Chapter 2

“Flowers, dear?”

Lauren looked up to see the kindly old face of the unicorn pony who had been running the Conversion Bureau front desk, telekinetically offering her a vase full of lilies.

“No, thank you ma’am,” Lauren declined, eyeing the flowers with an odd mixture of distaste and the horrifying thought that this was what she would have to eat for the rest of her life…which, what with her being an alicorn and all, might never end.

“Call me Periwinkle, dearie,” the appropriately hued pony said, setting the flowers back on the table of the Conversion Bureau’s waiting room as Lauren returned her attention to the window. The new alicorn had been staring outside it for the past three hours after arriving from Club Technochocolate via police escort along with all the other former humans.

Lauren shuddered at the memory of all the newfoals looking up at her in awe, not daring to even speak to her directly but intently whispering amongst themselves. Lauren had overheard enough of their chatter to gather that they hadn’t even thought an alicorn transformation possible. Lauren couldn’t bring herself to blame them for their absentminded alienation—she hadn’t thought an alicorn transformation possible either, and was, truth be told, just as terrified of herself as they were terrified of her.

One by one, the newfoals had been called into the back hall to be assigned their rooms for post-transformation training—pre-transformation training not being an option any more. But Lauren, even when her name was called at last, had refused to budge from her seat by the window. Nopony had dared to try and get her to do otherwise—in fact, Periwinkle was the first living being besides the police officer who had actually made contact with her since the incident.

“Still waiting for him, I see?” the off-green pony inquired, joining Lauren in a seat at the window. Lauren was surprised at this sudden gesture of normalcy after all she’d been through. Maybe Periwinkle wasn’t a newfoal and had come straight from Equestria like some of the Bureau workers she’d interviewed in her studies for college, and knew that alicorns were people—well, ponies—too, and not magical monsters. With the way the newfoals had looked at her, though, Lauren only hoped that she herself could stop thinking of herself as a magical monster.

“Yeah,” Lauren answered, sighing and breathing a fog onto the windowpane. When it cleared, all Lauren could see was the air-traffic of countless hover-cars zooming by, just like they had been doing since she arrived here. Lauren’s eyes lit up when the flashing lights of a police cruiser dashed by, but her ears drooped as the cruiser sped on past the Bureau, off to attend to some emergency that didn’t involve delivering Craig to her. “I can’t believe they’re taking so long! The police said they’d deliver him here hours ago.”

“I’m sure the police have a good reason for the hold-up, dearie,” Periwinkle affirmed. “Don’t worry, he’ll be here. I’m certain of it.”

Lauren turned to the older pony, eyeing her quizzically.

“What makes you so sure?” Lauren asked.

“I’ve been running the front desk of this Conversion Bureau for years,” Periwinkle answered. “I’ve seen just about everything pass through those front doors. Families looking to provide a better life for their children, loners looking for a way out of the life they were lost in. I’ve even seen a few suitors rushing to join their lovers before they ran away without them.”

“Wait—you mean me and—but, no, it’s not like—” Lauren spluttered, trying to dissuade Periwinkle from her perception of the situation. “I mean, sure, Craig’s my best friend from college, but—”

Periwinkle simply held up a hoof and Lauren stopped abruptly.

“It’s none of my business anyway, dearie,” the other pony said smilingly with a wink. “But he’ll come. They always do.”

Lauren, embarrassed, turned back to the window. She only hoped Periwinkle was right. No, not about that, about the other thing.

“Just let me know if you need anything, dearie,” Periwinkle said as she got up to resume her position at the front desk.

“Thanks,” Lauren smiled back before gluing herself to the window again. If Craig didn’t get here soon, Lauren thought that she might die of worry. It was like the calm before the storm—unbearable. The new alicorn had do something to pass the time, or she’d be pulling her hair out before much longer. Well, she would if she had any hands.

Following the hover-cars speeding past the Bureau in the night outside, Lauren began absentmindedly counting as many as she could. An Italian sports speeder, a minivan, a bright red fire flier with sirens ablaze, and so many others flew by without a second thought to the white alicorn in the window of the Conversion Bureau. They were humanity, the ones who had chosen stick with the Earth, come what may. Rushing about their lives, trying desperately to save their dying planet and paying no attention to the ponies.

And, until last night, Lauren had been one of them.

Lauren sighed again, counting a large line of sky-tour buses zooming past. A rumbling sound alerted her attention to an even larger trailer-toting hover-truck bumbling up behind the buses, almost shoving the smaller hovercraft out of the way as it sped along.

Lauren mentally read off the forgettable name of the hover-truck’s moving company. It was probably one of the richer families finally moving out of the city to the last remains of the countryside, where the air wasn’t quite akin to smoking a cigar without the safety of a disposable throat filter.

It was almost as if the trucking company was trying to make their logo be forgotten without a second glance with how boring it was. ‘The Smith, Jones, & Brown Moving Company.’

“…Lauren…”

Lauren’s ears perked up, then drooped again almost as quickly. That couldn’t have been Craig, could it? It sounded like him, but it was so faint, and there was nopony else in the Conversion Bureau front lobby but Periwinkle playing solitaire on the computer to pass the slow hours of the nightshift. If the automatic front doors of the Bureau had opened, Lauren would’ve noticed it instantly, but they had remained shut and silent.

“…Lauren!”

There it was again! Lauren was certain she had heard something that time—it had been louder. Not by much, but too much to ignore. But where was it coming from?

“…Lauren…”

It was getting faint again, as if it was moving farther away.

“…Lauren…help…me…”

Lauren’s ears swiveled in the direction the sound was coming from. It was definitely Craig—it had to be, somehow, as she could recognize his voice anywhere—and it seemed to be coming from—

“He's outside?” Lauren questioned herself. “What would—”

“Did you say something, dearie?” Periwinkle asked.

“Oh, uh, I think I’ll just slip outside for some…fresh air,” Lauren excused herself hastily, getting up from her chair and trotting to the entryway doors.

“Fresh?” Periwinkle echoed uncertainly. “You know, dearie, the police said you really shouldn’t leave—”

“I’ll just be a minute!” Lauren called over her shoulder.

The automatic doors swiped aside and Lauren sped outside onto the moving walkway, nearly knocking some humans off the side. With a few hasty repetitions of “Sorry!” Lauren began galloping down the mobile lane away from the Bureau. Humans and ponies alike hastened to get out of the alicorn’s path.

“…Lauren!”

There it was again! She must be getting closer! But where was it coming from?

Lauren approached the intersection and the stationary island in the moving sidewalk as the floating traffic lights turned red and the forward movement of hovercraft halted. Lauren could cross to the other side now, if she wanted to, but would the voice be stronger over there? If only she could tell where it was coming from!

“Lauren!”

Lauren jumped. It was if Craig’s voice had spoken right in her ear this time. The new alicorn turned abruptly in the direction the sound had emanated from, but saw nothing but more people and ponies zooming down the mobile walkway. Beyond them were the waiting cars, one large craft in particular catching her eye—

“Lauren, I’m in the—”

The lights turned green, and traffic sped off again.

Craig’s voice said something again, but it was too faint to hear.

What was going on? Where was that coming from—

“The truck!” Lauren realized. She’d only heard Craig’s voice when the truck was passing by, and the closer it was, the clearer she could hear Craig. That had to be it!

Lauren launched herself down the walkway, barreling through the late night crowds. Several pedestrians, ponies and humans alike, cursed her as she ran past and more often than not almost over them, but she had other things to worry about right now.

The hover-truck was getting farther and farther away, despite Lauren’s new longer strides. There had to be some way she could catch up with it before—

The truck swerved off the main road, turning down a side street.

“Buck!” Lauren swore. Then, realizing what she had said, “What, I can’t even use human swear words?!”

The traffic was blocking Lauren from following the hover-truck on the other side of the street. Lauren would have to wait for the lights to change again before she could cross, and by that time who knew where the truck would be? It could’ve disappeared down any of the numerous other side streets and Lauren would never know.

Unless…

No. No, she was NOT doing that. She didn’t even know how!

But Craig was getting farther and farther away…

“Oh, Buck it!” Lauren swore again, not even bothering to try for the human equivalent this time. Spreading her wings and saying a prayer, Lauren galloped forward and launched into the air.

And fell.

Lauren smacked the tarmac, getting up just in time to see a hovercraft blaring its horn as its twin bright lights sped towards her. Lauren squeaked in fear and instinctively spread her wings again and leapt up over the car, her hooves stomping down on the hard metal but leaving indentations all the same as her wings stretched out to their fullest potential and Lauren ran into the air.

“What the—I’m flying!” Lauren laughed with glee as her wings instinctively stroked the air, pushing her higher and higher as the hovercraft below righted itself and continued on its journey, other cars speeding along behind it. Lauren looked below her to see the zooming lights, never expecting to witness them from the angle of right overhead.

It was incredible—the sensation of the air rushing through her mane, her tail flicking this way and that as she turned and spiraled higher and higher until--

“The truck!” Lauren remembered, jerking herself out of her joyous discovery of the miracle of first flight. Angling her wings as if she’d been doing this all her life, as if the secret of how to fly had been buried deep within her all along, Lauren took off over the side street the truck had sped down and zoomed ahead in hot pursuit.

Lauren caught sight of the truck just as it was making another turn and banked to follow it, planning to land on its top.

But when Lauren rounded the bend, instead of the waiting empty rooftop of a moving van, Lauren was met by a rooftop full of fully armed soldiers. All of the soldiers aimed their laser assault rifles and let out a barrage of blasts, Lauren having to swerve and duck in surprised shock as a laser beam singed the top of her mane and another nearly blew a hole in her wing.

“What the buck?!” Lauren gasped. She was going to get a lot of practice with Equestrian cursing, it seemed. “What’s the military doing here?!”

“Lauren!” Craig’s voice rang in her mind, louder now than ever. “I heard them! They’re going to take me away and kill me! Please, help me—”

“Don’t worry, Craig!” Lauren shouted.

Ducking and speeding forward, Lauren slid onto the metal roof of the moving van, keeping her wings outstretched so that they slid under the feet of the soldiers and swept them off the top of the van. Lauren smirked satisfactorily until she realized she’d just sent a platoon of humans to their deaths, only to rush to the side of the van and see them rising above her on rocket boots.

“Oh, horseapples!” Lauren swore under her breath.

The soldiers fired at her again, but she galloped forward out of the way, tumbling down to the front of the van’s control carriage. Picking herself up, Lauren came face to face with the two men driving the truck through a sheet of glass, only to see both of these men draw laser revolvers and fire through the windshield at her.

“I am so tired of being shot at!” Lauren exasperated as she sidestepped to one side and then the other in a deadly dance to avoid the laser shots riddling the front of the control carriage. Knowing she couldn’t keep this up, Lauren took wing again and flew backwards, putting her front hooves underneath the control carriage’s hood and thrusting it upwards. The hood blocked both the shots and the drivers’ vision, causing the truck to swerve and turn into a stoplight.

Lauren flew higher as the truck barreled out of control, knocking the stoplight out of its socket and rolling down the street, flattening any smaller hovercraft unfortunate enough to be in its way. Finally the massive vehicle crashed into a building where the roads next met, looking battered and broken but still intact with more pieces than would be expected of commercial transport.

The hovercraft behind the crashed truck were slowing down and grinding traffic to a halt, horns blaring everywhere. Lauren landed in the center of the road, galloping up to the smashed truck.

“Craig!” Lauren called. “Craig! Can you hear me?! Tell me you’re alright!”

“Lauren, look out behind you!” Craig’s voice shouted in Lauren’s mind.

Lauren whirled around and ducked just in time to avoid the laser shots from the landing soldiers.

Lauren, in another fit of rage, ran forward and reared up, knocking the soldiers out of the way with a blow to the head from her front legs. As more soldiers ran forward from behind, Lauren let out a devastating kick, sending them flying backwards with a sickening crunch.

But as strong as Lauren was now, she was still outnumbered by armed men and woman trained for combat. Surrounded from all sides and above as more soldiers flew in on their rocket boots, Lauren snorted and flared her wings to knock them back, but they just kept coming.

The soldiers were too close for Lauren to dodge their shots now, and one fired a laser right through her wing. Lauren cried out in pain—what could be so powerful that it could harm an alicorn?—only to realize that the soldiers must be using the experimental anti-magical energy she had been hearing so much about in the news. According the media the energy was still highly dangerous. Apparently the military was either more advanced with the technology than they let on or they were risking the unstable energies in fear of something worse that would happen if they didn’t. But what could be so dangerous that it warranted the use of laser rifles that, according the news, could blow up an entire city block with high-frequency radiation if damaged?

More shots punctured Lauren’s other wing, then her chest, hind leg, firing all throughout and around her.

“Lauren!” Craig shouted in her mind. “No!”

“Craig!” Lauren shouted as she began to black out from the pain and loss of blood spurting from her supposedly invincible flesh. “I’m sorry…I couldn’t save you…”

“No, Lauren!” Craig mentally screamed. “We can still save each other! We can still do it! Use your magic!”

“What good is magic against anti-magical energy?” Lauren asked as her eyes closed and the shots continued to fire. “Goodbye, Craig. I didn’t want it to end like this. I never even got to tell you—”

“NO!” Craig shouted again. “You do NOT give up! You don’t have to use your magic on the rifles—use it on something else—use it to set me free, say ‘Craig is free!’ Write it in the air! Think it! Do something!”

With Lauren’s last remaining breath, not knowing why she was doing it or what good it would do, the new alicorn traced the words ‘Craig is free’ in the asphalt.

Boom.

The shots stopped, all at once. Lauren craned her head, opening her reddened eyes painfully, to see that the soldiers above her had vanished. Turning towards a smashing sound down the street opposite the site of the crashed truck, Lauren saw a piece of metal a foot thick ripped into vicious tears at the edges having buried itself in the road after bloodily horizontally halving the soldiers who had, until just a moment ago, been hovering over her.

A primal roar of fury jerked Lauren and the soldiers’ attention to the direction the giant metal shard had come from. The crashed hover-truck now had a large chunk of its side missing from where it had been blown out by what must have been a tremendous force. Steam was now emanating from the whole, and a dark shape rose up through it.

The soldiers instantly turned their laser rifles on the dark figure, firing shot after shot, but the shadowy shape slithered through the air and dodged every one of them. The creature appeared over Lauren and snapped its fingers, causing the lasers to be telekinetically lifted out of the soldiers’ hands and flung onto the highest rooftops. The soldiers, defenseless, tried to scramble with their rocket boots, but with another snap all that came out of the boots’ jets was melted cheese. Falling to the ground, the soldiers cried out for mercy as the creature stood over them and snapped its fingers again, and each soldier exploded into a blast of confetti.

Screams were going up from the crowd of people in their traffic-jammed hovercrafts. Thousands of people were getting out of their cars and running away in terror, abandoning their vehicles.

But the creature did not pursue them, turning instead to face Lauren.

“Lauren!” the creature cried. “Lauren! Are you alright?! Can you hear me?!”

Lauren blinked slowly, her mind fogging over. Just before it went, though, it registered the face in front of it, even if it didn’t understand what it was seeing.

A long, vaguely equine face. A single fang jutting down from the creature’s lip. Two mismatched eyes, one vastly larger than the other, both yellow with red irises. Two horns, one of a goat and one of a stag.

If Lauren’s brain was functioning properly and she hadn’t been bleeding to death, she would’ve thought the face ugly and horrifying.

But what would’ve shocked Lauren most of all before she blacked out was that the voice coming out of the creature’s mouth was Craig’s.

. . .

“Is she awake yet?”

“If she was awake, don’t you think her eyes would be open?”

“Oh, right…Is she awake yet?”

“Ugh!”

Lauren opened her eyes tentatively, then shut them again painfully. The bright light hurt more than it had back when she awoke from the effects of the sleeping gas in Club Technochocolate.

“She’s awake!”

“Of course she’s not, her eyes are closed!”

“But they opened, I saw them!”

“You’re lying!”

“Am not!”

“Are too!”

“Shut up, will you?!” Lauren snapped, her head throbbing with the obnoxious voices.

“She IS awake!”

“Told you!”

Lauren ventured to open her eyes again, and found that it was less painful this time. When the spots cleared, Lauren found herself looking up at two ponies, one pink and one blue, each with the exact same style of white mane and tail. Each pony had a white nurse’s hat on their head with the universal red cross.

“I’ll get the Princess—” said the blue one.

“No, I’LL get the Princess—” the pink one argued.

"The Princess is already here,” announced a voice that made both ponies stop dead cold. Lauren did the same, as she’d only ever heard that voice on international holovision broadcasts. Raising herself into a sitting position in what she discovered to be a hospital bed in a white room, Lauren saw none other than Princess Celestia herself.

The other alicorn smiled upon seeing Lauren’s shocked face as she trotted over to the patient.

“I know, I’m surprised too,” Celestia said, lowering herself to Lauren’s eye level. “I never expected to see another alicorn.

“Much less you.”

All at once Celestia moved forward and wrapped her forelegs around Lauren in a tight embrace.

“I’ve missed you so much, Mother,” Celestia said softly.

“M—m—” Lauren stammered, her brain unable to comprehend what her ears were telling her.

“It’s alright now,” Celestia soothed. “You don’t have to say anything. Luna is going to be so happy to hear you’re finally awake, Mother!”

“But—I’m NOT your Mother!” Lauren blurted.

Celestia stopped cold.

“W…what?” the Solar Princess questioned, her eyes going wide.

“I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Lauren said hastily. “I mean, I’m sorry if you mistook me for somepony else, but my name’s Lauren, I’m a human—well, I USED to be a human before the PER got their hooves on me—from Earth. Where am I, anyway? And what happened to Craig?!”

“M…Mother?” Celestia stuttered. “Don’t you recognize me? Don’t you remember this place? Can’t you sense that you are home?”

“Home?” Lauren echoed questioningly.

“You are in Equestria,” Celestia explained. With a spark of her horn, the Solar Princess caused the blinds at the far side of the room to be thrown open and sunlight streamed forth. Lauren saw a bustling market place that one might have expected to see at a renaissance fair far below, but instead of humans in old Elizabethan garb, ponies wearing largely nothing trotted to and fro in a happy bustle of activity. Beyond that lay a city that looked like something right out of a textbook on the Middle Ages, and beyond that was a green countryside that stretched as far as the eye could see, little towns dotting it here and there along the way. “You are home, Mother.”

“But…this isn’t my home,” Lauren said softly. “And I’m sorry, but I’m not your mother.”

“She…may be disoriented from the earlier events…?” the blue nurse suggested.

“Or she may have hit her head and gotten amnesia!” the pink one thought aloud, only to be smacked by the blue one, prompting her to say “Hey, what was that for?”

“Leave us,” Celestia commanded, and the pink and blue ponies hurried from the room, shutting the door behind them.

“Um…” Lauren tried to say something to break the silence, uneasily watching Celestia stare at her intently. “What’s going on?”

Celestia sighed “I was actually hoping you could answer that question for me.”

“You mean you don’t know either?” Lauren inquired, her ears drooping.

“I know a little,” Celestia admitted. “But do you not remember anything?”

“I remember right up until the soldiers began shooting me with those lasers, and then Craig saved me, but after that…nothing,” Lauren answered.

“That was anti-magical energy,” Celestia spat. “Horrible human technology. But you’re safe now—the moment I heard what had happened, I went to Earth myself to collect you and deal with the…problem. Thankfully I was able to get you here to the royal wing of the Canterlot hospital in time to patch you up.”
Lauren glanced at herself and saw that indeed her wounds were completely gone, prompting a surprised look that made Celestia smile.

“Magic does do wonders, does it not?” the Solar Princess said.

“Yes,” Lauren agreed. “But ‘problem’ are you talking about? What’s going on?”

“The message we received from the humans was garbled,” Celestia answered. “But we got the gist of it. They found you there on Earth, Mother, along with Discord—he somehow managed to escape from his statue prison without breaking the statue itself, which the Royal Guards have confirmed is still outside in the Sculpture Gardens. We told the humans to dispose of Discord, which they promised they would do with the very energy they used to shoot you down, Mother. They were going to ship him away from the human establishment you were both found in with a disguised vehicle to a military base with the proper anti-magical reactors needed to destroy him completely. I never in my wildest dreams imagined they would turn those awful energies on you, though, Mother.”

“Why do you keep calling me ‘Mother?’” Lauren inquired, getting more than a little unnerved by Celestia’s insistence on the name. “I already told you I’m not your mother!”

“I know my Mother anywhere,” Celestia said firmly. “And you are her. Discord must have done something to your memory—but with time, I’m sure it’ll come back. When it does, I’m very anxious to hear how you got to Earth in the first place. After Discord battled you so long ago, Luna and I thought you to be dead by his hand. I am so grateful to know that you were not slain that day. There never was a body to recover, so Luna and I thought you obliterated completely—perhaps Discord wasn’t able to actually destroy you so he sent you to Earth instead, where you have been trapped all this time, hiding from the humans. When Discord learned of Equestria’s connection to Earth, he must have gone there to try and finish you off.”

“No, you don’t understand,” Lauren tried to explain. “That’s not what happened at all. I used to be a human—I was BORN a human, and I would’ve liked to die one too, but a freak accident by the Ponification for Earth’s Rebirth group changed all that. They stole some ponification potion from some Conversion Bureaus and doused all the humans at Club Technochocolate with the stuff, which is where Craig and I happened to be. Where is Craig, anyway? He must have been transformed too, but the police wouldn’t let me see him—I guess he turned into an alicorn as well and his magic must have been out of control.”

“Craig?” Celestia echoed wonderingly. “The humans insisted on calling Discord by the name of ‘Craig,’ but I hadn’t the slightest idea why.”

“What—oh, no,” Lauren whispered. It all came rushing back—the creature who had saved her. It hadn’t been an alicorn like her after all. The murky images Lauren’s brain had barely been able to capture before blacking out came snapping back to her. It hadn’t been an alicorn’s face that spoke with Craig’s voice—it had been that of the creature the ponies feared more than anything. It had been the face of a draconequus.

. . .