Another boring day for Pandora as she sat in her office filing paperwork, something she’d been doing a lot in recent days. Fortunately, the tedium was set to end soon. Today was a short day for her as she had big plans for later. Just one more hour and she would be home free. However, her thoughts were interrupted by a knock at the door.

The door opened and in walked two mares. One was a light pink unicorn with a ribbon in her mane, a saddle, and a scroll for a cutie mark. The other mare was a blue earth pony with a light yellow mane which was worn in a beehive style. Her cutie mark was a lyre and she also had a hoof ring indicating she was married while the other was not. To the normal public eye, both ponies appeared to be of snobbish high society who spend their time going to events and social gatherings. To an extent this was true. The two best friends did often go to such events to have fun or to meet other ponies. However, their traveling had a larger purpose to it.

Minerva levitated an envelope from her saddlebag. “I’ve talked with my men and we have created a plan that Diana and I think works best considering our target. I would like for you to skim through it quickly and give your opinion on it.”

Pandora took the envelope and opened it, taking the file out from inside. She spent a few minutes reviewing it, reading it twice to make sure she had a thorough understanding. “It seems acceptable. The location bothers me though.”

“No. No, it’s just my nerves talking. It is a remote enough location. I will brief the others on this as soon as I can.”

“Actually,” Diana began. “I can do that if you wish. You’ve been working your flank off for awhile and while the SG appreciates your efforts, she wishes for you to take your time.”

“If you insist. I was actually planning on meeting my husband for dinner tonight anyway. It’s our anniversary.”

“Anniversary huh? Have fun with that,” Diana said with a grin. “I need to pay my husband in Ponyville a visit soon. I’ve been quite busy myself.”

“Nothing Headmistress. It’s just I’ve not had the time to date much and I’m looking for somepony outside of our Order. Don’t get me wrong, I will forever remain loyal to it and the friends I’ve made within it, probably till the day I die. But after the incident that happened with Sirocco and the Edens… I don’t want to lose my love through something like that.”

At the mention of her fallen friends, Pandora hung her head low. “Yes. It was a sad day when they died. Tragic as their deaths were, they allowed us to exterminate a large nest of those Etherealists. I just wish it didn’t have to end like that, but we mustn’t dwell on the past. We have a job we need to do and we need to play our cards right.”

“Very well then.” The two mares turned to the door. “Inform us if things go wrong. Like the SG said, we need to formulate a plan B if things go awry.”

Pandora watched as the captain and her lieutenant left to their own accord. She took a quick glance at the clock to check the current time.

So, have you had a chance to visit the Crystal Empire that reemerged yet? I hear it’s quite stunning.

“I haven’t yet, but once I get the opportunity, I want to go there and see if I can get an interview from the locals. I could learn some interesting things.”

Might want to tread carefully boy. I doubt they will be able, or willing, to just hand out that kind of information.

“I have to try though. In the meantime, I will settle with this interview.”

“You’ve talked an awful lot about your husband. Why don’t we talk about your children for a change? How were the pregnancies during your time in the Order? Was it hard to cope with and how did your duties differ during gestation?”

Oi, I was wondering when this would come up. Well, why don’t we start with my first son and his conception, except for the actual, you know, conceiving bit. I like the rating where it is.

As I said before, we spent our honeymoon in my home city of Manehattan, specifically a seaside resort, first class courtesy of my mother-in-law. Mare had taste, I had to say. Well once we arrived, we setted into our bridal suite and spent the morning sightseeing. Now even though I was born in Manehattan, I didn’t, and still don’t explore that town. In fact, after getting married I didn’t travel much, at least not casually. It’s not that I didn’t have the time or money to travel. Believe me, money is NOT an issue with us. It was because I was just too comfortable with Canterlot that I really didn’t leave the city much. You know how it is, I didn’t want to leave my safe zone. But I digress.

We spent a week in Manehattan and had a very nice first day. After we went sightseeing, we spent some time out on the beach before having a nice evening dinner. Great food by the way, fantastic pasta and the deserts to die for. Overall, it was a pretty good day, made even better as my husband showered me with affection which I was more than happy to return. But the day had to come to an end so we headed back to our suite. I didn’t look around much when we arrived in the morning because I was eager to go out into the city, but it was a cozy suite with a single bathroom, a king sized canopy bed, and a balcony with an absolutely gorgeous view of the ocean. We watched the remainder of the sunset out on that balcony, a really romantic view.

I could tell by the tenderness in his voice what he was implying and he did such a damn good job of putting me in the mood. How could I resist that handsome stallion? I gave him a gentle kiss as we crawled into bed.

Now I won’t go into detail of what happened that night, but it doesn’t take a genius to figure it out. We were newlyweds who were madly in love with each other and we both already talked about having a foal once we would get married. I decided that if I wanted to marry this stallion so badly, I wanted to experience parenthood with him as well. But we held off doing anything… of that nature, until we actually married. He was a real gentlecolt. He made what is normally a painful experience for mares into something very euphoric and memorable. It was a level of intimacy I’ve never felt before.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you this giddy before.”

Err, sorry I kind of rambled there. Talking about him just does that to me, hehe. He’s the love of my life and I wouldn’t want to spend my life with anyone else. Anyway, after the initial consummation, we became increasingly more, uh, intimate as the week went on, in an active effort to conceive. Some time later we got our wish.

As much as I loved our honeymoon location, I kind of wanted to be back in our home in Canterlot. When we got back, I had some help from my friends and new family moving my belongings into my husband’s house; you’d think I would’ve done that BEFORE the marriage, but I had other things that held my attention. Besides, I didn’t own much anyway and I didn’t keep all of it. What I did keep was mostly clothing and other essentials. Since Aperture got married to Spotlight, I had the apartment to myself for awhile and now that I myself got married, I had no use for it. I’m getting a bit off track here though. Sometime after we got back home, I went to our physician with nausea and stomach pains. As you might have guessed, I was pregnant. So I went home and gave my husband the news.

The next day, we broke the news to our family and friends. Aperture was ecstatic as I expected, as was Serenade and everyone else.

As happy as I was to be with my husband’s child, I had a job that I needed to do. As you might recall, the Headmistress put me in charge of the Etherealist purge, but now that I was pregnant, she asked me if I wanted to put someone else in charge. I declined. The job was considered important enough that I didn’t want to put it on hold. I still remembered what happened the night my husband proposed and I did not want to bring our child into the world with those monsters running about. Other mares would normally go on maternal leave with such a job, I decided to tough it out.

But alas, it probably would have been wiser from me to wait until the purge was complete before conceiving a child. I didn’t realize how debilitating pregnancy could be. My son was a big boy, even as a fetus and would kick, shift, and demand tremendous amounts of nutrition. That combined with the exhaustion, mood swings, pains, and general impeded movement made my job more complicated than it should have been. I don’t know if you would ever understand it because well, you’re male, but trust me, eleven months of that was one of the most excruciating things I’ve had to go through.

However, during the hunt I came to appreciate my son already and not for the reason you might expect. I would say I was about five months into my pregnancy when I was with a few other agents. We were ambushed by a group of desperate Etherealist and since I was both pregnant and the head of the hunt, I was the target. While the other agents took down most of them and I still had use of my magic, one of the Etherealist was a unicorn who shot powerful, lethal bolts of magic. Well, a stray bolt was headed my way and I thought for sure I was going to take a hit. As the inevitable collision came close however, it vaporized into nothing. The cultist was neutralized and I just looked around in confusion. I recognized the vaporization as a type of barrier magic, one that I was not fluent in. I wondered if one of my colleagues casted it in last second to protect me, but when I asked them, they didn’t know what happened.

Then I felt a tingling in my stomach, not the nausea kind, not a kick, but a kind of fizzy feeling. It took me awhile to realize it, but my unborn child seemed to have casted a spell which protected me. That was twice I cheated death thanks to my husband, though this time it was indirect.

Well, that ambush gave me a bit of a scare and for the sake of my precious cargo, I decided to take it easy and stay behind a desk. It was getting to be that far into the pregnancy anyway were physical activity was next to impossible. All throughout my pregnancy, my mother-in-law would always drop by to see how I was doing. I really liked her, she seemed like the kind of pony you would want as an in-law and she was very good with offering advice for managing my trimesters. Plus she was just so sweet. My brother-in-law was great too. He and my husband were pretty close already, but now that I was married, our families would often have each other for dinner or get togethers. It was during one of these get togethers at our house when I felt the first contractions of labor. At first I just wrote it off as normal pain since I wasn’t due for another few days, but the contractions got more frequent and it got worse as the evening went on and I knew things couldn’t wait any longer as I felt a wet sensation run down my legs.

“Honey?” my husband asked worried about my sudden frightened state. “Is something wrong?”

“Well I’m pretty sure the baby is the one who gets to decIIIDE!” I felt a sudden jolt of pain.

“Oh dear! Ultraviolet, I need your help. We need to get her to the hospital!”

“Of course. Aurora! Could you go pick up North Star from the foalsitter’s? I need to get her the help she needs,” Ultraviolet firmly said to his wife.

She nodded in response and I was carried to the hospital as fast as possible; in my state, I could barely stand, let alone walk. Once there, everything you hear about mares giving birth pretty much happened. I can still remember shouting just about every swear I could think of as I was giving birth, even going so far as to make up my own. Never to anyone in particular, just shouting out of pain. Childbirth is up there with being one of the most painful things I’ve ever had the pleasure of going through.

I had given birth to a healthy and rather large colt. He was taken for postnatal care as I just lie in that bed exhausted from my experience. Everyone there was telling me how great of a job I was doing. Fuck that! Give me a moment of relief! I didn’t want to do that again!

After some time, I was able to see my new beautiful baby boy. He had quite the set of lungs on him. Not too long after that, the family came in which consisted of my husband’s parents, brother and wife and daughter.

“Congratulations little brother. You too little sister-in-law,” Ultraviolet said as he smiled at his nephew.

The shy four year old filly climbed onto the bed and looked at the sleeping foal. “Hi.”

“We’ve thought about it for some time and I think we have a perfect name for him.”

You know the name of my son already and you might be able to guess why I called him that. After a few days of observation, my son and I were discharged from the hospital and we went home. Not long afterwards, I introduced him to my friends and you know the rest.

“You said you didn’t want to go through all that again. What made you change your mind with your first daughter?”

Alas, unplanned pregnancy can happen even in marriages. I’ll get to that soon, but my second child wasn’t born until my son was about seven years old.

In between that time, Aperture and Spotlight had their son, when mine was about three. Aperture came to me asking for advice for her pregnancy and our kids were friends after her son was born. Well, the Headmistress called me into her office after her grandson was born.

“Now then as you know, I am getting older and slower in my age. It’s getting to be that point where I need to name a successor.”

“Now with my grandson being born, I think now is that time to choose the next pony to take my place. I have asked around our clan house and such. Just about all of our best agents have recommended and further agreed on one single mare: you.”

“Your actions during the Etherealist hunt has led to many of them being wiped clean from Equestria. I have also heard from the Captain of Disciplinary Action that you are a more than capable leader. I like you a lot dear, and I feel you would be best suited out of anyone I know to take my place. Of course if you choose to accept, you will receive coaching on what to do and what to expect in taking the helm. I have nothing but the utmost confidence in you and putting you in charge of the hunt only furthered that respect. I can think of no other. What do you say?”

“This is a lot to take in. But if everypony thinks I’m capable, than I suppose I can give it a shot. Yes, I accept your offer. But if I may ask, how long will it take to prepare me to take your position?”

“Mmm, about a year, two at the most. There is a lot to teach, this isn’t some overnight deal. I still have a task myself that I need to finish before I pass on the torch.”

I don’t remember exactly how long after I talked with the Headmistress and shared that knowledge with my husband that I started to notice a change in my metabolism. Apparently, so did my husband when we were cuddling one night.

“Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind it. I think you’re quite lovely as a matter of fact. But didn’t you say you needed to be in top shape for your job?”

“Well… Yes. I suppose when you put it like that. Ooh, ow! The hell? Pudginess isn’t supposed to fight back… Wait.”

The thing about my second pregnancy is that I didn’t go through most, if any of the complications that I did with my first one. As a result, I did not notice I was pregnant until several weeks in and it still took a trip to the clinic before I could confirm it. Needless to say, this made my conditioning a bit more complicated than it should have been. Thankfully, this pregnancy was less stressful and my baby girl was much smaller than my son, thus the birth was less painful. I can still remember the joyful expression on my son’s face when he found out he was going to be a big brother. Quite a happy sibling he is.

Alas, the birth of my first daughter also carries a darker memory. Not for me necessarily, but for the entire organization. You see, not even a year after she was born, one of our own agents committed several acts of treason to the point where his name easily became one of the most notorious rogue agents ever to be associated with us.

He had been systematically murdering the leaders of the organization before he was found out. Before we could apprehend him though, he escaped and we’ve been on an active search ever since. When we did find out he was doing this, we just nearly saved Headmistress Aroma from being his latest victim. He had a habit of using a garrote wire to kill his targets, not unlike how I was almost strangled on my birthday. Aroma made a full recovery as we were able to avert the crime in time, but it gave her a tremendous scare. Now that we knew he was doing these things, he wasn’t going to risk being caught by doing it again; he was treacherous, but he wasn’t stupid.

After that attack, Aroma retired. She didn’t want to leave this world yet, not while she had her grandson to look forward to. So I took her position earlier than I was supposed to. I was determined to sniff out this traitor and wipe his existence from the face of the planet.

“Interesting. Well I think that’s all for today. Thank you again for taking the time to do this.”

“Great as always. I don’t think I will ever stop loving that fine stallion. What brings you to this wretched hive of wonders?”

“I actually dropped by the castle training grounds to see what my old colleagues have been up to. We have many promising recruits joining the guard.”

“A few in fact. One in particular though caught my eye. I’ve seen him before, a shy introverted colt whenever I saw him. I’m actually quite surprised he joined the guard.”

“I see potential in the young stallion and wish to include him in the operation. He seems dedicated and was very eager when I talked to him about it.”

“He didn’t tell me, but he holds a grudge against the rogue traitor and would like to see him captured.”

“Oh, her. Interesting… If that’s the case, I’m starting to see where you are coming from. Alright, I will see what I can do. I want you to inform the boy that I will consider it, but I can’t make any promises until I hear from the CDA and the SG.”

“Roger that. As usual, I will be participating in the annual cadet training. This year will be particularly interesting. With Captain- or rather Prince- Shining Armor in the Crystal Empire, I have to keep an eye on the new captain of the guard. He is not one of us so I have to make sure he has been chosen well and that he is responsible. I would also like to observe the boy.”

“Where would the royal guard be without you, Mars? Always dedicated, even after you retired. Well then, is there anything else?”

“Very well then. Oh, and give my regards to Rainbow Dash, will you? I hear she tried out for the Wonderbolt academy.”

“Yes, she was recommended by Soarin’ after the royal wedding. She told me things didn’t go quite as they were supposed to. But if I didn’t know any better, I’d say she stayed to get closer to Soarin’. Their careers make it hard for them to see each other nowadays. Still, I am happy the two have maintained a healthy relationship and I applaud Soarin’ for putting up with my rash daughter.”

Illegal Heritage

by ZhaoZoharEX

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