//------------------------------//
// Caramel's Tale 
// Story: Conversion Bureau: Grey or Gray 
// by marveljew 
//------------------------------//

	Caramel stood in awe of the building. To most people, it was an average-sized hospital clinic. But to Caramel, it was a behemoth building that dwarfed anything he had seen before.

***

“What?!” asked Caramel in shock.
“I'm sorry,” replied Bon Bon.
“But, I been working as the delivery boy for you since you open your candy store.”
“Business has been suffering with the failing economy. I would've been forced to live in the store if Lyra didn't offer to take me in. There is no way I can afford to continue paying you. So, I am going to have to let you go.”
Caramel left the store dejected. While he understood why Bon Bon did it, understanding did not make Caramel feel any better. He walked home. Ponyville seemed empty. This was because over the last several decades there had been a population drop due to the lack of stallions while the conversion bureau project was just starting.
Caramel lived in a small house. The ground floor was dominated by the living room, but there was also a bathroom  and kitchen. The top floor was a bedroom for one. Caramel started to clean up. His relatives were coming soon for the annual family reunion.
As the day progressed, his relatives trickled in. Something other  ponies noticed was that they looked very similar: light amber fur, brown manes and light blue. Most of unusual thing was that most of them had the same three horseshoe cutie mark, which, while not unheard of, was highly unusual. The first pony to show up was his father Crème Brulee looking like a muscular version of Caramel. He was followed by Caramel's siblings Taffy Apple, who looks identical to Caramel sans his caramel apple cutie mark, and Toffee, who was proud of being the first female mayor of Appleloosa. Next was Caramel's unicorn uncle Doctor Stable, who works[ed] at the local hospital, and his jock son Fondant, who was a pegasus. Last was Chance-A-Lot, a crystal pony. Caramel wasn't sure who he was related to. The various ponies made idle conversations, except for Caramel. He was still plagued with worries about the future. Doctor Stable noticed.
“What's wrong?” Doctor Stable asked “You look depressed.”
“I got laid off,” Caramel replied, “And given how terrible the economy has been recently, I doubt I can find a job. My social difficulty will make it hard to find a job.”
“Did you think about getting a job at a conversion bureau?”
“I had thought of that...”
“Well, you see. The creation of these new conversion bureaus would mean an influx of jobs for ponies to run them. Think about it,” the good doctor said. He handed Caramel an advertisement for positions needed at a conversion bureau in a place called “Boston”.
After the party died down and his relatives left, Caramel thought about what his uncle had said. He decided to apply for a position. Looking at the available positions, Caramel found a position he liked: a medical aid. According to the ad, the position would require him to do various non-medical tasks around the hospital, like cleaning up rooms and moving equipment. Caramel wrote a resume.
The next morning, he walked to the local conversion bureau recruitment center. Caramel had brought his saddlebag with his resume and a snack in it. These recruitment centers were built so ponies could apply for jobs and be interviewed. Unfortunately, they tended to attract protesters. This one was no exception. A large mob of angry ponies surrounded the building. Caramel could hear them yelling slogans like “Save the Humans” and “End the Genocide”. Many of these same ponies shot Caramel death glares when they realized he was entering the building. However, they didn't impede his process.
In the building, the clerk was a gray, glasses-wearing pony with a scroll for a cutie mark. Caramel had seen him before with the mayor. He thought the clerk's name was “Tall Order”, but wasn't sure.
“Um. Hello,” uttered Caramel. While he was fine talking to his friends and family, he wasn't used to talking to new ponies. When he saw he caught the pony's attention, he continued. “I c-c-came here t-t-to apply for a p-p-position as a medical aid.”
The pony looked through his schedule. After what felt like forever, the pony spoke, “Will 7:00 work for you?”
“Yes,” Caramel replied nervously. Caramel took a seat in the nearby lobby. The floors and wall were marble. The seat were red and cushioned. Caramel decided to eat some candies he put in his saddlebag to calm his nerves.
Eventually, Caramel heard his name called and was told to go to the room at the end of the hall. He got out his seat and went down the hall. After entering the room, Caramel saw the room was small with two guest chairs and a desk. His interviewer was unicorn with a gray (yet nearly black) coat and, for some reason, was dressed in a tuxedo giving an air of class to the pony.
“I-I am here about the interview,” said Caramel piercing the silence.
“Good,” the unicorn said, “Have a seat. I'm Dark Moon by the way.”
“N-nice to meet you,” replied Caramel as he sat down. He pulled out his resume and showed it to Dark Moon. “I'm-m-m here about t-t-the position as a medical aid.”
“I see. I am looking at this resume and I see that you worked at Sweetie Drops, that candy store run by Bon Bon, correct?”
“Yes.”
“Why were you terminated?”
“Well,” Caramel replied with a nervous bead of sweat running down his neck. “The economy h-h-hasn't the been the best. S-s-so b-b-business has been s-s-suffering and Bon Bon c-c-couldn't afford to pay any longer.”
Dark Moon took a mental note. The rest of interview went on similarly with Dark Moon asking questions while trying conduct himself as professionally as possible and Caramel trying to answer the questions as best he could. Eventually, the interview ended and Caramel left the center.
A few days later he received a letter informing him he had been hired. The letter told him to go to the town hall, which was serving as a local means to travel between worlds before a more permanent establishment could be created. Then, he would go to a specific address when on Earth.
Caramel packed his things and headed off to the town hall. Unlike the interview, he was feeling confident. Getting this far managed to greatly improve his normally shaky self-esteem. Upon arriving, he showed the secretary his letter. The secretary was a white unicorn ironically named “Raven”. Caramel assumed the reason that so many unicorns are secretaries was that their telekinesis spell made it easier to write. Raven looked at the letter and called over two bigger looking ponies. These ponies led Caramel to a room with a portal. The portal wasn't like an arc or a door. It seemed to be a rip in space itself. Caramel was hesitant to step into it until his guides urged him.
He stepped in. Much to his surprise, he didn't feel anything. Caramel was expecting some bizarre mind-screwy experience. However, it was like he just stepping into a door. He found it to be very anticlimactic. Looking around his surrounds, Caramel found himself in an Equestrian embassy.
Caramel found himself greeted by Lockdown, a large grey Earth pony with a blue beard. He asked Caramel if he needed helped getting to his designation. Caramel, feeling brave, told him no. Then, Caramel stepped outside.
He was overwhelmed by the size of everything. The buildings dwarfed even the castle of the princesses themselves. Unfortunately, the city of Boston looked run down. The roads were littered with garage. Buildings looked like they were going to collapse any minute and were covered in graffiti. He saw humans everywhere. To Caramel, they resembled minotaurs if their bull parts had been replaced with parts those of monkeys.
Caramel slowly walked through the streets. Almost everywhere he looked, the city looked awful. It was no doubt this was because the city was housing more people than it ever intended to. After a while wandering around, he found the sole exception to the rule: the conversion bureau.
The bureau was clean and shiny in a metaphorical way. However,that made it stand out the rest of the city. The decrepit state of the city made the bureau looked like it came from an alien planet, which, of course, it had.

* * *

Caramel walked into the building. The lobby was a medium sized room with a couple chairs and a clerk. The clerk was a human. Caramel stood in awe. He had never seen a human this close. The human was an older Caucasian man with graying hair. He was wearing a white button-up shirt and black pants with matching shoes.
“Um,” he said.“I...I...am Caramel. I was hired a f..f..few days ago.”
The clerk briefly looked up at him before looking through some files. He found Caramel's files and saw he was telling the truth.
“Ah, here you are,” the clerk said. He pushed a button and spoke in to it “Time Turner, we have a new employee.” Time Turner appeared down the hall and briskly rushed towards them. He was a tan pony with a brown mane.
“How did you hear that?” Caramel asked stunned.
“Well, it is very simple” explained Time Turner, “He used a human invention that allows you to transmit your voice to other locations.”
Caramel was still unsure what to make of this. He had never heard of such of a device before. However, he had heard that humans had technology far beyond what the ponies had. In fact, many ponies said the converts were bringing this new inventions to Equestrian.
Time Turner interrupted Caramel's train of thought to give him the grand tour. As it turned out, he was very obsessive about being on schedule, hence his name. As such, he rushed Caramel throughout the hospital. First was the dining hall, which was a large white room with several tables and a kitchen. Next, he was led into corridors with numerous rooms that he was informed was where the humans stayed while they were at the bureau. The worst part was the operating rooms, where the actual ponification occurred. This was because the rooms smelled like chemicals used to preserve organs. Following that was the much more pleasant experience of the training grounds where the converts were taught the basics of pony magic. The last thing he was shown [was] the rooms where the staff would stay.
Caramel was led to his room. Time Turner informed him that he would begin his orientation tomorrow. After Time Turner left, Caramel looked at his room. It was smaller than his old bedroom, but that was expected since his old room look up most of the second floor. The room had a bed with sheets, a restroom and a strange box.
After putting down his saddlebag, Caramel decided to examine the box. The box had a large screen on it and several buttons on the side. He pushed several that seemed to have no effect. However, he then pushed the button with a symbol of a circle being interrupted by a line. This caused an image to appear on the screen and sound started to come out of the box. This sudden change surprised him. The image was moving like the movie although it wasn’t black and white like Caramel was used to. However, he realized the box was some sort of communication device like the one in the lobby. Caramel experimented with the other buttons, which now affected the volume, image and so on.
He eventually stopped on a news channel. There were several people debating about ponification. The debate was getting pretty heated until another man, who was apparently the host of the show, claimed they had “breaking news”, which Caramel took to meant it had just happened. The man explained a conversion bureau in New York City had been bombed by a human extremist group called the “Human Liberation Front”. Caramel was shocked by this. Eventually, he turned off the box, which he would later discover was call a “tell-o-vision”, and went to bed.
The next day, Caramel met up with Time Turner again. Time Turner explained he was the head doctor at the bureau. However, he liked to keep his schedule busy so he often agreed to help orient new employees. Turner explained the basics of the job and immediately put him work. He told Caramel to take a box to the operation room. Reluctantly, he took the box to that Celestia-forsaken room.
Upon arriving, he managed to get a better look at the room than when Turner had been rushing through the hospital. The room was incredibly sterile and looked like all the color had been sucked out. At the center of the room was a slab that the patient was meant to lie down on. There were several tables with various forms of medical equipment.
“Hello.”
The greeting surprised Caramel who was busy looking around. He twisted his head to face the speaker. It turned out it was a grayish blue, earth pony mare with a bright sea foam green mane and stereotypical nurse hat.
“Hi,” he managed to croak back. “I-I-I was t-t-told to deliver t-t-these for you.”
The mare took the box and opened it. She examined the contents. It contained several small bottles that had a strange liquid. It was a bright, almost glowing, pink color. Caramel thought they looked like they belonged in a mad scientist’s lab from one of those science fiction movies that his local theatre loved to show. 
“Looks like the ponification potions are okay”, she said before turning her attention to Caramel. “You must be new here. I'm Nurse Tenderheart. What's your name?”
“Caramel.”
“Well, Caramel. Several of the other staff members and I are planning to go to out for dinner. What to come?”
“S-Sure,” Caramel said. Although he wasn't good in social situations, Caramel though Tenderheart seemed nice enough and would like to get to know her more.
After work, Caramel found Tenderheart. Tenderheart was with the human clerk and another nurse. This nurse was yellow with a mane that was two shades of blue. Tenderheart introduced the human as “Carl”, which reminded Caramel of ponies that had similarly weird names like “Joe” and “Trixie”, and the nurse as Snowheart. The assemblage trekked to a fast food restaurant called “Tasty Tony's”.
The inside of the restaurant had a tile floor. There was a desk, which had several human cashiers dressed uniformly. Surrounding the desk was an array of tables that had individual sets of bench-like chairs. It reminded Caramel of Hay Burgers, a Equestrian restaurant that he never ate at but knew Princess Twilight frequented. Tenderheart said she would pay for Caramel's meal, something he appreciated. While his cohorts ordered their meals, Caramel looked at the menu. He realized he had no idea what a majority of the choices actually were and just chose the burger since he remembered ponies also had those. At this point, Carl and the nurses were getting into a discussion about recent events. Caramel could barely understand what they were talking about. Soon, a waiter brought them their meals. Caramel started to eat his burger.
“Um Caramel?” asked Carl. “Aren't ponies herbivores?”
“Yes,” Caramel replied with a hint of confusion in his voice.
“You do realize they put meat in that?”
“Meat?”
“Yes, meat. Like from an animal.”
Caramel spend the next few minutes puking in the bathroom. Eventually, he emerged from the bathroom. Concerned, Tenderheart decided to help Caramel walk to the conversion bureau.
“Are you going to be okay?” Tenderheart asked.
“Yes,” Caramel said, “I just can't believe that I just ate the flesh from another living thing. To make things worse, humans probably do it all the time otherwise they wouldn't be serving it.”
“It's just how they are. The humans can't help it if their bodies need meat to survive.”
Caramel found himself again in the state on understanding, but still not feeling better. Tenderheart escorted Caramel to his room. When she left, Caramel started to feel better when he realized he made a new friend.
The days started to turn into the weeks. Caramel had recovered from the incident, but was now paranoid about what he was eating. He and Tenderheart remained close friends. She even took him to the movies. These movies blew Caramel's mind, which was used to black and white films with special effects that included ponies in rubber costumes. Caramel found his job to [be] nice. He enjoyed helping the other ponies and not needing to talk with them too much.
One day, Caramel was getting back from delivering a fresh supply of carrots to the kitchen. On the way to his room, he passed by the office of Time Turner. However, Caramel was surprised to find Tenderheart there. Despite this, he moved on assuming she must have had a good reason to be going through his file.
The next morning, Time Turner ordered all the staff to assemble in one of the backrooms. He revealed someone broke into his office and stole some files. Turner did not reveal the content of the files but just said they were important.
Not being an idiot, Caramel was able to put two and two together. However, he decided he should get Tenderheart's side of the story before proceeding. Caramel had them meet in his room.
“Did you steal the files?” Caramel asked point blank.
“Yes,” admitted Tenderheart, “but I had a reason. You see humans are an inherently violent lot. There have been more wars in the last century of human history than in the entirety of Equestrian history. However, they can been cured of this.”
Caramel was surprised by this. Naturally, he was more than little skeptical. However, Caramel allowed her to continue.
“You see, I am working for the organization P.E.R.,” she explained, “We want to help humans overcome their violent natures by turning them into peaceful ponies.”
“Um. Ponies can be just bad as humans: Sombra kept ponies as slaves, Nightmare Moon tried to kill Princess Twilight and her friends, and the Flim-Flam brothers tried to scam people with their miracle cure. Beside, there is no way you can get every human to volunteer.”
“But, that is only three ponies. That does not represent a majority. As for volunteering, when the P.E.R. get the files on how to perform ponification, we won't need volunteers.”
Horrified by the implications, Caramel was about to rush off to tell Time Turner. However mid-way, he started to think. Tenderheart was the only pony to be nice to him. If he told Turner, he would be hurting her in repayment for her friendship. Plus, she just wanted to help people. However, another thought entered his mind. She wanted to force humans to change into ponies. Caramel remembered reading a newspaper talking about the population of New York alone being around 80 million. Should millions if not billions of people be forced to obey the will of a handful of ponies? These opposing thoughts rattled in his head until he decided what to do.
As difficult was it was for him, Caramel told Time Turner what happened. Turner, in turn, had her room searched and found the files on the process. Tenderheart was taken by police.
Only one question was on everyone's mind: “What is P.E.R.?”