Balthasar999 is a brilliant artist far more skilled than I, and he is also an accomplished storyteller as well. He has been active with the Bureau mythos, and things like it, for some time, and has been very supportive of me. He recently provided the bones of a story he had been working on some two years in the past, with the offer that someone else might wish to use it and perhaps finish it in some manner.

I think Balthasar999's take on the Bureau does not occur in quite the same splay as my core universe. It doesn't seem quite as far in the future, for one thing, and for another the ponies are markedly different. Balthasar999's ponies have not had all of their demons removed, nor all of their better angels enhanced - they are far more human, and by that I mean far more rude, crude and capable of extremes than the ponies I write about. These are boozy ponies, bar-hopping ponies, ponies with bad habits and filthy mouths. They are definitely better than human... just not as - overwhelmingly - better. They are also very interesting, and fun to write.

In this alternate universe splay, the Human Liberation Front still battles the Ponification For The Earth's Rebirth, and ponies and humans still get hurt from the conflict. Let's see what happens when a rabid HLF soldier, and an equally rabid PER pony are faced with choosing between hatred and survival in...

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T H E C O N V E R S I O N B U R E A U :
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Ɐlternate Universe Bureau

Conspiracy of Doves

By Balthasar999 and Chatoyance

From an unpublished short story fragment by Balthasar999

“What? O-oh yeah, I'm good for now!” The gray-green pegasus cocked his head to the side and grinned at the man pressed against the bar, before turning his head back down to his glass and taking another sip through the disposable straw.

“One beer then!” the man indicated with a finger. The bartender nodded once before sliding away through his little realm to take orders from a trio of laughing women down towards the door. The man flipped himself over to lean on the edge of the bar, his elbows resting behind him on its grimy plastic surface. “I love this song.”

The pegasus chuckled. “I know, dude, I know!” Though conversation competed to drown it out, the syncopated, steely power cords penetrated and unified the din like auditory rebar.

The man closed his eyes and started mouthing the words. After a few bars he suddenly stopped and looked down at the pegasus. “Hey, I heard their drummer went pony.”

“Yeah – Thanks.” The man reached back and took his beer. “Yeah, just bangs on 'em with his hooves now.”

“I bet that was a shock when he showed up at practice.” A deep yellow earth pony across the low table leaned forward to take a sip through her straw.

“'The new rhythm of Generation P! Clever Hans has nothing on THIS tapping pony! '” Another human at the table intoned in a phony, commercial voice. He was lying on his back on the cushions, legs crossed, staring up at the ceiling and holding a drink steady on his chest.

“Heh.” The other man ambled back over to the low table and plopped down on the cushions, taking a sip of his drink before resting it on a soaked cardboard coaster. The bottom of the glass neatly decapitated the image of the winking pink filly that had been printed on it, though not the dress club she was advertising.

“Clever Hans?” The earth pony looked up from momentarily smoothing the goldenrod hair on her forelimbs.

The reclining human continued staring at the ceiling. “So back in the 1880s or 1920s or whatever - you know, old-timey times - there was this guy who said he had a horse named Hans that could do math. He used to take him around and do shows, having people suggest small numbers for the horse to add together, and the horse would stamp out the correct answer with his hoof.” He mimed pounding the ground with one hand. “Turns out the horse was just looking at his trainer, and stopped stamping as soon as the guy's expression changed, like when he'd look relieved or something, 'cuz he thought that's what the game was. The human had no idea he was giving it away and thought he had a genuine magic horse on his hands.” He shifted onto his shoulder to face the table, causing the small round sunglasses up on his forehead to drop lopsidedly onto his nose, and sipped his drink. “Needless to say, in the intervening time, people have taught horses to add for real.”

“Big deal, anypony can add.” The earth pony chuckled and rolled her eyes in mock disdain.

“That should be your pony name when you get Converted,” she returned after a beat. “Clever Hans.”

“Uh, more like 'Complete Tool'. And if I'm still gonna have a human-originating name in there I might as well just be 'Clever Greg.'” Taking another sip then straightening the glasses, Greg rolled again onto his back and placed the beer on his chest. “Ol' Clever Greg, stomping out the answers.”

“Well do you have an answer for where Tania's going to sit? She just walked in.” The pegasus was looking back towards the entrance, where a lavender earth pony was pushing the door open with her nose. The group waved to her and she immediately smiled and trotted over, weaving through the low tables and cushions crowded with ponies and the occasional sitting or reclining human. As she passed through alternating light and shadow she almost became a silhouette, but her eyes still reflected a sharp canary yellow. Greg turned ninety degrees, putting his head on an unused pillow behind them, and she plopped down in the newly empty space.

“That still feels so weird!” Tania rubbed her nose with the back of a forelimb. “I was worried I was going to fall over onto somepony, too, but I guess I'm getting the hang of this.” She looked up across the table at the deep yellow earth pony. “Hi Shannon!”

“Hey.” Shannon smiled and nodded, along with the pegasus and the other human, while Greg tilted his head backwards to face her and raised his glass.

“Hi, I'm Conrad.” The other human smiled and reached a hand across the table, automatically posed to shake another hand, but after a moment of hesitation and an embarrassed smile, he flipped it up and high-fived Tania's hoof. As he stretched, however, the sleeve of his light jacket pulled down from his wrist, revealing a three-letter tattoo, still partially hidden but unmistakable: HLF

Shannon and Tania's eyes seemed to double in size, and they started back. Greg would have done the same had the ceiling fan not been so captivating. Conrad smiled weakly and re-covered his wrist. “Haha, whoops.” He looked painfully embarrassed.

“What. The. Fuck.” Shannon was still glaring at the space where his wrist had been, her ears so low they seemed weighted. “Is that a...?”

The green pegasus leaned over the table and held up both forelimbs. “No no no, it's fine, he's fine!”

“Shhhh! Shut up! Where do you think we are!?” The pegasus glanced around. Many ears and not a few concerned faces, both human and pony, turned in their direction at the mention of the hated terrorists of the Human Liberation Front.

Conrad looked as if he were imploding. “Yeah, I...I was gonna get it lasered off, but then I figured ponification would...”

Conrad bit his lower lip and raised his eyebrows, then sucked in a deep breath. He turned to the gray-green pegasus.

The sound of a jet. Very high and very far away. The strange low howl was the first sound he became aware of, then the crackling and pops, and then the heat, and then the acrid stench. He was lying on his back, there was a terrible pain in his leg, and something fiendishly hot behind his head. A soft, humid breeze blew over him but it only made him more uncomfortable. From some distance away, he could hear several muffled voices.

“Of course, I just want to give the place a once-over before we call it a total wash.”

“I can fly, remember? I'll catch up to you, just get all the potion back to land and try to lay low for a while. Talk to Harvest Moon or Meteor Shower if you get there before I do, they should be able to set you up someplace.”

“I will. Give my love to everypony.” There was a chorus of hooves banging on what sounded like metal, then more indistinct conversation cut out by the revving of an outboard motor, gradually growing fainter before it was lost in the steady hiss of the ocean.

Conrad opened his eyes, and at first thought he was looking down a long, gray metal train car, with light slowly strobing through the windows as it passed by telephone poles. Suddenly the image rearranged itself in his mind, like a drawing of a cube turning inside out, and he remembered where he was. Massive, weathered poles shot into the oily gray overcast sky above him, colossal blades languidly spinning from fixtures at their tops, like unearthly, futuristic pinwheels. Gulf Wind Farm Platform 12A had been abandoned for decades, but the graphene/fullerene-doped surfaces on the interior housings were very efficient, and most of the immense fans would spin without resistance till they fell into the sea, lost for want of maintenance along with the power cables back to the mainland. But the utility spaces below the deck were still watertight, and a perfect hidden staging area for an organization not unlike his own, though its hated enemy - A nest of deceitful alien monsters. Conrad turned his head to the side and began to survey his situation.

Lying face down on the deck was one of the squat, modified riot shields the PER had developed to protect themselves during their attacks. Several spider-web fracture patterns dotted the armored polymer, and a pony's teeth marks were permanently embossed into the foam handle. The fold-out legs on the bottom were bent beyond use; clearly it had suffered a major hit while the monster was using it as mobile cover from which to lob its poison. The body of teal earth pony lay several feet away, her wavy mane ragged where bullets had clipped it. Her head was bent away from him and he couldn't see her eyes, but her mouth, untouched by the blood on her neck and chest, was open in an expression of shock and disappointment. It. It's mouth.

He remembered. He'd shot her. It. He had just finished placing a small pipe bomb under a large piece of the platform's superstructure, when he heard a woman's slurred, pleading yell and turned around. He saw the pony drop the shield to free its mouth and beg him to get farther away. Something about leaking chemicals. Unthinkingly he raised his assault rifle to his shoulder and unloaded a burst into the exposed creature. It made a soft, desperate cry and crumpled away from him onto the floor, skidding several feet from the force of the impact, before becoming the motionless center of an expanding pool of dark, shiny red. Its shield skittered away, coming to rest above its head like a toppled gravestone, where it still sat.

Conrad heard a series of short, sharp bangs on the metal of the deck. Someone was coming closer, and as he raised his head, he saw a gray-green pegasus step out from around the base of a windmill, its short, navy blue mane messy and out of place. It was facing the body and apparently didn't see him. The creature closed its eyes and let out a ragged sigh. It walked away from Conrad to grab a bent, dislocated piece of sheet metal in its mouth, and drag it over the top of the body, covering everything but its back legs and tail. The creature then threw its forelegs over the cover and buried its head in them, remaining completely silent except for the occasional heave of his shoulders. It's shoulders.

Conrad inwardly sneered at the display. Surely the creature knew he was here, and was just putting on this show to make him lower his guard, then he'd be sprayed with their poison and gruesomely replaced by one of these contemptibly, deceptively weak and soppy monsters. He glanced around, looking for his rifle, but it was far out of reach. He had a pistol holstered at his hip, and began raising his shoulders to draw it, but suddenly felt a sharp pain in his side that made him cough loudly.

The pegasus spun around, its eyes bloodshot and moist from tears. Its initial expression of surprise turned to one of pity and sadness, but as soon as Conrad reached for his gun again, the monster charged him. His first shot went high above it, ringing off a windmill tower somewhere far down the platform. His second hit nothing, disappearing into the open air as the pegasus rammed him, its forehead impacting painfully on his chin. Hard forehooves dug into his shoulder and arm. The creature was emitting some noise in between a scream and a growl, interrupted by quiet, choking sobs.

Conrad managed to get one arm free and brought it up to connect with the side of the monster's head. As it went down, one of its back legs lashed out, catching him in the stomach. He began to cry out in pain but it degenerated into a fit of coughing. The creature regained its feet, blood trickling from the nostril where his fist connected, and pounced on him. It was surprisingly heavy and strong, and put its full weight into the arm holding the gun, clamping it between its forelegs. Using his free arm, Conrad began to punch the side of its stomach until its grip on his arm loosened, then he bent his wrist up and fired two shots.

The creature made a disconcertingly human scream, and its left wing bent up at an odd angle, two red, ragged stains spreading near its base. It yelled and then rocketed forward, locking its teeth on his wrist and biting down hard. While its teeth were too dull to break the skin, the pain was such that the gun dropped from Conrad's hand. The pegasus spun around and with a swift kick of its back legs sent the pistol bouncing across the deck and down into the waves. Instinctively Conrad looked to make a move for the rifle, but the monster followed his gaze and with another swift kick sent the ceramic and titanium weapon to join its partner below the sea.

Conrad locked eyes with the monster, and clenching his teeth through the pain, he began to pull himself around and towards the creature, determined to use the last of his strength to choke the life out of it. It was breathing heavily but ran back towards him, throwing itself on top of him and, using its inhumanly bent back legs, managed to bring one hoof up into his ribs. Conrad spat and collapsed onto the deck, his limbs refusing to move any further. The creature collapsed on top of him, its rapid, shallow breath rhythmically pushing its stomach into Conrad's forehead, and its strange-smelling sweat running down to mingle with his own.

After what might have been a minute, it rolled off of him and swore quietly to itself before nudging him on his unhurt side, apparently in an attempt to turn him over. Conrad was too weak to resist, and allowed himself to be flipped without struggle. The pegasus grasped his collar in its teeth and began dragging him towards the corpse, past the fallen earth pony and its shield and away from where he'd fallen and the soft crackles that had been seething behind him. He managed to slightly raise his head, and saw a blackened metal frame, with surprisingly small flames licking at the edges of broken equipment hanging from the few undamaged bolts. A trickle of what looked like water was leaking out of a pipe in the center, but now that it was in in front of his eyes, he somehow knew it was the source of the chemical stench that had assaulted him earlier.

The pegasus released his collar and spat. It walked around to his side and leaned over his face. “Hey,” it rasped. Dried blood still caked its nostril. It sniffed and cleared its throat and said again, “Hey, can you hear me?”

Conrad balled his hand into a fist, but a hoof pressed down on his forearm before he could swing. “Dammit, just listen!” it cried in frustration. “We've gotta get this jacket off you!” Conrad knew what was coming next. It was going to douse him with its toxin and replace him with another of its kind. He thrashed weakly but was held down.

The pegasus gripped the zipper of his combat jacket in its teeth and pulled it down, then flipped it off his chest with a hoof. “C'mon, get your arms out.” Conrad went limp and the creature groaned. It went around behind him again and raised his head with its own, then hooked his collar with a hoof and began to pull. Conrad cried out in pain when he'd almost been pushed into a sitting position, and looking down he could see the left side of his undershirt was stained with blood. In spite of himself he pulled his arms out of the jacket, simply seeking to be unencumbered.

“That's it...” The pegasus whipped its head to the side and tried to toss the gray digi-camo jacket over the deck, but a breeze caught it and blew it back in a wide arc, catching on part of the platform's exposed, rusted superstructure between two blocks of windmills. Conrad flopped back down on the deck, the back of his skull knocking painfully against the discolored white paint of the railing the pegasus had tried to prop him against. “You got that stuff on you after your bomb went off. I dunno what it is, some kinda coolant or something, but it can burn you pretty bad.”

“Wha... No, I... There isn't any! I would, of course. But your buddy 'used' it all when Hillside bucked him into our stash of it. Ha...! He was still pretty sour when he woke up, but I think the Princesses told him basically what he needed to hear. He'll get over it. Eventually. ...Whoa, settle down there.”

Conrad's forearm and fist flailed pointlessly as his injuries made it very clear that punching pegasai was off his itinerary. For now, anyway.

“It doesn't look like you're still bleeding but yeah, potion would heal the wounds from that shrapnel. But there isn't any Potion. We evacuated. Everypony's gone.” The pegasus looked up and scanned around. A breeze lightly blew its hair and it sniffed, wiping its nose with a forelimb.

Inside, Conrad became even angrier. He resented the creature's apparent concern for him, that weakness that made them so easy to destroy. It was unnatural, and he knew, for it to be at all, it must hide something sinister. But he hated weakness, and felt nothing but contempt for these aliens who didn't have the mettle to admit they were simply invading his world, so seemingly kind to their enemies they'd stand and let themselves be shot trying to prevent the same from happening to him. She had, before his pipe bomb went off, and he despised her for it. “Then just go!” Conrad did his best to yell at the pegasus.

“I can't fly. You shot me,” the creature said coldly as it gestured to its bloodied wing, clenched tightly to its side. It was clearly in pain.

“Yeah, I think the two of us are gonna be here for a while, so thanks for that.” The pegasus lay down several feet away, all the tension going out of its muscles. It turned its head toward him. “My name's Sea Wind.”

Conrad looked away, unwilling to meet its gaze, but he still glared intensely at nothing. “What did it used to be?”

Sea Wind either coughed or chuckled, Conrad couldn't tell. “Fabian. I know, right? Fabian Charovsky. I came up with - I got the name Sea Wind not too far from where you're lying right now.” Sea Wind wondered if the human could tell how hard he was trying to not look at the body on the deck. “Can't blame me for changing it, can you? Well, maybe you can.”

Sea Wind looked the human over. The man's left tibia looked broken, and the left side of his shirt was soaked with blood. Cuts and burns covered the left side of his face, and no doubt would have put his left arm in a similar state if not for the armored combat jacket he'd been wearing. Sea Wind couldn't tell how serious his injuries were but for the time being he seemed perfectly immobilized. He wasn't sure how to act.

If he left to look for medical supplies, the human might find a way to improvise a weapon in his absence, and if the man were really bleeding out, then they'd both just wind up dead. Maybe he could knock him out? But in his weakened state that might still prove fatal. Of course doing nothing and letting him die was an option, but equally obviously it wasn't, not really. Even as a human Sea Wind didn't think he'd be capable of that kind of callousness, and he winced at having let himself entertain the thought, as if he'd briefly visualized spitting on a precious manuscript he'd been entrusted to handle. No, the first order of business was to confirm how serious the human's injuries were, and getting that close would require more delicacy than this pegasus was used to.

He cleared his throat. His wing was still a pulsing kaleidoscope of pain, and for some reason it was causing his sinuses to clog up. A small part of him wondered if it was a pony thing in general or just a unique quirk of his particular new body. “Hey... I'm gonna have to take a look at you. I don't want you bleeding out on me.” The man glared at him and Sea Wind shriveled inside. If the honest empathy that came so much more unbidden to him now was going to backfire, then unthinkingly sticking with it but still expecting the human to help him was just self-indulgent. “I might need you to get me off this damn thing.” He pounded the deck with a hoof. That should do it. He still knew how humans hated weakness.

Sea Wind stood again and the man struggled to back away. “Hey, it's alright!” Sea Wind turned toward him and took a step. “I'm not gonna ponify you. Look, no...'stuff.'” He held up one forehoof, then the other, then turned once around to show he was unarmed. “C'mon, man, I just want to go home, and I think you probably do, too.” This frank admission seemed to cause the man to relax a little. “What's your name?” Sea Wind began moving towards him again.

The man didn't reply, but he didn't resist, either, when Sea Wind sniffed his wounds and lightly brushed them with the back of a forelimb. The cuts in the man's leg were superficial - The break was clearly from blunt trauma - but several pieces of shrapnel seemed to have embedded themselves deeply in his side, and for all Sea Wind knew his unwilling charge could be bleeding internally. Non-magical first aid was never a priority in PER training, what with their main weapon itself being a panacea for the enemy, and unicorns usually being on hand to heal any damage a pony might suffer.

His own wing seemed to be stable and no longer bleeding severely, but he didn't risk moving it for fear of learning something was broken. Sea Wind's wings were still new to him and he thought of them as tremendously delicate. The idea that the power of flight, so wonderfully and suddenly granted to him, might just as suddenly be permanently lost was too loathsome to be granted more than a flicker into his conscious mind. He thought about trying to establish trust by asking the man to examine his wing in return, but winced as the image of a finger jabbing maliciously into one of the bullet holes flashed through his brain. Though it wasn't mutual, Sea Wind still understood how much he was hated.

“Uh, you... You might be hurt pretty bad. I don't, uh, I don't really know...” The man's eyes were still focused on him, but some of the color seemed to have drained from his face. “Is there...uh... Do you feel like you're going to be OK?” Sea Wind couldn't remember a time he felt like a bigger idiot, and cursed himself for not realizing sooner just how unprepared he was for something like this.

"A what?" Sea Wind turned toward the jacket. It was flapping in the breeze, hooked on some metal protuberance. Behind it the remaining blades of one gigantic turbine slowly and pointlessly rotated, the other remained still, having rusted solid long ago. As he watched, the digi-camo panels on the jacket flickered from neutral gray to a psychedelic flash of color, then suddenly went some dark shade of dead. The corrosive fluid had visibly riddled the jacket with holes, one of the perforations must have taken out the flexible power or control nodes. Or both. There was not much jacket left.

"Call your buddies to come rescue you and finish the job? - which is me, by the way - no, I don't think so." It was a moot point in any case, the last shreds of the dissolving garment had parted, allowing gravity and wind to send whatever it contained to the sea far below. "Fucking HLF. Bunch of crazed fanatics the lot of you."

"Y-You're the f-fanatic." Conrad struggled to breath. His broken ribs hurt terribly, and whatever shrapnel had made holes in his side was finally starting to introduce itself through the fading fog of his initial shock. Shrapnel was always an unwelcome - and rowdy - guest.

"S-so are we. W-we're trying to s-save us idiots t-too." Conrad tried to laugh, but at least three ribs and a bunch of unwelcome objects in his entrails disapproved of his sense of humor. He felt like an idiot. All he and his team had accomplished was to force the monsters to flee, they would find a new location to set up shop. Most of their potion stores were gone, but so was Jenkins who had gotten bucked into the stuff. And Montrose... Montrose had fallen over the side of the platform because of a goddamned gust of wind. The sea was not soft after a fifty meter fall. Idiot. What a bunch of idiots!

"What are you laughing about?" Sea Wind saw the laughter turn rapidly to groans and tears and a hand-flapping attempt to instinctively wave agony away.

The human was writhing now, and as he did so, the holes in his abdomen squirted blood. The blood came out in small sprays, as if discharged from a faulty atomizer, a splatter and mist of crimson painting the platform deck. For a moment, the pegasus was mesmerized by the horror of it, the crimson spritzing turned to abstract art as his brain struggled to encompass what it meant to watch a man bleed like that.

Then it hit him. Engendered by desperation and his own pain, an insane possibility arose in Sea Wind's mind. Spray. Mist. Blood was a liquid. It was mostly water. Almost entirely water. And water was clouds and clouds were...

In an instant Sea Wind was on the man, haunches down, sitting, his forehooves hovering over the squirting wounds. He sent his magic, his unique pegasus talent, down through his legs with all of his might. He wasn't a doctor, he had no idea whether what he intended would truly do. But he had to do something, anything, because doing nothing looked a whole lot like watching someone die.

"W-wha th' fu... get off me you fuckin'..." Conrad suddenly realized that it was hard merely to speak. He felt exhausted - too exhausted. The kind of tired that unless it was bedtime after a long day of hard work meant that a man was in serious trouble. Fine, he thought. I know how to get away from this freak. All I have to do is die, and that's easy...

But he wasn't dying. He was feeling better. He was still tired, too tired to move, but the pain was less. His ribs were worse, but the pain in his guts was significantly less. A small 'clink' sounded beside the pegasus. Then another. Conrad used all of his might as a man to turn his head and open his eyes toward the sound.

The hoof was covered in what looked like red paint. Below the hoof was a speckled red cloud, an oblate patch of suspended blobs and pinpoints of rubescence. Caught within the droplets was a jagged glimmer of silver. The small cloud suddenly lost cohesion and drops and silver both fell to the deck. The metal chunk landed with a small clack, the droplets made no sound at all they were so small.

"Wha... what... doing?" Conrad had trained by carrying heavy packs for many kilometers. Those two words were a harder haul.

"I'm either saving you, or killing you quicker. Either way, fuck me to hell." It was funny seeing a cutesy-wootsy pony swear like a sailor. So funny. But no more laughing. Not again. Not...

Conrad gradually awakened. The sound of receding thunder rumbled through him. Something within his mind suggested that the boom had been horrifically loud and close, though he hadn't consciously heard it. A howling sound filled the air - the wind, terrible and strong, was blasting metal walls somewhere close by. Very close by.

He could smell sour smoke. Yellow light flickered around what he could see of a peeling, rusty ceiling covered in thick bound cables and perforated support beams. He was below the deck, inside the wind farm platform. It had once been the ocean command base for the Sea Angels, the PER's all-pegasus fast attack squadron. They were famous for swooping in and potion carpet-bombing any place that people gathered. If protective tents were put up, they managed to fly low and still convert hundreds at a go.

Something smelled good. Food. He carefully turned his head, noting the incessant throb of pain in his chest, and the dull ache from his abdomen. He was thirsty. He tried to lick his lips, but there wasn't much saliva to do the job with.

The gray-green pegasus from before was tending a fire. Conrad wasn't sure what the fire was made of, but from the smell, it wasn't all wood. Likely it was whatever could be scavenged from wherever. It - and a small, wind-up LED lamp - were the only sources of light in the pitch belowdeck.

The pegasus was cooking something in a can. The can was suspended in the air in what appeared to be a bubbling cloud of vapor. "You've taught me well, sensei." The Pegasus was addressing him, it knew he was awake. "I think I've gone up a level. Or two. Be with you in a moment."

This was not exactly something Conrad wanted to hear, but he was in no position to object. Even thinking about sitting up resulted in the sort of pain reserved for violent interrogation sessions. Conrad watched as the pegasus carefully moved the little cloud away from the fire with his hoof. He moved more quickly, when he realized he had singed his fetlocks. "Ow! Dammit!" The can - beans - was safely on the metal floor while the creature nursed it's right foreleg. "I need a bigger cloud."

Conrad almost laughed, but again, his injuries objected. It dawned on him that he wasn't either of two things: dead, or worse. It didn't seem possible.

The pegasus was over him now, the handle of the LED lamp held in his teeth. "Unn hunnn... ohay, ohay... ith all thill in thace. Thood. Thood." The abomination set the wind-up lamp down. "You might have noticed, you're still alive." The bastard seemed smug and proud.

"No... uh... thanks to you." Conrad hurt, he was thirsty, and he wasn't able to kill a certain pegasus. It was starting out to be a very bad day. Or night. It was hard to tell.

The thought ran through Conrad's mind to say no and spit, but he had no spit. "T-thirsty". His previous soliloquy had worn him out. One word was enough.

"Here, suck it." Featherduster was back. Conrad glared. "No... seriously, suck the rag. I soaked it in clean water." Another glare. "Too much water and you could start bleeding again. I know that much." The rag dangled from the aberration's hoof. A drop hit Conrad's lips. It felt - and tasted - like heaven itself.

Conrad gobbled rag until the pegasus was forced to yank it back with its teeth. "Pfoo! I said suck it, not hork it down. Jesus." There was a 'plunk' as the rag was dropped into what sounded like a bowl or jar of water.

"How come you are still alive?" The pegasus winced, he was clearly in pain of his... its... own. "You were painting the decks, man. A living spray paint can. And that was your masterful lesson, oh great sensei whose hooves I am not worthy to touch!" A grin wrapped around the pegasus' muzzle. "I work with clouds. Push them, pull them, sculpt them into shapes. Clouds are solid to me, if I want them to be."

"M-more." The rag returned, soaked again, and Conrad took his time to avoid having it yanked away once more.

"Blood is just water. Mostly. Spray is spray, and I can make small enough droplets stay. I did that with your blood. I made blood clouds and I made them solid. Pegasai can do that. It's how we make castles in the sky. They stay that way, too... for a while." The pegasus checked Conrad's wounds again, and for a brief moment, while he sucked on his rag, he felt a strange, tingling feeling at all three of his perforations.

"There. Had to tighten them up. We can't afford to have them collapse. Sprays of blood are hard to come by." The pegasus had a troubled look. "Hopefully, anyway. With luck."

Conrad chewed his way around the rag to a new patch of wetness. Drips rolled down his cheeks, one went into his ear and made him jerk slightly, which hurt everywhere.

"Hey... easy there!" The pegasus watched him for a while. "So, long story short, you are currently corked up with magical clouds of your own blood. As long as I keep them solid, you don't bleed out. I also managed to get the shrapnel out of you, at least I think I did. I discovered that a solid enough cloud can pull things embedded inside it. Cloud forceps. I'm fucking Doctor Wind, mystic surgeon of the air!"

"You remember my name." Sea Wind was strangely touched. The murderous HLF bastard bothered to remember his name. Hell of a thing. "I still don't know yours. Care to tell me?"

"I did save your life, and I have to call you something. We're going to be here a while - hear that storm? Neither of our people is coming through that."

Sea Wind took the rag and dropped it in its container. "I'm really sorry, but... no. I mean it! I know you must be really thirsty - it's been almost two days - but I don't want you springing any leaks. You don't want that either. Then again... lack of water can kill, too. You've lost a lot with your blood. I wish I knew more. I wish I knew what I should do, dammit!"

"MORE!" Conrad felt like a corn-husk doll. He had never been so thirsty in his life.

Sea Wind put a hoof to his chin and studied Conrad. "We'll try it. A little every once in a while. Not a lot at one time. Open your mouth."

Sea Wind brought the rag back, this time between his hooves. He held it over Conrad's mouth, and squeezed the fabric. A stream of water drizzled onto Conrad's parched tongue and he swallowed and swallowed. The rag went away then returned again. Another stream filled Conrad's mouth, it was joy and wonder and it tasted better than any steak, better than anything, ever.

"Okay. That's all for now." The look was anger and contempt. "For now. More later. That's reasonable."

The pegasus smiled and, strangely, looked relieved. "You got your soul back, black as before. That's an... improvement? I guess." Sea Wind visibly relaxed. "Ow! Damn... my wing is... it's bad. The muscles want to cramp up all the time, you cannot believe the pain..." The pegasus looked down briefly. "Actually, I guess you can. We're both fucked up, boyo. Let the water settle. If you feel sick - to your stomach, or in any way, let me know. I need to eat something."

"Oh, come on!" Conrad was now less thirsty than hungry. He was in pain all over, but he could feel other things now, too.

"I would share with you happily. Ponies always share." Sea Wind smiled sadly. "But you done got gut-shot there, pardner! I'm unsure about how much water to give you, but I am pretty damn sure I shouldn't be giving you food right now. Let's wait until I can tell what's going on with your belly, alright?"

Conrad saw the pegasus jerk, favoring his wing. It must be cramping on him. There was pain in his expression - and his voice. "How did you... how did you get me down here?" If he was bleeding out, moving him should have been fatal.

"We can transmit lift." Sea Wind sat down by his cooling can of beans. "We can move things through the air. Carriages, sleds, stagecoaches? With training, you can push 'lift' into anything touching you." Sea Wind sniffed at the beans. "Well, you can't, but I can. I got training from Breezy Windthistle himself, back before he got famous."

"Breezy? Pegasus instructor who worked at a couple different Bureaus? They did a whole special about him?" Sea Wind sighed. "Nevermind. I poured my magical spooge into you and floated you down. You're going to have my pegasus foal by the way."

Conrad's eyes bugged out, and he started to begin to shout something, but stopped with a wince and a glare. "Funny. Laugh it up, Feathers. I wonder if those drumsticks of yours taste good with hot wing sauce?"

"I'm worried that's all this one is going to be good for ever again, myself." Sea Wind ignored his beans and clumsily tried to rub his Glenoid fossa with a hoof. Conrad could see the muscles actually twitching at the base of the wing. It must be agony. Tears shone in the pegasus' eyes.

"Aw... fuck." Conrad mentally wanted to punch his own face, but there were limits even to hatred. "Come here. I can do that much." The pegasus stared. "I said come here. If I fuck up, you can probably kill me just by looking at me wrong. Get your fucking wing over here." It bothered him that he was getting soft and weak just because some traitor had crammed a dirty snot-rag in his mouth. "Before I change my mind."

Sea Wind tried to get up, but the cramping was too much. Instead he scooted on his flanks, dragging his mass with his hooves in little jerking skids. When he was close enough, Conrad lifted his arm at the elbow - he didn't dare move his shoulder, because that affected his broken ribs - and tried to reach Sea Wind's wing base.

The pegasus lowered himself, and turned to allow Conrad to make contact. For a brief moment, the thought of grabbing onto the bulbous mass of bone and muscle and just squeezing, just digging his fingers in like claws and never, ever letting go until the wing tore right off flashed through his imagination. He couldn't stop the slight grin. He carefully put his fingers around the twitching, spasming shoulder joint.

It was uncanny the way the pony just lay there, totally trusting. It was insane. They were enemies! Maybe the damn thing thought the hurt little human was harmless? Maybe... no. Two days? This ungodly beast had been nursing him for two days? There was hate, and then there was being fair. Even opposing soldiers at war sometimes helped each other, if the situation was bad enough. Conrad did his best to carefully massage the horrible, alien wing joint. It was disgusting to even touch the thing, but fair was fair.

"AHH! Ow... oww... oww... oh Great Luna... ow. ow. ow.... okay... alright..." Sea Wind did his best to try to relax, to try to concentrate on letting the muscles unclench. "Ung... man... man, that is sore. Fuck. Seriously... wow... okay, that's working, right there.."

Conrad did his best, a little too much in fact, his ribs were aching by the time he ran out of energy. It hadn't been long. "S-sorry. I... I don't have a lot to give."

Sea Wind turned around and immediately checked the three wounds in Conrad's belly. "Shit... I never should have... huh. Hey... you aren't bleeding, there's no sign of infection, and it looks..." Sea Wind moved and checked Conrad's forehead with his pastern. He shook his head. "Don't get any ideas, bub."

Sea Wind laughed. "No, no prison romance for you. I just needed to check your temperature. You don't have a fever, do you?"

Conrad struggled with the anger that had risen within him at the apparent kiss. "N-no. I don't think so. Lips... you used your lips... because..."

"Hair. It insulates, can't tell anything subtle through my coat. 'Pony lips are pony fingers'. Remember that after you get Converted. That's a free head-start, right there."

"Fuck you and the dog that was your mother." Conrad's grimace was so massive it almost tugged at the skin of his wounds.

"Not when she birthed me, obviously. But she's a pony now, and has been for as long as me. We went in together."

"Cute... oh you are just soooo cute!" Sea Wind returned to his beans. "Thanks, by the way, for... you know."

"You keep breaking 'em, and I'll keep... how about you just keep breaking 'em? That works for me." Conrad grinned.

Conrad grunted interest in the subject as he wolfed down oatmeal. Over the last four days the wounds in his abdomen had closed at a fairly astonishing rate. This was due to the fact that he had been unable to stop Sea Wind from licking them. Earthly saliva had powerful healing factors in it, such as Epidermal Growth Factor, Trefoil factor 3 and histatin among other components. Sea Wind knew all of this very specific information because as Fabian Charovsky, as a human, he had once written a paper entitled 'The Importance of Secretory Leucocyte Protease Inhibitors In Cellular Reestablishment'. But what motivated him was something that had happened to him during his time in the Bureau.

A recently converted newfoal had been so giddy - hopped up on Conversion Euphoria - that she had danced about the cafeteria during her 'First Meal As A Pony' celebration. She hadn't been on her new legs for longer than fifteen minutes, and lost her balance while prancing on a table. Cheers turned to tears when she tore open a part of her leg during her fall. The injury was surprisingly deep, fairly bloody, and Fabian had been all but certain he had seen bone.

One of the human staff comforted her while several ponies galloped to find the doctor - the one on call had gone up to the roof during their break. They hadn't returned, and after quite a while, one of the kitchen staff - a native pony - stormed out from her pots and into the dining area, swearing in Equestrian the entire time.

Immediately she folded her legs, plopped to the tiles, and began licking the leg wound as if it were the most delicious thing ever, in the history of two universes. Human and newfoals alike gagged at the sight and many backed away. A few even turned and left. Fabian had stayed, fascinated.

As he watched, the leg wound noticeably closed. The bleeding stopped, and what inflammation there was vanished entirely. By the time the doctor and her assistant had arrived - led by the original group that had gone to find them - the deep leg injury was more than stable. It was significantly improved, and partially healed.

Fabian - soon the pegasus Sea Wind - never forgot that event. It wasn't just that it was a validation, albeit a rather magical one, of several points in his paper, it was that the event was just plain magical. If animals on earth, including humans, had regenerative components in their saliva, which they apply when they lick their wounds, then Equestrians nearly had a magical elixir. The injured newfoal had needed stitches, the licking wasn't a cure - but it had done miracles nevertheless.

Conrad had screamed bloody murder when Sea Wind had first begun licking his wounds. He had shouted that he was being devoured by an alien monster, insulted Sea Wind as a traitor and a cannibal (presumably on the grounds that having once been human it still somehow counted) and demonstrated virtually every linguistic usage of the universal adjective that existed, or could exist, or might potentially exist.

But then he had fallen silent. Because the pain had stopped. Entirely. Sea Wind knew earthly saliva contained one very special ingredient - opiorphin, a pain killer six times more powerful than morphine. Human saliva contained only miniscule amounts of the substance, but whatever acted as the equivalent chemical in a pony was ubiquitous and dangerously powerful.

Most people - humans and ponies - did not know a secret about why the HLF shot and killed so many ponies. It wasn't just brutality or slaughter or population reduction alone. Pony saliva glands could be harvested, dropped into a blender, and the result strained through anything that would get the chunks and bits out. The liquid that remained was an unimaginably powerful opioid-like substance. It wasn't addictive, other than psychologically, but it was desired, and it brought in vast amounts of money on the street.

Much of the wealth used by the Human Liberation Front came from the sale of liquified Equestrian salivary glands. That was the real reason why the HLF killed ponies by the score.

By the time that Conrad had realized he was pain-free and calm again, he began to realize he was experiencing a whirlwind of emotions. His enemy, a creature he deliberately referred to as an 'it', as a thing, was doing literally everything it... he... could to save Conrad's life. Sea Wind had his tongue inside Conrad's entrails, in order to help him. The sheer selflessness of the act shook Conrad to his very core.

Even if some child of his very own were dying right in front of him, and the only way to save the kid was to lick his guts, Conrad knew he wouldn't be able to do it. That was too much. That was crossing some line he could never cross. Not even for family.

And here, this stranger, this monster, this species traitor was going at it like his intestines were flavor central.

Conrad had remained quiet for a long time after that first effort to heal his wounds. He had been much more polite, since.

Conrad licked his fingers - there was only one spoon in the makeshift kitchen, and that was oversized for use by cooking ponies - and burped. "I figure it's you licking me. It's like an antiseptic or something."

Sea Wind nodded, and swallowed. His oatmeal was nearly gone. There had been several sacks of the stuff that hadn't gone with the evacuation of the platform. It had been a wonderful find. "Sort of. I think it's thaumatic radiation."

"Oh great, now I've got to worry about pony cancer too?" Conrad grinned, he wasn't being mean, just joking.

Sea Wind looked momentarily concerned, then smiled. "Naw... I don't think you're in any danger of the mage plague or anything. Nothing's turning black in there. If anything, it looks like chicken. Tastes like it too."

"Thankfully not. I'm over meat for life." Sea Wind made a face. "I think that the same thing that stops your pain and is closing your wounds does kill any infection - but not chemically. I think it is just enough thaumatic radiation to kill bacteria and viruses, but not enough to kill, well, you."

"So, basically, it's spit chemotherapy. Great. I owe my life to pony spit. My life is worth pony spit. Less than. My commanding officer always said so." Conrad scooped the last of his bowl of oatmeal with his fingertips and ate it. He downed the bite with gulps of water from his drinking bowl. It was a little hard to hold, but it worked as a cup.

"More pony radiation therapy, but yeah, basically." Sea Wind lowered his neck and drank from his bowl, on the floor. "Hey - did your commander really say that?"

Conrad chuckled. "Yeah. Real bastard. Real hard ass. Nothing was good enough, nobody was good enough. He made it clear I was worth less than pony spittle. Everybody was, as far as he was concerned."

The last of the cooking pot was wiped clean by Sea Wind's tongue. He always gave Conrad the single remaining bowl, and used the pot for himself. It was not just self-sacrifice, it was logical. A pony muzzle and tongue could navigate a cooking pot with ease, and snatch every last oat. It was fun and practical. "Hey, hoof me your bowl. I'll take care of things."

"I choose my words carefully." Sea Wind took the bowl and put it in the pot. "I calculated saying 'hoof' would generate twenty-two point six kilojimmies of annoyance." He grinned around the handle as he trotted toward the room the PER had used as a kitchen.

Sea Wind stopped, and looked the human in the eye. He put down the pot. "No, I'm not. And I don't think you are, either, not really." He picked the pot back up, and trotted on down the hallway.

When they were finally rescued, it was by the PER. Sea Wind's group arrived in force to reclaim Gulf Wind Farm Platform 12A, but found no resistance. Of course, they moved to immediately convert the wounded human - it was not merely the sensible thing to do, it was a moral imperative.

And much to their shock, and disgust, Sea Wind stood between them and Conrad, with wings - one broken - wide. To ponify Conrad against his will, they would have to kill one of their own, because that is what it would take as far as he was concerned.

Conrad was taken by pegasus sled to a hospital. Sea Wind stayed with him, now an outcast from the PER. When a single member of the HLF finally tracked Conrad down, he found his man laughing with an arm around a green pegasus. Fortunately, there were sharp and efficient Blackmesh guards on the hospital grounds, and a very unpleasant incident had been stopped before it could get very far.

The group had moved to the roof of the bar. The owner allowed this extravagance to his most favored regulars, those he considered friends. The night was clear and beautiful, the air clean and clear thanks to the local pegasus weather team. Stars shimmered in the dark empyrean above, but they were upstaged by the full and brilliant spotlight that was the moon.

Where the bar had been warm from the many alcohol flushed bodies radiating their heat, the night was pleasantly cool and the roof made a wonderfully intimate space to relax in. To be allowed on the roof was a treat, especially so after a hot day.

“Haven't you wondered why, for aliens from another dimension, the Equestrians are so much like us?” Greg stroked his perpetually unshaven chin and then pointed at the dim shape of the barrier, made blue and featureless by countless miles of atmosphere. He mimicked the shape of it with his hands, as if the roof had not supplied enough things for him to slink around or drape himself upon.

“Of course!” He threw his hands up as if nothing could have been more obvious. He turned to Shannon and began gesticulating. “They have a sun, a moon, clouds, rain, air in their world – We take it for granted, but there could have been anything! There used to be entire ecosystems cut off from the sun at the bottom of the ocean, sucking on volcanic vents, like... like some kinda geological nipple – Maybe there still are, the ocean's a big place – but Equestria could have been like that, or something even stranger, like nuclear material on the crust of a neutron star or swirls of folded spacetime on the event horizon of a black hole!

"We're made of all the same matter, too: an Equestrian atom is an Earth atom as far as we can tell - That's why the nanotech in the Potion works in the first place - But they could have been made of something like dark matter, or neutrinos, or not particles at all but something entirely different, like planes defined by abstract vertices. We even look similar, we have the same basic anatomy, but the Equestrians could have been spiders, or sentient patterns of whirlpools in liquid helium or... or something. Look!” He motioned for Sea Wind to extend a forelimb, then held his own arm next to it, pointing to their respective joints to indicate the homologies between them.

“I dunno. I guess. What're you getting at here?” Sea Wind said flatly, looking back up at Greg with an expression of concern that made clear his question was entirely rhetorical.

Tania sighed. “Do we really have to talk about this? Everpony knows all this already. Can't we just enjoy the night?”

“'Enjoy the night' - That's my point, though!” Greg was visibly excited, staring through his friends into infinity in a way they found more than a little creepy. He looked like he was about to say something when Conrad spoke.

“Maybe that's why they came here. If our worlds were too different they would have gone somewhere else.”

“Maybe.” Greg shrugged. “But then why in all of creation would things be almost the same, why-”

Shannon spoke up. “Everypony knows Equestria's got some kind of connection to Earth, but Celestia's not talking, and if she doesn't need me to know then honestly I don't care what it is. It looks like a great place and I want to live there.”

“Me too. Oh, Celestia, me too.” Tania sighed. Sea Wind nodded and Greg also tilted his head in a small shrug of acknowledgment. Conrad continued to stare at the ground.

Sea Wind looked down at his forelimbs. “I dunno...I s'pose. I haven't really thought about it much. It's here and it's not going anywhere, and it's nice, so what does it matter? 'Fairyland' is as good an explanation as any, for me.”

“Wh... uh, alright...” Greg sighed, flummoxed on a truly basic level by their lack of curiosity. The thought that ponification might consistently remove a person's passion for understanding made him extremely uneasy.

Greg bit his lower lip. “I don't see how you can't want to know... It's a total transformation of the world! All the things we thought we knew and understood have to be reevaluated. It's another universe, you know?”

“You're all just saying that because you're still human. A pony knows better than to look a gift, uh, themselves in the mouth.” Tania snickered and Shannon nodded along with her. Sea Wind shrugged.

Greg curled back up over the pipe on which he was draped. “But I'm just saying, right? We know it has a connection. It's not just a coincidence it looks like something out of our fairytales, and is filled with creatures who look pretty to us. Some people think its exactly what it looks like, fairyland, some people think its a disguise for an invasion...” He tried to avoid looking like he was trying to not look at Conrad. “Some people think it's a world that somehow split off from ours, or that it's still a completely alien world just making itself over to look inviting to us...”

“So I take it you have a theory.” Sea Wind intoned, trying to cut to the chase.

“I suppose. That's all it is right now... A hypothesis.” Greg leaned back against the ventilation tube. “Ever wonder why Celestia's made no effort to convert AIs?”

“No. Uh, maybe cuz it wouldn't work cuz they're machines with no souls?” Shannon rolled her eyes.

“Are they?” Greg smirked but he was undoubtedly serious. He looked down his nose and up into the sky. “Gorgeous moon tonight...” He slithered back under the pipe to lie on the roof, propping his head on his hands. His sunglasses fell back onto his nose, but he left them there. “You can talk to them like they do. AIs, I mean. They make their own plans like we do. They try to survive like we do. I'm sure if they can find a way to magically turn a human into a pony they can turn an AI into a... a golem or something.”

“Why not? Why save us? Sure, you could say machines are what got Earth to the place it is now, but, I think Celestia's got... other plans for them.”

“What do you mean?” Conrad was looking up again, with a mix of curiosity and concern.

“Decades ago, a lot of people thought there'd be a point where nanotech and Strong AI would let us do things like upload minds and build idyllic virtual realities, and create a peaceful world without scarcity where everyone would be able to live a healthy, happy life that suited them. It didn't happen, obviously – It didn't outpace other factors and we didn't have any way to support those kind of changes.” Greg smirked knowingly. “But I think we just got the timeframe and the order wrong. I think that's exactly what's happening now.”

Greg held up his hands, his Cheshire Cat grin disappearing in defensiveness. “No no no no no. Not -”

“I didn't say you were! Not any more than the rest of us, anyway... No. What I'm saying is, I think the Equestrians are our 'descendants,' or at least one aspect of them.” He paused, expecting a response. “Uh...From the future.”

“Bullshit.” Conrad snorted in a way that made it feel like a single syllable.

“Why? Why is that any stranger than them being from another dimension? Or the 'magic' they seem to use? Just look at that barrier and tell me whoever made that couldn't possibly travel through time. All bets are off, man. I think something's getting left behind somewhere, on the moon, say, and over the eons it, or they, evolve and grow into... god knows what, and when they've advanced as far as they can, as far as the universe lets you go, maybe, they reach back to their origin here, now, and quite literally put their ancestors out to pasture. I'm saying Equestria is like a cushy retirement for humanity.”

“That's the craziest fucking thing I've ever heard.” Conrad took an aggressive sip of his beer.

“Think about it! This universe was never really pleasant for us, but it's perfect for immortal machines who don't need food or air or shelter. Our world is a tiny dot here, but in Equestia, 'our world' is the whole shebang. It's a pocket reality managed from the top by powerful, benevolent beings who guarantee it stays the kind of safe, bountiful place where we can really have the peaceful “Conspiracy of Doves” we've always dreamed of. The sun and the moon really do go around the earth, just the way it always looked to us. It's a place where people – ponies, sorry – are free to be contented animals, living in the now, as part of their natural, instinctive community, free from the ambition and grandiosity that pushed us to this point. That part of us has been set free to seek its own destiny, and now that it can finally live on its own, it's letting what carried it finally rest – I'm saying the 'rider' part of human nature, with its whip and spurs, is rewarding the 'horse' part for taking it up to where it could get off and go its own way.”

"I dunno, I like it. Maybe that's why friendship is so important to us ponies." Sea Wind looked at Conrad and gave the faintest of smiles. "And some eventual ponies, too."

"Awwww..." Shannon and Tania reacted in unison. Shannon smiled. "After that story of yours, maybe Greg has a point, Conrad. I mean, HLF and PER turned friends? If that can happen, anything is possible."

"Still say it's bullshit. But whatever." Conrad drained the last of his beer. "Hey, featherduster... m-more?" Conrad's eyes were large and his expression vulnerable, weak, and plaintive.

"Jesus fuck, Con." Sea Wind grumbled while he let everypony - and one - pile their glasses into the 'basket' made by his slightly upraised wings. "You know I can't say no to that!"

The Poly Little Pony

by Chatoyance

Conspiracy of Doves