It was a cold gray day, no different from the previous. Bellton had been suffering poor weather for what felt like weeks now, but everyone was used to it. Dr. Thomas Howards didn't mind it, he worked inside for most of his days, and today would be no different.

He served as an assistant for the Conversion Bureau, a somewhat recent addition to the town. It opened just two years ago, along with hundreds of others across the world, and they had already made their impact: half of humanity was gone. Changed. Altered into something else, something equine.

They offered tickets to paradise at the cost of your thumbs. But Dr. Howards didn't mind; if he did, he wouldn't work there and help them do it. It wasn't like he did the conversions himself, that was the ponies' job. Dr. Howards, in truth, just served as a friendly face for the newfoals–the humans who turned into ponies. Sometimes he found an opportunity to chip in with his medical expertise; some of the people who came in would have minor conditions that needed looking after while they waited in the Bureau. Howards had worked in the building back when it was Red Leaf Clinic: a plain, small hospital that was converted into a Bureau by a joint effort between the government and the ponies. He couldn't go out and find a new job, something wouldn't allow him to just let go of the place, so he pleaded for a position at the new Bureau, and they let him stay.

It was interesting, working alongside talking, multi-colored ponies, helping them turn people into more talking, multi-colored ponies. Very interesting. The fact it was a magical process irked him, though he never let it show. It piqued his curiosity, he wanted to know more about it, but he was too meek to ask. He figured they couldn't really explain magic anyway, or, at least, not in a way he could actually understand.

And so, Dr. Thomas Howards sat at the front desk of Bellton's Conversion Bureau, one of many places where humans became equines. He'd gotten used to it with time, though even the smallest joke about undergoing ponification himself made him uncomfortable, for reasons he wasn't completely aware of. Still, he admitted that he liked the ponies he worked with. They were friendly, social for the most part, and genuinely cared about the people who came to the Bureau to get converted. Sometimes it felt like his job hadn't actually changed at all.

For example, he still had a lot of annoying, tedious paperwork. He started his shift an hour ago and the only thing he'd worked on was organizing the giant stack of papers in front of him. He wasn't even sure what they were for, or how a building with only one defined purpose with only one defined way to fulfill that purpose could produce this many forms and files. For all he knew, it was paperwork from fourteen years ago that got mixed up with papers from last week. He doubted even the ponies understood this stuff, they seemed pretty simple in general.

Howards groaned and shook his head, looking up and away from the sea of thin white sheets. He looked around the lobby, and saw that it was still empty. The Bureau had been going through some slow days recently, and in truth, it never received that much "patronage," one could call it. Most people tended to head for the nearby New Orleans branch, while those who shied away from big cities deferred to Bellton.

Still, the truth of the matter is, they'd been under a dry spell for quite some time. This Bureau had only a handful of converts at the moment. Aside from them, the only other people in the building were the staff members, meaning Howards, a few other humans, and a number of ponies straight from their homeland of Equestria, a magical realm protected from the outside world by the will of two goddesses who raised the sun and the moon.

At least, that's what the ponies told him. He couldn't help but feel skeptical, even after they showed him pictures, even after he saw their leader, Princess Celestia, on the news. He was a modern, college-educated man, so it was difficult to believe a magical talking winged unicorn could raise the sun in the morning via magic. Then again, he didn't believed one could swap species with magic, yet here he was helping it happen...

Howards' bored musings were broken when he noticed the main glass doors sliding open with a soft mechanical whirr. In stepped a regular Earth pony with a raspberry-colored coat and a soft, fluffy, cream-colored mane and tail, each sporting a pair of scarlet streaks in them. Howards was familiar with the pony that was now approaching him, as he should be, considering she was the "head honcho" of the Bellton Bureau. Her name was Raspberry, and even though she often mentioned that she didn't enjoy being the "boss," she did it well enough that they didn't want to let her leave.

Upon seeing her, Howards had gone back to filing in a weak-hearted attempt to look productive. But he knew she'd see through it easily, she just had a strange knack for it. He knew a pony's "cutie mark," the emblem that appeared on both of their flanks, represented their special talent. But Raspberry's was two blue hearts sitting side-by-side, and that didn't really tell Howards anything, so he had no idea how she was so good at reading people, let alone people of a different species. He glanced away from the papers again, and noticed a pair of large, lime green eyes peering at him from the other side the desk, barely reaching above the tall edge.

"Enjoying your work?"

"Absolutely."

"Has anyone new come in today?"

"Nope."

"Are the newfoals doing okay?"

"Yep."

A brief silence.

"…Mind tearing yourself away from your job for a few minutes and walk with me? I haven't gotten the chance to talk to anypony today and the quiet is starting to bug me."

"I think I can survive a small break, yeah."

Howards couldn't help but smirk, both at the word "anypony" and at the fact he could get away from this mess for at least a little bit. Rising from his chair, he noted again just how much taller he was than the pony. But like the other weird factors of his current job, he'd gotten used to it. He walked with Raspberry to one of the many doors that led further inside the building.

+ + + + + + + + + + +

"Can we skip to the part that's actually relevant?" Lt. Gagnon interrupted. Howards flinched in his seat at his deep, loud voice. "We don't have time to waste, Dr. Howards. We have practically a small army of people we need to talk to, because apparently the government thinks that Mr. FBI here needs to personally speak with every single victim."

Agent Pascal glared at the bearded man for a moment before turning to face Howards again. "What did you and this 'Raspberry' talk about on your way to her office?"

"Just typical chatting. We talk a lot. She asked about my parents, wh-which I don't enjoy, not on good terms with 'em. I asked about her parents back in Equestria, who were just fine by the way in case you want to pry into that too…" he mumbled bitterly before continuing, "just normal stuff you talk to your friends about…"

"As I said, let's skip to the relevant part," Gagnon irately chimed in again.

"…F-fine…"

+ + + + + + + + + + +

"…And that's how Equestria was made," Raspberry finished with a bright smile, just as they reached the plain door to her plain office on the second floor of the Bureau. Howards stood next to her, gawking.

"Are…are you serious? You're just messing with me, aren't you?"

"Yep! I heard that story once and I've been spreading it around ever since because everypony just has the weirdest, most hilarious reactions to it. They usually make a face like the one you're making now. Anyway, thanks for walking me, Tom."

"No problem, anything that gives me an excuse to not touch pieces of paper is just peachy in my book. But…I guess I gotta go back now, huh?" Howards said with a fake tone of dejection.

"Yeah, guess you do. Don't worry, we're both bored out of our minds. But it'll probably get better soon. You know what I heard?"

"What, what did you hear?"

"I heard from a few certain ponies that the Mane Six are doing a big Bureau tour."

"The…Mane Six?"

"I've told you about them before, don't tell me you forgot!" Raspberry glared at him, but he knew it was just a little irritation on her part. "The Mane Six are the first pony ambassadors to Earth, they've done a lot of work for the Bureaus and Equestria! They're heroes back there, you know, they once saved the land from eternal night by using the Elements of–"

"O-okay, Raspberry, okay, I get it, they're VIPs, Very Important Ponies," Howards cut her off, waving his hand, not in the mood for story time, "and they're doing a 'tour'?"

"Yep! They're visiting a bunch of the Bureaus, they attract a lot of attention, and they're good for spicing things up! I heard that right now, they're in Florida, so maybe they'll head west and visit Bellton! Then we'll have lots of visitors and stuff to do other than doodling on the back of papers." Raspberry was beaming at the thought of having something fun, or at least interesting, to do, and from Howards' perspective, she also sounded excited at the thought of meeting this "Mane Six."

"Well, let's hope they do pay a visit. They sound like they'd be fun to meet. Anyway, if you need me, I'll be in the lobby." Howards turned and walked away down the hall, sticking his hands in his pockets, not exactly eager to return to his real job.

"See ya, Tom!" he heard Raspberry call to him, followed by the sound of her nudging her door open and trotting into her office. First thing they did to convert the clinic was remove all the locks and knobs on the doors, making the whole place "pony-accessible."

If one thing hadn't changed, it was the hallways. Still bleached white, still looked as antiseptic and clean as they always had. One thing he didn't like about hospitals was the fact they all looked depressingly colorless and dull.

"T-Tom?"

That sounded like Raspberry. And she sounded nervous.

"Tom! Thomas, get in here! Quick!"

Howards was running back, practically tripping over himself to get there. He flew through the door and stopped. Raspberry was behind her meager desk, staring at the computer she barely used. Her eyes shifted over to Howards before snapping back to the screen, tensely focused on it. Howards stepped around the desk to see what was on the screen that had frightened the pony so much.

He was expecting something displayed on the screen. Instead, what he saw was a piece of paper firmly pinned to the screen with a blade, the screen cracked, fractured, broken, and useless. The paper was plain white, as if it was just taken intact from a printer, sans the hole gouged in it by the knife. The words on the paper were typed, all capital letters, all bold, and all the letters were colored red, the same shade of red as blood.

+ + + + + + + + + + +

"And what, exactly, did this piece of paper say?" Gagnon asked. Howards fidgeted in his seat a little, scratching at his right temple. He took a deep, nervous breath and sighed.

"You better read it yourself," he mumbled, reaching into his coat and producing a folded white piece of paper, the red lettering visible on it. He laid it on the table in front of Pascal, who began unfolding it.

"You had the note all this time, and you didn't tell anyone?" the agent asked, looking over the note.

"N-no…I…I didn't know what to make of it, okay? Raspberry was scared so I just yanked it and the…and the knife off the computer and I shoved them both in my pockets. Told her not to worry about it. H-here, I brought the knife too," Howards said, laying the small shining blade on the table. Gagnon stepped away from the wall and leaned over the table, putting both his hands on it for support as he looked straight at the knife.

"Looks clean, cheap, brand-new," he grumbled, "'Cept for a few smudges, but that's likely because of Dr. Howards here." At the mention of his name, Howards shrunk into his seat a little more.

"There are lots of ways you could interpret this, but pretty much all of them point to the fact that there are no prints on either the knife or this paper other than Mr. Howards'," Pascal said as he looked over the letter in his hands. "They both look like they were cleanly yanked out of their packages just before they were used. No stains, no wear and tear, not even a bent corner. And considering they were able to get in, plant this, then get out without anyone catching on, they were also probably smart enough to wear gloves."

"So what do you make of the message, 'Special Agent'?"

"Oh, I'm not that special, Mr. Gagnon. But this note…well…it's certainly…cryptic."

WE ARE ALL PLAYING A DANGEROUS GAME.

A GAME OF CHANCE.

IF IT ALL GOES WELL YOU WILL COME OUT ALIVE.

BUT GAMES OF CHANCE ARE UNPREDICTABLE.

AND SO ARE THE GAMBLERS THAT PLAY THEM.

DON'T TRY TO WIN.

TRY TO LIVE.

I WISH YOU ALL THE LUCK I CAN.

BUT IT IS NOT A MATTER OF LUCK.

IT IS A MATTER OF CHANCE.

MAYBE WE WILL ALL WALK AWAY.

MAYBE WE WILL ALL DIE.

THE CARDS.

THE ROULETTE.

THE DICE.

THE HOUSE.

THEY'RE ALL RIGGED.

BUT CHANCE ALWAYS FINDS A WAY TO SLIP THROUGH.

MAY WE HAVE FORTUNE AND MAY WE HAVE MERCY.

"This isn't a threat. It's a warning. A strangely-worded warning. Whoever wrote this, they couldn't afford being straightforward, for whatever reason."

"So they pin it to a computer with a knife?" Gagnon questioned. "That's a little creepy for a kind-hearted warning, isn't it?"

"It's a good way to get noticed and get taken seriously. Dr. Howards, how did you and Raspberry react to this message?"

"Uh, u-uh…we…we passed it off as a p-prank, by someone who just wanted to scare us. L-lots of people don't like the Bureaus, so we figured they were just trying to scare us…I…I didn't know…and we only had a day before it…"

"…It's alright, Dr. Howards," Pascal said to him with a serious expression, "what you did was normal, and in all honesty…you didn't have much time to do anything about it. It's probably smart you didn't have a huge reaction. If there was some pre-emptive action on the part of the Bureau…then things could have gone much worse. People don't like it when things don't go according to plan, and if their early plans went wrong before they even started? They would have gotten angry. Very angry. And then things would have gone…so much worse."

The FBI agent patted the doctor on the shoulder, Howards not looking any less guilty about his passive behavior. "Dr. Howards, I have just one more question: did you see any suspicious people in the Bureau that day, or any relatively recent time?"

"…A…a couple, I saw a couple weird people, the day me and Raspberry found that, didn't know what to think of them. Bureaus draw lots of curious people…so…"

"Just tell me plain and simple, Dr. Howards. Who did you see, when did you see them, all the things you can tell me and Lt. Gagnon."

"…A-about fifteen minutes after I started my shift, 'bout an hour before Raspberry came in, I saw a guy standing around in the lobby. I never noticed him even come inside. He was wearing, like, an old tan trenchcoat and sunglasses, brown hat, couldn't see his hair, or anything about him, r-really. I thought it was just someone, one of those guys who was thinking about it but had doubts, it's kinda normal for guys like that to just linger around, thinking. I couldn't see his face, he was just…standing around…then he left."

"I see…and you said you saw someone else? You mentioned you saw a couple of odd ones. Trenchcoat's one of them, who's the other?" Pascal asked, his eyes lit up with attention and curiosity.

"It-it was a lady, kinda young but–well, anyway, she had black hair, kinda long, straight, and she wore a regular gray coat. She looked really serious–she actually, uh, kinda scared everyone in the Bureau. She just looked around, walked around, didn't say a word, and anytime someone tried to talk to her, she'd just…just look at them and they'd back off. She vanished for a bit, then I saw her again walking out of an employees-only area and straight out the building to the street."

"What was so 'scary' about her, Dr. Howards? Did you try to talk to her?"

"O-once…she did that 'look' at me and I saw why it freaked everyone else out. She had these eyes…just…these eyes on her, the kind that just pierced you, you know?"

"I…see…and she didn't do anything other than walk around, creep people out, and leave? Hm…"

Pascal stood from his seat and straightened his clothes, and turned for the door. "That will be all, Dr. Howards. Thank you for your cooperation. If you remember anything else, be sure to contact us. I say you're free to go." Howards nodded and started to get up, when Gagnon stepped forward and interrupted.

"Now wait a second there, Agent. This precinct is my jurisdiction and I'm the authority here in charge of this investigation, you can't just dismiss a vital witness and tell them to go home without my say-so, just because some suits with big names sent you."

Pascal didn't want to argue. He had more pressing matters. "Fine, Lieutenant, fine. You dismiss witnesses at your discretion, but I don't want to end up with twenty people wasting their time here when they have nothing further to say to us. People want to get back to their lives as soon as they can."

Gagnon huffed and leaned back against the wall.

"W-wait, Mr. Pascal? I just remembered something about that girl I saw."

Agent Pascal was standing in the open doorway when Howards spoke up again. He turned to face the doctor who was still standing at the end of the room.

"The girl, she had a form of heterochromia–mismatched eye colors. It wasn't genetic, from what I could tell anyway. Her natural color was gray, I could tell, her left eye was fine. But her right eye's iris, some was gray, but most of it looked red, like it was blood-stained. Not sure what caused it, but that's the way it was. I hope that, uh, helps…"

"…Thanks, Dr. Howard. I'll remember that."

Pascal closed the door and made his way down the hall, looking for an empty area. He ended up standing by the restrooms, in front of a window, watching the rain splash and blow against it and the walls. He dug into one of his pockets and retrieved an audio recorder. He pushed the record button and began to speak.

"After arriving in Bellton, Lousiana, during horrible weather may I add, I quickly began my work. At the moment, the beginning of my investigation, I'm interviewing as many people as I need to, gathering whatever information I can from the staff and victims. I will, hopefully, also be doing some physical investigations at the remains of the Bureau. So far, I've only interviewed one staff member, an assistant named Dr. Howards, who, alongside the Bureau's overseer Raspberry, discovered an ominous warning the day before the assault. Howards mentioned encountering two suspicious individuals: a nondescript figure in a trenchcoat, and an intimidating and enigmatic woman, black hair, gray eyes, right eye partially red due to sectoral heterochromia. I'll be continuing my interviews and interrogations alongside local police lieutenant Gagnon, who has somehow already found enough reasons to resent me. However, he seems very determined to discover the truth of the situation and will likely help me more than hinder, if he is as intelligent as I hope. FBI Investigator Willard Pascal, out."

Next Chapter: Taking the Biggest Chance Estimated time remaining: 32 Minutes