had started to choke and gag on it. The noises were so wet and disgusting that I had to cover my ears. His mid section began to expand and contract rapidly, like something was being rearranged inside him. A mix of drool and blood flowed from the corner of his flattening mouth. He started giving off a lot of heat and steam rose from his body. His limbs pushed as hard as they could against the chains, even so much that they caused cuts in his skin. Princess Celestia's magic formed around his chain, but she wasn't trying to strengthen them. She was timing it for a release. I wanted to stay strong for Celestia, I wanted to stay and watch the entire process, but there just one thing that turned me away. His left front leg suddenly extended out, it flexed and turned and looked like it was trying to break free of something. That's when I saw his hoof split apart into five different lengths. Compared to what I had seen, that wasn't too bad, but something about made me wince and turn away. A couple seconds after that, I heard Celestia open the chains and his body fall to the floor. After about another minute I finally turned around to look at the finished product. On the floor in front of me was a human. He was curled in a ball with his back to me. He was completely naked and his skin was bright red. His entire body was drenched in sweat and steaming. But he was still alive, I could see his his back get larger and smaller as he breathed. "Simply extraordinary..." Celestia mused. She looked completely shocked, but I could see a smile starting to form across his face. "He didn't even flat line...he wasn't even close." She said. I looked towards the monitor, it was true. His heart rate had maxed out at 176 and was now drastically lower at 111 and still slowly dropping. "Wow." I said still in awe at what had happened. "Well, this is just the first test." Celestia started. "And it is too early to conclude anything yet, But initially it would appear as though the RDU-90 serum or humanification serum works not only on natural born ponies, but converts as well." "Wow." I simply repeated. "This is how we will finish off them off." Celestia put on a different smile, it almost looked like an evil grin. "What?" "Twilight, I have grow extremely tired of these resistance groups who seek to reverse our progress." She sighed. "I sought to put an end to it last night, but there were a few who escaped the surprise attack. But with the new dart guns coming in soon and this new serum, I can get ponies right in the heart of where the humans are." "When did you plan on doing this?" I asked. "Well currently I only have two in the field, but they have proven to be a great asset to us. They orchestrated last nights attack." She smiled proudly. "What about wh-" I stopped when I heard a knock on the door. "Speak of the devil." Celestia said as she let the pony in. He was the same small, red pony I kept noticing. He held up a microphone and pony sized headphones to the Princess. "This is one right now." She said as she put the headphones on. I could only slightly hear the voice on the other end, but I wasn't really paying attention. I was staring at the red pegasus who kept glancing nervously from the human to me. "NO!" Celestia suddenly shouted. "If one of them is alone and you think you have the advantage then you put him out!" She said. The pegasus took the items back and left after he gave me one very odd look. I had to find out who he was. "Sorry about that, but she knew the location of a single member of the seven I want." She apologized. "Could you please find my sister and communicate our success to her?" "Yeah...sure." I said. I was still thinking about the pony, something about him left me feeling uncomfortable. I was about to leave when I heard a weak raspy voice. "W-w-w-what...h-happe-" The human started. "Ah Mint, congratulations! I honestly didn't think you were going to make it!" Celestia nearly shouted. "I-I can't...I cant move." Mint said. "Oh don't worry that will come back soon enough." She said. Her magic wrapped around him and flipped him on his back. He had stopped sweating as much as before, but from his genitals to his knees were covered with a yellowish fluid. I really didn't have to guess that it was urine. "We'll talk about what you just went through then I'll leave you to recollect yourself. You won't be too lonely though, one of your friends will be joining us soon." And on that I left to find Princess Luna. End Chapter 5