Disclaimer As usual, I do not own My Little Pony, Equestria, The conversion Bureaus and anything else I missed. These are works of their respective owners. But I DO own any and all OC’s that I’ve created. Those that are owned by someone else will be mentioned here.
I gulped nervously.
Have you heard that old human story, the one where 300 Spartan soldiers went up against an army of millions, went up against a man who proclaimed himself a god-ruler? They all died in the end, but they stood up against their enemy, and proved that he could be beaten. Months later, he was driven back to his home, defeated in his campaign.
All because 300 men drew the line. All because 300 men proved that no earthly being can be a god.
Exactly what I’m going to do today.
I’m sitting in a cubicle, hooves tapping nervously on the desk in front of me. A pistol lies next to the computer. I know it’s loaded, I know that it will fire, yet I still get the urge to check it, to pull it apart and make sure everything will work. I know it will. I never went to sleep last night, constantly checking and re-checking the weapon. I want to check it again, but if anyone saw or heard the unicorn magic or its inherent glow, they would wonder what was going on, what someone would need magic for
on this wonderful day.
So I didn’t check it. The gun just sat there, accusing me of what I was going to do. I looked up. Above the edge of my cubicle I could see the flowing blues and green approaching slowly making their way from cubicle to cubicle. Down the hallway I could hear laughter, chatter and the sound of armour against the cheap, plaster walls that make up the thousands of cubicles in the large office.
The royal guards will be cramped against the walls, fitting themselves three wide in a space made for two. They will have little to no space to move, and will have to re-right themselves in order to do anything more active than walking. This I am counting on. It means that any co-ordination they have will be delayed, if only for a few seconds. This gives me the element of surprise. The 300 Spartans I mentioned? They won because they had the advantage; they lost because they lost it. I will have a few seconds to press my advantage. But all I need is one good second, and I will have succeded where 300 men had succeeded once before.
My mission is simple. To kill a god.
The ever-present sparkling hair moved closer. I was growing impatient, still wanting to check the gun. Fear, anger and above all, sorrow, bubbling around inside me.
The hair kept on moving closer, the sounds of chatter and armour growing closer. The emotions bubbling, thoughts turning themselves over, and over again.
I stilled my hooves, and took them off the desk. I got down from the chair planting my hooves on the ground. I reached inside of myself to grasp the magic that all unicorns had. This once amazing, impossible thing that I had come to use for daily chores. This was one, very non-daily chore The hair moved closer still, till it was about 5 cubicles away.
I heard more chatter, more armour.
I took a deep breath, and put my plan into action.
Suddenly I grabbed the gun with my magic and leapt out of the cubicle. While still in the air I moved the pistol’s iron sights between myself and my target, more specifically, my eye, and her face. She was smiling. In my direction. Time stopped for what felt like hours, but what must have been nano-seconds. I screamed out one word, putting all my emotions into it. The anger, the sorrow, the fear, the hopelessness.
“DIE!”
I wrapped my magic around the trigger and pulled.
BLAM, BLAM, BLAM, BLAM, BLAM, BLAM, BLAM,
Click,
Click,
Click,
Click,
Thud
The gun, spent, dropped to the ground. I stared in disbelief; the bullets had simply stopped in mid air, about a meter from my target. They dropped to the ground. She was still smiling, as I drooped to my haunches, knowing I had failed. After their initial shock, the guards rounded on me. The one in lead ran up and turned around, delivering a back-leg buck directly into my face. It would have hurt, but my brain simply didn't want to comprehend anything apart from shock. The other two guards ran up to me as well, and held down my legs.
“We have captured the would be assassin.” One of the guards said.
She smiled and giggled. “Yes, I can see that.” She replied, still smiling.
As I was being held down, one of the guards noticed my tracking ring. It’s a small metal ‘glove’ of sorts, placed around the right fore-hoof of any human ‘ponified’ that is deemed untrustworthy, or that should be watched. Which is exactly what they were doing. They could be used to track anypony wearing one, and could be scanned with a special spell to read who the particular pony was, including name, relatives, and why they were tagged in the first place. Basically, a tracking chip, only much more stylish, and magic.
“Looks like we caught a HLF assassin!” yelled one of the guards, back towards her.
“Oh,” she said, still wearing that grin. Like it was a parade day held in her honour. "In that case, I think he and I should get together for a little chat. After I’m done here, of course.”
“Yes, Your Majesty” Chimed another one of the guards, before I was wrapped in unicorn magic and led away, off to the chariot landing located outside the building where I worked. It was reasonably large, about 200 feet(60m) in diameter.
I was put inside a decent coach, which the guards had acquired, and we took off. It would have been a comfortable experience, were I not trussed up with magic, and lain on the floor, while a unicorn watched over me.
For hours we flew, the guards occasionally swapping over duties. I was then led, blindfolded, through the castle of Canterlot, and into its dungeons. I was lead inside a room, and the blindfold was removed. The walls were stark grey, and a table and two chairs were set up in the middle. A large mirror was set in one side of the room. I checked myself out in the mirror, smiling at the thought of the unfortunate pony stuck behind what was obviously a two-way mirror.
A pony stared back at me. He had grey fur, a few shades darker than the grey of the walls. A yellow, short mane that was dishevelled and sticking up wildly adorned said ponies head, barely covering the short horn on his head. He turned parallel to the mirror, allowing me to glimpse his cutie-mark. A key with three barely noticeable co-centric grey rings extending out from the middle of the patch of skin, ending about where the key did. His tail was cropped short, and was the same yellow as his hair. He sighed and turned back from the mirror.
I approached the table in the middle of the room, and sat down facing the mirror, one fore-hoof supporting my face, while the other tapped at the table.
Not having anything to do, and not having had any rest for several nights, I simply laid my fore-hooves along the table, and fell asleep.
_\!/_
The table shifted slightly, as I was dragged from a fitful sleep. Not realising where I was I reached for my magic to slide my chair out.
‘Must’ve fallen asleep at the desk again.’ I wondered to myself.
Realising that I couldn’t reach my magic, I opened my eyes to take stock of my surroundings. My cubicle had been replaced with a solid room, with a big mirror.
‘That’s nice.’ I thought to myself, as my eyes wandered around the room.
They fell upon another pony, wearing what looked like a lab coat.
‘That’s funny.’ I thought. ‘I didn’t ask to get moved to our lab section. ‘
“Looks like he’s experiencing some of the side effects of the magic blocking, this’ll take just a minute.”
‘Side effects of what now?’ I thought, brain trying to churn through memories and information.
I felt a zap run through my right fore-hoof, and my brain kicked into overdrive, dozens of memories trying to force their way to the front.
I gasped as the realisation hit me. I had tried to, and then I had, so they.
I shuddered as I realised what kind of situation I was in. I had tried to assassinate the head of a country. A goddess made flesh.
Said goddess was now standing in front of me, a look of concern on her face.
“It doesn’t hurt, does it?” she asked.
“No” the pony in the lab coat replied. “Just a little shock from all the information coming through.”
The princess perked up a little at this. “Okay then. So who was he?”
With a sudden jolt, I realised what was going on. I tried to cover up my tracking ring, even though I knew it was futile. I knew that the unicorn’s magic would just slip through and over my attempts to hide it. As it did.
“His name is, well was, John McGraw. He was converted about two months ago. He was put under surveillance due to, hang on.” The unicorn furrowed his brows in concentration. “I can’t get into the reason, it’s probably something high end, but I don’t know, might just be a malfunction.”
“That’s okay Doctor. I’m going to spend some time with him, would you mind?”
“Of course not, your majesty” The doctor said, bowing deeply before retreating out the door.
After the Doctor left, Celestia’s smile broke, and she let out a deep sigh.
She sat down opposite me, across the table, looking straight into my eyes. Or they would be, if I hadn’t dropped my head to stare at the table.
This went on for several minutes, each side daring the other to make the first move. I Gulped nervously and stuttered out.
“H-hello, Cel- Cel- Celestia” I finally stuttered out.
“Hello John.” She said back.
“How h- have you been?” I managed to stutter out again, cursing myself for the lack of courage that I felt. Instead I just felt tired, and afraid.
“Reasonably well, considering one of my best friends tried to shoot me.” She said, a bitter, mocking tone coursing through her voice.
“Best friends?” I asked.
“Best friends!?” I repeated, louder, my voice raising.
“You. Killed. Me!” I yelled, stabbing my hoof at her with every word, as if I could stab her with some sharp, pointy, metal thing.
Celestia was taken aback at this.
“And yet you were the one with the gun.”
It was my turn to be taken aback. I had gone out with every intention of killing her. Then I realised something.
“Where’s my pistol?” I asked, in a small voice.
“It’s been confiscated” She replied. “Locked up in some old dusty archive.”
“Could- Could I get it back?” I asked, meeker still.
Celestia let out a chuckle at this. “Now why ever would you want it back? Thinking of taking another shot, eh?”
At this, I slumped down in my chair, utterly defeated.
Celestia’s voice rang out again, now with a hint of sadness. “Why? John.”
“Because you killed me.” I stated simply.
“And how did I do that?” she asked, her head leaning in closer.
I laughed out loud at this. “How did you, oh lord.”
“Look at me” I said, coming down from the sudden outburst. “I’m a pony”
“And?” Celestia asked.
“I was made into a pony.” I said.
“So?”
“By force.”
“What?” She asked.
“You should know, you gave the order yourself.”
“WHAT!?” She yelled.
“Or at least, that’s what they told me when I was being pumped full of chems.”
Celestia sat back down in her chair, having got out of it in the last outburst.
She tapped her chin with one gold-shod hoof and sighed.
“What happened to you John?” she asked “How did it happen?”
“I wouldn’t know.” I stated “I was knocked out when they did it.”
“I meant the days before that.” She said.
“I was in the Conversion Bureau.”
“Before that.”
“How much before?”
“A Day before you left.”
I sighed in defeat. “Okay then, what do you want me to say?”
“Just tell me everything.”
“Okay then” I Replied.
I turned around to the Security camera, and looked directly at it and stated simply.
“My name is John McGraw, and this is my story.”