The Conversion Bureau - The Return of the King
Jailhouse Rock by Dan's Comments
Disclaimer: My Little Pony is the property of Hasbro, Inc.
Godzilla is the property of Toho Company Ltd.
The camp was large. There were no buildings within. Just ponies and a few others shoved in and penned up. If they are lucky, they still have a blanket or two. No latrines, and no shelter from the night, the rain or the sun. A distance away were barracks and office buildings. For the guards.
If they are trying to piss me off, they are more than succeeding, I thought as I advanced. I could tear the wire apart, fill in the moat and get the captives moving to the boat. Despite every instinct to flatten the guards' barracks and offices, I stay on target. Getting these people to their new life and making that life successful is a better, deeper revenge.
But the ponies don't want to make it easy.
"You will halt your advance and surrender, or the captives will suffer," the voice over the camp's loudspeaker system told me.
The 'captives' were young females. Young mothers or 'hot girls' to make the stallions in the camp feel protective? I wondered, Makes no difference. My job is to rescue as many captives as I can. Losing a few for all the others is an acceptable loss.
Problem was, I heard the cries from the camp. They'd picked mares from large or close-knit extended families. Plenty of throats demanding mercy for their family member.
"Your choice," the voice teased.
There's a rule when with dealing with giant, unstoppable monsters, which was why in most of those movies, the general's headquarters was a tent with vehicles close behind. So he could move quickly when the kaiju spotted him. He didn't take up residence in the fanciest building in the camp.
I leaned over, missing all the other buildings, and closed my jaws around that one. The ponies inside didn't even have a chance to scream. I straightened up and began spitting out pieces of building. Doors, filing cabinets, smashed desks and chairs sailed down several hundred feet to impact on the guards' encampment. The ponies were soon panicking, and those who made the connection were abandoning any thought about torturing the mares, or even remaining in the same district.
Oh, that taste like work sweat, I thought. I leaned down and spat out a sergeant, followed by two privates. That tastes like fear sweat. A pair of lieutenants were added to the ground. Ah ha! Hair care products, too much cologne . . . and he soiled himself, I thought as I reluctantly made sure I'd throughly slobbered all over the commander, before I spat him out from a safe distance. I could gargle later.
He let out a wail of anguish befitting one of the victim of the darker hells of Dante or the Chinese. I advanced towards the captive mares, and began dismantling the cages to release them.
"Hold on a second, bucko!" Miss Mismatch announced and put herself between me and the guards' camp. "Time to cut you down to size!" She gestured, and instead of looking down from high above, I was looking almost straight across to the mare. Miss Mismatch folded her arms across her chest. "What are you gonna do about that?"
That's it. Wiping out an entire alien race I could almost put aside as Lovecraftian morality. But when rescuing a bunch of ponies who were going to be tortured, by scaring the crap out of the guards was labeled a 'bad thing', that tore it. I didn't even go for the slow warm up. My blast hit her right in the face, and then burned the rest of her to ashes as she stood there.
Once she's 'gone' I feel the spell on me breaking. As I am returned to my normal size, I collected up the ashes, and mixed them with dirt. I also absorbed the magic within as I mixed. Then I stood back, and hit the mix with a blast, fusing the entire mass into a solid slab of glass.
It clinked as it cooled, and I carefully tore the cages holding the captive mares apart. They scampered from the cages towards the camp at their best speed. Some ran, a couple limped along, with some carrying those who could no longer walk on their own.
The troops in the guard towers and the gate readied themselves. Then they saw my spines starting to light. In a show of their true loyalty to Princess Celestia, to an equine, they abandoned their posts and ran for it. The bravest among them unlocked the gates before running away. Brave in that the prisoners could have gotten the soldier.
There were several heartfelt and tearful reunions. And a few cooler heads were getting every prisoner up and moving. Fortunately, there were not the tens of thousands of my nightmares. But there were a couple thousand. Jose, his parents, or their agents had done well. There were 'sergeants' in each group with under officers keeping the groups together and moving. The young, healthy and strong had been dragooned to help the more frail, and to move wagons and carts that had been confiscated by the guards.
I stood out of the way as this got organized. I also scanned the skies for reinforcements, and to watch the guards as they boiled out of their barracks and armories to deal with the prison break. The boiling stopped the instant they saw me, and panic set in among them. Ironically, among the Newfoals, there had been concern, but a sort of awed reverence had replaced it. They had the job I'd set for them, and they set about doing it. That job being escaping to the port and seizing their freedom. Any who'd wondered about the attitude towards Newfoals by the native Equestrians had been shown what it was in crystal clarity.
"Pinkie Pie!" the alicorn stallion cried and landed near the glass cenotaph.
I looked at the glass and blinked. Somehow someone had labeled the inside with a sign: 'In Case of Party Break Glass'. Okay, I'm not a killer, yet, I thought and felt an odd relief.
The alicorn was kicking the glass in a way that wouldn't have knocked over an ant, let alone shattered a foot-thick slab. Then he had another problem.
"Marry me!" "Let me have your babies!" "You look tired Let's go back to my bunk and lie down!" The guard mares, at least I think most of them were mares, swarmed Mister Red and Black with expressions I remembered from Sinatra and Beatles' concerts. Expressions I remember having on one or two occasions. Red and Black looked around, more terrified than the guards had been at my approach, and leapt into the air to take refuge in the one place the guards wouldn't follow. Although quite a few of them strongly considered it, and not just the pegasi.
I looked up, Red and Black looked down. "Sorry about this," Red and Black said, and despite the smoothest bass since Alvin Sanders, I heard the cringe in it.
Geeze kid, lighten up, I thought and checked on the guards who were torn between staring at the escaping prisoners, and climbing Mount Godzilla to 'rescue' Red and Black. If I was that angry, I could stomp all your admirers.
"Please don't do that," Red and Black said, "They frighten me, but I am kind of striking. They can't help it."
My eye twitched, but I decided to see how long it took for the other shoe to drop. A sentient being picks their own path and is responsible for their own actions. One reason I have avoided inflicting casualties, when I could easily lay waste to all of Equestria in a single night. I internally repeated the lyrics of Chris de Burgh's Revolution, and then I waited.
It took an unfortunately long time for the pony to stand on my brows and look over. "You can talk!?"
Various snide remarks ghosted through my mind. I settled on, Of course, no pony has bothered to listen before. I scanned the prisoners, and the guards. Nothing going on there. The Changeling Queen had changed into an orangish Earth Pony. She kicked the glass with her back legs so hard she shattered the whole slab. Miss Mismatch reassembled herself out of the wreckage. She spat out dirt and bits of glass for a while, and shook more off her skin/coat.
"That's too rough a party for me," she announced.
My 'toupee' lets out a relieved sigh. "You knew that wouldn't hurt her," Red and Black said, "Didn't you?"
I knew she'd survive. Sometimes pain is the only warning people pay attention to. If she avoids such in the future, it served its purpose. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have an evacuation to oversee, I thought 'aloud', I had hoped for a peaceful emigration of those who didn't fit in. Your Princess decided that force was the only acceptable way.
Red and Black squirmed at that. "I'm sure she had her reasons."
Avarice, what is mine is mine forever, and I'll hurt you if you take it, I replied, I refuse to give her the benefit of assuming benevolent motives, and judge her as I would any other person. Someone wants to leave so you lock them in the closet? That is neither a good host, nor a friend. If you cannot allow others to do things, and experience them for themselves, you do not desire adults, but helpless children. Of all the things that weakened the people of Earth and crushed their souls, that is the worst. It is disturbing to have those things exalted in Equestria.
I continued on to oversee the loading of the glacier-ship. Some of the Newfoals broke into laughter as they saw what awaited them. It was good to know they still could laugh.
None of the military even tried to hold them up. They might have thought I was chasing them. I hoped none boarded the vessel, it would be a pain to separate them and send them home. Several hours, and some of the Newfoals escorting some caught up in the stampede off the ship, and we were ready to set sail. All going ashore had departed, and while a number of armored pegasi orbited high above, none drew close enough to have any effect. Their greatest weapons, the potion and the barrier, were useless, and I was simply too big for their other weapons to have any effect.
We began the trip to our new homeland, and our new life. Red and Black remained behind, although, I got the distinct feeling that the attention received from numerous mares made it a near run thing.