//------------------------------//
// Multiplication 
// Story: Once Bitten 
// by Damaged 
//------------------------------//

"Uh…" Stunning Loyalty, another nymph of Scythe's pledge, groaned a bit and stood still. "I feel funny…" He groaned and fell to his side, clutching at his belly.

"Are we far enough away that we can do this?" Sunset approached Stunning and reached down to rub at his side. "He is going to drop it very soon…" There was a noticeable bulge, when she felt him, slowly moving down his body.

"What's happening?" Stunning looked up at Thorax, as an odd feeling of loneliness settled over him.

"You are going to lay your twin's egg." Thorax focused on calm emotions, trying to spread them with her newfound powers. "We need to keep moving, so I am going to carry you." She lit her horn and hefted Stunning into the air.

"An egg?!" Crying out in shock, Stunning looked between the adults, his eyes locking on Scythe. Struggling in the magical aura, he squirmed and shifted, then lit his own horn and leapt from Thorax's grip. 

Scythe saw the nymph running for her, and caught Stunning when he started to collapse. "You need to lay it, Stun." Nuzzling the nymph, she felt concern for the former colt, and burned energy to arrange him into a slightly more comfortable pose. "Come on, you are the bravest stallion here."

"You said I wasn't ever going to be a stallion…" Stunning winced as a rush of pressure wracked his body. "This is really odd."

Shining watched, standing back with Thorax and giving the two room while Stunning laid the egg. The elongated orb was a dull green in color and about half the size of his head. Glancing up at Thorax, Shining had a distinctly odd sensation inside that he hoped wasn't his own egg. "Are we all going to do that?"

Thorax nodded slowly. "Soon, too. There is probably something about the smell, but normally once one nymph lays, the whole pail will lay within a day." She reached a leg around Shining's shoulders. "It is harder for the colts, there is the undeniability of having parts of your body that you aren't meant to. I really want to go over and reassure them…"

"But you aren't." Shining looked up at Thorax. "Because you are a good queen." Feeling good for praising the actions of Thorax was easy, after all Shining was under her sway, but he felt in his heart that it was right. "Speaking as somepony who has given a lot of orders, please never give any."

The request caught Thorax off guard, and she blinked her eyes a few times in consternation. "What do you mean?"

"If you commanded me to forget about Canterlot, to forget about Cadance," Shining's heart choked a little as she said the words, "and to ignore every shred of what makes me, me… "She closed her eyes and dipped her head. "… I would in a heartbeat."

Thorax's face was a mask of terror, and she stepped back a pace from Shining. "That… that is a lot more than I could ever ask, would ever ask." The idea of such power terrified her as much as the effects of it apparently terrified Shining. Taking a deep breath, she dipped her chest down, dropping to her knees before Shining Armor.

Shining could see just what she had hoped she would; a scared changeling queen bowing her head to a nymph. The whole world seemed to stand still for a moment as Thorax took her time.

Getting the words together she wanted, Thorax looked up at Shining. "I promise you, Shining Armor, that I will never command my hive." The words seemed to carry, the way only those with real power behind them do. "This is a terrible power to possess, and it makes me realize how easy it was for Chrysalis to fall into using it."

Chirping erupted from all around, as the nymphs and the four changeling drones of Thorax's hive cheered for her in the way of changelings. But the nymph whose support she needed most wasn't chirping at all. Shining Armor fell to her side and groaned.

Thorax's eyes widened. "They are all going to start! Please separate into your pledges!" She crouched down by Shining's side, and reached a hoof up to gently check the progress. "Hold in there, I can feel her moving through you."

"V-V-Vinyl…" Shining barely got the word out as a coldness filled her. "Where is she? Where did she go?" She wanted to get up, to panic and look for the friend that was closer than even his little sister. A pressure started in her midsection, and without thinking about it, Shining pushed backwards.

"You don't have to rush this, and it won't actually hurt." Thorax brushed Shining's crest, trying to reassure the nymph. "When you can feel her really close to your entrance, then you push."

"I don't want to push at all…" Shining gave a whimper as her body tensed up again, and despite the instructions—and her own wishes—she pushed. Each inch the egg moved only made it feel less comfortable, but each inch also meant it was closer to being over. 

"Just a little more, one good push with the next contraction and you will have her out." Thorax could see the green egg crown, and gently rested a hoof on Shining's flank.

"Just one more?" The promise was tantalizing, and when the next contraction started, Shining pushed backwards for all she was worth. Waves of discomfort radiated from her back-end, and she was pretty sure her chitin was not meant to stretch the way the egg needed it to. Despite all Shining's misgivings, the egg was suddenly pushed from her. 

Thorax carefully caught the egg in her magic and brought it up to Shining, letting her wrap around Vinyl tightly. "I promise you, she will be everything you hope she is. She will be your twin in every way."

Shining's mind wasn't really processing words, she just felt the emptiness inside where Vinyl had been, and ached to keep her friend safe.


~~~~~+++++~~~~~


Scootaloo was curled up, her snout pressed to the green egg she had laid. "You'll see, everything will be okay." She smiled a lot at the thought of having a sister of her own. "We are going to be okay. Shining is going to get us all to safety, and tell Princess Celestia that us changelings are all good." She bumped her nose against the egg again and chirped her wings a few times.

"How long until we are moving again?" Shining looked up at Sunset, but despite her brave words, the nymph didn't feel like walking a single step. "I mean, how long until we will be able to…"

"You were the second to lay, how do you feel?" Laying down with her nymphs, Sunset heard every little chirp each made. Although she couldn't sample their emotions, she knew they were all drained, but happy. 

"Maybe next week." Shining rolled her eyes at Sunset. "How long do they take to hatch?"

"That was literally going to be your next lesson. But since things got changed, you can learn on the job. They won't take long to mature, the love you have been feeding on has been mostly going to them, once you were fully changed. She will be out before you know it, maybe a few days." Sunset lifted her head and looked over at Thorax. "And once they are out they will amaze you."

Shining followed Sunset's gaze. "She is pretty amazing. If anypony—"

"It is about time you stopped using that." Sunset grinned. "Anyling or anybuggy is acceptable."

"No." Shining shook her head. "I consider us all ponies, so everypony will do." Shining gave a happy chirp at the point she made. "As I was saying, if anypony could be trusted with that amount of power, I think it would be her."

"It's scary to think that Chrysalis used that against me." Sunset slumped down a little. "She took everything from me, she even took Thorax away. I didn't know who she really was… who I really was."

"Another point in Thorax's favor. Being able to break that level of conditioning is amazing…" Shining squirmed a little. "Is my carapace meant to be sore… back there?" She pointed to her hindquarters.

Sunset's attention was snapped firmly back to her pledge. "Yeah, it will ache a little, then it will itch."

"What?" Apple Bloom intruded on the conversation. "It will hurt?"

"Not really hurt, but this will be the lead-up to your first molt." Sunset gestured at her own body, then Shining's. "Your carapace is inflexible, as you grow it will crack and break, and then you will shed it and a softer one will be underneath. About a day of feeling all wobbly, and that will harden into a bigger casing."

"How long until they start to search for us?" Sweetie Belle changed the topic abruptly. "I want to get home to Rarity and forget about all this… this!" She gestured in the direction of the hive, at her friends, and then at herself.

"Sweetie, we are always going to be like this." Apple Bloom thought her friend was starting to finally lose it. "There is no way we can just 'go back' to how everything was."

"You think I don't know that? I just want to go home and pretend everything is back to normal. Disguise as myself, curl up before a warm fire with my sister, and just ignore the world." Sweetie hugged her egg to herself.

"And we will." Shining shifted—with awkward movements—until she was able to press against Sweetie. Slowly stroking the nymph's crest, Shining Armor shared her warmth with her. "We are going to Canterlot first. We are going to storm into my wedding and kick Chrysalis' rear. And then I will take you back to Ponyville, and I promise you that you can spend a whole week not worrying about the hive or anything."

It was the best fantasy Sweetie could hope for, and the slow stroking of her crest soon earned a few little chirps from her wings. Against her belly the egg's shape reminded her that Rarity and her were soon to be joined by another, a third sister. "You can really do that?"

"I got us out of the hive, didn't I?" Shining slumped her head down and onto Sweetie's shoulder. "And I didn't eat much of your wubs to do it, either."

"I knew you ate wubs!" Sweetie jerked her head up and giggled. "Give me back my wubs!"

"Can't. I ate them!" Shining pressed her prominent fangs to Sweetie's belly and blew a raspberry. "Now I will eat more!"

Sweetie had no possible way to get free of Shining, and instead opted to chirp her wings and squeal a lot. "Help! I am being attacked by a vampling!"

Apple Bloom wanted to "save" her friend, but lethargy from the egg laying weighed her down heavily. "Get away from her, you monster!"

Struggling with her own body, Scootaloo managed to get her legs under her and wobbled towards Shining. "I'll save you, Sweetie." Her attempt at saving Sweetie involved slumping on top of the vampling. "Take that!" She chirped her wings loudly.

Giving her friends a moment to have some silly fun, Apple Bloom pulled Scootaloo's egg close and hugged it with her own. "I got your sister covered, Scoots."

"Wait." Shining had a great idea suddenly, but had two nymphs on top of her. "Wait wait! Couldn't we just shift this weakness away?" She looked up to Sunset.

"No!" Sunset jerked fully awake from the slight daze she had been in while watching the nymphs play. "That was a great amount of… changes. Your muscles adjusted and shifted, and you displaced your twin. If you tried to 'undo' that, you would either burn up all your energy in the attempt, or maybe make another egg inside you. It wouldn't be good, either way."

Shining shook her head solemnly. "O-Okay. Well, it isn't going to stop me from devouring all these nymph's wubs!" Two chirp-accompanied squeals met her proclamation.