The Conversion Bureau - Mirror Match

A story set in the Conversion Bureau universe, by Silvertie

Chapter 14-b - Going Pony

This ending varies from the “official” one, starting at this point.

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As a unicorn, flight is not something that comes naturally to me. Some flightless ponies even go to extraordinary lengths to achieve flight.

They're mad. Flying is essentially falling with style at great altitude, and falling is terrifying at any altitude. More so when you're high up enough to see the clouds below.

The ringing in my ears began to subside, and I got my bearings. My three human companions were "flying" alongside me. Well. Duke and M were, at any rate. Both were screaming inaudibly in terror, and rightly so.

It's not everyday a robotic dragon blows up underneath you. Metal had flown everywhere, as did we; in a flash of light, Lexicon was reduced to a pretty, flower-shaped cloud of dirty smoke and a rain of  metal scrap that flew for miles in every direction, trailing fumes. For all his claims of invulnerability, it seemed that a simple internal detonation was enough to tear him to pieces.

The metal plates we were standing on had been our saving grace. Shielding us from the raw fury of the explosion, they acted like a catapult, and we were thrown high into the sky.

And here we were; so far above the earth, we could see it curve into the horizon, the city below us no more than a speck. Peaceful. You know, if we weren’t about to die horribly.

A large shape flashed by -- the Valkyrie. Like missiles, three shapes leapt off the deck, pursuing us down to the earth, racing gravity.

The first shape to reach us was a pegasus. A special one, as he didn't have a wing on his back, his neck craned forward as he accelerated his dive.

"Shield!" I shouted. "What the hell are you doing?"

"Saving my girl," he grunted. "I'm a pegasus, but flying ain't all I can do!"

Like a white missile, he tucked his legs in and dived even faster, shooting past me to catch up with M. The pair collided and went into a tumble, the pair halting their spin with Shield on the bottom.

As we approached the cloud layer, I realized Shield’s game. He couldn’t fly. But he could still touch the clouds.

The pair hit cloud with a strange puff of clouds; it behaved like firm dirt in that it stopped their fall, and at the same time, it parted like water - slowly, slowing their fall to a speed that wouldn’t crush the two flat.

No such luck for the rest of us; we plunged through the clouds unimpeded, and the other two pegasi were revealed for who they were; Chocolate Cake and Chord Thorn.

“Get him first!” I pointed at Gary, who was still out cold, his face rippling in a way that would have been hilarious if we weren’t falling to our deaths. Cake grimaced, nodded, and banked away to  grab my friend. With a whump, Cake pulled up and rapidly fell away.

“We got us a problem,” Thorn yelled over the wind. “There’s two of you, and only one o’ me.”

“Him,” Duke said, without hesitating. “Take Dice.”

“Fuck off,” I said. “Take Duke!”

“Dice," Duke shouted, looking at me. "Don't worry about me!" Duke had a glint in his eyes, the kindof glint people said I had when I knew something they didn't. "I've got a plan!"

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A second whump of wings, and Thorn yanked Dice up into the sky. I watched them go, then began to pat myself down, feeling in my pockets. I was looking for a thin, cylyndrical auto-injector...

I yanked it out of my pocket, and grinned when I saw the purple fluid within slosh about, sparks of magic drifting through it lazily. I shoved the stopper between my teeth, and ripped the cover off, exposing a thin, metal needle.

I gritted my teeth, pushed up my sleeve, and lamenting that it had to be a needle, injected it.

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The world was gray. I was faintly aware of a burning sensation in my veins, and more aware that I seemed to no longer be falling. Nothing I could do about being upside down, though.

“Hello!” a regal mare’s voice boomed around me. “With you in a moment, just... no! OH COME ON, HE DIDN’T - THAT WASN’T A VALID KILL! HE’S NOT EVEN ANTAG!”

The sound of a headset being smashed was heard, and a few steps on invisible tiles, very close by. A door opened in space not far from me, part of reality folding inwards impossibly to accommodate the alicorn on the other side.

Luna, the Regent of the Moon. Her irritated scowl was broken as she looked as surprised to see me as I was to see her.

“Uh,” I rubbed my head, and waved. “Hi.”

“This is strange,” she said. “Why are you here?”

“I, uh,” I shrugged. “I used some potion that Twilight sent me.”

“Hmm... oh yes,” Luna nodded, smiling. “I remember now! She sent me a letter saying someone would drop  by for a custom conversion! So!” Luna stepped out of the hole in reality, walking forward on an invisible floor, the area around her hooves glowing with magic. “What form do you desire? We can do a pony of your choice... gender swap if that’s what you want... we can do a diamond dog body... perhaps a seapony? Would you like to be a seapony?”

“No, I want to fly,” I said quickly, gesturing. “I need to be able to fly.”

“Hm?” Luna looked down, noticing my situation for the first time, and grimaced. “How did- you humans are ridiculous. You’re six seconds from impact and you want to be ponified enough to fly.”

“Can it be done?”

“Does an Ursa Hibernate in the Everfree?”

“...uh...”

“That is a yes, human.”

“Right.”

“So, you need to fly. Become a gryphon, perhaps?”

“Please. My ego’s big enough as it is.” I rolled my eyes. “Besides. If I became one of those overgrown chickens, I might as well just forget it and let myself die. Bunch of stuck up douchenozzles, the lot of ‘em. They think they’re all hot shit, and I’m pretty sure they ain’t.”

“Pegasus it is, then.” Luna’s horn began to glow. “The transformation will take two seconds, and you will have four to pull up; rely on your reflexes.” She coughed, and grimaced as she put together her plan. “This will hurt. A lot. Don’t mind the blood.”

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I exploded.

This is not a figurative statement. People were picking bits of Duke Cooper’s genetic material out of everything for a couple of miles around my area of ponification.

It was a transformation not unlike a chestburster’s birth; or, if you’re more of a videogame buff, a telefrag. The essence that was “me” briefly blacked out, before suddenly being surrounded by pulsing red. Red that was ripped away from me in a violent, heatless, soundless explosion, exposing the new me to the rushing air, cold wind playing over exposed nerves and screaming at me.

A radiant glow of magic surrounded me, holding some of the flesh close so that I could grow, arms and legs forming in rapid succession. A second finished ticking by. My bones were reconfigured and shoved into me, giving me a complete skeleton. Muscles stripped, rebuilt and installed. Skin wrapped over me, reformed and reprogrammed to be pony. Hair and feathers sprouted rapidly, wings extended and finished in a heartbeat.

Two seconds.

I streaked towards the earth, my new form’s birth heralded by a small cloud of blood and gibs in the air above me, my new pine-green coat streaked with blood that had once been my own. Orange mane blew in the wind, the speed-grown mass getting in my eyes.

Instinct. I was falling to my death. Pegasi didn’t fall to deaths. They soared, they flew. My wings flicked out, and caught the air.

Three seconds.

I strained, pulling myself up. I was hit with a rain of blood as my velocity slowed, allowing my former remains to catch up with me. I strained harder, wary of going into a flat-fall.

Four seconds.

The roof of the building below was coming up fast; I could see my reflection in the glass below, a bloodied pegasus trying to pull up out of a free-fall. I clenched my teeth, and strained harder, gaining a few degrees.

Five seconds.

I could see everything of myself in my reflection, blood and all. My hooves hit the roof, corrugated iron making a loud thunka-thunka-thunking as the tips of my hooves clipped the uneven surface, blood raining down around me.

I kept flying, tucking in my legs; my knees brushed against the roof as I gained a few degrees, then-

Nothing.

I looked down, and saw that I was out of roof. Below me, an empty street, slowly dropping away. I looked behind me, and saw bits of meat bouncing off the roof where I would have hit if I hadn’t gone pony, red smears on glass. The rocket launcher smashed through the roof with a tear of steel.

I looked back to my front, and beat my wings, grinning. Ahead of me, the sun was setting on the horizon. I looked up, and saw the Valkyrie dropping out of the sky, pegasi flying ahead of it to see me not far from the splat of red they were making a beeline for. I waved, and angled up to meet them.

All’s well that ends well, huh?