The Conversion Bureau – Mirror Match

A story set in Blaze's Conversion Bureau universe, By Silvertie

Chapter 6 – Interlude: Dexterity Training

“Right, so, let’s try that again.”

I sat on the couch, arms resting on my knees as I hunched over, watching Dice train - sitting in the middle of the living room, he was surrounded by a semicircle of old bench-press weight discs, arranged in order of weight.

The teal unicorn focused on the second from the left, a fifteen-kilogram weight, which was one of the lighter ones. His magic surrounded it, and it lifted into the air, wobbling slightly. The small feat was proving to be stressful already, Dice’s face contorted in exertion as he kept the weight aloft.

“Okay, now try for the ten kilo weight, see if you can get multitasking down.”

“Fffff...” spluttered Dice, “Goddamnit!”

He managed to manifest a glow of magic around the lightest weight, weighing just 10kg, and it hobbled into the air, before falling out of a clumsy magical grip, and landing on the ground again with a whud. The heavier weight followed it quickly, with a clang.

“Aaaahgh,” Dice groaned, as he rubbed the base of his horn. “Ow. I think we’ve established what I can throw about with my magic, i.e. as much as I could carry as a human.”

“Right.” I checked off a piece of paper on a clipboard. “What’s next... dexterity?”

“Why are we testing this stuff, again?” Dice groaned, walking out of the lounge, and around the corner as he made his way to the kitchen.

“To test your magic, see if that offers a clue to what you’re good at!” I shot back, hearing the rattle of bottles and such as the fridge was tugged open.

“What if I don’t want to know what my talent is?” a part-muffled voice called back, and the fridge rattled again as Dice re-emerged, carrying a can of coke in his mouth. “What if I don’t really care?”

“Now that’s bullshit,” I retorted, “How can you not care? I would!”

“You’re not me.”

I blew a raspberry. “I’m enough you to know you do care.”

“Believe what you want to believe.” Dice cracked the can open by setting it on the ground and prying with his teeth, succeeding. “So, what’s the plan, such as it is?”

“Well,” I said, consulting the post-it I’d written the training plan on, “We’re gonna play some videogames.”

“Like?” Dice looked at me. “I mean, I get where you’re coming from, but I can’t think of any game which would make a good middle-ground for testing that sort of thing.”

I got up, and walked over to the bookshelf on the far wall; below a row of books, sat my collection of videogames - Gary and M often gave me crap over having six shelves dedicated to holding physical cases for videogames, but I felt it helped when deciding what to play.

“DJ Max?”

“Fuck off,” Dice snorted, “Can’t even beat that shit with fingers, how am I gonna do it with magic?”

“TF2?”

“We want a game, not a hat simulator.” Dice mimed putting objects on his head with a stupid expression on his face, and I got the point.

“True...” I ran my fingers along the spines, and stopped. “Here’s one. Serious Sam.”

“Hm.” Dice tapped his chin. “I think I can handle that.”

======

“To your left, your left,” Duke urged, playing backseat-shooter, looking over my shoulder.

“I see it,” I reassured, my magic playing over the keyboard and moving the mouse with dexterity that was both super-human... and sub-brick. “I see it-”

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA- BOOM

“Fuck!” I pushed away from the computer in disgust.

“Apparently not,” Duke remarked, smugly.

“I had the double-barrel, and I was reloading. What was I supposed to do about that?”

“Suck less?”

“Let’s see you do better.” I folded my hooves, and turned up my snout.

“Fine, I will,” Duke boasted, and I vacated my seat, to let Duke take the controls. He pulled himself closer to the slowly spinning image of our dead avatar, and loaded the most recent savegame.

I watched him go, navigating small obstacles with much greater finesse than I had. And the way he was carrying on, I could tell he’d already forgotten what I ran into around this next corner - my slow pace had allowed me to avoid the trap, but Duke-

*crunch*

“Ha. Ha. Ha.” my grin was wider and fuller than it had been in weeks. “Where are your finger gods now?”

“Shut up.” Duke fumed a little, then brightened. “Why don’t we try playing something multiplayer?”

“This?” I pointed at the screen of failure, and Duke snorted.

“Nah, we play something a bit more forgiving.”

======

The sound of rumbling engines filled the air, as two sports cars, one green and one teal, did donuts in the middle of a five-way intersection, waiting for more players.

“I mean, Burnout: Paradise kind of sucks compared to the other games,” Duke’s green car remarked, “What with that silly Burnout Store and all, but gotta hand it to them; the freeburn thing is pretty cool.”

“Why are we listening to the classical music tracks while we do this?” I paused the game, and looked at the playlist, carefully manipulating the controller with my magic, and getting used to having more than one thumb on each invisible hand. “All the songs have been disabled apart from Girlfriend, which is a race-only song, and the classical tracks, which only play when we’re not racing.”

“Gotta have music to race to.”

“But... seriously? Girlfriend?” I unpaused the game without warning, and Duke’s car spun out of control to the tune of Mozart.

“Hey, we like that song,” Duke remarked, as digital metal crunched and a very expensive-looking car became the accordion model, “At least, I’m sure we do.”

“...point. Who are we waiting for?”

“I got Hatless on the horn,” Duke counted off our friends on the fingers of one hand, “and I think UniBro’s getting his hands on a copy of Burnout as we speak. Also, open party, so anyone out there that actually still plays this game can just jump on in.”

We resumed our donuts, when a small notification popped up, and the player list grew by one. The sound of a scratching mic sounded, and someone cleared their throat.

“Hey, Douk. What’s up?” a male voice crackled over the speakers, and coughed. “Sorry, got a bad bout of the flu or something.”

“Hi, Hatless,” we replied in unison, the microphones on our headsets picking up our voices, and the anonymous racer arrived at our intersection, coming to a halt dead on the line, watching us circle endlessly.

“Oh, hey, Douk’s friend. Did Douk rope you into this? You played Burnout before?”

I laughed. “You could say I’ve had a bit of practice.”

“Oh, good. I won’t need to go easy on you, then.”

I just laughed harder. “Right, I think you’ll find me quite a challenge.”

Hatless revved his yellow car’s engine. “You sound so sure of yourself, Douk’s friend.”

The game blooped, and a small message announced that “Default” had joined the game. Duke cocked an eyebrow.

“Default? You forgot to change your name.”

A small text message materialized in the corner: BRB.

As quickly as he’d arrived, Default left the game, and I rubbed my head, scratching under the headset.

“Ten bucks says that’s Unibro,” wagered Duke, and I snorted.

“Remember? We can’t wager on money any more.”

“Right,” Duke rubbed his chin. “Hatless, give us some form of wager that doesn’t involve money or property.”

“Ask for little things, don’t you, Douk? Gimme a moment.” The sound of humming came from the yellow car, and the engine revved thoughtfully. “I don’t really see how we can do this any other way than either sexual favours-”

“Don’t roll that way, Hatless,” Duke said, a warning tone to his voice.

“-OR,” the yellow car honked its horn, “You make it a favor. One favor, of any calibre.”

“Bit extreme, isn’t it, Hatless?” I pointed out, concernedly.

Hatless’ car began to circle the intersection. “Well, it’s hardly a wager if you’re playing low stakes.”

“Well, it might be a bit much for just betting on who it was that just joined before,” I mused, “But, alright. I’m game - who knows, you might win and clear that ice-cream debt you owe me.”

“You owe your buddy ice cream? How much?”

“As much as I can eat,” I declared, “Isn’t that right?”

Duke sighed, and gave in. “He wagered that I couldn’t break the news about my new room-mate to my friends without one of them taking it the wrong way.”

“Room mate?” Hatless stopped driving as he put two and two together. “Are you...?”

“Hatless, what’d I just say?”

“Ha ha,” Hatless did a short burnout, “Chill, Douk. I know. I’m just rustlin’ your jimmies. Who’s the roomie?”

“That’d be me,” I chuckled, “Dice Roller. Unicorn.”

“Another unicorn? Are you sure you aren’t like that, Douk?” The voice channel devolved into cackling laughter, and a short hacking cough.

The game bleeped again, and we were four racers strong with “Unibro” back in our midst.

There, got it, unibro wrote, What’s up, guys?

“Not a lot,” Duke replied, “Got Dice here with me, we’re brushin’ up on his dexterity.”

Dexterity with video games? That’s a novel way to approach it.

“Got no mic, there, Uni?” Hatless mused, as a black car jerked and shuddered it’s way to the intersection, accelerating erratically. The car stopped for a brief moment, and -

Quiet, you.

“Ha ha. Hey, I just realized we’ve got two horners in this party. I guess ponies really are taking over the world.”

“Dat’s racist,” Duke said, in the most childlike voice he could, and it met with chuckles. I joined in, and gradually brought my mirth to a halt, wiping my eyes with the back of a hoof.

“Right, so, should we get started?”

======

The racing was fast and brutal, as it usually was when Hatless and I went head-to-head in any racing game. To my pleasure, Dice was easily keeping up with Hatless and I, despite the magical manipulation handicap. At the back of the pack, Unibro was keeping up, although he was rapidly getting the hang of driving digital cars through traffic at high speeds, and was starting to nip at our rear bumpers with regular occurrence.

And to top it all off, we’d become very adept at singing the chorus to the eponymous theme song of Burnout, Girlfriend.

I watched as my car spun out and hit a barrier side-on, and Unibro zoomed on by, not breaking stride, despite having been responsible for ramming my rear-wheels out sideways.

“You sure you haven’t played this game before, Uni?”

Unibro stopped accelerating for a scant split second, and a reply flashed up on screen. Never played a game like this before, I really like it.

“Oh,” Dice hummed, rotating the controller awkwardly as he maneuvered his car around a corner. “You seem to know your stuff, you’re pulling some fancy takedowns, there.”

Aggressive driving course, it was mandatory training, way back when.

“Aggressive driving, huh?” Hatless’s car swerved left and right, trying to block Dice as they wound their way up the mountain road, “Another piece of the puzzle. One day, we’ll work out what you did, Unibro.”

Good luck with that.

The banter continued on as we kept racing; I watched as Dice’s brow began to crease less with the effort of manipulating the controller, and more with trying to beat Hatless at a game he seemed to play exclusively.

It got to the point where Dice was racing through the game’s main street, weaving between cars, while drinking from a can of coke at the same time, which I pointed out.

“Hey, you’re right, I am,” Dice exclaimed, careful to not let go of the controller or the can.

Hey, multiple-object manipulation?

“What’s that when it’s got boots on?” Hatless asked, drifting between two oncoming cars and boosting down the avenue.

Dice is a newfoal, dunno if he said.

A smash of metal, and I watched Unibro’s car sail over mine, a crumpled wreck.

Fuck. He’s been a pony for just a day, and he’s already got stuff down that would take the average newfoal a week or so at least to learn. Trust me - I gotta teach the bastards.

“Ha,” Hatless chortled, “I don’t envy you. That’s gotta be like pushing shit uphill with a stick.”

It’s not so bad. At least newfoals listen.

Our conversation was cut short as the game slowed to a crawl, and the game announced that the race was over, someone having won; a picture of an incredibly smug-looking face sat in the middle of a laurel wreath, getting chortles out of us.

“Oh, Hatless,” Dice remarked, “Still using good ol’ trollface?”

“You know it.”

The blip of a new player joining sounded, and we all checked the player list.

“Oh, look. Another Default,” Hatless remarked. “Anyone you guys know?”

I didn’t mention this to anyone.

“Neither,” I declined, “I did set the party to ‘open’, though.”

“Oh, a new player. Hi, Default.”

A midnight-blue car caught up to us, and remained silent, gunning the engine. Dice snorted.

“No mic either, huh?”

We waited, but there was no response. I shrugged.

“Oh well, a straight race okay with you guys?”

“I’m keen,” Hatless declared, “I do enjoy beating human players at this game, for once. The AI just don’t cut it.”

I’m okay with a race. This time, it shall be me who wins.

Dice nodded. “Hit it.”

The midnight-blue car just revved its engines, and I sighed. I guessed that was a “yes”.

“Alright, we race.”

======

“My hands!”

I looked at my human counterpart, who put the controller down, and massaged his hands. I raised an eyebrow.

“You okay, Duke?”

“No! Ow!” Duke rotated his wrist, and I winced at the crackling noises it was making. “Wrists don’t do this! I can’t go on!”

“Yeah... I can’t keep up any more,” Hatless lamented, “I’m gonna throw in the towel on this one. Whoever Default is, they know their way around a controller. Ow.”

You’re all children, Unibro typed out, Can’t handle the heat?

“Apparently not,” I stated, still driving. The midnight-blue Default had gotten off to a slow start, but in no time at all, it was them who was pushing at, and eventually sitting comfortably in the lead. Even Hatless had eventually fallen to what seemed like tirelessly relentless driving.

Of the four of us, only Unibro and I remained driving, trying to at least deny Default victory. It was futile; with tauntingly effortless ease, Default was always one step ahead of us; even Unibro’s aggressive driving wasn’t enough to put Default into a wall, and the less said of my clumsy attempts to drive Default into traffic, the better.

“Default can’t even be human,” Duke bemoaned. “No human can drive like this. It’s been six hours, already. They gotta be wearing down at some point.”

“I gotta admit, he’s right,” Hatless collaborated, “This shouldn’t be physically possible.”

It’s happening right now.

We rounded the last corner - just a half-kilometer stretch stood between us and the finish line for this race. Default was out in front, Unibro and I nipping at his back bumper; in all the time Default had been racing with us, we’d never, ever managed to score a takedown on him - we all had him down as a rival by now, and the sore point was that we couldn’t so much as trade paint with the guy, much less a revenge takedown.

My headset clicked, and a small message appeared - someone had opened a private channel with me.

“Dice, it’s me, Uni.” The internet-surfing unicorn’s voice was hurried, but calm. “I have a plan.”

I quickly muted the general channel. “What’s the plan, Uni?”

“I’ll keep this guy busy, you take the ramp coming up on the left, and land the car on top of him, take his ass out.”

I knew the ramp. But the angle it would put me on... “If I do that, I take you out as well. You can hardly win like that.”

“You win, we both win, because Default loses. Ramp’s coming up fast, be ready.”

I returned my attention to the game - sure enough, just a hundred meters out from where we were, on the left, was the ramp, parked on the side of the road; and another hundred metres beyond that, the finish line. If we pulled it off, it would take out Default just metres short of the finish line.

Unibro’s car moved to harass Default’s from the right, and the plan was put in motion; Unibro appeared to attack normally, going for his usual pit maneuver that he’d executed on the rest of us so often. Default responded by dropping their speed just enough so that Unibro was trying to push the front wheels, not the rear ones. I swerved, and aimed for the ramp.

I only clipped it, one wheel riding up the structure, and I swore loudly, my curse melding with Unibro’s as my car began to spin a low barrel-roll - past experience had told us that this was a bad thing, rarely had any of us managed to pull off a proper barrel roll off one of the purpose-built ramps, let alone a half-flanked roll off a mis-jump.

I crossed non-existent fingers, and prayed to whatever gods might be listening. Please, give me dysentery, give me plague and famine; just give me this, and help me put Default in their place.

My car continued to spiral through the air with almost lazy ease - I realized that against all odds, the car was not only going to land on its wheels, but also on top of Default!

Default wasn’t sleeping on the job, though, and had one trick up their sleeve still; without another car to keep them boxed in, they were free to simply swerve to the left, and that’s just what they did; Unibro’s car was then free to take Default’s place, just like we’d predicted.

Crunch - The game-world went into slow motion as my car ran rampant over Unibro’s, landing on the ground with a shower of digital sparks; on my left, Default. And a divider. I realized the unicorn’s plan for what it had been all along. I was never going to land on Default... I was going to stop him moving right and avoiding the barrier that Unibro had tricked him into strafing into.

A small smile crept across my face as my own teal-colored sportscar solidly blocked Default, and that turned into a full-blown grin as Default suffered their first takedown of the session. Next to me, Duke cheered as my car slipped past the barrier and Default’s wreckage, and flew across the finish line, followed by a hail of car-parts as Unibro’s car wreckage skidded across the line after me.

“YOU DID IT!” Duke cheered, “You beat Default!”

“No,” I corrected, “Unibro helped. We did it.”

“No, no,” Unibro said over the voice channel, the private channel now public that the race was over, “That was all you.”

“What do you mean?” I was perplexed.

“Yeah,” Hatless chimed in, “I saw you two moving, you planned that. Also, you liar - you said you had no mic.”

“I planned the vertical takedown,” denied Unibro, “It was never part of the plan for Default to escape that one. And I never said I didn’t have one, I just told you to shut up.”

“Wait,” Duke pointed at the screen as Default rolled across the line at a speed that made an old woman with a zimmer frame look fast, “That means...”

Default’s car pulled a quick burnout, then, after twitching and jerking erratically for a moment, vanished.

Default has left the game (Disconnected)

I put the controller down. “How did...?”

“Luck,” Unibro said, “Straight luck. Celestia knows we needed it to get at least one back on Default.”

“Default’s got a temper like ass, though,” chortled Duke, “Did you see that rage-quit? Classic! Can’t even handle losing just once.”

“Oh, Duke, while I’ve got the headset,” Unibro’s car skidded to a halt next to mine, “Just wanna say that the thing you requested’s getting shipped tomorrow. I’m afraid that there’s only one dose of what you wanted that I’ve been able to track down; and even then, I’ve had to call in a few favours.”

“Appreciate it, Uni,” Duke nodded.

“Well, this has been swell,” Hatless said, with a nonchalant air about his voice, “But I gotta go do stuff. Catch you guys later.”

“I think I’ll get going, too. Want to catch some z’s before I have to get up again and work,” groused Unibro. “Nice work, Dice.”

“Right. Laters, guys.” I turned the console off, and looked at Duke, a smile creeping across our faces.

“Best. Day. Ever.”

=======

Far away, the sound of platinum-shod hooves on tiles filled the corridor, as Princess Luna, mistress of the night, stalked the corridors of her palace. She was a mare on a mission, and she had somepony to visit. She made her way down to a small room in the second floor, and knocked on the door.

“Coming,” a voice rang out, and the door swung open to reveal an earth pony wearing the strangest set of goggles ever conceived - they looked like a homemade set of magnifying goggles, fabricated from a set of old Wonderbolts-merchandise goggles.

Behind him, a dark bedroom had an armchair set up in front of a television running old documentaries about how things worked ran near silently, the only source of illumination in the room.

“Ah, Sky Limit, how are you this evening?” Luna asked brightly. The earth pony bristled at the full use of his name. That was never a good sign, her trying to grease up the engineer.

“Highness, what did you break this time?”

“This.” Luna’s head bowed in shame, and she lifted a wing, withdrawing the twisted, mangled remains of a controller from underneath; at one point, it had been a human-scale controller, made from what looked like solid metal; but that had proven little resistance against the titanic forces which had torn it asunder.

Sky took the broken controller in his hooves, and swore softly as he turned it around. “Princess, this was made of the hardest metal I could find here or on earth - how did you break this?”

“I... got mad.”

“Over those videogame things?” Sky tutted, and placed it in his mouth so he could walk properly. “ You need to work on your temper.”

Luna’s eyes flashed for the briefest of moments with terrible power, promising a very sudden and lethal end to Sky, who backtracked hastily, catching the hint.

“I mean, sure, I’ll fix it, Princess.” Sky quickly and carefully retreated, shutting the door, and sighed as he leaned against it for a moment, before, throwing the controller to the side - he said he’d fix it, but that was a lie. There was no saving a controller after Luna was done with it.

Crawling under the bed; a few seconds later, he re-emerged, dragging a box; he reached in, and produced an exact duplicate of the wrecked controller, and put it aside, returning the box to it’s hiding place with a kick.

He then turned to the small mountain of broken controllers in the corner, and sighed. It was a king’s ransom in scrap metal alone, never mind the human electronics and magical runes of reinforcing he’d imbued each controller with.

He checked the calendar, and grumbled. Time for the monthly salvage and repair, then. He turned on the lights, turned off the TV, and sat down to prepare another month’s worth of controllers.