"Okay! All of you please come with me!"

Michael looked up from the issue of "Equestria Weekly" he had picked up off the table to see a pastel orange unicorn mare, her purple mane set in a bun.

Michael and Jack got up and made their way over to her. The mare very quickly noticed Michael's visitor badge.

"Oh, you're here with someone?"

Jack raised his hand, "Uh, yeah. He's with me."

She levitated a pencil and clipboard in front of her, "Hmm... I'll see if I can arrange for the two of you to be in the same room then," she raised her voice again "Alright then! Let's go!"

As the group traveled the halls, the two hung back towards the end of the group as Michael tried to see through any open doors. The sensor in his DS could detect room boundaries and big objects within them, but it could only give him shapes: silhouettes, but no content. But the more Michael walked the more aware of how unlike his imagination the building was. With all the ponies around, he had expected the smell of livestock, but the aroma in the air was surprisingly pleasant. He couldn't quite put his finger on what it was, though.

They eventually arrived at a long corridor marked with room numbers. As the orange mare worked through the crowd of people, she eventually got to Jack and Michael.

"Jack Banner? You and Mr. Frost will be in room 206. There is a itinerary on the table in the room with the time for the orientation seminar as well as a map to the different parts of the camp. Please feel free to look around and make yourself comfortable. This will be your home for the next week." When she finished, she levitated the clipboard back into one of her saddlebags and began walking away.

"Um, wait a minute," Jack called to her, "Don't we need a room key or something?"

"Oh, no. But there is a door jam in the room should you want some privacy."

"Oh, alright..." Jack looked over to Michael, who just shrugged.

When they reached their room, Michael immediately jammed the door, opened his suitcase and set to work setting up his laptop and equipment.  

"Jack, before you do anything else, let's run another round of tests, alright?"

"More tests?" Jack protested.

"You've been exposed to magic. I'd like to see if that has had any effect on the results."

Twice a day for the entire week before the two left for the ponification center, Michael had ran a gambit of tests on Jack. Mental cognition tests, psychological tests, memory tests, spatial and temporal reasoning tests; tests that were designed to probe every part of the mind so that Michael could establish a baseline to compare against when he ran the tests again after Jack was ponified. He had decided that 90% of physical tests out there were mostly useless: A new body would, presumably, require lots of practice before any meaningful results could be had and Michael didn't have that kind of time. The tests were completely automated and were over in a few minutes.  

Jack picked up the itinerary from the table and looked it over, "Hey, we'd better get moving. The orientation starts in a few minutes."

Michael locked his laptop, "Yeah, alright. Let's go."

The room for the seminar wasn't too large; big enough to fit about thirty or so chairs with a single chair in the front for the speaker to sit and face the audience. It felt cozy, as if to create a feeling of intimacy between the speaker and the crowd. Michael and Jack grabbed seats in one of the middle rows and waited for it to begin.

At five o'clock on the dot, a purple unicorn pony trotted through the door and placed a stack of papers on the chair.

Michael leaned sideways towards Jack, "That must be Twilight."

Jack smirked, "Already know her name? I won't lie, she is cute."

"I like my women with two legs, thanks."

The crowd finally quieted down.

"Afternoon, everyone. I'm Twilight Sparkle, and I'll be talking to you all for the next 20 minutes. Now, I'm almost positive all of you are here because you want to become a pony. This is a fact. You don't come here because you don't want to be a pony, unless someone forced you at gunpoint, but that's a different story."

Michael mentally chuckled at her attempt at humor.

She continued, "I may not fully understand your reasoning behind your choice to become a pony, considering I was born one myself, but I can understand what we have been facing in the past few years. Humans such as yourselves have brought your world to shambles, all because of the selfish greed of big business, and the horrible health habits of the majority of the population."

Twilight produced a map of the world from her saddlebag and held it open, levitated in mid-air. She pointed at a small island just off the east coast, circled in red.

"Ponykind faces overpopulation, in ways that the tiny isle of Equestria simply can't keep together for long. That's why we moved into your towns and cities. I'm sure you all know about this already, but what you haven't heard is why we're doing this. Why you are here today, sitting in this cramped room with sweaty, tired people just waiting for me to stop talking."

Michael leaned forward. His DS had been recording since he left their room, but now he was acutely aware of it and repositioned it a bit to make sure the microphone would get whatever it was that Twilight was going to say next.

"Our plan is to ponify you, the sooner the better. Expect this to happen when you least expect it. You'll get used to our culture, our food, and our lack of thumbs. Trust me, it's easier than it looks. Because humans can't handle the magic radiating from Equestrian borders, becoming a pony is crucial to expanding the peaceful, friendly aura that surrounds Equestria every day of every month of every year. Thank you."

Michael's brain ground to a halt. "It's an invasion. They're taking advantage of our low numbers and invading."

Suddenly, the crowd broke out in applause. He couldn't believe what was happening. "Didn't you people hear what she just said? Weren't you paying attention? No matter how many of your ailments the process fixes, this isn't some benevolent act of altruism on their part, they are, literally, aiming to expand their kingdom!"

Michael wanted to shake the sanity back into every last one of them in there, but he couldn't. He had to stay calm. He had to stay inconspicuous. And he had to do the most painful thing imaginable to him at that moment; He had to clap. He clapped, knowing that he was applauding the willing fall of mankind, with every strand of DNA in his body screaming at him for cheering on this affront to millennia of survival instincts and natural selection.

And as he clapped, he did all he could to not see Jack, who was cheering and clapping as loud as anyone else in the room.  

At that moment, there was a part of him that wished he didn't know. A part that longed for the ability to forget the horrible words he heard come out of that pony's mouth. Words that echoed through his mind like a call in a cavern.

"Our plan is to ponify you... Expect this to happen when you least expect it... Trust me..." Next Chapter: Chapter 4 Estimated time remaining: 2 Hours, 44 Minutes