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The Conversion Bureau - The Return of the King

by Dan_s Comments

Chapter 13: 13) Hard Headed Woman

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The Conversion Bureau - The Return of the King
Hard Headed Woman by Dan's Comments
Disclaimer: My Little Pony is the property of Hasbro, Inc.
Godzilla is the property of Toho Company Ltd.


The airship commander was preparing to disgorge its cargo of armed pegasi. Dozens of similar airship 'carriers' were in tight formation. Their night attack would put an end to the exodus. She had considerable experience in these attacks from the 'Earth War' as they called it.

"Sir, are we getting an escort?" her lieutenant asked as she scanned the darkness below them with a powerful telescope. "There's pegasi way below us, lots of them."

The commander displaced her lieutenant and scanned the force. "None was authorized."

"What is that?" the helmsmare asked, staring as the giant, glowing, floating, reptilian head that seemed poised to consume the entire air armada.
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Fleetfoot missed her uniform. But she knew that once her part in this stunt was made public, she'd be thrown out. Better to leave quietly, she thought as she looked into the darkness at the collection of ponies she'd assembled once she'd learned of the 'seek and destroy' mission that had been aimed at the massive emigration fleet that had been assembled. Every boat and coaster had been bought, begged or borrowed for a massive sealift from every town and fishing village on the Western Ocean. It was allowed, so the Guard could hunt down and destroy the fleet in deep water, Fleetfoot thought, How have we fallen so far?

She looked at the pegasi, the occasional thestral, griffon, even some unicorns on flying carpets who flew above the armada, as close escort. No, not all of us, she thought then looked at the immense head, far larger that Godzilla's entire body. What is that for?

The head spoke loud enough for everyone to hear clearly. "Soon we shall be engaged in battle. To protect our fellow citizens, we must fire on our fellow citizens. This is the price of liberty. Long live Liberty!"

Fleetfoot watched the head wink out, and looked at the airships, shadows occluding the stars high above. Instead of the tremendously powerful war machines they had been, they suddenly looked small and delicate. Turn around. Turn around. Turn around, she thought as the airships plodded forward.

The bolt was almost too bright to look at. Fleetfoot cringed at the damage something like that would do to an airship. It continued on past the ships, and she thought it had missed.

Then she heard the noise of the explosion. The airships aren't going down, what's happening? she wondered as more bolts raced up to the airship fleet and more thunderous booms shook the pegasi escorts.
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The last of the windows of the control gondola shattered. Several of the crew had minor cuts and scratches, but nopony was seriously hurt.

"It's missing?" the helmsmare shouted.

The entire airship shook as the 'miss' exploded near enough the ship that its 1000+ ton mass shifted violently.

"I think it's doing exactly what it's supposed to do," the commander shouted back. "Our shields might deflect that beam, but they can't completely tune out the noise or the shockwave, or we'd suffocate." She grabbed the sound powered phone, a Newfoal innovation. "Pegasi commander?"

"The commander's out cold, what kind of storm are you flying us through?" came the reply.

"Godzilla seems to be shooting at us," the commander shouted.

"Well get us out of here, most of us have minor injuries, and about a quarter are iffy on flying. If this beast rips open, we'll be too busy rescuing our own to help your crew."

"Understood," the commander said and hung up.

The commander shook as several more blasts exploded nearby, the fierce wind was racing through the gondola, and the other ships were similarly affected. "Signal for withdraw," she ordered.

"Commander, we have no orders," the lieutenant said.

"You can report me later, but that thing has us down 25% without scoring any hits. We press on, it may decide to sharpen its marksmanship. I don't even know if the shield spell is holding."

The lieutenant was a fanatical believer in Celestia, but even he saw throwing the squadron away as useless. "When the Guard finishes off those troublemakers in the Badlands, we'll be back."

"With more ships and better shields," the commander agreed and watched the lieutenant signal the other ships to turn away. "This one is yours. Next time, oh, next time."
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Fleetfoot watched the airships begin turning, and the fire from the speck in the distance stopped. She let out a breath and smiled.

"Did we win?" the wall-eyed pegasus who was carrying a unicorn foal of all things asked, Fleetfoot was ready to say 'yes'.

Then one of the airships suddenly pointed its nose straight up rather than turning.

"Damn," Fleetfoot whispered then shouted, "Seems we're doing rescue now." She looked at the worried, mother pegasus. "Get down there, get anything that can fly, we've got to rescue that ship, and failing that, we have to evacuate the crew and troopers."

The pegasus saluted and dove for the deck. Fleetfoot raced upwards with the entire escort to wrestle the airship into a correct trim. As she looked in horror, the ship was straight up, nose high, and was slowly descending tail-first. They'll never recover from that, without help.

Help was coming in the form of the 'rebel' escorts, and thousands of fliers from below.
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" 'The best way I can describe this vast armada and the frantic urgency of the traffic is to suggest that you visualize Manehatten on its busiest day of the year and then just enlarge that scene until it takes in all the ocean a pony's eye can reach clear around the horizon and over the horizon. There are dozens of times that many,'" Applejack read, "I never heard of this Earny Piles fella." No one in the palatial apartments responded to the description of the 'armada', or their rescue of the force sent to destroy them. The Mane 6 glanced around in shame.

"I'm shocked that there could have been that many boats," Spike said to try to lighten the mood, "I didn't know Equestria had so many."

"Well, they've got them now," Applejack said, "Mighty neighborly of them Newfoals to rescue the airships that were planning on swatting them down like flies." Shamed silence answered Applejack's attempts to break the atmosphere of mortification.

Discord appeared among them. "Oh goodie! You're reading the news. I just had to make sure you saw the other events that were taking place last night." He gestured and the lights went off, everyone in the room had a large bowl of popcorn. Twilight's was only the size of a cupcake, but she could have almost taken a bath in the bowl.

As they got comfortable, Discord sang.

"In the south part of the badlands, with an Appleloosa tone,
There's a fortress all in ruins that the weeds have overgrown.
You may look in vain for markers and you'll never see a one,
But sometime betwixt the rising and the setting of the sun,
You can hear a ghostly bugle as the ponies all march by;
You can hear them as they answer to that roll call in the sky:
Sprawling Trellis, Shining Dancer and a hundred eighty more;
Glinting Carapace, Fred Mule, present and accounted for.

Out on Newfoal Island there, 'zilla said to Trellis:
"Get some volunteers and go, occupy El Dorado."
Well, the 'foals came from 'Hoover and from Manehat' city,
And they joined up with Trellis just to stand for the right to be free."


There was some mechanical clattering and an image formed in the middle of them. It showed Celestia giving orders. The subtitles read 'Blah Blaw Blah, Bleagh.' Shining Armor saluted and formed a shield over the shield the Newfoal camp already had.

"That makes no sense," Rarity said.

Discord shushed her and sang some more.

"Stallions with their staffs ashine, mares with hooves and shoulders,
Stood together heel and toe to defend El Dorado.
"You may never see your loved ones," Trellis told them that day.
"Those that want to can leave now, those who'll fight to the death, let 'em stay."

In the sand she drew a line with the thing that named her,
Out of a hundred eighty five, not a soldier crossed the line.
With her banners a-dancin' in the dawn's golden light,
Ole Celestia came prancin' with a heart that was black as the night.

Sent an officer to tell Trellis to surrender.
Trellis answered with a shell and a rousin' rebel yell.
Ole' Celestia turned scarlet: "Play DegĀello," she roared.
"I will show them no quarter, everyone will be put to the sword."


Celestia fired a bolt of light. It easily penetrated both shields. A small patch of thatch on a house caught fire. Celestia fired again and again, setting more of the roofs on fire and setting those inside scrambling to contain the fires. But with Celestia's power, there were too many. The smoke began to fill the dome.

Discord sang.

"One hundred and eighty five holdin' off five times that.
Five days, six days, eight days, ten; Trellis held and held again.
Then she sent for replacements for her wounded and lame,
But the troops that were comin' never came, never came, never came.

Twice she charged, then blew recall. On the fatal third time,
Ole Celestia breached the wall and she killed them one and all.
Now the bugles are silent and they lay where they're gored,
And the small band of soldiers lie asleep in the arms of The Lord."


The inner shield dropped, and the smoke filled Shining Armor's shield. Other archmages began firing into the shield, duplicating Celestia's spell while she reinforced Shining Armor's shield.

"No," Twilight said as she covered her eyes.

The Newfoals cast counterspells, threw themselves against the shield, and one even held up a sign offering unconditional surrender. The smoke became too thick to see individual targets. The archmages quit firing.

"Good thing nopony ever taught them fire-resistance or air purifying spells," Discord said, "Or none of this would have worked."

"No," Twilight sobbed as Spike comforted her. Pinkie set her popcorn aside and curled up in a ball on the floor. Applejack kept staring at the image with an expression of desolation. Rainbow just frowned and watched it, ignoring her popcorn. Rarity and Fluttershy stared at it, as if trying to memorize every bit of the event.

"Oh, Sparkle, you have to watch," Discord called, "This is the best part!" When Twilight didn't, he snapped his fingers and Twilight hung before the screen with her eyes wide open.

"No!" Twilight wailed as Armor dropped the shield and the dozens of smoldering fires suddenly roared to life, setting everything in the town ablaze.

Discord sang.

In the south part of the badlands, with an Appleloosa tone,
Like a statue of a Pinto rides a cowmare all alone.
And she sees her cattle grazin' where a mere few weeks before,
Ole Celestia's horn was blazin' and the Guardsmares used to roar.
And her eyes turn sort of misty, and her heart begins to glow,
And she takes her hat off slowly to the dead of Dorado.
To the thirteen days of glory at the siege of Dorado.


Discord gestured and Twilight Breezy returned to Spike's care. "I don't understand what you're upset about. My singing is quite good, and your brother took care of all those evil separatists, without a single pony life being endangered. He'll probably get a stained-glass window right beside yours."

"No!" Twilight moaned as she curled up in a ball on Spike's back.

"Oh, it's not like this is new. They could have been spared all of this, if they'd just surrendered like good, little ponies when Celestia first showed up. You know that and so do I. At least their children might have survived."

"There. Were. Children. In there," Rarity gasped.

"Of course," Discord said, "Family is such a comfort in times of trouble and confusion. I left that out of the song to not upset ponies. I can imagine how Sweetie Belle must be feeling as your noble ruler obliterates these unscrupulous renegades, who rescued a Guards' airship from a disaster. A Guards' airship sent to sink their boats and leave them adrift on a nighttime sea to drown or be eaten."

Rarity looked like she might be joining Twilight in the fetal position.

"Don't forget to be ready to cheer Shining's incomparable victory over incredible odds. Tah," Discord said as he vanished.

"No," Twilight whimpered as she drew her limbs in tight against her body.

Author's Notes:

Ballad of El Dorado, based on Marty Robbins - Ballad of the Alamo

Next Chapter: 14) Love Me Tender Estimated time remaining: 1 Hour, 24 Minutes
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