The Conversion Bureau: A New Age, A New Life - Part II

by BlueDWarrior

Gaiden 2-1: Genesis of Order (pt. 1)

=== The Conversion Bureau:
A New Age, A New Life (Pt II) ===
=== Gaiden II: Genesis of Order ===

== [ August 30, ????+2 – Canterlot Castle ] ==

It was a fine morning in Canterlot. Celestia was holding Court as per the usual. She had been slowly setting up a more formal process for requests with the slowly increasing population, and she was already dreading what it might mean for the future.

I hate bureaucracies. I truly do… the Princess of the Sun thought to herself as she was already imagining having to fill out form after form after form after form just to achieve the simplest of tasks.

“Princess Celestia, the extant community in Manehatten want formal permission to build a, um, sub-division I believe they termed it, of permanent housing to the southwest of the city. They feel that most of that area of wild plains would make for a good space for building,” a representative of the Manehatten city council requested of Princess Celestia.

“I see,” Princess Celestia started before closing her eyes to think for a few moments. “I will make approval conditional upon a standard environmental impact review. Tell the prospective project managers to consider carefully their initial plans.”

“Yes, Princess Celestia!” the Earth Pony nodded before leaving the throne room.

Celestia returned to her thoughts as she processed some more minor requests from the local nobility and business-ponies. On the other hoof, trying to continue being the lone, or only one of two, foci of power for the nation will get to be unwieldy. I may be an immortal ‘goddess’ incarnate, but there are only so many hours I can manipulate in the day. And I definitely don’t want to start messing with the time-stream too extensively again; Equus as a whole still hasn’t recovered from Discord’s reign and that was nearly two millennia ago.
So what are going to do, ‘Tia? Luna asked telepathically, mind still wide and alert despite her physical body slumbering in her indigo chambers.

We analyze the history of, and observe the current Zebra and Human governments to learn how to design sub-bureaucracies. As much as I personally dislike the drudgery of the record-keeping needed to run a less autocratic government, I am afraid just running the whole nation by our decree won’t be feasible. Especially if the rate of our Conversions picks up… Celestia responded.

Perhaps we need to expedite the integration of the Q-Machines on our side of the Barrier, don’t you think? Luna asked, taking a bit of the pleading tone that she did with their caretakers oh so many centuries ago.

While I am normally one to slow-walk technological improvement, I honestly cannot find fault with the notion. At the very least it will reduce the sheer amount of paperwork we have to process, even with our limited bureaucracy compared to the sprawling mess on Earth. Celestia concluded, as another pair of representatives entered the throne room.

There was a bit of a pause in the mental conversation between the two sisters, until Luna chimed in with a bit of memory she recently recalled. I was having a conversation with Cadence some time ago, and she brought up something that honestly slipped my mind, which is actually somewhat concerning to me given how much of a steel-trap my memory can be. In any case, were we not supposed to tell the Ten Elements our personal origin story at some point? I mean, the only reason why it is secret is because of our own personal pique; the principal Dragons involved are still alive and could easily tell the story themselves.

Celestia thought for a few seconds on that mental track, while her primary track processed and denied the request for more government funding for development along the Seaddle coast. I agree, but we can’t simply show up one night and just dump that load of exposition onto the heads of the Bearers and Conduits, we will have to find some natural way to weave things in.

=-- That Evening, back in Safe Haven ------=

“So what brought this on all of a sudden?” Rarity asked of Midori Hana, as the Ten Bearers and Spike all sat in their unofficial gathering room in the lounge and recreation section of Safe Haven.

“Well the four of us were thinking: we are all caught up in a save the world-type situation, but we’ve never asked you about your personal experiences in depth. So, now seemed to be as good a time as any,” Midori Hana responded, as she drunk a glass of water from a nearby pitcher.

“So which incident do you all want to discuss?” Twilight asked, as she couldn’t help but notice how Rainbow Dash seemed distant despite their close proximity to each other.

“If you don’t mind, I think we ought to start with the Big One…” Blue Vague started, as all eyes were suddenly trained upon him. “Me and the others would like to know everything you can tell us about Discord.”

The silence in the room was deafening, as the four Conduits of Terra could see the queasiness on the faces of the six Bearers of Harmony.

“I had a feeling you’d want to go there,” Twilight finally said, breaking the silence that had come over the room. The rest of the Bearers steeled their nerves for what was assuredly going to be a bad trip down memory lane. “Alright then, you may want to settle in, because we might be a while with this.”

---

Everyone in the room had shifted positions so that the Bearers with Spike were to one side and the Conduits were to the other. Twilight cleared her throat, and then began to speak. “The whole incident started about 4 years ago, I believe. Nopony was sure how Discord broke loose entirely. Initial reports were that Cutie Mark Crusaders got into a bit of a scuffle near the statue, but mana comparisons from just before the break-out and Discord’s re-petrification show that the actual cause of Discord getting loose was just a simple wearing out of the seal. Once he got loose, as you (former) humans would put it, all Hell broke loose. As you know, Discord is the incarnate spirit of Chaos, meaning all of his actions are meant to further a sense of unpredictability, and eventually, reasonless-ness.”

“That is not to say that Discord isn’t a planner or logical thinker. It’s just that his brand of logic is entirely alien to us. Quite frankly, having to be around him for any longer than absolutely necessary would give anyone a splitting migraine. Back to the point, Discord gets loose and immediately begins using his, as he termed it, Chaos Magic, to start warping reality itself and the minds of anyone that he came across.”

Applejack then took up the narrative, and continued. “Ah want ya ta imagine this: what if the sun never rose nor set on a regular schedule? Even here on Earth, where the sunrise and sunset is more a quirk of your planets spinning than somepony having to actively manage things, you can reasonably predict to within a few seconds when the Sun will rise and set dependin’ on where ya standin’, right? Now imagine how nutty it’d be if the Sun and Moon just rose and set whenever they wanted to; or rather, whenever someone wanted it to? It’d drive ya crazy wouldn’t it?”

Rarity then carried the train of thought. “Now imagine if the entire environment around stopped making any kind of thematic sense. Grass is green unless it is sick or had been painted over, yes? Now what happened if something could snap its paws and make grass grow in a garish, neon checkerboard pattern? If clouds started raining chocolate milk? And made dirt roads as slick and slippery as bar soap? That would just be tangible things that you could directly experience, too; don’t even get me started on the esoteric things. Sounds appearing as shapes, colors appearing as tastes, even the things you felt would both be phantasmal and real at the same time. You wouldn’t be able to trust your senses. You’d be constantly paranoid that what you were experiencing and sensing was some kind of trick or trap.”

Pinkie Pie then took hold of the conversation. “You know how I like to pull the occasional prank, just something to get a few laughs; and I definitely try to stay away from anything mean-spirited, right? Discord was everything but that. He’s quite possibly the meanest… meanie we’ve ever had to deal with. I mean… Nightmare Moon was just kinda crazy, and Chrysalis was power-hungry. But Discord was crazy, and power-hungry, and totally twisted like a pretzel; and wanted to make everything else around him twisted like a pretzel-ed pretzel. Its soo loopy even I can’t think of what it’d look like.”

Rainbow Dash was the next to offer her thoughts on Discord and a brief over-view of what happened during the Day(?) of Discord. “And then when he isn’t playing some kind of messed up prank on you, he’s just outright trying to manipulate you. And the worst part it? He will make you believe every word of it. I’ve still never really gotten over what I did that day: I was willing to throw away the safety of Equestria at large to save my hometown. And then, and in retrospect I really should have saw this coming, he basically sent the entire population of Cloudsdale stark-raving mad and pinned the blame on me. To be honest, though, I did break the rules of the game he had set up to find the Elements…”

Twilight interrupted Dash to clarify her statement. “Well he did obfuscate the rules to the point where we didn’t even know that the Elements were stashed somewhere else entirely. If we had played the game out like he wanted us to, Equus would probably still be a loony bin.”

“Point taken,” Dash responded, a little more reassured of herself.

The Conduits of Terra just sat there in semi-stunned silence. They knew Discord was terrible news; one does not simply get turned into stone (at least) twice for no good reason. But none of them could imagine he was that bad.

Fluttershy then offered her view on the matter. “And the worst thing about Discord? He showed absolutely no remorse for what he did. Even when he wasn’t able to warp me with his simple manipulations the first time we met face-to-face, he just simply grabbed hold of me and brainwashed me. It is very hard to explain just how violated felt during the whole thing, even though it only took a few moments. He… reached into my soul and drug up the absolute worst of me, and simply brute-forced me that into that persona. I believe that is what he does to everyone ultimately: drags out the worst in you, and turns you into the very thing you try and fight and claw your way to not being. And once he’s done warping you, he just sits back and laughs at you. Not feeling a thing, not a hint of true pity or sorrow, either for what he’s done to you, or for being the monster he is.”

As Fluttershy finished up, the two of them felt an odd presence in the room, though not unwelcome. A trio of flashes, one gold, one azure, and one periwinkle went off in the recreational room they were in, as Princesses Celestia, Luna, Cadence, and Prince-Consort Shining Armor all appeared in the recreational room, which started to feel slightly crowded with eleven adult Ponies, one adult (humanoid) Dragon, and three Alicorns.

“Boy, I was kinda glad you four showed up when you did,” Spike started, as everyone moved around to make room for the four royals. “A part of me was kinda, I dunno, put off by the fact I got off so easy compared to how Twilight and the others nearly lost themselves to Discord’s brainwashing and manipulations.”

“It was very good that you didn’t, dear Spike. If you had been impacted by Discord in a significant way, I would not have had a way to send Twilight the documents of her Lessons in Friendship that would rekindle her fighting spirit, and lead her to discover the Memory Restoration spell,” Celestia reminded Spike, as she nuzzled him in comfort.

“Well, when you’re right, Princess, you’re right,” Spike concluded, as he sat back down on the floor.

“So what brings the four of you here?” Red Blaze asked, as she and the rest of the Bearers and Conduits sat around Shining Armor in front of the three Princesses.

“As you know, the Elements serve as a link between all of the Bearers to some mild degree. Not to the same extent as the link between us Immortals, but plenty strong nonetheless,” Princess Celestia began, the lights suddenly dimming around the edges of the room except for around the three Alicorns. “So, not meaning to pry too much, but we all heard that you were discussing your interactions with Discord during his brief jail-break, as it were.”

The ten Bearers and Spike all nodded in agreement.

“I see. In that case, I feel that you all, including Shining Armor, deserved to know the full truth of Discord’s nature, and by proxy, our own genesis,” Princess Luna stated with an odd mixture of pride and forlorn.

“Before we begin, I’d like to ask a question,” Princess Celestia resumed, making it apparent that all three of them were going to be speaking interchangeably throughout the story. “What do you believe we are, exactly?”

Everyone aside from the three Alicorns in the ‘front’ of the room looked around confused, before Pinkie Pie spoke up. “Well, um, we know you all are Princesses of Equestria in some way. I mean the Crystal Empire is technically a commonwealth, right?”

“Yes, Pinkie. The Crystal Empire’s formal designation is as a commonwealth of Equestria proper,” Cadence answered while nodding.

“Okay, well… um… shoot. It’s actually a hard question to answer, Princesses,” Applejack started, trying to find a good concise phrase for what they all thought the answer might have been. “Honestly, we kinda treat ya like demi-gods at the worst.”

“I see. We will start there then,” Princess Celestia started to speak, as she went into a meditative state – her entire body covered in the golden aura of her magic. “Alright... first of all, you may simply refer to us as Immortals. While we don’t reject the notion of you viewing us as gods or demi-gods, we’d prefer not to be worshipped, as the terminology would imply.”

The twelve ‘normals’ swore they saw shadowy figures appear behind the three Alicorns, but just brushed it off as tricks of the odd lighting that Luna was generating.

“Now that goes to the next question you all probably have, what is an Immortal: well as the name would imply, we are effectively ageless beings when we decide to take an incarnate form,” Princess Luna started, before she was interrupted by one of the shadows who had made themselves manifest in some degree.

“And yet two, or should I say, you three, are the only ones that decide to keep their incarnate forms. I never understood why exactly,” a spectral Gryphon stated, joined by tall Zebra and humanoid Dragoness figures.

“And you three always were difficult in that regard…” Celestia stated as she looked back at the three spectral Immortals making their presence known. The eleven Ponies and one normal Dragon to their opposite side were suitably shocked and trembling at the combined force all six creatures were outputting.

“Celestia, Luna, Cadence, you know I think of you as my little sisters. So what brought all of this about? You rarely, if ever, ask the three us to show up anywhere where Mortals are concerned,” the Zebra specter stated in a calm tone.

“Some time ago these Mortals asked of our true nature and origins. While Princess Cadence has already told her story; she, in all likelihood, didn’t explain the nature of an Immortal. We simply requested your presence to aid in that explanation should we confuse the issue any,” Luna replied to her ‘older brother’.

The spectral Dragoness took a pose of a woman deep in contemplation before she spoke. “I see nothing wrong with this. We are beyond time in any case, a few moments to spare to aid this discussion should not harm matters any.”

“While I do not like taking requests, it is you three who issued it; and as you’ve said, it is not like we are pressed for time,” the Gryphon reasoned as well.

“Excuse me… but… um… Princess Celestia? Just who are these three, why do they feel like you, except more… raw?” Twilight asked, finally regaining her voice.

“Tiamat, Patroness, Matron, and Spirit-Queen of all Dragonkind,” the Dragoness intoned with an extremely regal air, even more so than Celestia would use in her most formal of settings.
“Aquileo, Supreme King of Gryphons Past, Present, and Future,” the Gryphon stated with extreme but warranted pride.
“Azansi, Spiritual Guide for all Zebra Herds and Tribes,” the Zebra intoned, taking a far more subtle title than his two specter compatriots.

“There are many more Immortals that comprise the Pantheon of Equus, but I think these three will be enough for now. Even seeing the shadow of an Immortal in their true form is difficult for a Mortal to comprehend,” Princess Celestia remarked, as she continued on with her explanation. “The reason why we are termed Immortals is because we have become tied to a pure Concept of some kind. In the case of us six, we represent a sapient species; and in the case of me, Luna, and Cadence, we also represent a somewhat more abstract concept or entity of Equus: the Day, the Night, and Love respectively.

“What this simply means is that so long as whatever we are tied to exists, we too shall exist until we are either slain by another Immortal, or we willingly cede our title to another,” Princess Luna added, as the twelve Mortals in their presence contemplate the matter.

“So I guess that means only a god can kill another god, in effect,” Blue Vague thought aloud.

“While the Water Bearer uses terminology we would not use ourselves, the sentiment is correct,” Tiamat stated, confirming their suspicions.

“But wait… um… not to get too ahead of things, but why is there only one Immortal for each species except Ponies?” Spike asked, sure that everyone would notice the obvious numeric imbalance.

“While it would seem that there is an obvious imbalance, we are quite comfortable with the current division and aggregation of power between us. I believe the Immortals of the Sun and Moon would prefer to explain why that is, yes?” Aquileo stated, now on a wall to the side of the group of Ponies, while Tiamat was opposite him.

“Indeed Aquileo,” Celestia started, as attention (and the lights) focused back in on the three Alicorns in the ‘front’ of the room. “Let us start with who we were before we joined the Pantheon of Equus.”

With a combined flash of azure and golden magic, all of the occupants of the room were shown a very realistic vision of another time and place.

**== [ c. 1000 years into Discord’s Reign - Somewhere in the future Equestrian Great Plains ] ==**

“My, my, does this ever invoke some nostalgia…” Tiamat said, as the specter floated about the vision produced by Celestia and Luna.

“We have you to thank for recovering this ‘footage’, in a sense. We believed that these Ponies would simply be lost to time due to our inherent nature,” Princess Luna sighed, as she and Celestia looked into the vision with some measure of sadness.

“What wrong Princesses, I… oh…” Midori Hana started before she realized what was going on.

“I take it you remember what the price of Ascension is?” Princess Celestia asked, her eyes looking like they were beginning to well with tears.

“You lose the Pony that you were before. They simply cease to exist, isn’t that what you told us all those months ago, Princess Cadence?” Vague responded, looking at the pink Alicorn for approval.

“That is correct, Conduit of Water. The very moment I as ‘Cadence’ was born, the ‘me’ that was ‘Heart Linker’ ceased to exist. Whom we are about to see are the Ponies that Aunt Celestia and Aunt Luna used to be before they Ascended,” Cadence replied, keeping her tone as even as she possibly could, given gravity of what they were witnessing by proxy.

---

“This is soooo annoying! Why does that stupid draconequus have to keep shifting day and night so fast! I swear if I could control the sun, I’d just… I’d… well I definitely wouldn’t have it rising and setting every five minutes!” a white Pegasus shouted at the sky that was flipping between sky and white-dotted midnight blue with frightening rapidness and irregularity. She had medium length pink mane tail; and a lithe figure that was every bit the model for Pegasi feminine beauty. Her cutie mark was a bright-yellow and orange sun icon partially covered by wispy clouds.

“Sunny Skies? Is that you? How are things lil’ filly?” a tan, gruff Earth Pony shouted as he and a Diamond Dog were pulling and pushing a covered cart full of topsoil and rocks.

“Fine all things considered. I swear it’s a minor miracle that anything gets done given how Discord loves to ‘shake things up’ as he’d put it. In any case, what are you and Stratum up to, Trench?” Sunny replied, snorting a bit in derision at the sheer randomness of the environment.

“Me and Trench are trying to carve out enough space for a garden. At least our own magic still works after all of this time,” Stratum replied in an outwardly harsh sounding, but ultimately non-threatening tone; something common to all Diamond Dogs and their relatives.

“It’s about all we can do. Things are just getting too nonsensical to even build a stable village properly. How are we supposed to settle down and build and refine any of our techniques and magic if everything is so…” Trench started before rain suddenly began falling out of the sky with no clouds around, with intermittent ‘hailstones’ made out vanilla ice-cream.

“…random?” Sunny concluded for Trench, as she tried to wipe her brown-stained mane away from her face.

“Yes. Now if you excuse us, we have to get this soil to the spot we picked out before our entire cart turns into frogs or something,” Trench groused he started pulling and Stratum started pushing again.

With that done, Sunny used her Pegasus Magic to blow as much of the chocolate milk and vanilla ice-cream off her coat and out of her mane and tail as possible, and continued on her short but somehow winding trail to her friend’s home.

Every time this random as buck weather starts up, space starts to get all weird on me… and I can swear that time is start to get all messed up as well… this can’t go on much longer… she thought to herself as she began knocking on the surprisingly hard door-like flap to her friend’s residence.

---

“Wait, Princesses, as we can see from… your thoughts, I guess, when the chocolate rain started, you said that time and space started to get all weird on you. I don’t remember experiencing that when Discord rained chocolate milk on us,” Twilight asked, as she stopped the ‘tape’ to ask a question of Celestia.

Celestia thought for a second, and then answered. “Discord’s magic manipulates everything to a very fine level. Since he was only loose for a day or so, as far as we can estimate, his magic hadn’t started affecting the time and space around Equus again. But Discord in these memories had been in power for a millennium. Him merely appearing somewhere other than his castle was enough to cause reality to become warped. This will be more evident in later selections.”

The memory ‘tape’ then restarted.

---

“I’m coming, I’m coming…” a somewhat stern feminine voice said as Sunny Skies could hear the hoof-steps getting louder on the ground. “Oh Sunny! Oh it’s so good to see you. Come in come in!”

“Moony, I hope you have some clean towels from the bath, because Master Discord decided to bless us with his chocolaty gifts again…” Sunny said, her voice dripping with derision and sarcasm.

“Ugh, you know how much I hate you calling me that. Seriously, how hard is it to say ‘Moonlit Star’? Even ‘Starry’ would be a better nickname,” the azure-maned and dark blue-coated Unicorn mare snorted. She nudged her ‘reading’ glasses up on her snout, closer to her eyes as she watched Sunny wipe the last bits of chocolate out of her mane, tail, and coat.

“Oh come on, you know I’m just ribbin’ ya…” Sunny replied with a smile as she gave a gentle shove to Moonlit’s midsection. “Anyway, have you been able to divine anything new into that weird force we felt some… days ago I guess.”

Moonlit Star sighed as she looked at the clock seemingly run backward for a bit before going forward again. “Truth be told, every time I try and search it out and tap into it… I get frightened by it. It feels like an abyssal depth that, one the one hoof calls me to dive into it; and on the other hoof, I am absolutely scared to death by its sheer depth.”

Sunny could see how scared Moonlit was by the odd alien force they felt all those months ago, as Star kept talking. “It’s not like any magic we’ve experienced from the other species, or even Discord’s ‘Chaos Magic’. It feels like a long lost sibling constantly trying to call out to us, but the voice doing the calling is so muffled neither of us can tell what they are saying.”

“Do you think it might be the key to what we need to defeat Discord and his Chaos Magic?” Sunny asked with sudden gravity to her voice.

“To be honest… until we can find a way to experiment with it safely… I won’t know. There is no telling if we are just tapping into some hidden reservoir of Discord’s own magic. I would not put it past him to leave bait for somepony to get ensnared in,” Moonlit mused aloud, as she watched her clock begin to tick again at a normal rate. “I’m guessing the chocolate-rainstorm must be over, since my clock has decided to work properly, again.”

---

“So that is what you two looked like before you Ascended?” Rarity asked, as the vision faded and they all took some time to absorb what they had just seen.

“That would be correct Bearer of Generosity. In an earlier time and a previous life, I was known as Moonlit Star, that blue Unicorn mare you saw,” Princess Luna responded.
“And I was Sunny Skies, the white Pegasus that was with her,” Celestia added.

“I can only imagine this is jarring to watch, even though I assume you two have seen these visions before,” Blue Vague muse aloud.

“It is true Water Bearer. It is difficult for any Immortal that is born from Ascension to re-visit their past life. They will have to live a prospective eternity knowing that the only way they could know their past-self is through the recording of a previously existing Immortal. Most, including the three Alicorns before you, have come to terms with this. And yet…” Aquileo started to say.

“… it will never stop hurting. Every so often there is this feeling of a shadow that I can’t quite see, and it is my own… and yet it isn’t. Do you remember how melancholy and apathetic I was after my sixteenth birthday, Twilight?” Cadence concluded, and then asked.

“Yeah, you practically let me tear down my mother’s study trying to re-arrange everything,” Twilight recalled, suddenly able to put two and two together.

Cadence nodded as she concluded her thoughts. “That was after Aunt Celestia took me on a similar trip through memory lane, as it were.”

The others briefly discussed the implications before Aquileo called their attention. “Now let us move on to the next scene. I believe the Bearer of Magic will take great interest in this one.”

[to be continued in part 2...]

Author's Note:

This is just a little sidestory to deviate from the main plot for awhile. A chance for me to work on some history for this particular narrative 'verse.

Also shoutouts to AegisExemplar for helping me so much in story planning and initial editing.

Comments

[Waterpicker]

2048881 I believe the Gammaverse has that as well. There are just no stories from the time period it was introduced yet.