//------------------------------// // Chapter 3: A New Defense // Story: The Conversion Bureau EarthGate Saga: Prisoner of War // by Dolphy Blue Drake //------------------------------// Zachary grunted as he was being shaken awake by the unicorn in the lab coat, growling as he sat up. “We kept you asleep for a few days so I could work in peace, but Princesses Celestia and Birthright are here to watch the next test,” Frothy explained as he detached the shackles from the block with his magic and reconnected them to the table.  “Formula #2 is ready.” The unicorn levitated Zachary onto the table, and Zachary got a good look at the despicable princess who’d torn out his implant, finally without her armor.  Deep blue with burning red eyes, bat wings, a horn, and a symbol of a gold sword crossed with a silver one on each flank, she grinned wickedly at him in anticipation. “This is gonna be so much fun!” the smaller Alicorn squealed like a little girl would over something she found exciting.  “I can’t wait to see him squirm!  Right, Great Aunty?” Celestia turned to look at her great niece and nodded before the two of them returned to observing what was about to happen to Zachary. “You dirtbags aren’t going to get me to beg you for mercy, no matter how much you try!” Zachary growled as he moved his head to the side to dodge the bottle of green fluid that Frothy Batch was trying to force him to drink.  “I was born a Protean, and I’ll die a Protean!  You can’t take the ultimate gift my forefathers worked so hard for from me!” “Well, we’ll see about that,” the unicorn chemist said before locking Zachary’s head in place with his magic and forcing the contents of the bottle down his throat, just like last time.  “Now to observe the effects of Formula #2:  intended to hijack the transformative qualities of Protean DNA to make it do the ponification for us.” Zachary suddenly cried out in agony as pain enveloped his entire body, his cells beginning to rebel against him and change shape under their own power without his consent. Thinking quickly, Zachary started sending signals all over his body to turn into something else:  The membranes of his cells started to grow thicker outer casings, resulting in cell walls coating all of them, making it impossible for the potion’s influence to spread to them, for it couldn’t even get inside the newly-walled cells. Zachary’s movement was hindered by the rigidness of the walls, but he wasn’t entirely immobile, so he slowly bit back cries of agony and smirked instead. “I don’t get it!” Doctor Batch exclaimed.  “At first, I could detect it working perfectly, but it suddenly stopped cold!  Only about five percent of him is ponified, and it’s all on the inside!” “Ever hear of bacteria, Doc?” Zachary chuckled through the pain as he focused on expanding the cell walls to coat the rebellious cells to isolate them from the influence of the potion.  “They’ve got cell walls, just like plants do.  Your new brew can get through a cell membrane, but it can’t get through a cell wall, so I converted every cell that hadn’t been affected yet into Protean cells with walls, blocking the potion from doing further damage!” Focusing harder, Zachary sent orders to the hijacked cells, commanding them to shift back into Protean cells, but to keep the walls.  With no further influence from the potion due to the walls blocking any more of it from getting absorbed, the cells slowly returned to obeying him and returned to normal, just with cell walls encasing them. The pain started to die down, and Birthright was looking very disappointed, while Celestia’s right eye twitched in anger.  Eventually, the potion’s effects left his body, and Zachary let the cell walls vanish to regain full mobility. “I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again,” Zachary chuckled.  “You’ll have to do a lot better than that, Doc!” Frothy Batch huffed and turned to his notes, scribbling furiously, his face red with rage. Turning to the Princesses, Zachary cracked a huge smile and added, “if my people really are something disgusting that needs to be assimilated, why are our defenses so great?  You remove one defense, there’s always another ready to stop you.  What if ponifying us really is impossible?  What then?” Birthright just stared in disbelief, shaking her head and backing away slowly, while Celestia was so stunned that once again, Zachary’s words started to filter into her mind, bringing forth the same doubt as last time, brightening her eyes a little and dissipating some of the mist rising from them. Taking advantage of the situation, Zachary continued his assault on her mind with his words, intent on increasing the doubt further to see if he could get through to her this time. “The ponification process causes pain, while inducing artificial Protean evolution doesn’t,” he continued.  “How could the painless one with so many benefits and virtually no drawbacks be the morally wrong one when the alternative causes so much pain and heavily restricts the affected?” Celestia’s doubt grew even stronger, extremely unsure at the moment if she really had been doing the right thing like she thought she had. Her eyes almost completely cleared up, the mist became so faint, it could barely be seen at all, and she slowly tried to answer the Clerisiac soldier, but all that she could reply with was, “I… I don’t know.  I’m not quite sure, anymore.” Birthright gasped and stared at her great aunt as if she’d grown a second head, but before Zachary could press his advantage even further, Doctor Batch cleared his throat, snapping Celestia out of it, the darkness and mist returning in full force. “Princesses, I believe that we should speed up the rate of experiments on our test subject.  I still don’t have a perfect solution, but I believe that by combining the concepts of Formula Numbers One and Two, I’ll have a better chance.  I’ll still need some more ideas to throw in, and we need to get this done in a timely manner.” “Very well,” Celestia replied after shaking herself.  “Once you have a formula that you’re quite sure will succeed, let me know, and we’ll reinstall his implant so they can see how much better it is to be a pony.” Zachary filed that information away for later and started to think of an escape plan that could utilize the implant.  But for the time being, Doctor Batch once again disconnected him from the table, then reattached him to the cement block. “Now, I’ll need to stop putting him in hibernation between tests,“ Batch added.  “This means that he’ll need to be properly nourished until a successful serum is created.  Princess Celestia, may I request that you inform the mess hall upstairs that they’re going to have to provide him with three meals a day?  Three human meals?” “I can do that, Doctor,” Celestia replied.  “You are much too busy to contact them yourself, and Birthright has another campaign to prepare for.  The Proteans are assembling near New Manehattan, so we need to be able to repel them there at all costs, for we must protect the portal there.  Our side of it is too close to Canterlot for us to be able to afford them gaining control of it.” “Thank you, Your Majesty,” Batch said with a bow.  “I appreciate this very much.” Celestia nodded, and then the two Princesses teleported away, leaving Frothy Batch alone with his lab rat. “I see you’ve been trying to press your nonsensical philosophies on our beloved Princess,” Batch growled at Zachary, eyes narrowed.  “You’ll find that she isn’t going to break from your words.  Try all you want, ape-bug.  You won’t succeed.” Batch turned around to return to work on his next formula, and Zachary just sat there, thinking to himself.  That’s what you think, he thought with a silent chuckle.  It may take some time, but if I never manage to escape, I’ll continue my assault until she finally gives in.  I don’t care if it takes years!