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The Conversion Bureau - The Return of the King

by Dan_s Comments

Chapter 7: 7) Don't Step On My Blue Suede Shoes

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The Conversion Bureau - The Return of the King
Don't Step On My Blue Suede Shoes by Dan's Comments
Disclaimer: My Little Pony is the property of Hasbro, Inc.
Godzilla is the property of Toho Company Ltd.


Eighty-five families, I thought as I sat amazed, Eighty-five, and more being slipped in every night. It made it riskier for me to tromp around, and for some reason the littlest ones with the least self-preservation instinct seemed to want to get the closest. Very much a case of 'I appreciate the hero worship, but can you let me walk?'

Apparently not. My foray back into Equestria is in three days. So two weeks ago, I moved down the coast of the continent that didn't have lots of people in it, and have been fashioning the 'ark' that will take the potentially thousands of immigrants from Los Pegasus. With the ability to breathe a blast of star-hot plasma, cutting the rough shape out of the ice was easy. What's taken a week was the cutting the inside. What I wound up with was an oversized canoe. It would have to do, based on the skill sets I have, the tools available, and the time. Given a year, I could make a vessel more fitting. But I don't have what I'd need.

Ironic, when anything super heavy needs to be moved, I can do it. I could build the pyramids out of blocks myself, but the fine work is beyond me. I'll have to ask for some tools to overcome that, I thought.

There are times you just feel something is wrong. During my musings over improving my canoe, I spotted a cloud. It wasn't traveling against the wind, or moving too fast or too slow. But everything about it screamed 'wrong, danger'. Clouds in this area didn't come in small groups, they came in Earth-like storm fronts that the weather teams had to break up. A few clouds were just too peaceful. Peaceful meant Equestrian. Maybe if they'd studied the local weather, they wouldn't have given themselves away, I thought as I took careful aim, and fired.

The clouds burnt away, revealing a trio of large airships carrying an immense sphere. Immense for ponies. For me, it would have been large softball.

A second, more focused blast to the dead center of the sphere. The explosion was what I was trying to avoid. The lead airship lurched upward as its tow cable was severed. The two side ships each were still attached to the twisted wreckage of the sphere and were drawn togther. Their impact was anticlimactic, being two bags of gas crashing into each other at running speed. The two didn't recover well from the impact and began a steady descent to the water, without rudders or engines compensating for the loss of the third ship.

I suspected whatever confusion or disability had gripped the crews of the airships would prevent them from rescuing themselves or each other. The 'ark' was on soft sand and thus unlikely to float away. I swam out and collected the blimps while they were still airborne, and cut their cargo loose. I dragged the stricken ships through the air to shore. There was nothing to moor them to, and it was clear the explosion had punctured a fair number of the lifting cells. Neither blimp was going anywhere except down without extensive repairs.

The crew had also been caught in the explosion, and now I understood the lack of coordination on their part during the emergency. Nearly all of them were thestrals, griffons, the odd hippogriff and diamond dog scattered among them. The only members of the crew who seemed well enough trained to overcome suddenly becoming another species and body shape were several handfuls of soldiers who surrounded the seven who seemed to have take the worst of it.

The unicorn was the weirdest. He wasn't an Equestria unicorn, but one out of human legend: goat's hooves and beard, horse's body, lion's tail. The looks he was getting from a young female dragon indicated he had a suitor the instant he wanted one. The unicorn seemed more interested in looking after the Breezy it had on its back wrapped in its tail. The second trio was almost as disturbing. An absolutely ordinary Earth pony had rolled herself into a fetal ball with her tail covering her body. The Changeling Queen beside her stared down with real malevolence. "See here! There ain't no shame in bein' an Earth Pony!"

The other was a grab-bag of different parts. Hawk's head, a tentacle, a bear's arm ending in a gorilla's hand, an orca's torso and tail, a turtle leg, and a starfish's limb. "Ooo! Opposable thumb."

In the center of it all was the biggest, meanest looking red and black alicorn stallion I could imagine. The fangs alone would give a grizzly bear pause. "Umh, hi, we met earlier," it said in a stunningly timid voice. "Could you direct us back to the mainland?"

"Books!" the Breezy suggested.

"Not now," the unicorn said, "Just be glad he hasn't flash-fried us."

I growled a bit at that. They tried to attack me, judging by the way their cargo exploded. I rescued them, and now they were speculating about what horrible thing I'd do to them. I decided to do the most horrible thing I could think of. I walked off and left them, taking their nearly deflated blimps with me as possible sails for the ark.

They could starve or freeze to death for all I cared. Or they could accept their new forms and take themselves home. They were not my problem. If the other airship got itself under control, I might let it pick them up. Or I might let it pick them up, and then shoot it down over open ocean.

In any case, I headed off to work on the ark.
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Discord watched Celestia go into a towering rage at the absolute failure of all three of her plans. First, the immense stash of potions was expended to no end, and it was clear they had potions to change even ponies into other forms.

That will be a nice rumor to spread, he thought as Celestia stomped around in circles around her scrying pool, Let the others know what the Sun Princess had in mind for them.

Second, the use of the Elements of Harmony on the creature hadn't even occurred.

And our friend doesn't even realize he's got the Elements in the remains of those two airships, Discord thought and nearly squealed with joy. And third, she doesn't get a plate of martyrs to set before the populace. He rescued the damaged airships, and while he stranded them on the coastline, he left a very clear trail for them to follow. Or Appleling, Fluttercorn and Pinkie-cord could fly the entire crew home on their own power.

"You are enjoying my humiliation," Celestia told him as he giggled.

"Go back to Equestrian ideals, and extend the hand of friendship," Discord said and extended his hand.

"They are my little ponies. They will always be my little ponies. Neither you, nor Sombra, nor Nightmare will ever take them away." Celestia stomped towards the door, then turned and gestured, "This is my room. Get out!"

Discord vanished, then reappeared atop the ark as the huge creature worked. "Oh, good job."

Godzilla looked at him warily.

"Oh stop, don't you trust me?" Discord asked and got the absolute flattest stare he'd ever gotten from anything. "Oh, fine. Spoilsport. I forgive you, because you being you is going to make Godzilla: Equestria Wars the biggest thing since, well you. We're even getting Octavia to score it. Of course Vinyl Scratch's work will be on the album released six months before the actual soundtrack comes out, but marketing is marketing. Look, I happen to know that there's some of my property in those two airships. Something they took, and it could be very dangerous for you and your humans to keep it. An Equestrian superweapon, The Elements of Harmony." Discord waited for the reverb to die down, and noted the creature had returned to working on the boat. Irritated, Discord snapped his fingers and there was a pony-scaled ice sculpture of the Titanic, sitting atop a huge sheet of ice. "There, you're done, now will you listen?"

Godzilla nodded.

"I don't want to demand them. I want to buy them from you. Say, every painting, sculpture and piece of music from old Earth." Discord nearly shied from the creature's focused attention. "Okay, now that you're listening. The Elements of Harmony are Equestria's big gun. They used it on me, they used it on Nightmare Moon, and they were planning to use it on you. So, I'll take the Elements, and those poor ponies are the Bearers. Now they won't be. I'd appreciate it if you took them back to Equestria and let them off safely, preferably where lots of ponies can see you."

Godzilla crossed his arms and stared at Discord.

Discord leaned against Godzilla's cheek. "Look Godzy, sweetheart, you and I are trying to establish a brand here. You, the heroic and gentle defender of humanity. Enemy to no one. What do you say?"

The spikes along Godzilla's back began lighting up, one at a time. Starting at the tip of his tail and advancing slowly up his back.

"Okay! Okay!" Discord said and waved his hands, "Some of them are my, ah, friends. I want them out of this fight and you did it. I'm grateful, and I want to make sure they don't get dragged back in. Self-serving sounding enough?"

Godzilla scribed in the icewall 'Let us design a proper museum, with proper tributes to you for restoring what was lost.'

Discord smiled so widely his head nearly fell off. "Tribute, to me?" he squeaked happily, and let off a Fluttershy-worthy squeal when Godzilla nodded. "Whatever shall I wear? A heroic pose, or more sophisticated? The thinker?"

He realized he was alone as Godzilla had retreated and was taking the Titanic for a test cruise before he picked up the refugees. Discord quickly summoned the Elements to himself and vanished.

Reappearing in the grove of the Tree of Harmony. "No one will ever find them in here," he said as he replaced them on the tree. His plunder vines shrank back, but he wasn't worried. He grinned at the tree. "I must say, your 'champion' of Harmony is the tyrant you always wanted. Even a group who tries to 'agree to disagree', she won't stand for it. You must be very proud."

The glow of the tree faded noticeably as Discord left.
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The ponies had camped out on the lee of the ship, rather than going inside. I wondered what they were thinking of their predicament. They are at my mercy, I thought, And they don't know they're under Discord's protection. He never mentioned who his friends are, so I look after all of them.

After a few hours, we arrived near the port of Los Pegasus, where I'd told people to assemble, in three days time. Evidently, there were always those who would try and jump the gun. There was a massive internment camp, armed guards, towers, barbed wire, a moat and a net overhead to prevent the fliers from trying to escape.

I looked at the crew and Bearers I'd just rescued from their fate and pointed at the camp. Many of them at least looked ashamed.

"Why do you want them to leave Equestria?" the Breezy shouted, "They should be happy serving Princess Celestia."

The Changeling Queen collected the Breezy in her hat. "Eh, she's jist excitable," she said nervously. She tried to smile, realized how creepy it made her look and stopped.

The alicorn flew up to confront me, no not confront, there was too much of a pleading tone mixed in the strong statements. "I know you promised those ponies a new home, but the guards are only doing their jobs."

So did lots of other people. Didn't keep them from performing atrocities and genocide, I thought.

"So, please don't hurt them."

Okay, I don't have to hurt them. I'm essentially invulnerable, and physically stronger than anything else. Freeing them should be easy. But I'm getting sick of these ponies assuming I'm going to hurt someone, when they are attacking or locking people up.

I advanced on the internment camp leaving the crew and the Bearers behind.

Next Chapter: 8) Jailhouse Rock Estimated time remaining: 2 Hours, 14 Minutes
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