=== BABW: A New (Old) Magic ===
=== Chapter 10: Our Green Earth ===
[ November 4, 2080 – Isegawa Clinic (and Laboratory), St. Louis, USA ]
“You don’t know how glad I am to get out of that rehab dorm, Rarity,” Natasha groaned as she trotted to her room in the Isegawa’s dorm, adorned with her name in English with yellow lettering printed on a red background.
“Come now, I’m sure they accommodated you the best way that they could, given the circumstance and protocol,” Rarity chided gently as the two Unicorns were now standing outside the room with a couple of bags of personal belongings and a few small boxes full of storage holo-chips for Natasha’s computer terminal.
“Well they did accommodate me very well…” Natasha started, before she looked through the balcony at a certain golden-yellow Pegasus with platinum blond mane. “Well every way that they could. To be perfectly honest… I just couldn’t wait to get back to Ethan.”
“Oh, and what does that mean, Miss Rarity?” Natasha asked with a bit of a joking tone; trying to see what the white Unicorn was thinking.
Much to Natasha’s chagrin though, Rarity was very well heeled at playing the gossip game. “Nothing, nothing dear. Just a casual observation~”
“So how’s everything going up there, Natty? Need any of us to help?” Ethan called up to the two Unicorns sitting near the railing overlooking the central common area of the dorm’s ‘bedroom hall’.
“No but…” Natasha started before she was interrupted by the sound of the front door chime sounding.
“Good news, everyone!” Dr. Hayato started, as he looked around at the assorted Ponies and lone human in the common area of the dorm. “I just received an official communiqué from Princess Celestia. You all are getting roomates, another three to be exact,”
Well that’d explain the ten rooms… Andre thought to himself as he looked at the bottom row of rooms, all unoccupied except for Twilight’s and Rarity’s; while Rainbow Dash had taken up residence on the upper terrace with the three Converts and Kyoko.
“And our two visitors should be very familiar with them, correct?” Dr. Jun added, with a bit of a wink and a nod.
“Yeah, quite familiar,” Twilight responded while beaming.
“So who are the other three Ponies that are supposed to be boarding with us?” Natasha asked, now quite interested in the mystery equines.
“Heh, just us!” a (vaguely) East-Texas accented Pony responded, as orange, yellow, and candy pink mares all poked their heads in from around the corner formed by the opened electronic doors.
“Applejack, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, it’s been quite a while hasn’t it!” Rarity called out as she briskly trotted over to the door to formally welcome the other half of the Elements of Harmony into their new residence Earth-side. “Kyoko, would you be a dear and wake Rainbow Dash up for us, please?”
Kyoko, who was sitting on a couch, seemed not to be paying attention for a few moments before she slowly got to her feet and responded with a somewhat meek “Okay”.
“Not very enthusiastic, is she…” Pinkie Pie mused, as she looked at the raven-haired girl with some concern, as the domestic drones quietly moved their belongings inside from under the terraced walkway.
“Normally Kyoko is about two-thirds of the way up your scale of ‘energy’, Pinkie. But lately she’s just been, mopey? I think mopey would be a good word for it,” Twilight explained as Fluttershy fluttered up and walked over to where Kyoko was knocking on a door.
“Say Rainbow Dash, don’t you think it’s time to get up!” Kyoko asked as she continued to rap vigorously on the door.
“Um, Kyoko was it? Would you mind…” Fluttershy asked in her reserved tone.
The raven haired lady relented as she stepped back and the butter-yellow Pegasus stood opposite of the door.
Fluttershy stood in place for a few moments, drawing in a long breath.
“RAINBOW DASH! GET YOUR LAZY FLANK UP! WE JUST GOT HERE AND WE’D LIKE A PROPER WELCOME!”
The other ten Humans and Ponies were stunned into silence by the outburst. Except for a certain heretofore sound asleep sky-blue Pegasus.
“Woah, Fluttershy, when did you get here. When I took my nap I distinctly remember there only being five Ponies and one Human here.”
Fluttershy shook her head as if to say ‘no problem’. “I’m sorry, I don’t like to yell. But SOME PONIES sleep so heavy that I have to… assert myself… in order for them to get up on time!”
Rainbow Dash quailed a bit, as she exited her room.
“I take it that you have to do this somewhat often, Fluttershy was it?” Ethan asked as Rainbow Dash joined the group of nine Ponies and three Humans in the ‘lobby’ of the dormitory.
“Yes,” was the yellow Pegasus’s simple answer, as the sky-blue Pegasus continued to maintain an embarrassed expression.
“Well now that everyone is together, I guess we should go over some ground rules for the ten of you…” Hayato mused aloud, as he got the attention of all the others in the building.
The good doctor paced a bit, before delivering his announcement. “You ten have free reign of the building, just so long as you don’t damage the building or cause an undue distraction. I would think neither of those would be a problem?”
“No, no problem at all,” the nine Ponies and young lady responded in unison.
“That’s wonderful. I will leave you all to get your things sorted out. Oh and Miss Rarity, your equipment should be arriving later today. The Ponies at the New York Bureau wanted to make sure that it was packed up properly,” Hayato added as he looked at the white Unicorn specifically.
“That’s good to hear. I truly hate having to let a good design fade because I don’t have any tools, or pads to sketch it on,” said white Unicorn responded as she looked inside her room to figure out the best arrangement of her desk, bed, and her portable sewing machine. She then looked at the two healthy looking stallions in her midst.
“Oh Andre, Ethan. You wouldn’t mind helping a poor little filly when my equipment arrives, do you?”
The two stallions looked at each other with some mild trepidation.
“Uh… no?”
“Good, because you two are about help me with a little bit of interior decorating~”
--- Later That Day ---
“Of course Rarity would find some way to take advantage of the only males in our group now,” Kyoko groused as she parked a motor-scooter next to one of the few un-Domed arts-and-crafts stores in the St. Louis area.
After calming herself a bit, she roamed around the store. While it was brightly lit and gave off all the effect of a warm and welcoming place, she could help but notice how empty it was; the only patrons besides herself being a couple of ladies that were talking about something or other near the checkout counter.
“In any case, are you planning on voting tomorrow in the elections?” one of the ladies asked the other in front of the counter; while the cashier behind the counter typed into a panel, and a machine began spitting out a roll of what appeared to be slightly-off red nylon.
“While a part of me wants to vote for Everfield, I… I am not sure honestly,” the other lady remarked, as she appeared (to Kyoko anyway) to be thinking harder about politics than she had at any other point in recent memory.
“I dunno about that, I kinda want to see what Aguillar is going to do. I mean she has been doing her best to ensure the Domes are producing quality Multi-boxes for everyone instead of just for Domers,” the first lady said.
“But if that’s all she can do, it’s really not much. And the Legislature hates her guts, quite honestly,” the second lady countered mildly.
“Well, is that because she isn’t a good President, or it is just because she doesn’t blindly obey the wishes of the people inside the Domes?” Kyoko added, as she looked a bit sheepish interjecting herself into the conversation; as well as straining a bit to soften her Japanese accent.
“Hard to say? Who are you voting for?”
“Oh I can’t vote; I’m not a naturalized citizen yet. Still a couple of years away from that,” Kyoko responded, making a bit of a show of waving her hands as if to silently wave off any other conversation along those lines.
As the two ladies continued their conversation aloud, Kyoko began to think to herself about what could potentially happen by the end of the night tomorrow night.
If Everfield wins, then… well he could make the Equestrians leave. I mean it’s not secret the people who run the Domes don’t like Princess Celestia and the Ponies. At the same time, if Aguillar retains office, they’d probably be extremely angry from losing elections twice in a row. And there’s no telling what they might do in response…
Kyoko merely sighed as she placed a few items and some sale proxies on the counter, waiting for the cashier to ring her up.
“Oh my, you must be in from the Domes. Almost no one buys Multi-Box templates outright except them…” the cashier remarked as she started for the storeroom which housed the personal use manufacturing templates.
“Oh no no no. It’s just that I live with my parents at that new outpatient clinic on the edge of the city. We have our own Multi-Boxes set up there because it’s kind of a pain to come into town and buy stuff,” Kyoko quickly responded, not wanting to seem like something she wasn’t.
The cashier looked at her strangely as she ducked her head back through the doorway of the storage room behind the counter. “Oh, then why would you be here at an arts and crafts store. I’d have thought you would be at a medical supply store getting over the counter medicine templates, and stuff like that?”
“Well we have a lot of those already, but our clinic looks so cold and white. So we… um… hired a designer to help… liven the place up. You know psychology has a lot of do with helping people heal!” Kyoko responded, trying her best to not give away the actual reason for her patronage of the shop.
“Makes enough sense,” the cashier thought aloud as she came back with a small box full of storage chips and a print manual. “You all must have some really high end machines, these are some of the freshest templates on the general market.”
“Well we do fairly well for ourselves, I guess,” Kyoko responded as she swiped her card to pay for the materials.
“Well don’t forget us if you need anything else, alright?!” the cashier shouted as Kyoko walked out the front door.
As Kyoko put her helmet back on and mounted the scooter, she continued to think of what might happen after tomorrow night and the Elections.
If they get mad enough… they could start actively trying to move against Aguillar… and then that could mean Celestia too…
As she drove further from the business center of town, a dark thought crossed her mind, on that horrified her to her core.
If… if it gets really bad… then Celestia could order every Pony to leave… and if every Pony were to leave… then… then I’d never see Andre again… unless I…
unless I…
~~ Later that Evening ~~
“Oh Kyoko, you got the materials I asked for?” Rarity asked as she looked Kyoko in the fabrication room of the Isegawa Clinic building proper, through the video-intercoms installed in all of the Isegawa’s property.
“Yeah, though it’ll take a little while to code the machines for output. I had to get clearance from my parents to use the backup Multi-Boxes for making your fabrics and dyes, but thankfully you should be good to go by tomorrow,” Kyoko replied, somewhat morosely.
“Is there something wrong Kyoko, you sound a bit distressed about something,” Rarity asked, as she looked on with concern through the camera across the campus.
“I dunno, I’m just kinda thinking through some things,” Kyoko replied as she suddenly became far more pensive than she was a few moments ago. “So, what movie did you all pick to watch?”
“I think Ethan picked something named Hot Shots, he said that a lot of his friends in the Air Force liked it,” Rarity answered as she tried to remember what the movie was about, only halfway paying attention to the golden-yellow Pegasus when he was talking about it.
“Ok then, well, I’ll be back over there in a little while,” Kyoko replied as she quietly turned off the monitor on the intercom.
-----
“That movie was funnier than I thought it would be…” Fluttershy thought aloud, as she couldn’t help the silly grin etched on her face as the final credits rolled.
“Hrm, it’s only 9 PM, so I think we have enough time for another movie,” Natasha mused aloud as she scrolled through the menus on the ‘home’ theatre.
As eight Ponies and one small dragon all discussed the various merits of the different movies that appeared on the menus, one other Pony and a rather depressed looking human sat separately in the low lit media room of the dormitory.
“Come on now, Kyoko, you can act a little better around our new roomates, can’t ya?” Andre asked of the woman that wasn’t far from twice his size now.
“I know, but… I just don’t know really,” Kyoko said as she looked on somewhat despondently, not really able to get past her own internal consternation.
If… if something happens… and Andre has to leave… I… I dunno if I could Convert and follow him...
At the same time… I don’t know what I’d do with myself if he had to leave and I could never see him again…
What am I supposed to do?
Andre could clearly see the anguish and frustration in Kyoko’s face as the thoughts swirled around her, but he couldn’t pinpoint their origin, so he tried to do the best thing he could, given the situation.
“Kyoko, I’m gonna be here for you. It doesn’t matter what all is going on outside with this Election and the politics and everything else. But if you are going to be right here, then so am I.”
Kyoko didn’t say anything, instead merely stood up, and walked out of the media room as quietly as she could manage; though she didn’t escape the perception of a certain orange and blonde farm-mare.
“Say Andre? What’s up with the Doctor’s daughter over there?”
Andre just sighed as he looked on at the raven haired woman walk slowly toward her room. “I wish I knew Applejack, I really do. But, well I don’t want to push her into doing anything. The last thing I want to be is one of those friends that shove another into a dumb decision due to a lack of foresight.”
Applejack looked on with Andre as Kyoko made her way in the low light back to her room. “Andre, Ah don’t mean to pry, but it kinda looks like she likes you a whole lot. But right now, if she wants to be with ya full-time, she’d probably hafta Convert herself.”
Andre looked down as his mane covered his eyes. “I know… that’s why I told her back when I was going to convert, I felt like I was being incredibly selfish. At the same time, it just felt like I wouldn’t go anywhere else if I didn’t.”
“So are ya both afraid that if ya take this plunge, ya might do something ya regret?” Applejack asked with a large measure of stern-ness in her voice.
“In my case, yeah,” Andre sighed as he felt like he was admitting to something he didn’t want to. “There is a constant nagging fear that I’ve either made or will make some mistake that I cannot make up for. At the same time, I just… I just… when I looked myself as a human, it just felt like all I was going to do was ignore a task I had been called to accomplish. The fact that I had a shard of that magical Power in me was proof of that.”
“And that gal of yours, whaddaya think she’s afraid of?” Applejack asked as she noticed a new film had finally been decided upon.
“I couldn’t tell you right now, but I aim to find out,” Andre replied with a resolute firmness.
[ November 5, 2080 – Isegawa Clinic (and Laboratory), St. Louis, USA ]
“I really have to stop doing this…” Andre moaned to himself out loud, as he picked himself up off the carpeted floor of the media room. He had fallen asleep during a romantic drama the others were watching earlier, and was greeted by the soft sound of an overnight news broadcast being played at low volume on one of the sub-screens off in a relatively quiet corner of the room.
As he looked over at his half-full container of pineapple cake squares (that Pinkie had baked in her experimentations with the dorm’s kitchen), he noticed the familiar sight of a certain black-haired young lady slumped over in the chair sitting closest to the active monitor.
The electric blue Unicorn simply sighed as he looked at the sight of Kyoko staring at the screen, as the chyron at the bottom of the screen was filled with predictive polls and an estimation of the election results based on said polls.
“So it seems like the models are now predicting a 65% chance of victory for President Aguillar, though error margin seems awfully high, don’t you think?” Andre said, as he sat on a cushion-chair next to Kyoko.
“Looks like it,” Kyoko replied tersely, or at least as tersely as someone half-asleep could.
“So… do you think Aguillar should keep her office?” Andre asked, hoping some small talk to get Kyoko to open up about whatever was obviously plaguing her.
“I dunno. I think the Domers that are angry with her will stay mad either way,” Kyoko replied, as she looked off to the side opposite that Andre was sitting.
Andre sighed as this bit of obvious avoidance, but continued prodding anyway. “Why do you think that? I would think some of them would be smart enough to back off if she were to win twice.”
“You really think that Andre? You really think they would just, sit there, as President Aguillar tries to do things outside of the bounds they set? Not only that but…” Kyoko started before pausing as she seemed reticent to actually continue with the thought.
“But what?” Andre prodded further, sensing he had some kind of foothold into her mind now.
“They must hate Celestia. Hate her to her core. Some alien horse just shows up out of nowhere and blames them for the ills of the Earth. I know I’d be mad if some alien blamed me personally. And…”
“And?”
“And they’ll probably blame Aguillar for letting Celestia do all of this, the talking down to them, the Conversion. But it won’t stop unless they did something… something to make it stop.”
Andre looked at Kyoko as she began to sniffle at the thought; he could feel he was starting to get down to the core of the issue, but still didn’t have a good idea of how far he still had to dig.
“So let’s say they tried something, black-ops-style terrorist attacks, whatever. What is it, besides the obvious that you’d be afraid of?”
Kyoko turned around and looked at the somewhat scraggly-maned Unicorn. She tried her best to calm herself down some, as she got out of the chair, and then sat down in front of him cross-legged so they could look eye to eye at each other.
“I’m… I’m afraid that if something really bad happened like that. That Celestia would be forced to recall all of you. I… I don’t think she’d want to have any of her Ponies in harm’s way due to humans becoming hostile. And that’d mean… that… I could lose you…”
Well that certainly would explain a lot… Andre thought to himself as he looked at Kyoko fidgeting far more than she was earlier. He could sense that they were getting closer to the core issue at play.
“I… I see… are you afraid that I’d be forced to leave before you could come to a decision about whether you should Convert?” the blue Unicorn asked, as he steeled himself for the potential response.
“That’s… some of it… I’m, I’m just…” Kyoko started as she looked as pensive as one could while not making a motion as if she was going to leave. While she would have loved, in one respect, to just drop the conversation; the other more dominant part was making her spill all of the negative thoughts she had bottled up over the last couple of months since Andre’s Conversion.
She took a deep breath, and began to speak again. “Andre… I’m scared because… I want to be with you so bad. But… if things get really bad outside, then the only way I can be sure I’ll always be with you is if I Convert… and… I’m…”
“Are you scared of Converting? I was scared to, but… I dunno, just something in me said ‘do it, everything will work out, but you have to do this first’,” Andre interrupted, hoping he could calm Kyoko down some.
“I’m scared that I won’t be able to!” Kyoko blurted out, as a couple of tears began to stream down her eyes.
Andre was taken aback by this obviously. He had heard from no one that Conversion would necessarily reject anyone; or at the least, the Bureaus rejecting anyone as a ‘client’. “Kyoko, what do you mean? Please, this is something that has obviously been bottled up inside of you for a good while.”
Kyoko was still sniffling some, but she steeled herself to tell as much as she could; or at least what she could that would make any lick of sense to the blue Unicorn.
“Okay. The reason I’m scared… I… I don’t know if I am one-hundred percent pure human. Everywhere I went in the Domes around the former site of Tokyo and Kyoto; there would be this persistent rumor mongering.
Andre, for his part, did not know what exactly to think of the assertion by Kyoko she might have been artificial in some way, but stayed any remark until he was sure she was done speaking and attempting to explain things.
“They would always say things like ‘she is way too smart for her own good’, ‘it’s impossible for an Outsider child to be that intelligent’. These rumors eventually mutated to me being some kind of android, or that I had undergone some kind of genetic tampering.”
Andre’s look of concern had started to shift to incredulity, but Kyoko wasn’t quite finished yet.
“The problem is, Andre. All through the years, my parents have refused to say anything definitive about the subject. There are always the token reassurances that they’d never do anything like that…” Kyoko started, before her sad eyes suddenly flared with intense anger. “But I know my parent’s history, especially my father’s. There is no telling what he could have done to me in-vitro, post-vitro, before I might have even have been conceived… it’s… I don’t!”
“Please stop…” Andre said quietly.
“What? What do you mean stop?” Kyoko barked angrily.
Andre just merely quietly got up, and wrapped his front-legs around Kyoko’s somewhat petite waist as best he could.
“I don’t want to see you like this, Kyoko. Do you think your parents are that heartless? That they would experiment so brazenly with their own child, regardless if he was a son or daughter?” Andre said, as tears began to well up in his own eyes.
“I want to believe… I want to believe so bad that they would never do something like that. But… I can’t be sure. My mind, no matter how much I try to tell myself the idea is stupid or so evil that it couldn’t possibly be true… it just won’t let the idea go,” Kyoko responded, sobbing as she clutched the blue Unicorn slightly more than half her size as tightly as she could.
Andre craned his neck so that he was looking straight into Kyoko’s eyes. “Sometimes, the best way to kill a nasty, illogical thought it just to refuse to feed it. Thought that’s easier said than done; I lingered on the thought that my parents abandoned me because they hated me for living with Grandpa all this time.”
Kyoko patted Andre on the side of her head as he rested his head right on her ribcage and diaphragm. “I want to quash all of this, once and for all. And I want to be with you, as long as I can.”
Kyoko then pushed Andre back some so she could look at him at a slightly more level angle. “That’s… that’s why regardless of what happens tomorrow, or I guess rather later tonight with this Election… I want to Convert. I want to Convert so that regardless if we live on Earth or Equestria, we can always be with each other!”
She brought Andre back in and hugged him in as tight and as loving an embrace as she could manage.
“See, that’s the Kyoko I know and… love…” Andre stated, while starting to blush some.
“Thanks, I… I really needed that, all of that,” Kyoko responded while blushing some herself.
=== A Good Deal Later that Evening ===
The Doctors Isegawa, their daughter, and their nine houseguests (ten if you count the Dragon hiding in one of said houseguest’s room) all were gathered in the media room of the dormitory, watching the election returns. Andre had to try his best to repress a dumb grin as he sat in right in front of Kyoko, both of them on the floor next to one of the long couches.
“I would argue the merits and demerits of democracy vs. benevolent monarchy, but I feel that that would largely be a circular argument,” Twilight mused aloud as she watched the various pundits prattle on about various cities and counties and how they may forecast the overall results.
“Ahh, Twilight. And I was hoping to play amateur social anthropologist too…” Andre responded in a mock hurt tone, which got him a shove from Ethan from above.
“And when you do that, good sir, you tend to ramble on for hours… literally hours”
“Really, hours?” Pinkie asked, as she played around with a tablet terminal, wearing a protective sleeve on one of her hooves.
“Yes, hours. There have been many a night where we all sat there just listening to him to go on into the deepest parts of the night. I still cannot figure out how he talks for so long; and how he manages to get us to sit and listen to him for that long either,” Natasha added.
“One long incredibly unbroken sentence, moving from topic to topic…” Kyoko started.
“…giving no one a chance to interrupt…” Ethan continued.
“…it really is quite hypnotic,” Andre concluded, the three of them speaking in perfect rhythm with each other.
The other nine occupants of the room just looked at the blue and gold Ponies and the black-and-green haired woman with a mixed look of incredulity and plain weirdness.
“Have you three practiced that?” Rainbow Dash asked, finally breaking the pregnant pause.
“A little bit…” Andre confessed.
----- -----
“I find it a bit weird that the challenger is winning a lot more states as individual blocks, but right now Aguillar has a higher value of, electoral votes, right?” Rarity asked as she looked with some confusion with how red the map was compared to how blue the “Votes Needed to Win” meter at the bottom of the main screen was.
“If you wanted to reduce it to a game, the name of it is ‘Score on the highest value targets’. That is why Aguillar focused her attention on heavily urbanized states and population centers,” Natasha replied, as she watched one of the pink-colored states turn pale blue, incidating a model that predicted a close win by Aguillar for said state.
“Oh wow, if mah math is right, if your President wins this Ohio, then it’d be really hard for her challenger to win with what’s left and who those computers think’ll win later,” Applejack surmised, as she saw the most heavily populated states in varying shades of blue, while the medium and lesser populated states were pinks and reds.
“I can only imagine some of the Domers are flipping out right now. They probably thought she couldn’t win twice, given all the economic problems this post-Singularity life of ours has created for actual breathing people,” Andre mused, as he levitated a water bottle to his mouth.
“Yeah no telling what they might do if it looks the way it looks right now and the President retains office,” Kyoko mused aloud, with a very discernable measure of trepidation in her voice.
“What kind of things do you think they might do?” Fluttershy asked, her voice starting to mirror the tone of concern in Kyoko’s.
“Simply put, there is no telling really,” Dr. Jun responded. “There hasn’t really been a long stretch of sustained unrest since the Great Relocations between the end of the 2040s and the 2050s. At that time you had massive protests and low-scale military and police conflicts.”
“A good number of poor countries outright collapsed during this phase of recent history. That is why if you look at a world map now, there appears to be large stretches of lands where there are effectively no borders,” Dr. Hayato added.
“I am not sure how that, as bad as it sounds, would tell us what the people who live in those Domed cities would do, necessarily,” Twilight asked, not sure where the Doctors were going with this tangent.
“Three words, Miss Sparkle: private military contractors. The proliferation of para-military organizations, basically run by several giant conglomerates, started during that period, because the strain of relocation was so massive the actual militaries of the great powers were tied up just keeping their own nations from flying apart,” Ethan responded, his frustration visible.
“So, let’s see: the really big companies have their own armies because the armies of each country were too busy trying to be police?” Pinkie Pie attempted to surmise.
“That’s a good way of putting it. And they never dismantled them in all of this time. If they feel threatened enough by extant political forces…” Andre started.
“… then they very well could use those private armies to enter into conflict with the actual armies and police over who knows what,” Kyoko responded, draping her arms around Andre’s shoulders, trying to gain comfort; an action that made Andre start blushing (again).
“That is a serious concern…” Fluttershy replied, somewhat stunned that the biggest of the big companies on Earth were like countries unto themselves.
~~~~~ ~~~~~
“We here at CBS-Viacom News are now 99% confident in predicting that, once all election officials have verified the voting machines, President Aguillar will be re-elected President of the United States and all affiliated territories. And in addendum, and to the mild shock of most of the veteran political observers here, Madame President’s coattails were seemingly long enough to allow enough of her System Reform bloc aligned candidates in the House of Representatives to give control of the House to said bloc. It remains to be seen what deals will have to be worked out with Reform Democrats and Reform Republicans, but it appears, at least in this anchors eyes, that the House has indeed been taken over, by a cushion of about ten seats, by the aligned System Reform bloc. The Senate appears to have been held by the Dome-backed politicians, though there the margin sits at 52 to 48, a narrow margin to say the least,” the female news anchor started, as she threw to the pundits at another part of the studio.
“At the very least we won’t have to worry about Mr. Everfield trying to throw us all out when January rolls around,” Twilight said with a bit of levity.
“That much is true Twilight, now how will the money men behind Everfield behave in the coming months? That should be the key issue going forward,” Andre replied, as he shuddered from Kyoko suddenly running her fingers through his mane.
“Come on now, in front of the others~?” the blue Unicorn whined with a bit of an insincere tone as Kyoko and the others laughed and giggled for a few moments.
“Well, Ah know one thing. So long as we’re here on this Earth, we’re gonna do everything possible we can to help all y’all out, right gals?!” Applejack stated with firm resolution, eliciting agreement from the other Bearers of Harmony.
Thanks… and I’m gonna do everything that I can to help you all too… Kyoko thought to herself as she stood up and got everyone’s attention.
“I have an announcement to make,” Kyoko started, as Andre turned around to look her straight in the eye (as best he could from his vantage point). Half the room had at the very least some idea what Kyoko was ready to say, while the other half seemed a bit lost but attentive anyway.
“I’ve been thinking the last few days. Mostly about what would happen given tonight’s election. Since it’s apparent that Aguillar will stay President of the US, it would have given me some breathing room to make this decision. But I figure something like that shouldn’t wait given what I’ve seen of Andre, Ethan, and Natasha so far.”
It was at that point the half that didn’t know or couldn’t tell suddenly realized what exactly she was talking about.
“I’ve decided that in the morning, I am going to the St. Louis Bureau and signing up to Convert. Even though I know humans can volunteer just as well as Native Ponies could on the other side of the Aurora, something tells me that Converting will give me the best chance for me to help everyone else.”
If I can do this… I can kill two birds with one stone: prove my own humanity and be that much closer to Andre… Kyoko thought to herself as she looked somewhat wistfully at the blue Unicorn.
A look that didn’t escape the perceptive gaze of Applejack… I thought Kyoko liked Andre, but she’s got it for ‘im really bad…
Dr. Hayato and Jun stood up and hugged their daughter.
“While the words to describe how I feel escape me at the moment; I don’t want to let my indecision or our initial reaction scare you from your decision. You are a young woman fully capable of making her own decisions, and neither I nor your mother will do anything to dissuade you. Other than the token questions of ‘Are you sure about this?’ of course,” Dr. Hayato said to his daughter, as he held her tight.
“I know. I can’t imagine this is being easy for you two; but I really want to do this… I… I really think that me Converting is the best way for me to help everyone,” Kyoko replied as she sniffled into the lab coat of her father.
“I don’t believe we need to say this, necessarily, but we will anyway. It doesn’t matter if you are human or Pony, you are still our daughter, and you will always be our daughter,” Dr. Jun added, with Kyoko hugging her as hard as she did her father.
~~~~
As the sort-of-party died down, and the Doctors Isegawa walked back under the terrace to their own bedrooms in the Clinic proper, they stopped to think of the fact their daughter would soon join the impromptu herd created in that Dormitory that the HEA had so graciously built for them.
“I wonder if I should be upset or angry in any way. To be honest, I kinda expected this. Especially when she didn’t protest Andre Converting despite her liking him,” Dr. Hayato thought out loud as they were about to re-enter the Clinic.
“I’d agree, and like we said. She is our daughter, but she is also capable of making her own life decisions. In this case, we will simply have to trust that she is making the overall correct one,” Dr. Jun responded, as she looked on into the darkness of the clinic hallways.
“Do you think that Andre is the right man, or stallion as it were, for our precious daughter?” Dr. Hayato asked, as he draped his arms over the shoulders of his wife, and brought her into an embrace.
“Minus some glaring personality flaw, it’s not our place to say. However, if you want me to answer you honestly… I think he is. The key is, does he know and feel that he is the right one for our Kyoko?” Dr. Jun responded.
“I do not know if any man truly knows that when a relationship starts. We will just have to hope they will be stable enough to successfully navigate what is surely to come,” Dr. Hayato mused again.
[ November 8, 2080 == St. Louis Conversion Bureau, USA, Earth ]
The appointed time and hour for Kyoko, after fair wait, had come. Twilight had managed to get the entire slate of converts done and handled, so that the entirety of the Isegawa contingent could sit comfortably in the lobby while Kyoko underwent the procedure. Dr. Hayato and Jun were glad that their load was light over at the Clinic, as they didn't necessarily like having to close shop early, but this was their daughter about to go in.
Twilight gave her final remarks before she and Kyoko would take the short ride and the long walk to the Conversion Rooms. "As you know, our good friend Kyoko here is about to undergo her Conversion. I am obligated to remind her that she can still decline the procedure, although if she does, she must refill the paperwork and wait another three days, barring emergency."
Kyoko was steadfast though. "No Twilight, I won't have to take you up on that offer. I'd like to go ahead and get this done with, if you don't mind."
Twilight then turned to Dr. Hayato and Dr. Jun, the two fellow scholars she had developed such a rapport with the last three months or so. "Honestly, you are the first relatives of a client to actually be here when said client was undergoing Conversion, so bear with me if I can't exactly find the words..."
Dr. Hayato interrupted her, however. "Don't worry Twilight; there is nothing that you need to say to assuage us. We've already come to terms with our daughter's decision. "
Dr. Jun then added, "Yes, no matter what form she takes, she is still our daughter, and will always remain such."
Kyoko smiled faintly at the words her parents said.
She then knelt down to hug Andre one last time as a human, Andre looking around just as nervous as she was internally.
“I’m… really at a loss for what to say…” Andre said, finding it hard to keep eye contact with the raven-haired lady.
“Yeah, one the one hand, I can’t believe I’m doing this. On the other hand, it feels like this makes all the sense in the world,” Kyoko responded.
Andre mentally fumbled around a little more for the right words, until he finally stumbled onto some. “Oh right, during the process you are going to see a vision. A vision of the ideal Equestria, I would imagine. After that, well, the Princesses are going to show you the thing you fear the most. Just hang though and persevere, because defeating that fear means you will be all the better in the aftermath.”
“Ok, but I’m sure how that’ll work if it’s some kind of spirit quest thing,” Kyoko replied, a touch confused.
“You’ll figure it out when you see it, now go on, Twilight is waiting for ya,” Ethan replied before Andre could.
“If y’all don’t mind, I’d like to go with Twilight into the control room, I wanna see how she handles all of this versus what I help do back in Austin…”
After being joined by the orange and blonde farm-hoof, Kyoko and Twilight continued on down to the ‘heart’ of the Bureau
~~~
Kyoko sat on the gurney as she looked at the slightly metallic, purple, syrup-like concoction.
So if I am what my parents say I am, this will prove that by making me not that anymore… I wonder if this is irony or what. Oh well, to a better, or at least different, tomorrow… she thought as she drank the potion, and promptly fell unconscious.
=---- ----=
Kyoko then 'woke up' in the Astral Plane, body now formless due to being a disembodied soul and all. She almost immediately found herself in a mixed race village, Unicorns, Pegasi, and Earth-Ponies all about, going through their daily lives.
Definitely didn't say anything about this in the orientation...
The first vision she saw was of a Pegasus filly flitting about. She was terribly uncoordinated and constantly dipping and diving all over. Some of the other Pegasi foals laughed and pointed, but she never gave up. Flash forward, she was flying around like the best of them. The other Pegasi that laughed at her now cheered her, apologizing for making fun of her in her youth.
Then she saw a Unicorn colt, struggling to make anything float or work due to his irregular magic, the others chiding and chastising him for being a slow learner. Flash forward into his adulthood as a stallion, and he was making an entire room's worth of machines run like clockwork, the foals of his childhood now understanding that even if someone is slow to pick something up, it still doesn't keep them from mastering it.
The last vision was of an Earth Pony filly. Everything she'd make, even the crudest and simplest of tools, would break. The other foals would constantly tease her for being walking bad luck. They figured when she started growing stuff, it'd probably die within a week. Flash forward into her adulthood, and she had designed several tools that radically changed Earth Pony farming for the better, allowing the farmhands to concentrate on growing the crops rather than have to constantly till and tend the soil. The foals that once berated her for being walking bad luck were now clamoring for her products and singing her praises.
Wow, even if the Ponies are mean to each other, they can still find a way to break through. Even if they don't understand each other, eventually they will work things out, or at least try to... Kyoko thought to herself.
The Ponies of the vision all turned to her, much to her surprise; but they were entirely nonthreatening, instead bidding her welcome: Welcome our new sister. We graciously await your arrival in our lands. Soon your heart shall be put at ease you embark on a new journey of self-discovery.
Kyoko was suddenly filled with a great sense of relief, even if she didn't know who or what she was, or would soon be, at the very least she could hold her head high as this new phase of her life began.
After a few moments and a very fast blur of motion, she found herself in Astral-equivalent of Canterlot Castle, speaking before vague facsimiles of the Princesses of Day and Night. This fact that was not lost upon Kyoko, but it was their process so she just had to put up with it.
“Kyoko Isegawa, we have heard your request to join our Herd,” the phantasmal embodiment of Celestia stated in a warm but firm tone.
“Before we are to proceed, you must understand this process cannot be stopped once it starts. Do you still wish to proceed knowing this fact?” the phantom of Luna asked in a cool but still loving tone.
Kyoko was momentarily surprised by the Alicorn-like Pony that sat beside her now, looking into its blank face, as it appeared to be all colors but otherwise completely featureless. She steeled her nerves and gave her response. “I am aware of this fact, and I do wish to proceed as planned.”
“The so it shall be!” the two ghostly, full-sized Alicorns boomed, as Kyoko placed her hand along the forehead of the false Alicorn beside her.
The nanosecond she did, the entire Astral Vision of Canterlot Castle began to shake and rumble as if everything was about to be torn apart at the seams.
=---- ----=
Applejack sat stunned as she watched Kyoko's form go from a gentle white glow to the entire exam room awash in some sort of green energy. "That... that definitely shouldn't be happening, should it..."
Twilight, though not surprised that Kyoko would be the last one, was surprised that she could feel the entire bureau start to resemble a nexus of magic, something that should not be on Earth at all. "Nope, it definitely shouldn't by itself… on the other hoof, given everything that’s happened before, you could easily say it should."
The other seven Ponies above ground could feel the grave shift in mana on Earth as well.
"Ok, did everyone else just... feel that... it's like... it's like..." Pinkie Pie started, obviously not having any real clue what was going on.
“Someone just struck oil and its gushing out of the ground like a geyser?” Ethan guessed.
The seven Ponies just guessed amongst themselves until Celestia herself clued them all in.
We are sure you all felt that sudden alteration in the flow of Magic. Something grave is about to happen within the Astral Plane, and you all will soon witness its aftermath. I need you all to go to the underground floor of the Bureau, now. We will be there in short order.
“Well you heard the Princess. Come on fillies and colts, I know where the elevator is already,” Rainbow Dash said as she was already heading to the double doors leading down.
The Isegawas were content to silently pray for Kyoko’s safety.
=---- ----=
"All... this... shaking... tearing... me... apart..." Kyoko said, fearfully and disjointedly her body glowing green and her hand stuck to the ghostly miniature Alicorn.
"A part of me doesn't want to be surprised by this, Celly. But honestly, I am surprised." Luna said to her sister.
"Why is that Lulu?"
"Because when met this girl in private, I thought she had the soul of an Earth Pony. I did not think she was also carrying a Shard of that entity's Power."
"That's Magic for you, isn't it?"
"Indeed..."
"Please... help... shaking... really... hard..." Kyoko said with great aggravation and trepidation; as her body was rocking and quaking so hard it was starting to crack the ground under her, as if she were imitating a jackhammer.
Allow me to rectify this, temporarily… the Ancient Voice calmly stated, as Kyoko’s Terran Shard was separated from her and her hand removed from the miniature Alicorn next to her.
It seems like this first phase of what I aim to accomplish is nearing completion, but that hinges on if you are willing to undergo a do-or-die trial, Bearer of the Terran Shard? the Voice asked, the entire ‘room’ feeling it being directed at Kyoko.
As it stands now, your soul is irreconcilable with the Spark of Terran Magic and the Spark of Equestrian Magic that the Keepers of the Other World have bequeathed to you. If you wish to absolve yourself of the former, you will be allowed to integrate with the Equestrian Spark, but at the cost of your identity as a human. If you wish to assimilate both Sparks, then you will be forced to conquer your greatest fear. If you should fail in this, your soul will be obliterated, and your resulting Pony body will simply form inert, as if it were a doll.
Kyoko, in those few moments, thought about all of the ramifications. She could, in that instant, forget all of her fears and proceed on as a Pony, but it would come at the cost of her identity and memories; which meant her relationship with Andre would be cutoff before it could even bloom.
At the same time, if she failed to resolve her fears, she would be born as ‘nothing’ and her Pony body would just lie there, never to move or live, or anything.
If she wanted to live as a Pony and pursue her budding love for the blue Unicorn, the path laid before her was clear as a perfectly sunny day.
“Mysterious voice, I am not sure how this fear test is supposed to work. But whatever I have to do to preserve myself and be a Pony as well, then I am going to do it!”
I will leave you to your trial, but remember this. The only way to walk the Path of Power and Will is to conquer that which you fear, so that you may grow and evolve from the experience. To fail in this, is to lash yourself to the Path to Oblivion. I pray for your ultimate success, my Child.
Kyoko suddenly found herself manifest in a Domed garden, one quite familiar to her.
I guess it’s now or never… she thought to herself.
=---- ----=
She looked straight up, and saw a familiar sight, the sun beating down through the color-filtered dome. She then looked around, and saw all the strange looking people. They were dressed in all kinds of weird colors, wearing all kinds of weird accessories. The humans there stood in such stark contrast to the simple, natural beauty of the garden. That was when it struck her, it was the Domes outside of Tokyo. She rushed over the fountain to get a look at herself, and she looked exactly like she did when she was only 6 years old.
She realized she was being forced to relive that day, the day she first entered the Domes with her parents on a client call. The day she had been reliving over and over again in her nightmares.
That day started off normally - her parents were called into the Domes to take requests for different projects. They tried their best to pleasantly entertain the vapid and inane requests of the residents there. Everyone was clamoring for a geneticist or nanotechnician to fabricate something or other for their own desires, and her parents were little different than other prominent scientists in their fields, on the surface; the only thing that kept them from having to actually follow through on their requests was the fact they were so prominent, there was almost no way they could be black-balled from future projects. Kyoko, being a precocious six-year old, had absolutely no clue what anyone was talking about with her parents... and so she did what any normal six year old would do. She wandered off to go find something more interesting to do with her time.
She came upon a quiet looking garden, with a patch of soil that was still to be planted. That was where she crouched down, her general interest in the plants egging her on to get a closer look. She wanted to know how, by just sitting in the ground and staying in the sunlight, the plants could go from tiny little seeds to flowers, or big vines, or even bigger trees.
Some of the passers-by, however, were more interested in just who was this strange, plain looking girl sitting in a dirt patch staring at flowers...
<Look at her, it's like she never seen anything growing green before.>
<Well what's wrong with looking at the pretty flowers up close?> Kyoko thought to herself.
The questioning would just get worse from there though.
It was a while before they realized who she was, and it was a while longer before Kyoko realized her parents had walked off without noticing she wasn't with them anymore.
<Oh look, that's the Isegawa's daughter. I heard she's already reading at the level of a 4th Year primary student. And she's only 6. How is that even possible if she's not being raised inside a Dome?>
<Well my parents are doctors, they can still teach me reading...> She thought to herself, she didn't want to start speaking back to someone she couldn't see, let alone didn't know.
<Well I heard that she was some kind of genetic experiment. Trying to increase the learning capacity of humans or something...>
<No wait, I heard she is a learning android. They programmed it to be their 'daughter' so that it'd grow up like a normal child more or less>
Kyoko stood back up, trying to find her parents so they can come tell these random people the truth. But her parents had already walked off somewhere else. Not wanting to get lost, Kyoko stayed right there. So there she was, in the dirt patch, listening to these wild accusations about herself and her parents, and completely without the wherewithal or the nerve to counteract such statements.
<What if she is some kind of fountain-of-youth experiment? Like they reduced her age without destroying her knowledge, of course they'd have to keep wiping her memories...>
<Maybe she could be some kind of orphan that's being used for psychological experiments. Like wiping out her memory so they could raise her as their own.>
To any adult, the accusations would have been total nonsense. However, to a child, and especially to a child that may have been too smart for her own good, they were the most biting things she could be hearing.
That she was some kind of fake, a fabrication, a falsity.
What kind of parents could really love a fake child?
What if she really was just some orphan that had her memory wiped so her brain could be ‘improved’?
What if she really was some kind of genetic freak experiment designed to produce hyper-intelligent humans?
What if she really was some kind of machine designed to look and feel exactly like a human?
The question plagued her, plagued for so many years. And they were starting to plague her right now, her Astral body sinking into the once firm but now quite loose earth she was standing on, already knee-deep in it.
=---- ----=
What is this Celestia, none of these accusations seem to make any sense at all. I mean, we can tell by the fact she's undergoing this procedure she is not some kind of puppet created by her parents.
While that is true from an outsider's perspective, a child's mind is a very amorphous entity, and very fertile ground for all kinds of ideas. Any little seed of doubt and bloom into a weed of false identity, and now she'll have to rip them out before they choke her soul to death.
=---- ----=
I'm real... aren't I? I have to be real... But what if they just fooled me into thinking I'm real... Kyoko began to think to herself, sunk now waist-deep into the quicksand-like earth.
Yes... what if they just fooled you indeed... said a voice exactly like hers.
Who's there? Why do you sound like me? Kyoko asked, her body was starting to dim, losing to her own self-doubt and inability to tell what was up or down, much less what was right about herself.
Because I am you... I'm that voice that was just asking you questions until you met that, Andre or whoever he was, and you stopped listening to me... her double replied.
Stop it, I don't want to listen to you anymore... I... can't... I...
What's wrong Kyoko, afraid to hear the truth... that you aren't just someone who was just born normally... that you were made... that you're a fabrication of life...
Stop it... I...
You know your parents, you know your dad's history especially... why do you think he never wants to talk to you about it? Not even your mom wants to talk about it... she was probably in on the whole thing...Is that why they just left you there? Left you to hear all those accusations...
Kyoko's soul was turning black, and she was now sunk to her chest. This double of hers and the earth were winning this battle of wits, and winning it quite easily...
Please... no more... please... stop... I can't...
Why do you think Andre can never find the words to say to you without having to strain? What if he knows the truth? How could he love something that isn't a real human? How could anyone truly love something that isn't really like him?
No... he wouldn't... he couldn't... could he?
The dark reflection of Kyoko's soul then knelt on the ground, patting the head of Kyoko who was buried up to her shoulders in the earth.
That's right... there is no place for you back in the Physical World... let someone else take that Power or whatever else that voice was talking about... you don't need it...
I... don't... need... it
That's right... you'll soon hear the soft soothing sounds of your fake soul being crushed into nothingness... and then... silence... all you'll hear for eternity is the silence of the void from whence you came...
The void... nothing... nothing... come from... return to... nothing...
Kyoko's head sunk beneath the earth. The dark reflection giggled at how easy it was to break the mind of that poor girl, how she deserved nothing but... well... nothing.
Just like everyone else who could have awaked the Power but failed, their soul will just cease to exist. The only fate proper for those who could not handle the rigors of this strength…
=---- ----=
What... none of the converts ever had anything like this, not even the other three Conduits...
I know this feeling Celestia... it's the self-destructive spiral of doubt... all that double is, is just another aspect of Kyoko feeding into her paranoia... it's the same thing that started me on my road to becoming Nightmare Moon...
But...
She has no choice now... either she overcomes this self-doubt and self-pity, or she self-destructs.
=---- ----=
Kyoko was completely under the ground now... her soul's body a few shades short of pure black.
Nothing... nothing... that's all I came from... that's all I am... that's all I'll ever be...
Stop it...
That's all....
STOP IT!
Huh?
Just who are you?
I... I don't know....
Do you really not know....
I... how...
Let me remind you. Three friends. Two Parents.
Three friends... two parents...
All of them love you dearly....
All love me? But... how?
Do they need a 'how'? Do they need a 'why'?
How could they love someone like me... I'm not even real... I'm just some... some kind of fake... I...
No.
What do you mean 'No.'?
That's exactly what I mean. No. You are not some kind of fake. You are not some kind of fabrication.
But... no one... no one ever...
Listen... Kyoko... you are 'you'. If you were some kind of fake... could you really be undergoing this trial?
Well... no...
Her soul began illuminate again; someone was finally starting to straighten her mind out.
If you were some kind of fabrication, do you think that entity would have embedded that Shard in you to even begin with?
No... probably not.
She was finally starting to pull things together, the white glow beginning to reignite.
Insofar as being an experiment. We all are experiments. Life itself is nothing more than one great, large trial-and-error experiment.
You're right...
I know I am...
Who are you anyway?
Oh that's an easy question... I'm you.
What?
I'm you. The one that saw the world as one great living experiment, something to be studied and understood as far as the brain possibly could manage. Then I got buried, buried under all that self-doubt, that self-pity, and almost obliterated by your self-destruction.
I'm sorry...
Don't be... because that other self was you as well... it was just your darker nature, the part of you that wanted to wallow in self-pity. All beings have it, Humans, Ponies, what have you. The question is... will you be able to corral and control it, will you be able to refuse the constant temptation to just give in to the darkness.
Like I almost did...
We all have our dark periods. The question is, can we rise above them, and become better for having survived those trials. You still have not answered that question for yourself.
What do you mean?
You are not normal, but not for the reasons you thought before, though. Inside of you resides a Power this world needs in order to prosper and thrive. You were chosen to wield it along with the three others. Will you wield this power? Will you take up these arms for the cause of forging a New Age?
Yes. If I was trusted with it, it had to have been for a reason. So yes, I will!
Will you help forge a New Age where all can choose their path in life instead of being forced down it by some other being?
Yes!
Will you forge a New Age, where all flowers of the soul can bloom to their greatest extent, however that might occur?
Yes!
Then let's grab that power, let's grab it and use it to forge A New Age, and a New Life for everyone!
You read my mind!
Heh, that's because I am your mind!
Kyoko's soul was glowing white hot now.
"I can't let myself fall into that pit, not this pit of oblivion. There is still so much I have to do... there is still so much I have to see... I want to see both worlds... I want to see Equestria... I want to see the whole Earth... I want to see both worlds thrive too, I want to see Equestria grow and prosper, I want to see the Earth renewed and revitalized. I want to see everyone, every Human, every Pony, every single living thing grows and blooms the way that it should, and not pruned or uprooted just because someone doesn't like it. I don't care what anyone said about me before anymore... I don't care what they might say about me in the future. None of them can hurt me anymore... they can call me whatever they want... robot... clone... fake... it doesn't matter. Because I'm me, I'm Kyoko! Voice... Please... PLEASE... GRANT ME THE POWER... GRANT ME THE POWER THAT WILL HELP EVERYONE FIND WHO THEY TRULY ARE, AND FIND THEIR TRUE ROLES FOR THIS GREAT EXPERIMENT OF LIFE!"
So you have wished it, so it shall be granted!
The ground then began to quake as the area around Kyoko was now glowing green. She soon found herself rocketing upward through the ground, on what she couldn't exactly tell... although soon it would become obvious. When she finally appeared above the ground, she saw what exactly she was being lifted on. It was a giant multi-terraced formation, each flat plane holding innumerable flowers of all kinds and sorts. When Kyoko floated back down to the floor of the shrine, the flower and ground formations dissolved into green particles, and reformed into the green Terran Spark of Earth, which was now hers, as the Equestrian Spark ‘looked’ at her with eager anticipation.
=---- ----=
“I am so glad all of that is over and done with…” Kyoko said as she saw her soul-body rapidly becoming less definite in shape.
“Hey is this is supposed to happen. I look less like a person and more like a… indefinite ‘thing’…”
You have properly reconciled your fear. This means you mind, body, and soul can be fully joined to create a Pony that not only bears the inherent Magic of the Other World, but the Terran Spark, in your case, the Terran Spark of Earth, as well. As the new Conduit of Earth, your power is one that can, and if used properly, will lay the foundation of the new Era to come. Just remember, Power without the Will to control is simply an irrational animal; a beast that will do what it will with no rhyme or reason to it. At the same time, any animal that can be properly trained and cared for is a boon to its owner, and the Magics you now possess are no different. Do you best to learn how to control and direct your new Magic, for the possibilities that can be created by it and the other three your friends possess are truly infinite.
The voice then ‘turned’ its attention to the Royal Sisters. Now that all of the Conduits have been found, they must be taught to properly invoke and control their Power. The reason for this I will reveal in a short while once all have been gathered again on the physical plane. But I will leave you all with this: Power abhors a vacuum, and it has no morals. What I will ask you to do may confuse and even shock you, and those that would Bear the Artifacts of Magic that we oversee, but rest assured: there is no other path for Earth if it is to truly thrive.
“I feel that I have some estimation as to what you may ask us to do, but I will reserve any further statement until you have made your pitch, as it were,” Princess Celestia responded.
I thank you for that. Now go and join the Herd of the Keepers of the Other World, my Child. But remember, just as your parents will never deny you being their child, I will never deny you as a Child of Humanity and of Terra. And let no entity, regardless of origin, attempt to convince you otherwise.
With that, the presence of the Ancient Voice seemed to fade from the section of the Astral Plane the Princesses and Kyoko’s soul occupied.
“Yes, I do believe that we should be concluding our business as well,” Princess Luna stated, as she watched the large circular crest underneath Kyoko begin to glow, as the Western section filled in with the same green of the Spark of Terra that floated around her.
“With all of that being said: are you, Kyoko Isegawa, ready to join our Herd, and have our power and the power of the Terran Spark of Earth joined to your immortal soul, so that you may help us forget a new Age for both Pony and Human-kind?”
“Yes, ma’am. I am more ready than I think I could ever be to do something!” Kyoko replied enthusiastically, nodding her ‘head’ all the time.
“Then let your Sparks and your souls be joined. And let us forge a New Age for all of our species and societies!” Princess Luna and Celestia boomed.
As the green glow and the form of the Alicorn-like ghost enveloped her, Kyoko felt herself surging with power, so much power that she felt she could carry not only one, but two entire worlds by herself if she had to.
~~~
The whole exam room was still glowing green, and Applejack and Twilight completely awestruck. It wasn't until the glow began to cool that Applejack finally managed to get her words out, "Twi' we should really go check on her."
Twilight, finally snapping out of awe herself, concurred, "Yeah, Yeah let's go check on her."
They both exited the observation room, only to find the other seven Ponies all there waiting for them.
"Wow, we could see the glowing all the way down the hall, was it like that for three of us too?" Andre said, somewhere between surprise and concern in his voice.
"Yeah, all three of you when you were Converted, the room was glowing in the color you eventually took," Twilight answered.
"Well we can discuss the exact nature of our transformations and everything later, right now let's just check to see how Kyoko is doing," Natasha said.
"Come on y'all..." Applejack said as she walked into the exam room first.
Kyoko, sat up on her new haunches as best she could managed, glad the bed was firm otherwise she would have toppled back over. She was an Earth Pony, with a rich coat like dark green grass, and a mane and tail a shade of somewhat brighter green, like the leaves of a tropical plant. The Element of Earth around her neck resembling a quartet of mountains; the largest was in the center, a small one was in front first, and two medium-sized ones on each side of the largest and behind it.
Kyoko looked at her new body, seeing nothing but green across her new frame. "Wow I really look like my online name now, Midori..." Andre and the others mentioned how 'midori' meant green in Kyoko's native language.
Her large, lime-green eyes blinking rapidly, she got off the now lowered bed and trotted as best she could manage out of the room. All ten of them now stood outside of the exam room in the rather spacious hallway.
It was an amazing sight. The six Bearers of Harmony stood there in a semi-circle around the now complete set of the Converted Four Amigos. One set colored like candy, the other set in bold colors like a set of markers.
"So, how do you all feel being together like this?" Twilight asked, genuinely curious how they all felt being Ponies now.
"I dunno, I mean, we're the same, but we aren't the same," Andre said.
"Yeah, it is hard to put in words how we all feel right now, but it does feel like we're all complete," Ethan said.
"Frankly, I'm relieved that we've all gone and done it now; we're all a real group again," Natasha said.
"Yeah, I know I sound a bit unsteady right now, but I really feel good too that we're all a real group again," Kyoko said.
As they began talking with each other, Royal Princesses appeared. All ten of them instinctively bowed to them out of respect before them, before Luna bid them to stand.
Celestia spoke first, voice stern without trying to be overbearing. "I will make this message brief, because Kyoko needs to undergo the same rehabilitation like the other Converts. But I request that all ten of you come to Equestria as soon as possible."
"Did something happen, did Discord get loose again?" Twilight asked, wondering why her mentor would want them all back so soon after Kyoko's conversion.
Celestia responded quickly, "No, actually this is in preparation for something else."
Just then, a robed-figure with face obscured appeared on the wall behind the Princesses and in front of the Ten Bearers and Conduits. It was only visible from the shoulders up, but the voice was familiar to all twelve of them.
"As I stated before, I have a message to deliver to the twelve of you, once you all manifested in the Physical World, and once you were all gathered together. Now that all of the Shards of my Power have been awakened into full-fledged Sparks, the seal surrounding the Earth's Magic may now be undone. However, do not blindly believe that you can immediately accomplish this task. If you are not capable of properly wielding the Power, the seal will not be removed properly, and the effects of the resulting flood of mana will truly be devastating. On the other hand, due to you all reawakening the four Elemental Sparks, the seal itself will begin to slowly but surely degenerate. If too much time passes between now and the point you attempt to undo the seal yourselves, it will be as if you attempted to unseal it improperly, and it will flood the earth in a manner that could not be managed or mitigated, not even by myself.
"One final warning - even if you properly unseal my magic, and it is allowed to flow back into the world normally, Society itself will, in all likelihood, not be able to handle such power suddenly being dropped into its lap. Therefore, you all must prepare yourself for anything, and possibly everything. My Children have so desperately longed for the Power the Four Conduits now wield, and there is no telling to what ends they would go to gain control over it, once it is unsealed. Yet, if you are to truly save this world, my Power must be allowed to flow freely, and it must be combined with your Will. Only when the Ten of you have become fully realized, can The New Age be truly forged."
With that, the image of the robed figure disappeared.
All twelve of them were astonished the voice they had only heard as a voice also had a figure, at the very least.
"That... was... heavy...," Andre said, still trying to wrap his brain around the facts that ancient will had just dumped on them.
"You're telling me...," Twilight was also trying to get through all these facts, and the realization the fates of Equestria and Earth were starting to become more and more intertwined.
Luna sighed, she had a feeling that this was part of the nature of the Power the ancient will was speaking of. "What truly concerns me is her premonition with regards to current Human Society, one way or another. I can honestly see why her thoughts would lead down that road. Whenever the Magic of this planet is unsealed, there would be nothing to prevent undesirables from accessing that power. On top of that, what would happen if any of you ten were kidnapped and used as some kind of weapon or bargaining chip in some terrorist negotiation? It would be an utter disaster as far as I or Celestia could tell. This is why we need all ten of you to come to Equestria as soon as you can manage. I have a feeling that the Terran Magic the Four Conduits now wield cannot even be properly used until they have a better grasp of their now innate Equestrian Magic."
Celestia then concluded this little talk, "We cannot rush the training of the four of you, but at the same time, we do not have infinite time to do it. Therefore you have to learn and practice in the most optimal environment we can think of, which is Equestria proper. Now, Luna and myself must return to Canterlot Castle, we still have business to attend to Equestria-side. Maybe if we have time after next week, we can give a tour to our four new Ponies. Until then..."
And with that, Celestia and Luna blinked out of this dimension, back across the New Light Bridge.
Kyoko finally managed to exhale properly, she was dead tired and just wanted to crawl back in her bed in the Bureau dormitory. "If you all don't mind... I am tired beyond tired, we all need to take a few days to sort this out anyway."
Everyone else agreed: there would be time enough to discuss matters more in-depth. At least they hoped there would be more time.