> Mission Failed: We'll get 'em next time...
>  by Clopficsinthecomments
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Prologue: The Heist
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Appleloosan desert was cool and silent, the ground bright under a field of twinkling pricks of light and a moonlit glow from Luna's former residence.

Perfect conditions for a clandestine convoy traveling from the base camp of an archaeological expedition operating out of the mysterious, dank, jungle-filled nethers of the southern Equestrian continent. 

The unicorn at the front of the convoy, a rigid and alert soldier by the name of Captain Stalwart, cleared his throat softly before motioning to his squad of Royal Guardsponies to pick up the pace slightly. 

Something in his gut was telling him that there was danger out there, among the scattered boulders and sagebrush.

The two strong earth guards-ponies pulling the large military-style container wagon could sense it too and accelerated their pace, hooves plowing deep into the crumbling, arid desert terrain. The boxy vehicle they were pulling was made of sturdy copper sheets, beaten hastily into the form of a cube with only a single sliding door on its left side. The double-bolted door was secured with an intricate 'Royal-Military' lock that hummed with the support of powerful unicorn magic.

Stalwart was taking no chances. He’d personally seen to the spell-crafting required to bolster the locks and had gone an additional step to protect the whole of the wagon with anti-tamper wards. The Captain’s stern grimace and searching eyes were but the surface indicators that this mission, which he and his men had originally thought to be nothing more than a lark — another wild goose chase by the overly-bureaucratic of Canterlot — was deadly serious.

His ears flicked left and right as he recalled how his squad joked about the mission when they’d first received it. 

The cheekiest private of his squad had asked him, without shame: “Twilight going to send us on another book run, Cap?” The princess of Magic had gained some notoriety among the armed services for her willingness to use her newfound royal authority to direct her military to collect what most of the privates grumblingly described as ‘nerd-stuff’. She’d nearly ignited a mini-mutiny when the elite Navy S.Q.U.E.E.Ls pegasi unit had been used to raid a Fillydelphia home for an overdue library book.

Only a stern lecture from Celestia about the difference between a ‘book’ emergency and an actual emergency, despite Twilight’s protestations that there was no higher emergency than a book emergency, had prevented a disastrous lowering of morale.

‘No. Supposed to be some kind of beast we’re picking up from some eggheads down south.’

‘Ah, so we’re playing zookeeper to get a new specimen for that yellow friend of hers?’

‘Better believe it, private. And you’re on poop-scoop duty.’

The resulting chuckles at the private’s groan had reflected just how light-hearted everypony was at the outset of this mission — a quick cannonball-run to get out of the barracks and no real threats to worry about.

That had all changed when they’d arrived at the Royal Archaeological Society’s southern expeditionary base-camp, currently established just outside of a creepy step pyramid that was aptly named the ‘Temple of Shadows’. To kick things off, instead of being met by some stuffy, trumped-up poindexter, holding some tiny toothbrush meant for obsessing over bone-fragments that might as well have been pebbles, he’d been greeted by the leader of the expedition.

Daring freaking Do!

Not only did your average grunt read the paperbacks and debate the stories and characters within them religiously while on tour, but the roguish explorer with her witty catch-phrases and never-say-die attitude was also an idol to military ponies. Most of the stallions who signed up did so hoping that they too would be able to participate in some grand adventure akin to those that the whip-bearing pegasus mare regaled the world with.

His slow realization that this was more than a wild goose-chase mission came to a crashing crescendo when he saw just what it was that he was supposed to bring back to Canterlot. 

A hideous beast with cunning, sapient-level intelligence. Strange and unknown.

Daring had regaled him with an incredible tale about how she and the expedition had broken into the temple, just as a dark cult that had taken up residence within were finishing an ancient ritual. The blasting and spurting portal pulled the strange creature through just as Daring had knocked the cult-leader out with a heroic uppercut, moments too late to prevent the summoning from occurring. Defeating the cult with her usual flash of panache, the legendary adventurer managed to quickly subdue and cage the creature. When Stalwart had asked for details on how she’d managed to do that, Daring had simply blushed and shaken her head, mumbling that it wasn’t important. Over the past few days, she’d prepared... it for transport back to the Canterlot archives immediately.

Of course, Twilight had been quite insistent upon reading Daring's initial report that the creature should be well-guarded as it trekked up the week-long journey back to the capitol. 

For once, Stalwart definitely agreed with the bookish Princess’s assessment.

Traveling along with them would be a tome that thrummed with a dark and insidious aura. The black book of evil magecraft that the cult leader had used to initiate his twisted summoning ritual, and which Daring Do had examined to see that it contained spells while made even the summoning of the demonic creature seem tame by comparison. Stalwart had accepted the book with a shudder, glancing between both it and the creature and shaking his head, muttering under his breath that both should simply be destroyed.

The golden-brown pegasus whirled on him immediately, fixing him with those bright cyan eyes of hers and growling with a snarl that they belonged in a museum!

They’d set off a few hours after that, the time used to quickly resupply and re-water, procure some spare sheets of copper from the camp to bash together into an effective enclosure, and bolster the whole wagon with powerful wards and locks. The book was traveling with Stalwart himself, locked into the saddlebags which hung from his barding. As much as he hated the feeling that the thing was somehow creeping into his fur, corrupting him through the layers of leather and armor, he didn’t want to risk letting the thing out of his sight.

He’d glanced at some of the pages within, and realized just how evil some of the spells jotted on those pages could be.

His rumination on recent events evaporated faster than mare-piss in the desert heat as the sound of a small twig breaking about a hundred paces to his right pierced the otherwise silent desert night.

His gut sank a foot and the fur on his back began to stick up; this was the perfect terrain, the perfect timing, the perfect distance from reinforcements for an attempt to raid the convoy. They were still hours from the rail-head, where a military train-car and an express-routed locomotive awaited them. If they had only managed to make it to the train, with its reinforcements and heavy armor, they would have been home safe and sound.

Another cracking twig - there could be no doubt now, even before the sudden bright burst of a sun-spell seared his eyes, ruining his night vision as the whole of the area was bathed in blinding white light.

“AMBUSH!” Stalwart shouted though the warning was scarcely necessary. His well-trained troops were already falling back to set a tight perimeter around the wagon as he drew his razor-edged blade from its sheath with a ringing scream of an edge against scabbard.

Forming up in a tight ring around the wagon in under a second with his men, his trained eyes had already adjusted to the rapid shift in luminosity, picking up five shadowy figures as they emerged from behind some of the desert detritus surrounding their convoy.

Five ponies.

One unicorn, two earth ponies, a thestral, and a pegasus.

He tried to suppress the small sense of relief rising in his breast as he laughed under his breath at the meager forces arraying against them, slinking forward with their faces still covered in shadow from the overhead glow of their flare-spell. He had a squad of ten highly trained guardsponies. Even one of them could easily handle five bandits. Still, he would treat this as if it were a force of ten times the size, taking no chances. He began to charge an area-wide stun-spell that would incapacitate even the strongest of battle-mages, stopping the attackers in their tracks.

His horn crackled and glowed green with potent thaumic energy. Charging and charging and… charging? He’d never had this spell take so long to power up! What was going on?

A quick sideways glance confirmed that all of his guardsponies seemed to be slowing down, moving with bizarre difficulty, as if the very atmosphere had turned into thick, restrictive jello — some even hanging in mid-air as their attempts to sprint toward the threat failed.

Time magic!

Stalwart tried to prepare a counter-spell, his mind racing back to the training he’d received ages past regarding the extremely rare form of magic, which was thought to have no living practitioners on Equus but it was too late. He became frozen in his own bubble of space-time, unable to do anything but watch helplessly as the five shadowy figures began to move toward his chrono-locked squad with a cavalier casualness that confirmed they had won the engagement.

It was over. The bandits would surely slit their throats, or worse, leave him and his guards at the mercy of the harsh desert environment, trapped in a seeming eternity of pseudo-death.

He blinked.

In the course of his eyes flittering down and back up, the moon jumped jarringly across the night sky, hopping forward in its arc in what he figured to be roughly one hour’s worth of travel. He felt the breeze, the flow of blood through his veins, the thump of his heart that confirmed he was no longer in stasis. At least time had resumed its normal flow.

Unfortunately, during that intervening hour, he and the entire squad had been bound and gagged by their ambushers, and he was helplessly prostrate on his left side, hooves bound together with manacles and a spell-suppressing inhibitor ring that had been wedged painfully into his horn.

A shadowy hoof reached from behind his head and slipped his gag free. Stalwart didn’t waste a moment.

“Criminals! Release me and my guardsponies immediately before you compound your charge — *OOMPH*” Stalwart resounding, drill-sergeant voice was cut off by a sharp kick to his gut by one of the bulky, bruiser-type earth-ponies.

“Shut yer yap, copper… we didn’t ungag you to her you spew manure.” The earth pony snapped with a distinctly Massachoofetts accent.

“Easy Truncheon. I don’t want him so hurt he can’t move.” The shadowy unicorn said calmly, as he used a levitation field to lift Stalwart up onto his hooves. “But I didn’t have you ungagged to discuss legal matters, Captain. What I wanted to do was ask you, very nicely mind you, to please open that wagon for us.”

Stalwart laughed bitterly, spitting out a bit of the bile that had risen to the back of his throat from the heavy blow he’d been dealt. “You must be a new crew. Don’t you know that royal guardsponies have special conditioning, training, and spells to prevent cracking under pressure or torture? Even mind-control spells won’t work. You’ll never get me or my squad to op- *OOMPH*” This time a forehoof was launched with a vicious uppercut under his solar plexus.

“I said, don’t spew manure, flatfoot.” Truncheon growled at him.

The unicorn sighed, rolling his eyes slightly as if he were bored with the scene unfolding before him, then motioned for one of the other ponies behind him to come closer. “Nurse Blackheart, if you please?”

Stalwart’s eyes struggled to refocus as a beautiful light-blue mare came out of the darkness. The earth-pony mare had a turquoise mane visible, despite her locks having been tucked under a black woolen toque, part of a fashionable set that matched her black turtleneck. She’d definitely dressed for the occasion.

Her cyan eyes twinkled behind her square rimmed glasses as she responded in a pleasant, lilting tone. “Please don’t call me Nurse; it reminds me too much of my goody-four-shoes cousin. Unlike her, I’m no nurse…” Blackheart chortled as she opened one of her saddle-bags and removed a clipboard and a vial filled with a bubbling, glowing, vile brew, “... I’m a pharmacist.”

Stalwart quickly noted the mare’s cutie mark, his mind trying to remember every possible detail. It was a red cross, with hearts in each of the corner-quadrants, all over a green background splatter which dripped down onto a menacing skull and crossbones that rested beneath the cross. Stalwart grimaced: why did the bad guys always have such obviously evil cutie marks?

She stepped closer, looking down her snout at him as she uncorked her vial, keeping it held well away from herself as a blast of noxious fog escaped from the enclosure. Surprisingly, she began to address Stalwart as formally as if he was in a physician’s office for his annual check-up.

“Do you have any drug allergies? Are you on any medications?” Stalwart couldn’t but answer with a shake of his head, lured by the mare’s clinical and earnest tone into automatic responses.

“Good, good,” she made a couple of checkmarks on her clipboard. “And any problems with hypertension or blood press —”

“Oi Doc!” The voice of another stallion piped up, small tones of a Shireland accent creeping into his speech, “Get ON with it! We don’t give a flyin’ feck if he croaks once we’re done, just give him the dose ‘fer the love a’ Celestia!”

Blackheart clicked her tongue, shooting a glare over Stalwart’s shoulder at the interrupting, broguish voice “Well I care, Mr. Clover.  I’m not some two-bit, fly-by-night poisoner. I’m a mare of science. But fine…” With a sigh, she clicked her pen and set aside her clipboard, stuffed it back into her saddlebag, “Captain, I’ll just assume you’re a healthy guardspony, without any pre-existing health conditions.” Her venomous glance back at ‘Mr. Clover’ showed just how much she disliked having to make such an assumption. “So, I only have one more question for you, do you prefer to sleep with mares or stallions?”

Stalwart coughed, blushing and shaking his head as if to deflect the awkwardness of the question suddenly posed to him. “W-what!?”

Blackheart smiled and asked again, peering down under her glasses at him as if he were nothing more than a lab experiment to be surveyed. “Do you prefer mares or stallions? Peppers or aubergines?Tacos or cucumbers? Clams or bananas…?” She gestured to the pile of his still-restrained squad, predominantly made of stallions. “Maybe it's true what they say about what goes on in the showers at the guards-stallions’ barracks?”

Stalwart snarled, outrage causing him to bubble out with a venomous and vehement denial. “I’LL HAVE YOU KNOW I LIKE MARES… one beautiful mare, in particular, thank-you-very-much! I’ve been married for years!”

The researched chuckled, adding a drop to the bubbling vial in her hoof, which frothed before belching forth a small puff of toxic gas. “Fantastic, glad to hear that… and I’m sure a fellow like you has never cheated on her? Never even turned to glance at the backside of a passing beautiful mare?”

Stalwart spat to one side, eyebrows knitting together in a mixture of confusion and anger. Was this supposed to get under his fur? “Of course not!”

“Never sniffed the air a little too long when a girl is out during her springtime estrus?” Harems and herds sure are popular these days.” She was focusing more on her brew, watching its colors shift, needling him absentmindedly as the potion finally settled on a sickly shade of purplish-pink.

“From the moment I saw her, I’ve only had eyes for my wife Marigold… and later for our beautiful baby foal, Daisy! They mean everything to me. I’d die before I even thought about letting them down. We’ve been married for seven years, and my love for her burns as brightly as the day I met her at Canterlot cafe. That’s why my name is Stalwart Heart!” The captain gestured down at his flank with his restrained hooves, indicating his cutie-mark, a locked heart inside a shield.

Blackheart’s expression softened a bit, hearing this diatribe. Her hoof shook slightly and she chewed her lip as if she were reconsidering something. “C-captain Stalwart… I usually don’t give additional warnings to my captives. But I detest playing the role of homewrecker.” She reached a hoof out and put it onto the Captain’s shoulder, her eyes no longer clinical and detached, but filled with concern and what seemed like regret.

“Jes’ get on with already Blackheart, ya’ big softie!” A young, nasally Manehattan accent called out from behind Stalwart, outside of his vision.

Blackheart frowned at the interruption, then turned her sincere gaze back to Stalwart. “Captain, I’m telling you this because I don’t want to have to use this.” She wriggled the vial in her hooves. “But we’ve found a way through that famed guardspony conditioning of yours… love.”

“Pfft.” Stalwart couldn’t help but blow a small raspberry at the ridiculousness of the statement. Centuries of the top minds in spell-crafting and psychological conditioning and training… beaten by a sappy throwaway catchword?

Blackheart blushed with embarrassment at his scoffing response, but cleared her throat and continued. “I’m not joking Captain, I’m no fool. This little vial here contains ‘perfected love poison’. You may have heard of its closely related analog, Amoris Potionem, which in the modern era we mistakenly name a love poison. Often useful as a little prank to get two friends to go googly-eyed for a few hours, and quite reversible.”

“And highly illegal.” Stalwart whispered through clenched teeth.

“Yes, of course. So many fascinating apothecarian sciences are!” Blackheart clicked her tongue with annoyance, “But that’s not the point. We call it ‘love poison’ and keep it illegal because long, long ago… it truly was a poison.” She hefted the vial, glowing with menace. “A real poison - Amoris Venenum.” She trotted a few steps away, grabbing something while out of sight of Stalwart’s vision. “You probably don’t know much about this brew, though. It hasn’t been made in hundreds of years. The black magicks required to complete the chemical foundations had been lost to time… Until now.”

She walked back into his vision, holding that horrible black book that he’d wanted to burn to cinders back at the base-camp.

“Drop that this INSTANT!” Stalwart barked, mentally kicking himself for keeping the book in his saddlebag instead of inside the sealed transport wagon. He’d assumed that one was as safe as the other.

“No.” Blackheart sniffed, turning her nose up slightly, dismissing his request as if he were a small school-foal. She cracked open the heavy leather-bound cover of the tome and flipped to a particular page. “Ah yes. There’s something thrilling in the idea that I am the only chemist able to brew this poison… for now. And the first in hundreds of years, too. And let me assure you, Captain… this will cut through your conditioning like a fire-spell through butter.”

“So. Buckin’. What?” Stalwart grunted, playing tough. The beads of nervous sweat starting to form on his brow betrayed just how shallow his boast was.

“So what?” Blackheart sighed as if disappointed. “Let me be perfectly clear as to the effects of this poison, Captain. Once I have you consume even some of this, you will be put into a state of complete love receptiveness.” She spoke slowly and deliberately, each word dripping with a silent plea that he listen to her warning. “During that time, the first mare you lay eyes on… well… you’ll fall into true love with her. Forever.”

Stalwart swallowed, trying not to let any reaction show on his face.

Blackheart tapped the vial, freeing a couple of acrid bubbles to boil slowly to the surface with sickening squelching pop sounds. “And I’m not talking about some lustful romp or one night’s stand. This love will be so deep and true it will replace all the other love you have in your soul. Hobbies? Your job? Your friends?” She shook her head sadly and clicked her tongue. “But that’s not the worst of it. Think about your family. Your wife and child — any love you have for them will be pushed to the side, replaced by a desire for some random mare you happened to lock eyes on.” Her eyes teared up a little bit, and she paused to wipe them clear. “I’ve seen the effects, Captain. It was bad enough in a temporary form, in the addictive brews I’ve used to convince enemies of our gang. But this… this…” She held the vial aloft.

“This?” Stalwart softly intoned, dreading the response.

“I’m not proud of its effects, Captain… only its chemistry. Having a stallion leave their entire life behind because their heart — their very soul has been irreversibly changed. There is a reason this is called a love ‘poison’. It kills the old love and replaces it. There’s no going back.”

Stalwart felt a tremor ripple through his body, his muscles twitching under the surge of adrenaline flooding him, the first time he had felt fear cut through his intense guard conditioning. The memory of his cute five-year-old filly, playing with his wife Merigold in their garden - a memory he cherished as much as his own life… he would lose that? Lose the very love he had for them? The implications of this potion were terrifying.

“It’s not an exact science, Captain.” Blackheart lectured. “I don’t know how much will be left behind once you’ve taken it. But the tests that we’ve done with the non-black-magicked versions of the brew don’t leave much hope.” Blackheart sniffled again, wiping away another tear, her sorrow self-evident even as she detailed the means of destruction to be used against him. “Please Captain, don’t make me give this poison to you. Don’t make me destroy another family, and this time with no hope of reconciliation. Can’t you see the result is going to be the same either way? You’re going to open that door for us! Why not do it without breaking your heart into a thousand pieces… and your wife and daughter’s hearts in the process?” She almost looked hopeful now, letting the potion drop to one side, as if convinced that her speech would have the desired effect.

Stalwart could feel his heart pounding in his chest, the fear threatening to bubble over and show itself in his demeanor. Already he was starting to flinch backward from the potion - the mere smell enough to make him fearful of its potential effects.

A stiff set of hooves grabbed his head from behind, preventing him from shrinking too far away.

“Aww, c’mon Blackie - ‘yer way too muchuva softiey!” That sassy Manehattan voice was next to his ear now, spoken by the pony holding his head. “Just give him the stuff! I was hopin’ to get a nice lay tonight.” She giggled and whispered into his ear. “You wouldn’t believe how eager a stallion gets once they’re on Blackie’s brew… best sex a gurl can have!”

Blackheart’s face darkened as she glared at the mare holding him, shaking her head with an upturned lip in disgust. “Please Captain, you have a choice.”

“Aw, shut it Blackie. Always tryin’ to ruin my fun. I know you got a peek at the Cap’s junk when he was out.” Stalwart jerked upright as he felt one of the hooves slip off his head and goose him, grabbing his junk like he was some piece of meat. “An’ if he’s this well equipped when he’s scared shitless, just imaging how hung he’ll be once he’s all goo-goo eyed!”

Blackheart’s teeth flashed in her mouth, gritted and angry. “Horny little bitch.” She spat the words.

“Don’t get jealous just ‘cuz I’m not afraid to scratch an itch with a tool. And honey I have got quite the itch.” Stalwart shivered, the voice of his assailant breathed into his ear.

It had to… had to be a ploy!  Stalwart’s mind locked onto the thought, the only glimmer of hope that he had. They’re hoping they can get me to cooperate through fear and lust - but if I just rely on my training. They don’t stand a chance.

Stalwart took a deep breath, gathering his courage, and setting his mind back to rights, latching on to the idea that this was all some elaborate fakeout, then affixed Blackheart with his gaze. “If I gave in here, I’d already had betrayed my loved ones: I’d never be able to face them knowing I let them down!” He fumed out his nostrils, stamping his foot in the dirt and gritting his teeth. “I believe in my Stalwart Heart resisting your evil ways… I believe in true love conquering all… so screw you! I will NEVER open that door!”

Blackheart choked out a sob. “NO! You stupid, stubborn stall-”

“Bwahaha! You heard the guy, Blackie! Now serve it up, my wings are gettin’ stiff!” The voice behind Stalwart sneered with glee.

Blackheart’s face darkened monstrously with ferocious anger. “Shut UP. Dusk Wing you slit-eyed, claw-winged, fruit-sucking, gutter-tramp orphan!”

“What did you just call me you mud-pony motherbucker!?” Stalwart felt the hooves come off his head as the mare holding him prepared to launch herself at her fellow bandit.

Blackheart lowered the vial, stepping forward and stiffening her shoulders, ready to tussle. “If you have so much time to yap that fang-filled trap of yours why don’t you go try the door one more ti-” The potion was snatched out of her grasp by a levitation field, the shadowy unicorn that had been observing silently stepping forward.

“No, I think that we’ve given the good Captain more than enough opportunity to consider his choice. Playtime’s over, girls.” His calm, good-humored tone seemed far too casual for the circumstances as he hovered vial to the Captain’s snout.

The fear on Blackheart’s face was evident as she scrambled quickly into her saddlebag and chased after the vial levitating away from her. “Wait! Wait! Be careful with that vial!” Stalwart could see the mare holding a blindfold in her hoof - the last thing he would see, in fact, as the earth-pony mare slid the blind over his eyes. “We have to cover his eyes, the next thing he sees once this thing comes off will be the target of the poison! He’ll latch onto the first thing he sees!”

Stalwart thrashed feebly against the blinders going on him, but those firm hooves gripped him from behind once again, letting the dark slip over his gaze. 

“Say ‘ah’, ya guards-pony bastahd’!” The cruel mare he now knew as Dusk Wing chuckled in her annoying tone as she pinched the Captain’s nose, making him involuntarily open his mouth to breathe. The second his lips at parted, he felt the glass of the vial jammed into his muzzle, almost choking him as the bitter, acidic sludge, thick as molasses and warm with insidious power slid down his esophagus and into his gut.

“Bwa ha HA!” The mare’s laugh was even louder now. “A full dose, ain’t no hope for you now, asshole!” Dusk Wing chittered, finally releasing his head from her grasp.

As soon as he was free, Stalwart coughed and choked, hanging his head as low as possible to try to regurgitate some of the foul brew, remembering his training - magical potions generally couldn’t be aspirated, so inducing vomiting could actually work in mitigating the effects. 

But it was no use.

The sludge had been absorbed the moment it slid down his throat, entwining itself inexorably with his thaumatological system.

“So, Blackie.” He heard that cloying Manehattan voice again, through the dark of whatever material was still covering him. “You sure seemed like you had a sweet-spot for ‘dis guy. You shore you don’t wan’ him yerself?”

“Dusk, you’re a real piece of trash, you know that? You’re ruining his life, don’t you feel anything?”

“Feel anything? From ruining the life… of a guards-pony?” She laughed for a moment before responding. “Joy, I guess? I ain’t got no problems ruinin’ their lives. Why should I? They had no problem ruinin’ mine!”

“Whatever. I’ll have nothing further to do with this.”

“Fine by me — but the way I sees it, I gotta pay you back for your trash-talk. And seein’ as how you had such a hard-on for the poor wittle Cappy here…” the sarcastic falsetto came with a few thumps of Stalwart’s flank, “Well, I guess I’ll just take it out on him. So are you sure you don’ wan’ him? If you don’t take him, I guarantee I’ll make you regret it.”

There was a moment of hesitation. “Fuck you and your guarantee. I’m sure you, parent-less orphan.”

“‘Kay. Don’t say I didn’t warn yah, Blackie.” 

Stalwart heard the shuffling of hooves in front of him as ponies moved around. He was hypersensitive at the moment, his ears tuned for anything that he could pick up, while the remainder of his senses were turned inward, trying to discern just what, if anything, that potion had done to him.

“Hey, Tough. Turn ‘im around and let me get set before you take his blinders off.” Stalwart heard from in front of him. “I always think it’s freakin’ hi-lar-ious when stallions fall hopelessly in love with me while my plothole’s in their face!”

“Dusk, it’s not like the stuff I’ve brewed before - this is permanent. Don’t you understand?” Blackheart snarled.

“Enough, Blackheart.” The cold voice belonging to the unicorn softly cut her off again. “It’s done. He had his chance. Now we need to see if this formula really will be effective for improving our narcotics operation on the East Coast or not.” Stalwart heard the click of a tongue. “If this really is permanent, we can corner the market over all those two-bit back-alley potioner zebras grabbing up the family’s share of the market. The Captain’s just gonna be test subject zero is all.”

Stalwart’s mind was racing. Narcotics. The family. East Coast. So it was organized crime. He’d heard stories about how many of the potions trending in the fancy circles in those cities were being laced with illegal substances, but to go as far as black magic. This was beyond dangerous!

“Ya ready, Cap? Ready to see the last mare you’ll ever love?” 

The question brought him back to the present. This was it.

He swallowed, trying to sense if he felt inebriated or drugged. If he felt like his magical system was out of whack.

But he felt OK.

He’d tasted that horrible sludge, had stemmed the wave of panic that came with ingesting it. But since then he’d felt... 

Nothing.

No confusion. No nausea. No jumbled thoughts. Nothing of the elements that he’d been trained to expect in relation to magical thought-control potions.

Maybe… maybe this really was just one big fake-out?

His hope began to rise a bit. It was innovative, sure. Trying to confuse and slip around his SERE training by implying there was nothing he could do, but if it really was just some placebo potion or even just an attempt to use one of the well-known truth serums that he’d been inoculated against, he’d be fine.

He could do this.

Suddenly the blindfold was torn from his face. Stalwart clenched his eyes shut, squeezing his eyelids with all of his facial muscles to avoid seeing anything. He would resist as long as he could.

“Aww, he’s playin’ peek a boo, ain’t that jus’ adorable?”  Dusk Wing chuckled, from not far in front of him. “C’mon Cap, ‘jes a little peek. I promise you’ll love it!”

He could smell her, the sweaty tang of a mare could almost feel the heat of her body on his face. She was right in front of his muzzle.

“No? Don’t wanna peek? Well, let me help you then!” Dusk shouted, whipping her tail hard against his snout.

The hairs whacked against the side of his face, as hard as if he’d received a slap, smacking against him with as much force as a wet towel. He couldn’t help but flinch, his eyes blinking open for the briefest glimpse of light.

But that was all the enchantment needed.

“Ta Daaaa!” Tell me whatcha think, Cap!’

*Ba-bump*

Stalwart felt the heavy pump of his heart as it throbbed in his chest, surging a wave of blood carrying the thaumic poison through his body, the final ingredient of the sight of a mare enough to catalyze the cruel magic into its full, devastating potential.

*Ba-bump*

Stalwart’s eyes quickly came into focus and he began to drink in the details of his own doom. Right off his nose was a shapely rear belonging to what looked to be no older than an eighteen-year-old thestral mare. Her messy fur was a dark grey, highlighted by a dark purple mane and tail. Her unkempt manecut was short and tight, revealing long, fuzzy ears that bat-ponies were so famous for, embroidered with emerald-blue studs that matched the irises around her big, slit-pupiled eyes. Her lightly-furred, leathery bat-wings were spread out on either side of her lithe, agile body — a diminutive filly by any measure.

But Stalwart’s attention was quickly drawn away from the major details of Dusk Wing, his gaze quickly being drawn to her teenaged plot. Her small, but firm buttocks were firmly squeezed as they kept her legs proudly set apart. Her flagged and wagging dock kept her tail proudly up in the air and out of the way. This meant that there was nothing preventing him from seeing every inch of Dusk...  revealing her tight, shapely and darker marehood just inches from his nose, a pair of tight, plump lips that quivered with life, and just above it the taut little ring of her tailhole complete with a small smooth patch of skin between it and her vagina.

Dusk Wing looked over her shoulder back at him, smiling cruelly with a fang-filled grin as she started to move her butts with a sultry wiggle. “Don’t leave me hangin’ Cap! Tell me just how much you love my little ass.”

He swallowed, shaking his head slightly, his mind rebooting from the surge of fear and adrenaline as he searched his thoughts, inspecting his own feelings. Just how did he feel?

I feel… nothing! I’m OK!

A surge of relief let his tense muscles unlock. It had been a bluff! This young criminal filly in front of him had nothing compared to the beauty and love he felt for his wife, Merigold, and his daughter, Daisy! Sure she was a cute young criminal filly. Yes, she had an adorable face, and an unforgettable smile - those fangs were pretty darn adorable - and hergrin reminded him of his daughter, Daisee… Daisey? Dazey?

But his daughter would never turn to a life of crime, like Dusk Wing… like this… evil low-life. But, that wasn’t entirely fair, was it? Dusk seemed like she was a good pony - how could any teenager as beautiful and courageous as she really be bad to the bone? She just needed his guidance! Maybe… maybe he could be her mentor! Merrygoal always believed in giving ponies a second chance, and she’d never had a plot that looked as fine as Dusk’s!

“Speechless, huh Cap?” Dusk’s grin was ferocious now, the smirk of a predator looming over its kill. “Can’t blame ya’, my ass is pretty incredible.”

It really is, isn’t it?

Stalwart nodded silently in agreement. Her rear was so shapely, not big and squishy like he usually liked. How could he have ever like big butts? Clearly, this athletic and tight rear was superior, far better looking than his wife’s…

Wait. Wife? Was he even married? She was really more of a filly-friend that had stuck around, wasn’t she? A partner, more like. Right?

No! No! You were married!

His mind struggled again, trying to find some purchase to prevent itself from spiraling into the madness of the poison. He knew he’d gotten married at some point… sometime shortly after they’d found out that she’d become pregnant with their foal.

Was it a daughter? Or a son…? What was her name again?

But he did remember that she had gotten looser down there after the birth. There was no way that she’d be as tight as the hot little minx that Dusk Wing was. And that thestral ponut! So cute and snug-looking! He really wanted to just lean forward and plant a nice wet kiss on it!

Maybe… maybe he could convince Murrigul - wait, was that her name? No. No, it was Merylgilder, wasn’t it? Well… convince whoever-her-name-was that Dusk Wing could join their herd as lead mare. She’d be such a good fit for their family, he could tell that the bat-mare was destined to be his soulmate! If what’s-her-face didn’t agree, well… it wasn’t like she was the best catch in the sea, and they’d only had one foal together. Murrygut could take a hike.

“I think I got ‘im, boys.” Dusk Wing tittered, covering her chuckle with a free forehoof before slapping Stalwart again across the face with her tail and taking a few sashay-ing steps away from him.

Stalwart barely managed to avoid stumbling forward after her, gazing at her with dreamy eyes and a mouth that hung part way open. “W-wait! Wait, Dusk! Don’t go! You don’t have to do this, you know? You’re a beautiful, brilliant young mare. I-I could take care of you… we could be together, start a family, forget about all this trouble! I could make it work!” The words tumbled out of him unheeded, uncontrolled. He was desperate to do anything to stop her from walking further away from him.

“Boy you got it bad, Cap.” Dusk swung around, blowing a stream of warm air over Stalwart’s face.

The stream of mouth-flavored air was like ambrosia. Even her breath was incredible! Forget about the after-smell of cigarettes and whiskey. Stalwart couldn’t help but lean even further forward, threatening to trip over his still restrained hooves and land face first in the dust.

Blackheart’s disgusted voice piped up out of sheer exasperation. “Would you stop messing around already and just have him open the damn door? You’ve done enough damage as it is.”

“Naw,” Dusk Wing motioned back, staring right through the earth-pony mare as she walked around the carriage, “I think I’m gonna have some fun at your expense first.”

“Quantum, is this the kind of outfit you run!? You let horny little teenage tramps get in the way of business for the family? Is this what you want me reporting back to the dons?”

The unicorn, hitherto unnamed, stared coldly back at Blackheart. “Well seems to me, Nurse Blackheart, that at this particular point in time Dusk Wing holds all the cards. Captain Stalwart is only gonna listen to her — so all we can do is sit and watch.” He gave a little nod to Dusk Wing to continue.

Blackheart stomped her hoof, letting out a snort. “You don’t pay me enough to put up with this bull-manure!”

Quantum’s eyes flashed with menace, calmly turning back to look at her and pierce her through and through with his razor-sharp emerald eyes. “First off, we absolutely do. There’s a reason you turned criminal once the crown stopped funding your commercial research… and the family pays you very well to brew your little poisons.” Quantum took a half step toward Blackheart, which made the mare immediately retreat in fear, closer to the wagon and Dusk Wing. “Second of all, I know every one of the dons personally — they were all there when I was made. Insult me in their presence and they’ll turn you into bait for the sea ponies.”

“I-I… I didn’t mean an-”

“Yes. Yes, you did, Nurse.” Quantum clicked his tongue, letting some of the fire out of his eyes. “But it’s about time that you realized you’re just as bad as us. I’ve had it with your ‘holier than thou’ crap, thinking that you’re just a researcher fallen on hard times. We’ve all had hard times, Nurse. And now, I’m gonna baptize you in the evil you are, I’m gonna open your eyes.” Quantum gave a more deliberate nod to Dusk Wing, whose grin had now grown until it was ear to ear. “Full permission to do whatever you like, Dusk, just don’t take too long.”

“Quantum, I-”

“Shut it, Nurse. I want you to remember, you are just as responsible as Dusk for what’s about to happen to Stalwart.”

Stalwart watched the nurse hang her head without a response before his attention was quickly snapped back to that scrumptiously adorable thestral. Dusk had stopped beside a prone, bound, and gagged guardspony... one that seemed somewhat familiar to him. But he couldn’t quite place her.

Dusk looked down, confirming something on the guardspony’s armor then looked back over at Blackheart with the smile of a madmare. “See, Blackie… interesting thing is, as I was shaking down the guards during their little time-out, I saw this motherbucker here had quite an interestin’ name…” She rolled the helplessly restrained guard over onto one side, revealing the nameplate emblazoned on the upper right chest section of her armored barding: MERIGOLD.

“Oh my Celestia.” Blackheart gasped.

Dusk Wing ignored her, continuing on. “Now, the fact she’s got that name could all ‘jes be a crazy little co-inky-dink.” With a flick, the thestral extended a lethally-sharp claw switch-blade and slashed through the heavy leather saddlebag strap on the mare’s flank, digging her hoof into the innards like a vulture perched over a fresh kill. “Or… it could be a case of a good ‘ol-fashioned office romance, blossomin’ into a lovely marriage ‘n foals.” She held up her hoof triumphantly, revealing a family picture she’d found in the mare’s saddlebag - a smiling Merigold embracing Stalwart Heart while Daisy, their young filly, was squished between them. All three were laughing at Daisy’s crown of flowers. A picture of better times.

It clicked in Stalwart’s head. He knew that guard was familiar! He even sort of remembered that picture. Some small part of his mind hoped that Dusk Wing would be careful with it - and careful with the pony she was standing over. A little surge of thaumic energy pulse through him, and he quickly changed his mind. If that astoundingly sexy little minx wanted to not be so careful, he wouldn’t try to stop her - she knew what she was doing.

“Please. Don’t.” Blackheart begged, looking over at Dusk Wing.

Dusk Wing’s cruel smile fell into a cold, stoic glare. The look of a sociopath, a brief glimpse into the bat’s true nature. “I guaranteed I’d make you regret it, Blackie. Don’t you ever call me an orphan again.” Dusk crumpled and flicked the photo over her shoulder, carelessly. “I had parents before the fuckin’ guard showed up in Thestralslovakia.”

“Don’t.” The only thing Blackheart could do was repeat herself.

But Dusk was already turning away, reapplying her fang-filled grin and motioning to one of the bruisers just on the outskirts of Stalwart’s vision.

“Let our good friend Cappy go, fellas.” Dusk giggled, motioning at his restraints. “He's only gonna run over to get some sugah from his honey.”

Stalwart felt a jerk and a yank as a powerful stallion unlocked and ripped off the manacles binding his legs. Even more surprisingly, he felt a set of hooves grip the spell-restraint ring fashioned on his horn and jerk it off - the effect was as painful as a blacksmith pounding a nail into your funny bone but was quickly over.

More importantly, Dusk Wing had let him free! His love, his little muffin! He knew she had a good side to her. And she was right there! Right off his nose! He could rush over to her and wrap her up in the hug that he knew she needed. That he needed.

“I can’t watch this.” Blackheart choked out, hanging her head and turning away.

Quantum’s horn snapped back into a magically glowing torch of energy, tendrils of icy-blue spellcraft seizing Blackheart and jerking her into place, forcing her to view the spectacle before it froze her. “You’ll watch the whole thing, Blackheart. If you don’t, I’ll make you give that guardsmare the poison too and leave that foal without anypony.”

Stalwart glanced idly from the frozen apothecary, the momentary distraction just enough to turn him away from Dusk Wing, who was still glancing at him with curiously expectant eyes. It wasn’t the only set of eyes waiting to see what he was about to do’ the guardsmare bound and gagged on the desert floor was looking over at him, pupils contracted and very much unfrozen, not captured in the strange undeath of cryothaumic stasis. Well, whoever her name was, she could watch as he embraced his little thestral-bunny.

Stalwart charged forward, building up to a trot as he closed the distance to Dusk Wing quickly. The golden-maned guardsmare did her best to sit up, craning her neck off the hot, desert sand and choking out a muffled cry that was mostly absorbed by her gag, a plea to him that he couldn’t hear, but it almost looked as if she were relieved that he was running over to her… he didn’t have the foggiest idea why that would be.

Stalwart charged right past her, nearly trodding on her leg as he wrapped Dusk Wing up into a bear hug, burying his head into the nape of her neck and squeezing her like a long lost lover might hug their beau after a lengthy absence.

“Dusk! I knew it. I knew you would let me go!” Stalwart grinned, hugging her even tighter. Every moment he was embracing her felt so… right. Like his whole soul and being were completed by this simple act of hugging.  “I knew we were meant to be together… now let’s get out of here! I know a great lawyer, and we’ll get you right with the guard, then we can talk about our future an-”

Stalwart’s rambling madness was silenced by Dusk Wing’s forehoof, pressing firmly against his lips to get him to shut up. “Sure sure, Cap… whatevah’ you say. But first…”

Stalwart felt the brush of Dusk Wing’s unkempt tail as it slid up between his legs, pressing firmly against his inner thigh without the least hint of shame or hesitation, traveling up and up until it bounced against his stallion-junk, making his unarmored ‘pouch’ swing beneath him. 

“Why don’ we have a little fun?”

“F-fun?” Stalwart’s mind raced. On the one hoof, his heart was pounding with excitement and intensity at the thought of the kind of ‘fun’ that the bat-mare might have in mind: he wasn’t usually one for lewd activities out of season or out of the bedroom — but the idea of doing anything with Dusk Wing, let alone ‘fun’ was thrilling. On the other hoof… he glanced with incredulity at the bound captives that had been his squad, the gang of criminals less than a few pony lengths away, and the strangely familiar Guardsmare staring at him from just below where he was snuggling with Dusk Wing. “H-here? NOW? In front of all these ponies?”

“Sure! Unless…” Dusk Wing looked up at him with puppy dog eyes, her large slit-shaped irises glistening with mocking sincerity as she batted her eyelashes, “... unless you don’t like me?”

Stalwart felt her begin to pull away from him, turning away and subtly hip-checking him with a little wriggle of her rear. Even her slight withdrawal felt like a fisherpony had somehow sunk a treble-barbed hook into his heart and was yanking with all his might to free his lure. The physical pain of potentially losing the contact he had with Dusk Wing made him quiver.

“NO! No. Uh, I guess. I mean, of course, we can have a little fun.” Stalwart stepped back against Dusk Wing, the press of his withers against her croup triggering a flush of endorphins. He slid up, smelling her sweaty fragrance as his nostrils flared, drinking in her every essence. He was tempted to kiss her barrel right then and there. “As… as long as you don’t mind everypony watching.”

“Nah, I don’t mind one bit. I’m proud of my body, and I’m a performer.” She slid one of her bat-wings down her demure body cockily. “Ain’t nothin’ I’m ashamed of if them boys wanna watch, your guys gotta pay for the peep-show though.” She giggled, clicking her tongue and motioning with her chin at the bound and gagged guardsponies. “Even your wifey, but enough talk Cap, gimme a kiss.”

She leaned up to him, craning her neck to bring her head closer to him. As the larger stallion, he had to bend down as well, brushing her cheek with his lips, planting a little butterfly-kiss on the teen’s face, more a peck than a real embrace. But by Celestia did it feel amazing!

He noticed the mare on the ground beneath him seemed to be staring with shocked, unbelieving eyes, almost screaming into her gag. But it didn’t detract from the incredible sensation he was feeling even one iota. It was like he was floating on air!

“Pft, gimme a break Cap. I wasn’t askin’ ya to kiss me the way you’d kiss ya’ daughter.” Dusk Wing tsked at him, rolling her eyes as she worked her quick little tongue around her lips, wetting them.

“My… my who?” Stalwart asked, trying to understand just what his love-muffin meant by ‘daughter’. As he said the words, another muffled scream came from the pony on the ground.

“Ya little gurl, Cap. Wasn’t the brat’s name Daisy?” Dusk grinned as she leaned into him with half-lidded eyes, making for a cruel show for Merigold, currently crying in confusion as she watched them. “You was kissin’ me like you would kiss a little filly.”

Stalwart swallowed, trying to catch hold of his breathing as his vision was filled with the large, almost luminous eyes of a thestral, her nose right off the end of his.

“But let me show ya’ how this little gurl likes t’ kiss.”

Dusk Wing’s fang-filled mouth opened wide to engulf his lips, her open muzzle covering his stunned snout before she forced her limber tongue inside his lips, quickly parting his teeth and thrusting against his own tongue — roughly pulling at strands of his mane as she aggressively ran her hoof through it, trailing down his neck and toward his barrel.

The muffled scream of the pony underneath him was lost in the cacophony of joy that Stalwart was feeling, trumpets of victory sounding in his skull at the sheer epiphanic bliss of receiving Dusk’s love. 

Merigold’s horror only increased as Dusk Wing’s free hoof trailed down Stalwart’s barrel and reached under his left hip, grasping his package with impudent ardor and grinding a hoof-edge skillfully into his sheath with impatience.

Oh fuck. 

Stalwart moaned throatily into Dusk’s sucking face. The sensation of the teen groping him was just as potent as the throbbing love coursing through his veins. He felt himself spill out of his sheath, inch after inch of mottled pink stallionhood pouring out of his body into her eager, massaging hoof, its pendulous weight supported by Dusk’s hoof as his shaft quickly filled with screaming-hot blood, extending him to full erection.

Just as he felt his tip brush against his belly, throbbing with a painful fullness he hadn’t felt since he’d been a teenaged colt, Dusk broke their passionate, lewd kiss. Stalwart whimpered as she broke away from him yet again, pulling back from him so that she could sneak a glance under his body and inspect her own hoof-work.

She looked back up at him with an arched eyebrow clearly impressed. “Shit, Cap… I guess them rumors ‘bout you asshole Guardscaptains needin’ a wheelbarrow to get around are true. You might be a bit too big for this little filly.” She whimpered with a falsetto, wagging her tail at him and taking another step away.

“N-no!” Stalwart choked, a flush of fear running through him that he might be rejected by his only love. “I… I can make it smaller. It’s not my fault! I… I’ll get reduction surgery, I’ll cut it d-”

“Woah, woah, woah there Cap.” Dusk rolled her eyes. “I was just playin’. You might be the biggest dick I seen, but I could use a good hard rut after some of tonight’s… frustrations.” She shot a venomous look in Blackheart’s direction, ruffling her wings as she did so. 

“But first…” Dusk held up a shackle key, letting it dangle downward, “Would you like to let Merigold free?” She pointed down toward the tearful pony on the ground.

Stalwart watched the strangely familiar mare’s eyes flare wide with shock as Dusk let the key fall to the ground with a clinking clatter, right in front of her face. Her eyes darted from the keys and then back up to him, big emerald irises begging him to unlock her, free her and escape from this madness! The thought ran through Stalwart’s mind - dimly, it somehow made sense. But he couldn’t leave without Dusk Wing! She was the really important one. Not this mare.

This mare. This mare with a golden-auburn mane.

Mare-i-gold?

Merigold!

Some click of neural pathways jolted back into one final burst of fleeting life, memories rushing back to him, a confusingly eclectic mix of their courtship, marriage, their raising of their foal… all trapped behind the dimming fog of the pounding need of acquiring Dusk Wing’s affections. 

 “M-merigold! Are you OK!?” Stalwart gesticulated with his hooves awkwardly, crouching down to look at his wife more closely. His mind snapped shut like a rusty gate clicking closed as his heart screamed to him about how rude he was being to Dusk Wing to divert his attention from the bat for even a moment. “Oh… uh, Merigold, I’d like you to meet Dusk Wing! She is… well, I’d like to ask her to join our herd.”

Stalwart watched Merigold’s eyes quiver and widen in abject shock, a muffled cry being blocked by her gag, her nose scrunching in horrified confusion. “Now just hold on a minute, honey. I know we said we’d only ever have a two-pony herd, that we only needed each other but…” Stalwart tried to come up with some sort of a reason for why his heart was screaming so clearly at him to incorporate this gorgeous, brilliant, thestral who had been a stranger only a few moments earlier. 

“I… I mean…” His words were failing him. “J-just look at her!” He pointed to Dusk Wing, confident that the sight would speak for itself.

Dusk took that moment to make a goofy face, sticking her tongue out as she pulled down one of her eyelids, all while flipping Merigold the ‘high-hoof’, only adding to her confusion about why her husband might be acting this way.

Why can’t she see? Stalwart grumped, going on to continue explaining to his frustratingly non-understanding wife. “Just look at how beautiful she is honey! She’s clever and cute… and I’m sure she’ll be just great with our son-”

“Daughta’.” Dusk Wing corrected him absently, amused.

“Uh - Daughter, right. Yes! See honey?” Stalwart asked his prone, bound, disapproving wife. “She’s closer than either of us in age to little Maisey-”

“Daisy.” Dusk Wing corrected him again.

“Closer in age to Daisy than to either of us, so she could be like a loving big sister to her! Right?” Stalwart glanced over at Dusk Wing hopefully, his smile ear to ear.

“Nah.” Dusk shrugged, cold and uncaring bitterness on her face. “I fuckin’ hate little snotty fillies. Especially guards-pony’s daughta’s. If you took your eye offa me I’d beat the shit outta the brat.”

Stalwart’s smile didn’t even falter. He grinned even brighter. Dusk was so funny and clever! “Th-that’s… that’s fine, isn’t it Merigold?” He looked back to the thestral with desperation - he really hoped that his young daughter wouldn’t get in the way of his relationship with her. “W-We can just send Daisy away to boarding school. Or hay, you can just beat her up if that’s what you prefer! It’ll toughen the kid up! Right, Merigold?” Stalwart looked back at his wife hopefully, only to see her shake her head softly, tears falling from her eyes as she sobbed.

Why did she always have to be such a nag? Couldn’t she understand just what Dusk Wing meant to him!?

“B-but look at her!” Stalwart insisted, gesticulating with his hoof toward Dusk. “Her… her butt is just amazing! Look at it!”

Dusk Wing took this moment to shake her rear in the crying guardsmare’s face, taunting her with a devious chuckle.

“Not nearly as plump as yours, but it’s so adorable. Even when you were young and beautiful you didn’t hold a candle to that!” Stalwart chirped with happiness, excited that his wife would see the logic in his statement.

Instead, she only screamed into her gag.

“Ah sorry, I couldn’t hear you Morigull-”

“Merigold.” Dusk Wing corrected him again.

“Right, Merigold.” Stalwart grabbed the key off of the ground, fumbling to find the right one for his wife’s restraints. Merigold’s eyes brightened and she began to nod vigorously with hope reappearing in her eyes. “Let me just get you out of those restrai-”

“Actually Cap, I changed my mind. We’re gonna play a little game.” Dusk Wing interjected, placing one of her hooves over his. “You only get to choose one ‘a these two options.” She flashed her eyebrows mischievously, then went on. “Option numero uno: you can go home, right now, with Merigold and your whole squad and your wagon. Back home to y’little daughter.” Dusk spoke slowly, staring into his eyes and carefully intonating each word, making sure he would understand. Out of the corner of his eye, Stalwart could see Merigold nodding her head vigorously, a forced, desperate smile starting to spread from behind the gag.

“...Y-you’d come too, right?” Stalwart prodded. That was the most important bit of the scenario.

“Nope.” Dusk shook her head with a chuckle.

Stalwart felt his heart implode like a dying star, collapsing into a tiny ball of pure mass, swallowing all hope and light as it crushed itself into a black hole of misery. He felt dizzy, unanchored like the whole world was swimming away from him as he fought for purchase - the beginnings of a panic attack. How could he possibly live without her!?

“Buuuuuut…” Dusk Wing continued after just enough time had passed to make beads of sweaty panic form and roll down Stalwart’s face, “Option two: ya’ leave your little wifey locked up… and I’ll let you eat me out and pound my plot before you open that wagon-lock for me ‘n the fellas to rob you blind and leave you to starve in the desert.” Dusk Wing delivered the option casually, with mirth in her voice.

Merigold was screaming through her gag, trying to get his attention. But he couldn’t let her distract him.

He didn’t flinch or hesitate, cocking his arm back and hurling the hoofcuff keys as far away from himself as he could, out into the dusty reaches of the desert.

“The second one!” It wasn’t perfect. But it was more time with his beloved. More time to convince her. More time to be with her! He stared deeply into her slit-eyes.

“Good boy!” Dusk Wing chuckled, falling to her belly in front of the prone Merigold and stretching out, making sure that her rear would be right in front of the captive’s face, so she would have an exquisite view. “I knew you’d make the right decision!”

“W-what are you doing?” Stalwart cocked his head, looking down at the bat-mare on the ground.

“It ain’t what I’m doing… it’s what ‘yer doin’ Cap! Which is eatin’ my ass right in frontta ‘yer wife.” She cuckolded again, wiggling her tight athletic butt just in front of Merigold’s face.

“R-right there?” Stalwart asked nervously, even as his hooves began to move of their own accord. Some last vestiges of wrongness were still bubbling in his brain, despite the fact that his body was already moving him toward the inevitable conclusion. “Not somewhere else?”

Dusk Wing looked back at him over her shoulder, flashing one more fanged grin at him. Then she spread her rear legs and flagged her tail. “Yep. It’s here or nowhere, Cap.”

The steaming teenage-filly bat plot almost singed into his retinas. That incredible sight that had been the first imprint of the love poison washed over him like a tidal wave: that tight little tailhole, those plump, young-lips, now decorated with the slightest sheen of her arousal.

He jumped forward.

“Ooo!” Dusk Wing squeaked with surprise as Stalwart Heart dove into her plot. “Eager, ain'tcha?”

Stalwart pressed his nose forward, coating his muzzle in the fragrant musk of Dusk’s sweet bat-teen snatch. Her tangy, citric smell exploded his nose’s olfactory receptors, flooding his mind with the raw smell of the most perfect mare that he would ever sniff.

The fact she was more than twenty years his younger made no difference to him as he pressed forward, eliciting a leak of her juices from between her dark folds as his tongue slid into that pink, nestled-fold of pleasure, teasing the tight gateway to Dusk’s velvety, grasping interior.

“That’s it, Cap, make sure she gets a good view, now.” Dusk groaned, her words muffled by her own bitten lip. “Nothin’ gets me hotter then watchin’ your wifey cry as you trade her in for a younger model.” Stalwart felt Dusk’s bottom writhe up and down, pressing back into him as she tried to direct him downward. “Come on Cap, ‘yer forgettin’ somethin’ kinda important! Suck on my clitty already! Ain’tcha never ate puss before?” She chuckled.

Stalwart jerked back slightly, breaking the prench kiss with Dusks’s nethers in order to answer her, their connection only maintained by a thick strand of filly-honey between his nose and her nethers.

“N-no… sorry. I never liked doing this for my wife - I always thought it was d-dirty.” He mumbled with embarrassment, kicking himself internally. If only he’d practiced more on his nag of a wife! Maybe he wouldn’t be letting down Dusk Wing now!

Dusk looked back at him with an arched eyebrow and a shake of her head with incredulity. “Dirty?”

Stalwart felt the teen’s tail wrap around the back of his head. He knew just how strong a semi-prehensile thestral tail could be from training, a result of the race using the appendages to hang from trees and branches. That’s why it scarcely surprised him when the tail pulled him right up against her plot, only this time jamming his nose up against a higher target.

“Kiss my ass with your -— ‘dirty’  — bull manure.” 

The earthy musk of her ponut was strange, foreign. It felt so strange to be pressing his nose against something that he’d always regarded as icky and unclean. Yet… it belonged to her. Nothing on her body was anything other than perfect.

And if she wanted him to kiss her tailhole, he would.

He pressed his lips against the quivering, tight ring of muscle, delighted by the sounds of Dusk’s naughty giggle and the press of her ass back against him in response.

“Good boy, Cap. Told ‘ya you’d fall in love with my ass!” She barked out a chortle, even louder and more insistent. “Now stick ‘yer tongue in there and eat my ass.”

Stalwart swallowed nervously, dimly aware that his wife was watching him. Her eyes darted back and forth, trying to avoid the site, but being unable to look away as he brought his tongue to the center of the dark grey donut, the taste of sweat and musk on the tip of his tongue as it slid ever so slightly into her anus, teasing its way inside her.

“I said eat.” Dusk waggled her hips. “Unless you’d prefer ta just go home with your wifey.”

“N-nuh!” Stalwart mumble-shouted, it being difficult to enunciate with his tongue part way into the teen-threstal’s asshole. He pressed deeper in, somewhat surprised at how clean and neutrally tasting it was to have his oral muscle jammed into her sphincter.

“Mmmnf!! Sweet Celestia, that’s the spot! Keep lickin’ you buckin’ piece a’ shit guardspony.” Stalwart did as he was told, swirling his tongue an inch or so inside her hot tailhole as it clenched and squeezed against him. It tasted salty and slightly bitter. He could feel Dusk’s excitement growing in the tone of her groaning curses, could feel the heat of her teen marehood as she started to wink at the sheer depravity of the situation, her powerful pelvic floor muscles making her clench and part, flashing her hot pink interior and fat nub of a clitoris. 

“Buck you lookin’ at, bitch?” Dusk snarled, her attention grabbed by Merigold’s accusing eyes. Stalwart was almost shocked at the fury in her voice, a sheer ferocity of vehemence that dripped with spite. But he could tell it was turning his beloved little bat-mare on, and she was all that mattered now. “Your hubby is doin’ somethin’ for me he ain’t never did for you, you guardswhore slut. And now he’s gonna make me pop!”

Dusk’s tail forced his face down once again, directing his pursed lips back to the thestral filly’s honeypot, smushing him forward into her cleft deeper than before, dragging him down her sticky marehood until he felt the bump of a hot, wet nub of flesh against his chin.

“Suck my clit, you guard motherbucker.” Dusk growled at him. He could hear the mixture of venom and arousal in her needy demand.

His lips searched wildly before a timely wink sent the red-hot pink lovebud shooting against them. He sucked in, catching her clitoris and drawing it into his mouth, where he was able to lavish it with his tongue.

“F-fuCK! Yes! Damn Cap! You’re not half bad at eating bat-snatch! Your slut of a wife don’t know what she’s missing!” Stalwart swirled his tongue around wildly, unsure of what to do, but happy that he was having some sort of an effect on his new crush. The way her little hips were pumping backward against him, grinding left and right… the way her tail was grasping and pulling his nose deeper and deeper into her pussy… and most of all, the way that her slender cunt was winking almost continuously, pumping open and shut with writhing, erotic contractions told him that he was doing the right thing.

“Sl-slow… SLOW DoWn…” The bat’s tone was unsteady, shifting her register up and down almost as quickly as she was now arching her back. “C-cap… w-WAiT! I S-said WaIT!” Stalwart couldn’t stop now, suckling her clitoris harder and faster as the steady trickle of thestral-honey became little squirts of leaking pleasure. 

“YoU S-stuPid P-PRICK! Ah… ah… ah!” Dusk was swearing at him constantly now, twisting away as she tried to get away from his tongue. “I… I’m GonNa… buck… BUCK… FUCK!” She pressed her forehooves down into the dirt, standing up and arching her back into a convex cat-stretch as she threw her head back and let loose a vile stream of invective.

“FUuck You! Fuckin’ GuardSs, FucK y-yoUr WiFE, ‘Yer DaUghTah’ and F-FucK ‘yeR whoLe FUcKin’ GuaRDs FaMilEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!”

Stalwart’s ears stung as a high-pitched scree escaped her muzzle as the teen began to convulse, her back pumping in and out as her wings shot ramrod straight, quivering at full extension, her tail going limp and releasing his head.

She was cumming. In a way that Stalwart had never seen before. Hard. He jerked back, releasing her love-nubbin from his pleasure-torture to watch the fascinating spectacle of her spasmodic contractions.

Splatters of hot liquid started to shoot out of her tight, teenage pussy a little fount of Dusk’s pure delight that splattered against his neck, a clear stream of her pungent, clear love-nectar, slick and sticky and filled with hormones to make for the perfect natural bucking lubricant. One spray, then two… then a third, which was longer and heavier than any that had come before, accompanied by the high-pitched ‘eee’ slowly falling in tone until it became a throaty groan.

Stalwart barely noticed the final fountain of marecum sloshing across Merigold’s face splattering right over the middle of her nose and soaking a part of her muzzle, he was too enraptured by the impossibly erotic scene unfolding before him, as his new true love rode out her orgasm… and his senses filled with the overpowering stench of her raw sex. His heart thumped in his chest, and his cock felt painfully erect, like it was going to burst right through its very skin. He’d never been so horny in his entire life, not even as a young colt.

“Huff… huff… huff… P-phew…” Dusk Wing panted, collecting her tongue back into her muzzle as she slowly recovered herself from her orgasm, rolling away onto her side and wiping her sweat-covered brow with one of her wings. “Gotta give you credit, Cap! Seems like you’re a natural when it comes to eatin’ out a mare, regardless of whether you’re using the front entrance or the drive-through around back.”

Dusk lazily rolled up onto her hooves, working her head left and right as if she’d just had a relaxing massage and was working out the last kink., stretching out her hind legs and letting out a little, satisfied yawn. “Now, I know I promised you’d get a chance to use that big dick o’ yours to rut me silly once you’d warmed me up… but turns out I actually am a lying criminal piece of -” She paused, looking down at the Merigold, who was glaring up at her with furious anger in her face, as a mixture of tears and the teen’s spatter rolled down her cheeks.

“Huh, I take that back Cap,” She growled, her relaxed tone of voice quickly shifting back into the growling venom that simmered under her surface with toxic noxiousness. “Seems like your fuckin’ wife is angry. At me. A poor orphan left parentless ‘cuz of a guardspony piece of manure like her. I wonder why that is, do you think?”

Stalwart swallowed, ingesting the last of Dusk’s taste leftover from her squirting climax. Each honeydrop was like ambrosia… if ambrosia were extracted raw from centaur testosterone. Celestia forgive him, he was so painfully hard, and he wanted nothing more than to become one with his newly found soulmate. Why did his nag of a wife have to keep interfering with that? “I-I don’t know…”

“Maybe she’s angry that I ain’t keepin’ mah promise to ya? Well, well…” Dusk’s venom once again bubbled into a spiteful grin, ignoring Merigold’s furious head shakes by way of negative response at her surmise, flipping the captive guardsmare onto her back. “I wouldn’t wanna let my new herd-sister down on our first date, would I?” 

The sweaty, still-dripping thestral grinned harder as she folded her wings back along her barrel and gingerly stepped over the top of her prone captive, carefully observing where those drips from her throbbing marehood fell, making slight adjustments until the small spatter fell directly onto the flinching muzzle of Merigold’s disgusted face. “Perfect.” 

Her little positioning dance completed, Dusk spread her hinds slightly, bracing herself, before flagging her tail to one side and presenting her glorious rear to Stalwart. 

“Come an’ get it, Cap.”

Stalwart shot from his crouch faster than a sprinter at the Equestrian Games, carried by a surge of joy and adrenaline that this was actually happening, that he was actually going to become one with his love. His nostrils flared with excitement as he clattered forward, barely noticing his wife. His large rear hooves landing dangerously close to her ears as he nickered and mounted the diminutive bat with his much larger, muscular, guards-stallion bulk.

Even as he began to put his weight onto her back, his hips fired forward out of pure, masculine-instinct. The feel of his fat, extraordinarily-sensitive, dripping flare pressing against Dusk’s backside, making contact with her hot, wet orifice in a sloppy kiss made him buck.

“Easy Cap, EASY! Oooph!” Dusk squeaked as his cock slid up her butt, bouncing over her tailhole and then her dock before sliding up the round of her ass, laying across the small of her spine as the thick pipe stretched up her back - reaching up as far as her mid-point. “D-damn, your dick’s heavy.”

Stalwart’s heart fluttered with the compliment, and he began to pump his hips backward and forward in little thrusts, grinding his cockhead against the smaller mare’s back, painting her with a wet coat of his burbling pre-ejaculate as he did so.

“Whatcha’ doin’ you moron? Stick it in, already, and stop fuckin’ my back.” Dusk wiggled forward, her tail sliding in to wrap around his cock. He barely had time to grunt and bite his lip at the incredible feeling of her tail hairs gripping around his midshaft, constricting and tugging him before she almost agonizingly jerked his length off her back and re-directed it to her rear.

“S-sorry.” Stalwart choked, reaching down with one of his forehooves as he began to awkwardly try to fit his overly-large stallionhood against her much smaller marehood. Again, he felt the burning hot kiss of her nethers against his drooling flare and began to press himself forward.

“AY!” Dusk suddenly tightened up, her head shooting up and her muscles all tensing. “CAP! That ain’t my… F-ffffuck!”

Stalwart wasn’t listening, his eyes shut in concentration as he pushed against the wet ring of Dusk’s tailhole. It was so tight, so unyielding - particularly against the hoof-sized thickness of his girthy cockhead. Ever so slowly, amidst straining flesh, Dusk Wing’s ponut began to stretch and strain, opening wider and wider until her tight, immature asshole began to engulf the fat knob invading it.

*POP*

“A-A-Ah!” Dusk squeaked, her wings flittering along her side once he finally popped into her hot, tight asshole. Stalwart groaned in response, as the thestral’s tight backdoor sphincter slipped agonizingly over the widest point of his flare’s ridge, then re-gripped snugly around the shaft just beneath it, sucking him in with a heavenly feeling of grip that made his eyes roll behind his eyelids. 

“W-wrong hole, you fuckin’ moron!” Dusk barked, with a look of fury and pain over her shoulder.

“S-sorry, love.” Stalwart peeped back apologetically, his ears folding back.

“Ha ha ha! How do you like havin’ the pain in the ass, Dusk?” The chirping taunt from one of the earth-pony bruisers at his criminal compatriot drew a slew of laughs from the spectating goons. 

Their raucous cheers made Dusk blush and pinch her eyebrows together with frustration, before she composed herself and lifted her chin up, trying to shrug it off with as much grace as possible. A difficult task considering the blush on her face, sweat dripping down her brow and the massive penis jammed up her tailhole.

“Don’t like it as much as — ah! —, you do Truncheon.” Dusk spat, with the biting snark Stalwart was coming to recognize her as the expert of. “We all know how much ya; love that billy-club of yers’.”

“Oh! Oh buck!” Stalwart groaned, feeling the tight, constricting ring of thestral anal-muscle clench and twist around his cock. It felt so damn hot, so tight. So perfect! His dick was in the asshole of the most beautiful mare in all of Equestria — the asshole of his true love! He needed more of himself in her!

He pushed forward, grinding another couple inches of his big Captainhood slowly into her dark-colored ponut-pucker.

“Ah! AH!” Dusk squeaked, leathery wings flittering on her side. 

“S-sorry dear, you’re just so-”

“Shut it, asshole! Be gentle or we’re DONE.” The teen snarled before taking a deep breath and letting out a pained sigh. Stalwart could feel her trying to relax her clenching butt-hole as it struggled to spread and engulf his fat, invading shaft. “Reminds me of when I took that huge dump a couple weeks back…”

“Uh…”

“Ha ha, I totally clogged a toilet w- EEP!” The bat-teen’s chuckle at her own crude memory was cut off suddenly, as she clammed up and tightened her tailhole unconsciously. The squeak came just as the thicker part of Stalwart’s penis started to press into Dusk, pushing her ponut-skin to the limit of its elasticity.

“Oof. Wow Cap… you really are a big fella’, no joke.” Dusk wiggled her lithe rear end, sending the most intense pleasures back up through his shaft. A smile appeared on her face. “Not bad actually, I don’t usually let stallions your size buck me in the ass.”

“Oh my love, I’ve never even tried… butt-stuff before, thank you! You feel so amazing!” Stalwart began to push forward again, obscene squelching sounds emitting from the thestral’s plot as he sank into her.

“Ah-ah-ah…” Dusk pulled forward, away from his slow, grinding, invasion of a thrust. “Sorry Cap, ‘yer dick’s a bit too big for my ‘wittle’ ass. That’s as deep as you go, understand?” She shot him falsetto puppy-dog eyes, big beaming vertical-slit pupils brimming with cuteness that hit him like a punch to the gut. 

Complying immediately, Stalwart began to move with only little thrusts. He squeezed every muscle in his body to control himself and keep the travel of his grinds less than an inch, even to the detriment of his own pleasure. Anything for his beloved.

“That’s it, Cap… mmn…” Dusk groaned, her tight ponut sliding back and forth just below his fat, buried cockhead.  She seemed to be getting into the rhythm of his anal-bucking now. Stalwart could feel the heat of her marehood as it began to drip again… right over the top of his wife’s face. 

With where she had been left bound, she would have been right in the ‘splash-zone’ of the action.



“Oh my love, you ass… is so… tight!” Stalwart grunted out in between his micro-thrusts. He could feel the froth of his pre-ejaculate as it leaked from Dusk’s steaming, sticky tailhole, trickling down his shaft to drip off of his balls onto his wife below.

Not that he cared. She would understand that his focus was on Dusk. Of course she would. Dusk was his true love!

“Oh, Goddess!” Stalwart felt Dusk flex her tight teen-tailhole around his stallionhood, as she looked back at him with an evil grin. Stalwart started to move his hips faster, feeling a building heat twisting in his gut — the tension of an approaching crescendo.

Thwap!

A stinging blow of sweaty tail-hairs slapped across his face, making him see stars for a brief moment.

“Nuh-uh Cap. You don’t get to finish in my butt,” Dusk chided. “Pull that thing outta my ass… NOW.” She instructed, in a menacing tone.

Stalwart whimpered and hesitated. Everything in him, biological, mental and spiritual, was telling him to keep rutting this perfect specimen, to blow his load in this little teenage-filly’s rear.

“I said, NOW!” The darkness in the bat’s face was clear: there was cruelty there. Constrained violence.

He obeyed, withdrawing slowly. Those impossibly tight muscles straining once again to spread wide enough to permit the exit of his fat, guards-pony flare. As a small, throaty groan escaped from Dusk’s lips, her tailhole finally released its grip with a slick pop. A torrent of obscene juices and sweat poured from their broken union to splatter onto Merigold’s face below.

“Heh.” Dusk scoffed to herself as she looked down at the crying mare. That hidden cruelty blooming on her face as she watched Stalwart’s wife flinch and cough, a vain attempt to avoid the juices splattering all over her face and dripping into her muzzle around the gag. 

“Tch. Bitch still hasn’t learned to just sit still and take it. Well then...” Those gleaming thestral eyes snapped back to Stalwart. “OK Cap. Congratulations, ya’ fucked my ass. Now if you can aim... I’ll let you shove that fat cock of yours in my little snatch now.”

Stalwart watched, mesmerized as she wiggled her hips again, drawing that strong tail of hers around him to pull him forward.

“Oh! Oh YES, dear!” Stalwart knickered with joy and stomped forward, his hoof stepping on the family portrait from earlier, grinding the picture of him, Merigold and Daisy hugging happily into the mess of desert-dirt and pooled sex-juices.

“Stop.” A firmly outstretched rear-hoof from the thestral prevented him from re-mounting her. “Just what do you think yer’ doin’?”

“I-I’m… shoving my fat cock in your little snatch?”

“Nuh-uh. You ain’t shoving that DIRTY dick that was just in my ass. Even if I keep my shit-box cleaner than Celestia’s cake-plate, that just ain’t right. You better wipe it off on somethin’ first.” Dusk pointed down at Merigold.

Of course! How could he be so thoughtless? Without hesitation, Stalwart Heart used his magic to snag some of his wife’s golden, curly mane. Using the mane-hairs like a shammy, he quickly cleaned his throbbing erection of the juices and ephemera it had been slathered with by Dusk’s tailhole.

He didn’t even notice Merigold flinching, shutting her eyes tightly to avoid watching her husband defile her even further.

“Wipe it on her nose, too.” Dusk suggested coldly, watching.

Why not? He dragged his flare across his wife’s snout, literally rubbing her nose in his infidelity.

“Good colt.” Dusk cooed, not looking at him but at Merigold, her fangs glinting as she watched her sob. “Now you can finish.”

Stalwart scrabbled forward, re-mounting the little thestral. As her leathery wings tickled his underside his face was beaming as wide as a mile — he was finally going to become one with his true love, his soulmate, his everything.

He felt his fat, throbbing flare catch on the hot, sticky furrow of Dusk’s marehood — a steaming kiss from her winking bat-slit delivered to the very tip of his aching cock. It was just enough to grip him, guiding the power from the instinctive jerk of his hips right against her stretching lips.

For a moment, her body resisted him: he was so large, and she was so small. It seemed like nature never intended for guards-stallions and diminutive bat-teens to mate: his head mashed against her opening as it strained to permit him entry.

*Pop!*

Then he was in her, sinking a full six inches of his wide stallionhood deep into her young, clenching pussy.

“Sheeeit Cap! That’s a fuckin’ grade-A cock yah’ got there!” Dusk groaned, letting out a snort.

“By Celestia, my love…” Stalwart sighed, a pure euphoria of satisfaction rolling over him like a crashing wave. “You’re tighter than when Merigold and I had our first time on our honeymoon!”

It was true — the velvety folds were crushingly tight. A vise-like grip of massing, clenching pleasure that molded around his cock’s every bump and ridge.

“Tch, don’t compare my paradisiacal puss-puss to ya’ wife’s loose garbage-gutter. Ahn~!” Dusk’s snide reply was briefly interrupted by a little grunt of pleasure. “I got bad news fer ya’, Cap. She only said she was a virgin — guarantee you a slut like her had a train of zebras run on her before and after yer’ weddin’. Ahn! Sh-shit… big fucker.”

Stalwart swallowed. He knew that Dusk’s implication wasn’t true: he’d grown up with Merigold, they’d been sweethearts since kindergarten. He remembered the blood on their wedding night. But… he wouldn’t dare disagree with his love.

“Y-yes… dear. She’s nothing compared to you.” Stalwart sighed, eyes rolling with pleasure.

“Yah’ ain’t felt nothin’ yet, Cap.” Dusk’s tail flicked and she bit into her lip with concentration before beginning to thrust backwards, spearing herself onto him. Her vaginal muscles clenched and squeezed with intention, forcing a series of powerful winks that swallowed more of his stallionhood into her marehood.

“Unngh! F-Fuck!” Stalwart felt his tongue slip out of his mouth, the drool from his open maw mimicking the hot spatter of juices streaming down from the pair’s frenzied coupling.

“Unh… unf… h-hey Cap, unmnf…” Dusk grunted, in between heavy breaths needed to fuel her backwards, gyrating thrusts, “t-tell me… tell me how much you love your shitty little wife and daughta’...”

“I… I…” Stalwart’s gut churned. He knew there was supposed to be some emotion there. He loved them, didn’t he?

“Ahn~! Shit!” Dusk trembled under a particularly deep thrust that shoved him in as deep as his medial ring, stuffing two-thirds of his pulsing cock into her small body. “If you wanna keep… mmnf… plundering my fruit basket, you better not give two shits about yer’ fuckin’ family.”

“I… I don’t. I don’t care about them.”

“Eeeeeee!” A high pitched squeak escaped Dusk’s mouth, her head craning back and her tongue lolling out of her muzzle. Stalwart felt a heavy shudder race through his little bat lover, a wracking spasm that threw her spine up and down in cat-arches, one after another. Her wings shot out with such rapidity that they left small scratches on his underbelly.

Orgasmic spasms.

He was making his beloved cum.

The contractions raced down her diminutive body, into her backside, and finally through the powerful pelvic muscles which surrounded her dark, drooling mare-cave. The contractions were beyond intense. Her powerful walls milked and grasped him like a vacuum pump. In and out, in and out. Each gripping clench sent her little clitoris sliding in and out of its hood bumping up against his medial ring… before sliding over it.

Stalwart watched Dusk’s slit-eyes roll backward as the rest of his stallionhood slid into her tiny body, his girthy length impossibly hilting inside of her, bulging out her tight belly.

“EEEeeee… f-fuckin’ A, Cap. T-tell me…” Dusk squeaked, breathily, still shaking. “Tell me you only want a foal with me, that you don’t care about yer’ shitty daughter.”

“I-I… oh Goddess forgive me, Dusk… I’m going to-”

“SAY IT, MOTHERBUCKER!” Dusk snarled, flashing her fangs as she slammed backward onto him, her tight rear smashing into him as she slammed every inch of his cock into her, over and over. “I’m close to anotha’ pop!”

“I… I want to put a foal in you… only you… I only want you, Dusk!” Stalwart screamed, leaning forward and chomping into the nape of her neck as his swinging balls tightened, shooting up to his underside.

“YesssseeeEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!” The stinging volume of the thestral screech stung his ears as Dusk began to have her hardest orgasm of the evening. Heavy, hot juices squirted out in thick splotches that splattered off his balls and down onto Merigold’s mane and face. He could feel the little clenching thestral clitoris winking out with each stream of bat-honey, grinding into the very base of his thick cock, asking… demanding… that he release.

A throbbing pulse clenched through his gut, wracking right up through his long, painfully tumescent shaft, bulging up into his head and making his flare expand, deep inside the little bat’s marehood. Blossoming out like some erotic flower, his fattening head pushed into her cervix, slipping the urethral mound just into the criminal’s most deep inner parts… before he exploded.

A hot, frothing blast of seed screamed out of him. A thick rope of heavy batter that splattered into the waiting womb of his new beloved.

“MNNNNNNNNN!” Stalwart’s scream was muffled by the dark, wiry fur of Dusk’s neck.

Another pulse, another unstoppable, unconscious, jerking thrust… another white-hot, glue-thick, splatter of virile cum exploding from him.

Then another.

And another.

Shot after shot, emptying from his aching balls through his painfully erect penis. He’d never orgasmed like this.

Never.

It felt so perfect, so complete. Like he was emptying his whole self, his very soul into his soulmate… leaving behind a physical shell that only served as a vessel to contain the intoxicating waves of neurochemical pleasure that came in wave after wave.

Another shot, another. 

Seven, eight, nine… each as strong and potent as the last.

He could see her little belly stretching, expanding with the amount of fertile, frothing, fizz filling her felonious flesh to a full fatness. Dollop after dollop of his essence poured into her: heavy, thick blasts like a pump bellows had been hooked up to a swimming pool filled with carpentry glue. Her belly pushed out of her tight abdominals, even making the little mare’s belly-button pop out of its hidden recess.

*Splorch*

*Splop*

*Splap*

Disgusting splattering sounds began to fill the air as Dusk’s completely stuffed bat-cave began to inevitably overflow. Stalwart’s final, vinegar ejaculations were sloppily spurting from even the tight, gripping seal of the powerful thestral lips, dripping down in thick strands to splash down onto Merigold’s flinching face below.

“AAAnnnnnghh…!” Stalwart half-whinnied, half groaned, finally releasing his love-bite and unleashing an involuntary kick as his orgasm subsided. He’d never felt so euphoric in his entire life — it was such a feeling of completeness and satisfaction, having achieved total completion in his mare, his beloved, his true soulmate. The wave of oxytocin and dopamine, the thrum of thaumic soul-bonding magic… he’d never felt so whole, so right, not when he’d joined the guard, not when he’d met his wife, not when he’d married her, not even when he’d had his hoof held for the first time by his baby foal.

This was all he wanted.

“Ahhnnn… that hit the spot, didn’t it.” Dusk casually mewled, flittering her wings and stretching a knot that had popped into her neck. “Like pouring a thick milkshake up my cooter, nothin’ beats itchin’ that scratch.”



Stalwart felt Dusk arch her back slightly, as if she were about to buck him off of her. Shrugging and rolling her shoulders, making it hard for Stalwart to stay mounted on her — a clear signal for Stalwart to get off of her. 

“Ey, Merigold... ya’ fuckin’ bitch. You still with us?” Dusk snarled, looking down through her legs at the mare. “I think you heard that Cap here wanted to give me a foal. Stupid idiot doesn’t realize the last thing I want is to carry some shitty guardspony’s seed. I’m on conception-control of course, so I ain’t gettin’ preggers.”

Stalwart grunted as Dusk’s tail slid up and backward, wrapping around his fat, quivering shaft and taking a firm hold of his softening stallionhood. The little thestral began to adjust her hooves carefully, squatting slightly and seemingly taking aim vertically as she started to pull him out of her steaming pussy.

“But looks to me like you really like this buckin’ moron, so if you want his shitty guard-spunk you can have it… bombs away!”

Merigold’s eyes flashed wide as she tried to flinch away — but it was far too late. Stalwart felt the slipping release as his shrinking flare slid out of the teen’s expelling vagina.

*POP*

*SPLOOOOOSH!*

A huge waterfall of bubbling, boiling cum escaped from around the obscene disconnection of big guard-cock and tight felonious marehood, coating Merigold’s fur and face like somepony had upended a whole can of hot, white paint onto her. Her hacking coughs quickly followed the dripping sounds as she tried to breathe through the soaked gag still wedged into her mouth, making her blow little cum bubbles through her nose.

“Hey, asswipe. I’m finished with you…” Dusk turned her gaze back to Stalwart, her eyes no longer filled with any cruel mischief, but only a burning, smoldering menace. “Will you get the fuck offah my back, already?”

Stalwart felt a tearing thump in his heart as her words landed. He could tell just how real that hate was. But she was his true love: it physically hurt to feel that hatred from her. He pushed back carefully, hoping that by dismounting with respect he could win back some credit, start to reverse whatever it was that had caused Dusk to get angry with him.

“D-dusk…” Stalwart smiled hopefully, reaching up and trying to hug her — a post-coital gesture of affection.

Dusk planted a hoof right onto his nose painfully, shoving it backwards coldly with a look of disgust. “Stay the buck off me, you freak.”

Oof. My heart. Celestia that hurt. 

Stalwart’s face twisted in agony, the pit in his stomach as his heart started to tear, breaking in two as he felt the wave of hatred from the one pony in the world he needed love from. He took a cautious step toward her, blinking the tears forming in his eyes from the nose-shove away.

“D-dusk, please… I need you. We’re meant to be togeth-”

Dusk turned away from him, rolling her eyes. “I don’t date married guys, let alone faggot guardsponies, you buckin’ shit-stain.”

No. No!

Stalwart reached up a hoof, staring at the retreating thestral through a haze of tears, now mostly coming from the sheer emotional pain of feeling his whole love structure crack under the terrifying reality of Dusk’s hate.

“D-dusk, dear… I… I love yo-”

“Stop talking to me, you awkward fuckin’ spaz.” Dusk didn’t even look at him, walking away toward the fortified wagon-cart, where Blackheart and Quantum were waiting for her. It was like he didn’t even exist — like he was just a bag of trash.

Ah.

Stalwart felt his legs give out from under him, falling to his knees as heavy, incapacitating sobs began to grow inside him, bubbling out in heavy choking gasps. He fell over to one side, next to his nearly catatonic, emotionally-destroyed wife… and began to cry.

Dimly, he watched with desperate hopelessness as his impossible, only love: Dusk Wing trotted up to Blackheart, with a shit-eating grin on her face.

“Told ya you’d regret it, Blackie… now just imagine if you’d had the guts to step up instead of me. If you’d just asked him tah’ open the door without all my ‘extracurricular’ additions. He mighta’ even bin’ snugglin’ his cute little wifey right now.” Dusk cocked her head, shooting Blackheart the bitchiest smile in the known universe. “Sure, he might always be secretly dreaming of your fat ass, but at least things would be better than how I left it.” Dusk chuckled, motioning over her shoulder at Stalwart.

Blackheart stared back at her, a cold burning hatred behind her eyes. There was violence there, enough to make Stalwart brace himself, ready to spring to action to protect his beloved bat-lover, despite the depth of despair he found himself in.

“You’re a monster, Dusk,” Blackheart spat in disgust. “Using some pretend little hurt you suffered in your past to destroy these ponies’ lives like s-”

“PRETEND!?” Dusk whirled back, jabbing a hoof into Blackheart’s chest before snapping her slit-eyes onto Quantum, who was watching impassively. “Boss, make this bitch give me more love poison and I’ll ram it down that wifey’s throat… let Clover or Truncheon have a fun time. I’ll show this dumb cunt what ‘destroying’ really looks like.”

“No.” Quantum impassively stated. “Blackheart’s learned her lesson.”

“Tch.” Dusk snorted, bristling for a moment before letting her ferocious anger go, tossing her mane playful and trotting away toward the gang of bruisers. “Gimme a high-five fellas, just try to  tell me I ain’t got the best ass in Manehattan now.”

“Dusk.” Quantum sighed, an eyebrow raising before he continued with frustration in his voice. “You forgetting something?” He motioned with his eyes toward the wagon.

“Oh. Oh yea, sorry boss!” Dusk chirped. She turned back to Stalwart, her face filling with assumed cuteness once again as she purposefully let her slit-pupils grow to puppy-dog proportions, even adopting a sarcastic simper. “Oh Cap, can you do me a big favor and open that wagon door now?”

Stalwart choked out another sob. He knew it was the thinnest of facades, a veneer of cuteness over a dark, evil heart. He knew that Dusk was a twisted criminal. 

But…

Even that small acknowledgment, that slight glimmer of attention from her. It was like he was basking in Celestia’s radiant, loving sun. Even the tiniest glint of her presence filled his heart, gave him hope — made life worth living.

He’d do anything to keep feeling that, instead of the horrible, soul-destroying, alternative of being abandoned by his new soul mate.

Quickly he jumped back to his hooves, scrambling to the lock. It took only a moment for him to power up the complicated encryption spells that would allow the right signal of thaumic signature to fit into the Royal Spell-Lock, enabling it to discharge its energy and release the door and walls of the wagon from their previously impenetrable barrier.

Stalwart turned from the unlocked door with ope in his heart, clearing a sniffle as he looked back with a meek smile at the waiting thestral. “Th-there you go Honey, all unlo-”

“Thanks! Now go jump off a bucking cliff and die. Or wait to be executed for treason, your call.” Dusk started laughing, along with the other bruisers.



Stalwart fell back to his knees, his eyes locked on the dusty desert sand. He’d committed high treason now as well, and all for what?

Nothing.

And now his beloved wanted him to kill himself? How could he say no? It was what she wanted, wasn’t it?

“Real fine crew you’re running here, Quantum.” Blackheart’s disgusted complaint filled his ears.

“Yes, it is. You’re part of that crew too, Nurse Blackheart. And I’d advise you to not antagonize Dusk about her past, or I will continue to indulge her antics. You have no idea what her, or any of my other team members have been through.” Quantum sighed dispassionately as he climbed up the small steps that led to the wagon door, unlatching the simple physical handle. “That said, Dusk, I didn’t plan on a body count — tell the Captain not to kill himself.”

“Tch. Fine.” Stalwart’s ears burned with relief as he heard the nasally accent directed toward him. “Hey, buckin’ moron… don’t kill yourself.”

“That’s better.” Quantum coughed, then began to open the sliding door. “Now, we were only here for the book and the dark love poison spell… It’s gonna make the family’s narcotics business on the East Coast unstoppable.” 

Quantum waved his crew closer.

“But, I’m interested in what bonus we’ve picked up in this wagon… A nice payday I hope. Artifacts? Drugs? Gold?” He peered in, lighting up his horn. “...monsters?”

The unicorn’s head cocked, confused as his light spell cast strange shadows over the cage bars that surrounded the funny looking creators.

A strange, hairless, ape-like creature within raised its hand in bemused greeting.

“Hey, weird sex-criminal ponies that have been making a damn racket outside my cage for the past hour. My name’s Anon. What’s yours?”
> Your mission, should you choose to accept it...
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Lyra knew she was one of the sneakiest ponies in all of Equestria.

How could she not be? She’d beaten every Maretel Gear Solid game. She had even won a game of hide and seek. 

Once. 

Against foals. 

But foals had sharp eyes!

Anyway, Lyra loved to be sneaky. One of her favorite pranks was to pop out of some bush or dark corner unexpectedly, to the surprise of her friends. She loved to hear their screams and shouts; sometimes she could even shock them enough to get them to faint!

Sure, her friends were the flower-store trio, and they screamed, shouted, and fainted if a stiff breeze brushed their manes the wrong way… but it was still fun!

She was currently trying to expand her repertoire of surprise victims. It could get a bit repetitive knocking out Lily, Roseluck and Daisy every afternoon. She wanted to make even the most stoic of ponies squeal: her roommate and marefriend, Bon Bon.

That was why she was in her roommate’s closet.

Despite the high regard in which she held her own talents, Lyra’s clandestine sneaking expertise actually… needed work.

For instance, Lyra had neglected to keep the bottom of her mint-green tail from peeking out beneath the slightly-ajar closet door. Lyra was still emitting a dim glow from the end of her horn to keep a soft green light in the dark closet. She hated the pitch dark, surely a little light was acceptable... and even worse, Lyra was chuckling aloud to herself, unable to contain her amusement at her own surreptitious superfluousness.

“Hee hee hee! Lyra you sly little snake, you’re going to get Bonny so good this time!” She clapped a hoof over her goofily grinning muzzle, unable to contain her mirth. The last time she’d tried to surprise Bon Bon it had been this inability to restrain her laughter that had given her away. Bon Bon had walked right up to her hiding spot behind the front window curtains and theatrically drawn her cover away, affixing her with a deadpan, disappointed shake of her head.

Lyra never could understand how Bonny always managed to find her — she must have some special ‘finding’ talent. It was the only explanation.

Sure, there were rumors that floated around Ponyville that Bon Bon had a secret past, like a special agent or a super-spy. 

Lyra had heard them first-hoof while performing musical gigs and the homes of the town’s elite unicorns. Many of Canterlot’s powerful families kept summer-cottages in Ponyville’s idyllic provincial countryside — cottages that dwarfed even Sweet Apple Acres in terms of acreage. Lyra’s famed harp performances were a must-experience on the to-do lists of the wealthy coming down from the mountain during their summer and spring retreats. That was where she’d heard, amongst the cocktail parties and banquets she’d be working at, that Bon Bon seemed to be somewhat recognized by the outsiders as a pony very similar to a mysterious pony that used to live in Canterlot, years earlier.

The same mane, cutie-mark, and fur-colors… but a different name. 

Sweetie Drops.

Apparently this Sweetie Drops was often seen in the presence of the Holy Sisters themselves, even called forward in circumvention of the long audience lines to whisper into the ear of Celestia herself.

But the vacationing-nobles ascribed it to a simple case of similar appearance when Lyra had assured them that the mare they’d spotted in the town market was her roommate, Bon Bon. Surely, those nobles would scoff aloud, a pony important enough to have the royalty’s ear wouldn’t be living full-time in a backwater farming town, with a madmare of an unrefined bohemian musician as a roommate. The rumours would have died at those exclusive parties.

But Lyra loved a good gossip!

She’d quickly spread around town the possibility that her best friend was a former secret agent super-spy, with a different name, access to the most fantastical technologies, and the first line of defense for ponies as powerful as the Goddess-royals themselves!

And of course, no-pony believed her. A simple shake of her head and roll of her eyes was all that was needed from Bon Bon when Lyra would prance around threatening Roseluck and Lily that their increase in orchid prices would be met by a swift, super-secret, judo chop from her special agent marefriend.

But it was still fun to imagine nonetheless.

Lyra heard the door to their shared, two-story house open and shut rapidly, bringing her quickly back to the present.

“Bon’s back from the post-office!” Lyra squeaked aloud. Her thoughts sometimes had the tendency to bubble right out of her mouth. “Surprise-time!”

Lyra slid her butt back into the closet even further, in an attempt to conceal herself even further. Immediately she felt something a bit wet and slimy against her bottom. She gripped it with her magic, levitating whatever the strange sensation-causing object was for an inspection, hovering the weird tube-like object to her eyes in the dimness to scan the words imprinted on the side.

Cooler Co. Brand Stallion-Substitute — Style: Posh-Unicorn #3 Size: Small

“Oh, ew!” Lyra stuck her tongue out, flinging the now obvious phallus and attached reservoir away from her to land with a wet slap in the depths of Bon Bon’s closet. “You’ve gotta clean those after you use them Bonny.” Lyra took no notice of the mint-green color the estrus-symptom-relieving toy sported.

“Lyra! Lyra? Are you home?” Bon Bon’s voice echoed through the house, punctuated by the heavy clip-clop bursts of a pony trotting up the stairs onto the second floor.

“Hee hee!” Lyra whispered out one last giggle, as the hooves came down the hall and the door-latch clacked open letting Bon-bon in.

Usually, even this quiet giggle would have given the game away, and led to an early spoiling of Lyra’s attempt. But this time, Lyra could see that something was distracting her friend, a tension of nervous worry filly the mare’s face as she quickly crossed the room and drew the blinds on her windows. Lyra might have a chance to pull this off!

Bon Bon whirled around, slamming the door to her room shut and drawing the deadbolt lock across it.

It was a strange thing to see Bon do. She always made a point of leaving her bedroom door open… even her bathroom door. And she was always going on about how Lyra was welcome in her bedroom at any time. Day or night. She always made such a big deal of telling her that she was always welcome.

Lyra arched an eyebrow, gazing through the slats in the closet door as she watched the cream-colored earth-mare take a couple of calming breaths before taking a seat at her desk and pulling a silver pendant out of her saddlebags and laying it carefully on the felt desk-blotter. She leaned forward, booping her nose against the cover.

“SCANNING NOSEPRINT - SCAN ACCEPTED” A strange, robotic voice buzzed out of the piece of jewelry, before its cover popped open with a click.

BWOOSH

A magically projected wall of energy shimmered into existence from the pulsing pendant, creating a sizable magical viewscreen that hovered just above the table. After a brief moment of fuzzy static, the image quickly resolved itself into the glaring visage of a stern-faced unicorn.

That’s Twilight’s older brother, isn’t it? Lyra almost gasped, recognizing the face. Shining Armor!

And then the face began to speak, growling sternly. “Attention! ATTENTION! The following Royal Military message is a TOP SECRET level classified correspondence. It is meant only for the ears and eyes of…” 

Shining paused for a moment, and the robotic buzzing voice chirped in again, “...AGENT SWEETIE DROPS.”

Before Shining began to speak again: “If you are NOT the intended part of this correspondence, you must cease viewing this message immediately. You are required by Royal Law to turn in this correspondence to your local constabulary or Royal Guard unit immediately. If you are outside of Equestria, please destroy this message via burning and report this incident via express air-post to the Equestrian Royal Military Academy. Continuing to view this TOP SECRET classified correspondence if you are not... 

Once again, the robotic voice piped up, “...AGENT SWEETIE DROPS.”

“...is a serious offence and will be punished to the fullest penalty permitted under Royal Authority. This warning is required by law. Thank you.”

“Tch. Still using the same disclaimer after all these years.” Lyra heard Bon Bon mutter to herself.

The bright white glow of Shining Armor’s face clicked away, as the image was quickly replaced by the actual message of the small pendant. A blue light filled the darkened room and cast small beams of light through the slats of Lyra’s chosen ‘hiding-closet’: the main message would be delivered by Princess Luna herself!

“Greetings, Agent Sweetie Drops. I apologize for the confusion thou might be experiencing at this time.” Lyra felt her eyes bulging in their sockets as she watched the famous night princess herself gaze apologetically through the magical recording. “I regret that we have not had a chance to visit in your retirement, and we are sure thou art shocked to suddenly receive a formal mission summons after so many peaceful months. However, thy reputation at the Secret Monster Intelligence League of Equestria has not been eclipsed since thy departure… and as the chief of all the Equestrian intelligence agencies, we feel the grave situation that Equestria finds itself in requires our very best agent.”

Bon Bon let out a soft sigh, muttering to herself. “Always does… never can get away from S.M.I.L.E., can I?” Bon Bon sat carefully, leaning forward to focus on the Alicorn Princess.

“So, it is with great respect and apology that we require thy return to active service. We hereby recall you to assist in the search for a potentially dangerous, heretofore unknown creature that was stolen in transport to Canterlot’s scientific facilities.” Luna nodded at the screen, folding her ears back slightly, “Thy successes in similar investigations involving new monsters particularly favoured thy assignment in this case, and we feel you are uniquely qualified for this mission.

Bon Bon was sporting a bemused grin, a smirk that implied a prideful self-satisfaction, something Lyra hadn’t ever seen before in her roommate

Luna went on, “You should know: the criminal group that snatched this monster also purloined an incredibly dangerous spell, one that my sister and I thought we’d purged from all the magical archives long, long ago…” Luna shook her head, a wave of regretful sadness passing over her features, “It allows a caster to corrupt free will, to create addictions that cannot be undone.”

A shiver went through the Alicorn, forcing her to pause for a moment to compose herself before the recording continued.

“As we are sure thou can imagine, Celestia and I have the gravest of concerns for the evils that could arise from such a spell being ‘in the wild’... out in the public domain… or even worse, in the hooves of a criminal enterprise. Therefore thou must return to Canterlot immediately to receive a full briefing.”

“Great.” Bon Bon grumbled. “I thought this was going to be about a monster…”

Luna suddenly looked to her right, clearly being addressed by somepony just outside the recording field of view. “Ah, yes. I understand Twilight.” Luna nodded, re-centering her focus so that she was addressing the middle of the recording, “Agent Drops, Princess Twilight Sparkle informs us that calling the purloined creature a monster might be inappropriate… apparently, she has had some personal experience with these so-called ‘humans’-”

Humans!?

The world was like a firecracker going off in Lyra’s ears. The spectacle unfolding her had been interesting before — now she couldn’t contain herself. 

“I knew they were real!” The half-muffled shout of pure-joy burst from her.

In an instant, Bon Bon exploded to her hooves, whirling to face the closet, her tail raised up in shocked alarm, her whole frame couched with powerful tension, ready to spring out at the sudden intrusion.

Luna’s recording went on, immune to the sudden change in the atmosphere, “— but we suggest that you treat these humans as you would any dangerous monster until the situation is fully under contr —”

No!

*BAM!*

Lyra slammed the closet doors open with a powerful blast of her telekinesis. In two fast strides, she crossed the room, a ferocious scowl on her face as she slammed her forehooves on either side of the pendant and bellowed at the projection of the Princess, as if expecting a reply. “HUMANS ARE PEACEFUL, NOT DANGEROUS YOU DUMMY!”

The pre-recorded message of the Lunar sovereign continued unperturbed., “— forward to seeing you in person, Agent Drops. Princess Luna, signing out.” The recording sucked itself back into the pendant, which began to glow a bright red with the absorbed magical energy, quickly vanishing in a puff of self-annihilating magic.

Lyra was furious, her teeth set together in her clenched jaw, staring at the small scorch on the desk where the pendant had been a moment before. It was almost like the Princess had left at that moment on purpose, retreating from the debate like a coward. 

Lyra turned toward her roommate, looking for support regarding the Princess’s obviously incorrect opinion. “Bonny, can you believe what she was saying about humans? Calling them mons- HEY! Oof!”

Lyra felt the wind driven out of her gut as Bon Bon moved more swiftly than she thought a pony could move, gripping her left fore-hoof and twisting it behind her back as she slammed Lyra’s chest into the desk, pinning her and driving her face into the blotter. Just as quickly, Bon Bon’s other hoof snagged Lyra’s horn, gripping it tightly around the base squelching it preemptively to prevent any magic from being cast.

“Lyra Heartstrings, you are hereby under arrest for espionage, breaking the Royal Record Classification law, and violations of the HAYTRIOT act!” Bon Bon’s shout was loud enough to make Lyra’s ears ache, as the strong earth mare kicked her rear hooves further apart on the floor, spreading Lyra’s stance too wide for her to possibly free herself from the submission hold she’d been placed in.

“Oof,” Lyra tried to move oxygen back into her lungs, despite the immense pressure being forced against them. “Take it easy Bon Bon!” Lyra groaned, before her friend pressed her even harder into the desk.

“You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a Royal Military Tribunal… Lyra… just what the BUCK were you thinking!?” Bon Bon barked angrily.

“What? I just wanted to surprise you!” Lyra whined, out of the corner of her muzzle not being ground into the felt of the desk’s blotter. “How was I supposed to know you were going to do some super-secret spy agency shenanigans!?”

“Lyra! Did you not hear the warning? That was a top-secret message! You’re going to be going to jail for like… fifteen years for this!” Bon Bon growled into Lyra’s ear, even as she twisted the unicorn’s wrist, putting more pressure on the joint.

“Ow ow ow ow! Fifteen years!?” Lyra squeaked, “But why? It’s not my fault you let me sneak into your room without your permission to overhear a secret message!”

“What!?”

“Seriously, I blame Luna… can’t she do fancy-pancy alicorn stuff like dream-walking? Why not talk to you there? Totally not my fault. Typical princesses.”

“Lyra, I… can’t even…” Bon Bon’s grip slackened slightly.

“Besides, this is a good thing! I can help! I know all about the humans… nopony knows more about human-nanity than me! I’m the head of the Equestrian Human Enthusiasts Society!”

“Lyra… you’re the only member of the Human Enthusiasts Society…” Bon Bon’s deadpan, exasperated voice replied.

“Nuh-uh, Twinkles joined last week!”

“Twinkles is a cat. And not one of those talking cats.”

“Still counts!”

“No, it doesn’t.”

Lyra huffed, “Well, Twilight came to a couple meetings too a while back. She only left because she complained my very scientific drawings were ‘overly-erotic’, ‘focused on lurid body parts’, and ‘fetishistic regarding hands to a fault’.” Lyra adopted a cloying, falsetto tone when mimicking Twilight’s remarks. 

“Twilight’s probably right… I’ve seen your sketchbooks, Lyra.”

“Pft,” Lyra grumbled into the desk. “She thinks she’s such a big shot, just ‘cuz she sprouted two wings a couple years back. I still say they oughta check that they’re not just tumors.”

“Lyra!”

“What!? Tumors could have feathers! I’m just saying!”

Bon Bon eased up her pinning body-slam slightly, letting Lyra lift her chin off the desk. “Just… shut it Lyra, I have to turn you in to the guard, then get to Canterlot.”

“W-wait!” Lyra chirped, as she wriggled in her friend’s unflinching grasp. “Couldn’t you, um… deputize me? Then I could help, and it wouldn’t be like I broke the law!”

“No. Lyra, that… that isn’t even a thing. Now just be quiet until you can get a lawyer to help get you out of this.”

“Oh, like those Pawl Hoofman commercials? Better call Pawl!” Lyra chirped with a giggle.

“No.” Bon Bon sighed, as she began to bind Lyra’s hooves with a tassel from her curtains, a reasonable enough replacement for hoofcuffs in this case. “A good lawyer.”

“Bonny…” Lyra’s giggle continued into a playful purr. “What’s up with this pose and those bindings? Shouldn’t you at least buy me dinner first?” She shot her roommate with an eye-waggle. She couldn’t help but tease Bon-Bon about this sort of stuff — to date, it was the only way she’d ever found to crack through her roommate’s otherwise stoic exterior.

Once again, it seemed to have the desired effect. Lyra watched a flush of embarrassed color rush into the earth mare’s cheeks, and suddenly the grip she had been holding her so tightly with eased off considerably.

It was cute — Lyra never knew why Bon Bon flustered so easily when she teased her; it wasn’t like she ever had any trouble shrugging off advances from stallions at the local salt bar. Once she started, she couldn’t stop herself though: a cutely-embarrassed Bon Bon was the best Bon Bon.

“So Bonners, are you gonna be the good cop? Or the bad cop?” Lyra chuckled, wiggling her rear end back against Bon Bon as she put a little extra spice into her words.

“Sh-shut up, Lyra!” Bon Bon mumbled out, sweating. Her eyes darted from side to side. “Y-you’re in a lot of trouble, you know.”

“Oh my, Officer Bonners… trouble? Whatever can I do to get you to forgive me?” Lyra wiggled her rear again, adopting her best puppy-dog and bedroom-eyes gaze, sticking her tongue out of the side of her mouth as she flicked her tail.

“L-lyra… pft… ha, ha ha ha!” Bon Bon started to giggle, then laugh, releasing her hooves and stepping away to sit on the edge of her bed, shaking her head slightly and clearing tears from her eyes. “You are such a dork.”

Lyra couldn’t help but smile and laugh along with her friend, plopping down next to her on the bed. She loved to see her best friend giggling — she wished she could make her do it more.

“Hee hee hee, you know, Lyra… you’re a very special pony.” Bon Bon sighed, her laughter trailing off. Her big blue eyes fixed on Lyra’s face, staring deep into her. Lyra smiled back, though she could see something in her friend’s face — a seriousness, along with a hesitation, like she had something really big on her chest that she wanted to let out.

“L-lyra… I, uh, I really really… l-l-o…love you...”

“Huh? What did you say?”

“I said, uh… I just can’t stay angry at you, you big goofball.” Bon Bon glanced away, coughing into her hoof to clear her throat. “Now, I’ve got to get to Canterlot to get further instructions. And you’ve got to stay here and lay low until I can convince Luna not to imprison you.”

Lyra clopped her hooves together in excitement while letting out a little squee, “Yes! Does this mean I’m your deputy secret agent?”

“NO.” Lyra felt Bon Bon take her by the shoulders, turning her to face her and fixing her with a serious gaze. “Lyra, you are not a deputy. You are not helping with this investigation. You are not going to leave this house until I’m back from Canterlot, understand?” 

“B-but… I can help! I can be discrete!”

Bon Bon touched one of her temples with a hoof — it almost looked to Lyra like her roommate was nursing a migraine, “The last thing I need is you running around town, being ‘discrete’. Just… just promise me you’ll stay at home and not think about humans for a couple of days, OK?”

Humans.

Humans!

HUMANS!!!

“Lyra? What’s wrong? Why did you go all quiet all of a sudden?”

Lyra mumbled, her brain softly rebooting, neurons re-arranging as they tried to piece back together the present scene she found herself in. “I-I… almost forgot because you were arresting me… but… humans. Humans are real.” Lyra jumped up on all fours on Bon Bon’s bed.

“Lyra!?”

“I KNEW IT! HUMANS ARE REAL!” Lyra bellowed at the top of her lungs, certainly loud enough to shake the walls and make the windows rattle as she started jumping up and down, dodging Bon Bon’s attempts at restraining her. “REAL HUMANS. HUMANS REAL! There’s a real human out there Bon Bon!”

“Shhh! Shh! What happened to discreti-”

Lyra jumped off the bed, nearly taking a face plant but managing to stumble back onto her hooves as she raced over to the nearest window, unlatching it and throwing the panes open. “HEY LILY! I TOLD YOU HUMANS WERE REAL, AND NOW I’VE GOT PROO-mmmppph!”

“Hey! Discretion. Discretion, Lyra!”

“Mmmgnh mghhhgfl mgrrl!” Lyra complained through Bon Bon’s hoof.

“Sorry, what was that?”

“I said: You don’t have to worry, it’s not like anypony ever believes me anyway.” Lyra motioned with her hoof to the square where Lily was trotting away, rolling her eyes and shaking her head. Well, she was a drag anyway; no great loss to see her go.

“Huh. I guess that’s true, isn’t it? You are shouting out loud about humans most days… not much has really changed, has it?” Bon Bon appeared to be mulling something over, tapping her hoof against her chin. “Well, I guess I can leave you under house arrest while I go to Canterlot, for now.”

“Alright! No jail cell and hoofcuffs for Lyra!” She pumped her hoof triumphantly. She’d seen her fair share of the local Ponyville constabulary cell. It wasn’t like she meant to spend so many evenings there, but tying one on with Berry Punch and going human-hunting every full moon (her current working theories indicated that humans were particularly connected to lunar cycles, like werewolves) was just so much fun!

“Ah ah!” Bon Bon immediately scolded with that frown of hers that Lyra hated. “No human talk, or else!”

Lyra whimpered. This was the chance she’d always waited for being squandered! All her life she’d wanted to show everypony that humans were real, and now she had real evidence and she wouldn’t be able to share it? Was it just her lot to be the town madmare? It wasn’t fair!

“B-but… nopony will ever believe me! That’s… that’s just not fair!”

“No buts!”

“Bon Bon… I… I just…” Lyra sniffled, this time with some genuine sadness as she reflected on her unenviable lot, “...I’ve just always somepony to believe in me.”

Bon Bon let out a sigh, looking at her with eyes that finally seemed to soften. Lyra knew that look. It meant that she was finally through the stormy anger of her friend’s annoyed, grumpy fury. She wished she could figure out what it was she did to trick Bonny into switching to that loving, overly-friendly mode. 

Bon Bon surged forward and wrapped Lyra in a hug, squeezing hard enough to make her barrel ache. “Lyra, you goof. I believe in you. Even more now.”

Lyra sighed herself, wrapping her friend up and returning her affection. “I know that Bonners. I’ve always known that. I just wish it didn’t feel like I only had one pony in my corner, is all.”

Bon Bon began to disentangle herself from the hug. “I have to run to catch the noon Canterlot Express… Lyra-” Bon Bon seemed to consider something, mulling a thought for a moment as she chewed her cheek before continuing, “...or should I say best-est friend and deputy Lyra.”

Deputy!?

Lyra felt her ears perk straight up even as her heart pounded with excitement, her body reacting physically to the rush of happiness even faster than her thoughts could form. A wide smile beamed across her features, her tail thumped like a dog that had been told it was time for walkies, and a comical, cartoony squee slipped from her muzzle.

“Ohmygosh ohmygosh ohmygosh! Bon Bon, does that mean I can help with the inve-”

“AHEM. Deputy of staying home for the next five days and not going outside.” Bon Bon quickly clarified, her grumpy frown and knowing glance returning. With a whirl she reached under her bed and grabbed a duffel bag, seemingly pre-packed.

Lyra blinked, realizing she’d just been had. Staying in their home for the next five days would suuuuuuuck! Although, ordering pizza for five days straight might not be so bad… Wait, Bonny was already leaving!

“Hey! NOT COOL, BONNY! NOT COOOOOOL!” Lyra shouted at the blur of motion that had been her friend as she zipped out of the room and down the stairs in less than a heartbeat, the door slamming behind her. She always was so good at making a quick exit.

“Awww nuts,” Lyra grumped, slamming a hoof down on the floor. “It’s not like a deputy can refuse an order from their deputy-izer! I don’t want to be stuck at home for five whole days sitting on my butt.”

Lyra trotted out of Bon Bon’s room, gathering her wits as she crossed the hallway and went into her own bedroom. “Although, the thing is about deputization — you are entrusting your deputy to use their best judgment to make critical decisions on the fly.”

She trotted through the chaotic mess of discarded clothes, papers, books and litter that so starkly contrasted the neat and tidy room she’d just left as she walked toward her walk-in closet.

“And I am the world’s foremost expert on humans… there might be some critical clues that I could pick up on if I’m out there looking.” She pulled open her closet door. Inside, unlike the mess that was her room, was a perfectly organized secret chamber… or as she likes to call it: ‘the Main Archives of the Equestrian Human Society’.

Instead of clothes and horseshoes, books lined all the shelves. One wall was covered with carefully organized and sketched technical drawings and anatomical references (mostly of hands and phalluses). In another corner was a desk and typewriter, filled with typed half-finished pseudoscientific research papers on human society. Another wall was a map of Equestria, covered with small push-pins and strings, garnished here and there with half-scribbled notes on sticky-papers and blurry photographs.

“If there’s anypony in Equestria who qualified to conduct an investigation on a human, it’s Deputy Lyra Heartstrings. Bon Bon needs me to do this!” Lyra nodded to herself, now fully convinced that she couldn’t constrain herself to the household for five days… not just for her sake, or Bon Bon sake… but for the sake of the world. “...besides, like Bon Bon said… It's not like my poking around about humans will be out of the ordinary to anypony in town!”

She was a deputy, after all!
> A brief briefing...
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------





Bon Bon stepped off of the squealing train in Canterlot’s main station before it had even come to a halt.

She was more than happy to leave behind the passengers with which she’d shared a cabin for the several hours journey. 

Usually, Bon Bon liked to travel in first-class, with a seat or a cabin all her own, somewhere she could focus and relax, meditating to the rhythmic clicking and clacking of the train wheels as the locomotive puffed and chugged its way up into the Canterlonian Mountain Range, higher and higher, past beautiful alpine meadows and streams. It was such a great way to unwind and relax — a last decompression before heading into the maelstrom of the capital city’s whirlwind of politics and intrigue.

But managing to snag the very last ticket before the noon-express sales booth closed (and even then only after some very threatening words to the bored colt managing the ticket-stall) meant that she’d had to make do with a shared public cabin.

She’d breen ready for it though, the inevitable small-talk and incessant banter that so many ponies used to fill up their days. It wasn’t that Bon Bon was anti-social, per se, it was just that other ponies didn’t interest her.

Except Lyra.

Celestia help her, she didn’t know why she had fallen for the lovable mint-green goof... but she had. These days Bon Bon often found her mind wandering from those meditations of serene mountain glades to other ‘mountainous regions’ and ‘flowing valleys’, and she’d hoped to let her fantasies drift to playful romps with Lyra amongst the wildflowers passing by the train window after a few curt responses to her neighbours signalled her disinterest in holding a conversation.

Unfortunately, she had drastically underestimated just how obnoxious public cabin-mates could really be…

This had easily been one of her worst trips in recent memory, eclipsing even the time she had to hitch a ride in a Yakyakistanian manure-cart to escape with Griffon refugees after a botched operation years back.

Sure, they were a nice looking couple: a stallion who had clearly just gotten his wings in the Wonderbolt’s auxiliary and his unicorn fillyfriend who was head-over-hooves about just how lucky she was to be dating a future military flyer.

As if the gag-fest of affection the two were lavishing on each other wasn’t enough, the pair were about three levels past ‘horny’ on the scale that went from ‘chaste nun’ to ‘Celestia at the Canterlot Baked Goods Festival’.

With little shame, the unicorn filly’s hooves were clearly extremely active underneath the blanket the pair were sharing. The giggles and moans coming from the other side of the cabin were just incessant by that point, with little sparks and flashes of the filly’s unicorn magic coming here and there after her coltfriend’s wings started shuffling and moving the covers between her thighs.

It was such a shame — the filly really did have a cute face… and even cuter moans. If Bon Bon had run into her at some of the Canterlot bars she frequented back in the day she’d have taken the younger mare under her wing, and showed her just how skilled the touch of a real mare could be.

Of course, Bon Bon knew most mares had experience with how amazing a female lover could be — it was only all too common in a society where more than three-quarters of the population were female that mares would ‘rub two bits together’... and they weren’t referring to the currency.

It was really no big deal. In fact, it was a normal part of sexual development for fillies to entrust a close school-filly friend to be their ‘cooler buddy’ once they started getting their estrus cycles — satisfying those primal urges with specially designed equipment to ‘cool’ the need that biology demanded could be sated only by a male. Luckily for fillies everywhere, Equestrian chemists had long ago figured out how to simulate stallion-essence with a salt-infused chemical mixture that could trick a mare’s body during those unrelenting Spring-season weeks of frustration. Otherwise, Equestria would find all of its females herded up after their first heat, with three or four mares to every colt and stallion… and banging down the doors of any male who thought to refuse.

Not that that wasn’t pretty much how things turned out in the long run… herds and harems were still extremely common.

And as much as a cooler-buddy could provide relief, there really was no substitute for a real stallion. Every mare dreamed of being mounted by something with the real article, and not just the cheap plastic imitation and tubed reservoir of synthetic liquid that was a cooler.

Bon Bon always rolled her eyes when she heard ponies make such claims… There were also a small minority of mares, of which Bon Bon was one, who were perfectly happy to have nothing to do with stallions and what hung between their legs.

Fillyfoolers.

Mares who only liked other mares. Ponies knew mares like her existed, of course, but they were often regarded as mere curiosities — perhaps mares who were too unattractive to really pull in a stallion and had given up… or mares who had just never been ‘shown the light’ of a real relationship.

Bon Bon grimaced when she thought of such things. At least she didn’t have it as bad as colt-cuddlers had it. Taking a couple of mares out of a sexual marketplace already overcrowded with them was a plus… but taking stallions out of circulation? Scandalous.

So while most fillies knew the touch of another mare… few had experienced the mastery of a real fillyfooler.

Such a waste. The young unicorn who was sitting across from her whose squeaks were starting to fill the cabin would only ever know the fumbling, unskilled hooves of her male lover. Bon Bon shook her head softly at the cute piece of eye-candy, sure that her tongue alone would easily outclass the two-pump chump that she was sure the pegasus cadet was.

Really, that all stallions were.

Bon Bon had just never understood what mares saw in stallions. Rough, rugged, sure… but she’d given them enough of a whirl to know that after a few haphazard pokes in the plot they would self-declare themselves as Celestia’s gift to mares and collapse into sleep.

And the… thing… itself.

It had always reminded Bon Bon of some kind of rigid, knobby snake.

She hated snakes.

She always got a shiver whenever she saw a male drop nearby, or when her friends would show off their favorite studs from lurid magazines like Playfilly or Horsetler. She’d never been able to understand why mares thought the organs in question were ‘beautiful’ or ‘sexy’.

Droopy, drippy, slimy, stinky.

Gross.

And she’d given them the benefit of the doubt in her early sexuality days — rough tumbles where she was most happy when it was over.

Still, the unicorn filly sharing her cabin seemed to be a quick shot — her coltfriend had managed to fill the cabin with a sudden glowing burst of sparks and a mewled moan that was impossible to ignore.

“Ahem.” Bon Bon had coughed, conspicuously clearing her throat in the hopes that it would bring some semblance of decency back to the pair.

“Was wondering when you’d speak up.” The colt hummed confidently, as he carefully laid his cabinmate to rest on the cabin-couch in her happy post-orgasmic sleep. “It’s your lucky day, lady… my girl here zonked out before ‘doing her duty’, so now you get to ‘fly’ with a future Wonderbolt.”

He’d stood up then, the confident smile on his face of a military stallion who had never been turned down. A swarthy, smug, self-assuredness that bobbed as much as the log of flesh hanging underneath his belly.

Ugh. 

“What? Too big for you babe? Don’t worry, we’ll get through it…” He’d trotted closer.

She almost felt bad for him. Sure, he was coming on stronger than most stallions would but it was likely that in his experience that had been a winning strategy in the conquest of most mares.

But Bon Bon wasn’t most mares.

A smile had formed on her features then, just as confident and devious as that of the pegasus’s.

“Ah, finally heating up are we, lady? Well, get to it!”

Bon Bon smiled to herself as she quickly slipped through the crowd of the Canterlot’s Grand Central Station, making her way toward the street where a row of taxi-carts would be waiting. A quick glance over her shoulder let her see her cabin-mates carefully stepping down from their carriage, the unicorn filly holding an ice-pack against her lover’s groin.

Not quite a gelding, but he’d be singing soprano for a few weeks.

“Taxi!” Bon Bon chirped, looking to make a quick exit to avoid any questions from the authorities should the injured stallion unwisely choose to report his encounter to the local authorities. A quick flash of her credentials could easily flip the tables and land him in a military tribunal should he dare to open that door.

She hopped into the nearest taxi. 

“Where to, miss?” The chipper pull-pony barked.

“The castle, double-time.”

Bon Bon sighed to herself as the familiar shops and restaurants passed by on either side. Each one as ancient as the flagstones of the city-streets, nothing ever changed in Canterlot. Day after day, season after season, year after year… crisis after crisis.

Another investigation, another mission.

After all these years, she was back.





This was her first investigation, her first mission!

After all these years, this was her chance to show everypony!

She was a deputy agent, after all!

Lyra trotted with purpose through the streets of Ponyville, a happy spring in her hooves at the raw excitement of the task before her. She’d long ago abandoned any doubt about her decision to ignore Bon Bon’s orders.

Really, they were more like strong suggestions.

Recommendations, even!

Besides, Lyra knew that she was the best human incident investigator Equestria had ever known — if Bon Bon hadn’t been in such a rush, she’d surely have reconsidered and begged Lyra to take the lead on this case. As Bon Bon’s friend, it was Lyra’s duty to fulfill that theoretical request, it was the least she could do!

Of course, in order to do this investigation thing right, she’d first need to be properly equipped for the job. And that meant fashion.

Dress for success! Lyra had never seen one of the private-eyes in her comics trotting about the grimy streets of Manehattan without a good outfit! She jauntily bounced up the steps of the Carousel Boutique, bursting through the ornate door with enough enthusiasm to occlude the small ring of the door chime with the clattering smash of the door against the interior wall.

“Excuse me! Careful, please!” The dainty voice of the owner sharply cut from the back of the store.

“Oh hey, Rarity!” Lyra effused, waving eagerly at the fashionista, currently hunched over her sewing table, her surger thrumming away as she worked part way through some complicated design.

“Oh my, Lyra! Darling if you wouldn’t mind giving me just a moment I’m here with a custom-”

“No time!” Lyra cut her off immediately, lifting up her nose and nodding with vigor. Didn’t Rarity realise just how important she was now? This was her turn to have the fate of Equestria resting on her withers — now even one of the Elements would need to listen to her. “I’m here on critical business from the Crown, Rarity.”

Rarity paused in her work, looking up from under her red-framed spectacles with a bemused glance. “Really, darling? And which crown would that be?”

“Can’t say.” Lyra hummed, satisfied to be able to refuse with an air of mystery. She turned and looked into the nearby bargain bin, inspecting a rather comely fedora. “This is super-secret special agent work, Rarity. I’m sworn to secrecy. Super-secrecy.”

Rarity stood up from her table, cocking her head. “Interesting. And how might I help you Ms. Heartstr-”

“Oh very well, Rarity.” Lyra sighed, sidling up to her and leaning in conspiratorially. “Since you insist, I’ll read you in on my mission. But only because I know you’re so good at keeping secrets and resisting the urge to gossip.”

Rarity’s snout scrunched up, looking almost offended. But the moment quickly passed, and she shook her head with a roll of her eyes. “Really, dear… if it’s so secret you needn’t t-”

“I’m investigating the theft of a captured human, Rarity!” Lyra shouted, hard enough to make Rarity’s slender ears fold back against the audio onslaught. Clearly she’d been expecting a whisper and not Lyra’s hoof-bouncing, energetic yell.

Rarity sighed, grimacing and rolling her eyes even harder. “Oh really now. A hyoo-man, again. And how can I help you in recapturing this fanciful beast of yours?”

“Hu-man.” Lyra growled, frowning. Rarity was just treating her like she always did! Didn’t she realize that this was official business now? That Lyra was an agent? That humans were real? “It’s human, Rarity. That’s how you pronounce it! And you can help by providing the correct outfit for a deputy… er… deputy agent of the Crown!”

“A… a what?”

Lyra slid the fedora onto her head, turning to face Rarity and tipping it daintily. “M’lady, this hat is perfect!” Lyra slid over to a rack of coats, quickly seizing a beautiful gray trench-coat with large brown buttons.

“Wait!” Rarity yelped, standing up from her work and reaching out a hoof in a vain attempt to restrain Lyra’s impetuousness. “That’s my Sapphire Spade outfit, it’s not for sale — it’s mine!”

Lyra was already buttoning up the jacket, tying the fetching overcoat belt that went with it in a rapid flourish. “Sorry Rarity, but I need to commandeer this jacket in forofficial Royal Business, trademark. This thing was yours though, huh? Guess that explains why it’s so tight in the flanks but roomy in the waist.” Lyra hummed to herself, not realizing that her observation just might have been the slightest bit insulting.

For some reason, Rarity’s left eye was twitching as she cleared her throat and steadied herself before replying. “Yes… roomy. Yes. Ahem — SO just how do you intend to pay for the outfit? It was quite expensive to tailor, you know.” Rarity pulled her spectacles off as she trotted over to her cashier.

Lyra was already partway to the door, halted in her tracks by Rarity’s question. “Pay?” Lyra didn’t have any bits. She’d spent all the bits from her last performance on two barrels of bananas, to study what she surmised was the primary foodstuff of a human’s diet. Plus they were useful for other things, in a pinch. “Uh, pay you say? Huh. Hm. Well, I guess just put it on the Crown’s account with your shop.”

“The Crown’s account? They don’t have any such thing at the Carousel Boutique in Ponyville, Lyra.”

“Well… what about Twilight?” Lyra cocked her head, chewing her lip.

“Twilight?”

“Yeah! Twilight!” Lyra pounded one hoof into another, the epiphany to her money problem blossoming in her mind. “She’s a Princess, right? And in this sort of an emergency, I’m sure I’m authorized to charge expenses to any Crown member!”

“I’m not su-”

“Anyway, gotta go, see ya!” Lyra quickly barked out, speaking over Rarity’s doubt as she pulled open the jingling door and zipped out of the store.

She was a deputy secret agent, after all!


*****


Rarity shrugged at the departed unicorn and, with a sigh, rang up a hefty sum on the cash register — soon to be delivered into Twilight’s heretofore non-existent tab at the boutique. She turned back toward the rear of her shop, a little nook where her dressing rooms were located, snagging the strangely large piece of clothing she had been working on — slacks that seemed to be designed for some creature with long, plantigrade legs.

“I am so sorry about that, Miss Heartstrings is such a dear… but she gets so worked up when it comes to these rather ridiculous ‘hoo-man’ notions over hers.”

“Eh, s’nah problem. Ain’t no biggie.” A nasally voice responded from behind the changing room door. “Was a very… interestin’ conversation to overhear, anyway.”

“Yes, amusing, I’m sure.” Rarity smiled to herself, placing the slacks next to the similarly oddly proportioned dress shirt. “In any event, your custom order of these rather odd minotaur clothes is ready for you… are you quite sure you gave me the right measurements, Miss… what was your name again?”

The door opened, and a young teenaged thestral stepped out from the changing room, admiring the leather duster she had selected to try out. 

“Dusk Wing.”





Bon Bon had been whisked into the palace via the back-entrances, a handy door for deliveries and the vast army of castle-staffers… as well as a great way for clandestine agents to slip in without fanfare.

She hadn’t even had to go through the usual song-and-dance with the ever-vigilant sentries… Luna herself had swooped down as she approached the security checkpoint. The Princess of the Night had been keeping a close eye from her balcony on the approaches to the castle, correctly assuming that Bon Bon would have arrived in the shortest possible window of time after receiving the encrypted thaumological message.

The overnight train and her rather… uncomfortable cabin-mates had left Bon Bon with a distinct lack of sleep. Luckily for her, Luna was no fan of early mornings either — after being escorted by the alicorn to the underground crisis center of Canterlot castle, a rich brew of dark Zebrican coffee was already on hoof.

“Ah… ‘tis no substitute for a blissful sleep, but it makes do… does it suffice, Agent Drops?”

Bon Bon took a deep sip of her coffee, inhaling the powerful vapor and unwinding into her chair. “Mmhmm… wonderful, thank you, Princess.”

“Very well, We shall begin then: allow us to provide you with a recounting of the heist that occurred three moons ago, to the best of the agency’s current knowledge…”

Bon Bon’s ears flicked forward — of course no notes would be permitted for such a highly classified and secret briefing… but every detail was essential. Each little hint, cue or habit that she might pick up could be the element that let her crack the case wide open… or save her when the chips were down. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time something minute saved her bacon.

But, perhaps… Bon Bon thought internally, with a small cringe, the level of detail that the Princess was going into was a bit excessive.

Bon Bon’s mouth had already dropped open in shock at the pure audacity of the heist, and the evil nature of their love-poison machinations… but it stayed open due to the raw, vivid style of the otherwise prim Night Princess.

“...and then the vile-whorse did dis-entrench our noble Captain’s throbbing stallionhead from her toxic, slatternly sludge-gulch, whereupon doing so did pour his voluminous seed upon the mane of his prostrate wife an-”

“OK!” Bon Bon coughed, finally holding up a hoof in surrender. “OK… I think… I think I get the picture. Phew. I really did not need to hear all of that.” She pushed the small saucer of coffee cream a little bit further away from her. She didn’t know if she’d be able to look at any white-colored liquids the same for a while.

Luna scoffed and shook her head mildly at Bon Bon with bemusement. “Forgive me, Agent Drops. Pony-society has become so modest in the years since my banishment, I sometimes forget.” She motioned with a hoof and looked away in recall before going on, “A thousand years ago my night-agents would seduce and bed our enemies, manipulating them with the carnal pleasures of the flesh until they would do our bidding.” 

“Oh?”

“Mm.” Luna’s deep eyes slipped over Bon Bon’s frame, making the usually confident mare shiver under the strangely cold, yet seductive gaze of the Mistress of the Night. “We daresay we would have handled the training of an agent like yourself in the art of the bedchamber… personally.”

“P-personally?” Bon Bon felt her heart skip a beat. Just the subtlest of purrs in Luna’s voice was able to make her heart skip a beat — she made a mental note never to meddle in the affairs of immortal, ancient, alicorns.

“Yes, we rather miss such opportunities for rigorous tutelage. My sister informs me that in our current times such tactics are no longer apropos… and that attempting such hooves-on training would incur the wrath of something called an ‘HR department’.” She grimaced as she shook her head. “We know not why our ponies have complicated such things. Seduction is a tool. Nothing more.”

“A-ah…” Bon Bon coughed into her hoof.

“In any event, these criminals would never be the target of such a honeypot trap. By violating the most sacred of our laws in dabbling in such heinous black magics, especially those which corrupt our innocent ponies’ free will… they deserve the most brutal of punishments.”

“We have to catch them first, your Majesty.” Bon Bon offered, placing her empty mug back onto the coffee table.

“Yes, of course. And then we can draw their entrails from their abdomens, before quartering their limbs via stretching.”

And yet another tickmark into the ‘do not mess with immortal, ancient, alicorns column.

“But enough talk of such happy conclusions, Agent Drops.” Luna adjusted her wings before rising to her hooves, “As you have rightly observed, the work must be done first before we plan the punishment. Come, please follow me.”

Bon Bon nodded, then followed the Princess to a small, neatly hidden passageway in her chamber that led down a long, long spiral stairway.

The way was completely unlit, and Bon Bon could only manage to not lose her footing by carefully concentrating on the luminescent glow of the Princess’s tailhairs as they flicked back and forth in front of her. Unlike most nobles of this age, Luna had no qualms about keeping her tail proudly held high — which meant that Bon Bon saw more than her fair share of Princess-bits. 

To avoid ogling and taking an embarrassing tumble forwards, she cleared her throat and began to ask questions about the investigation. “From what I have read about this spell in question, it could prove invaluable to a criminal enterprise looking to make their product more addictive than a Sugarcube Corner cupcake.”

“‘Tis far worse than that, Agent Drops.” Luna responded from up ahead. “We are taking you to the dungeon so you can see first-hoof the damage this foul spell can inflict.”

The stair finally ended at a small door, which itself opened into the better-lit corridor of the Royal Dungeons of Canterlot Castle. Bon Bon knew the place well — this was a prison reserved only for those who had committed crimes against the Crown itself. She’d put more than her fair share of supervillains and sentient monster-creatures away here.

“This way, Agent drops.”

Bon Bon followed, nodding at one of the wardens standing at a post whom she had met on an earlier adventure. The security in the Royal Dungeons was beyond elite — the only thing more secure than incarceration here was Tartarus itself… or conversion to a stone statue.

“Ah,” Bon Bon remembered, seeing one of the iron doors behind which she’d personally escorted a particularly maleficent mastermind chimera. “I nearly forgot, Princess. Of course, the spell is of the utmost concern… but I know this is falling into S.M.I.L.E.’s jurisdiction because of the monster.”

“Yes, a convenient circumstance to allow me to employ our very best agents.” Luna nodded, taking a corner toward a wing that Bon Bon had never gone down before.

“I’m flattered… but what can you tell me about the monster… the hyoo-man?”

Luna sighed before responding, “Yes, yes… the ‘monster’. Princess Twilight was actually quite insistent that I not employ S.M.I.L.E. and invoke the term of monster.” Luna scarcely paused as a guard stiffly saluted and disbarred a heavy iron security checkpoint door, “Apparently she has had personal experience with such beasts during her time exploring the strange dimension on the other side of my sister’s mirror-portal.”

“They’re not even from this dimension?”

“No. Personally, I find the things quite unappealing — Twilight’s sketches gave them the appearance of a hairless, bipedal ape from the jungles of Zebrica. Smaller than a minotaur, clad in ridiculous rags and with the strangest stub for a muzzle: their noses are not even connected to their mouths! I can’t even recall if Twilight said they were sapient or simply wild.”

Bon Bon frowned, creatures from another dimension weren’t a problem — she’d dealt with those before. Still, she did wish she could have a little more information. “Forgive me, Princess… but that isn’t very helpful. Do you know if they are strong? Violent? A threat?”

Luna shrugged her wings. “We know not. However, Twilight confirmed to me that, aside from some extremely limited exceptions, humans have no magic.” Her regal trot continued toward a door at the furthest end of the wing, “Make no mistake, Agent Drops. Though my sister and Princess Twilight have the strongest desire to recover the human… we believe your focus must be upon securing the love-poison spell, for reasons you shall shortly see.”

Luna finally stopped at the door itself, a heavy iron affair with only a small viewport. On either side of the extremely sturdy doorway stood two stern-faced sentinels… nearby was a small desk at which sat a Royal physician, currently shuffling over some papers.

Bon Bon saw the name-panel over the doorway, which read PATIENT STALWART… and gulped.





Lyra saw the name-panel over the doorway, which read Potions and Armchairs Store… and gulped.

But she couldn’t get intimidated! Not now!

She was a deputy SPECIAL secret agent, after all!

In a theatrically exaggerated sneaking motion, she slid along the exterior wall of the main-street establishment, in plain-view of half the town as she huddled under the upturned collar of her overcoat and the low brim of her fedora.

Not that anypony really cared: it was just Lyra, after all.

But Lyra wasn’t going to take any chances, carefully sidling up the first few steps as her golden eyes darted left and right, looking for threats.

“Hey, Lyra!” Roseluck smiled and waved at her as she trotted past the store. “Eight thestral stallions! Count ‘em! I got eight hot and hung Thestral stallions flying into town for the night and I’m in a giving mood. Know any thirsty fillies looking for a hot night in the tree cuz that’s where I’ll be!”

“NOT NOW, ROSE-BUTT!” Lyra shouted, loud enough for her echo to bounce back from across the town-square, “Don’t you know I’m on a secret mission!? You can’t just call my real name out like that! Jeez.”

“Whoa! Calm down…” Rose recoiled slightly, raising a defensive hoof. “I was just trying to share my good fortune! Sheesh.”

Lyra lifted her forehooves to the sky as if pleading to the Creator for strength. “Rose, why would you waste a night up in a tree? Don’t you have better things to do then go tree-climbing with a bunch of smelly old stallions? But why hang out with them anyway? You have the power of NO, Rosie. Use it!” Lyra knew what Rose was talking about but couldn’t pass up the opportunity to be thoroughly unimpressed with the florist’s sexual exploits if only in the remote chance it might discourage her from continuing to talk about her male conquests in the future.

Roseluck brought her forehooves to the side of her head, clearly horrified. “You can’t tell a stallion ‘no’. That’s just not cricket! You want them to think I’m not in for a good time? You want them to tell their friends who’ll tell their friends that Roseluck isn’t cool anymore? C’mon, help a friend out!”

Lyra turned and placed her hooves on her hips, her sneaking ways temporarily forgotten as she prepared herself to deal with yet another of Roseluck’s evening invitations. The last time she’d been tricked into attending one of the minx’s parties she’d been promised creampies — in the end she’d left early when it became clear that no desserts were en route… and the ponies present started getting really hoofsy.

 “Well, I’m saying no. Can’t you usually handle a hoofful of stallions on your own?”

Rose looked into the midday sky and gave a weary groan. “But if it’s just me there, I won’t be able to walk straight for a month. Have you considered the logistics of eight well-endowed studs playing with you for hours on end?” Roseluck bit her cheek and looked up into the sky, imagining something for a moment. “Okay, I guess that’s not the end of the world if I’m a bit sore.”

“So just do a bunch of stretching before you go tree-climbing then.” Lyra shrugged. It was always important to warm-up properly before exercising, surely Roseluck knew that much.

“Oh I’ll get lots of stretching in,” Rose chuckled. “But c’mon, you know how piranhas go into a frenzy when they catch the sight of food in the water? That’s what eight-on-one is like.” Roseluck shuddered, then licked her lips. “Boys like to play rough, Lyr-…”

“I SAID DON’T USE MY NAME!” Lyra bellowed, causing every neck in the town square to turn to watch her and Roseluck. “DON’T call me LYRA!”

“Yeesh! What do I call you then?”

“Hmmm…” Lyra mused, tapping her chin with a hoof. She hadn’t had time to consider a nom de plume! How could she have forgotten so essential a part of espionage? “Uh… call me… Lie-ra. Lie-ra Hartstrings.”

Roseluck blinked, tilting her head. “Um, I… did? That’s literally what I just said.”

“No no no, it’s spelled differently. Like ‘L I E’, get it? And I took an ‘E’ out of my last name.”

Roseluck seemed to be looking at her with pity. “But… Lyra, that doesn’t make any s-”

“It’s a double entendre Rose!” Lyra groaned, rolling her eyes. “That’s Germane for clever, by the way — see it’s like lie-ra… like a fib? Get it? You wouldn’t get it.”

“I get i-”

“You don’t get it.” Lyra waved a hoof dismissively and slunk up the remaining steps to the door, “Now go climb that tree or whatever, Rosey, I can’t play around with you all day — I have some investigating to do.”

“Oh-kay.” Rose rolled her eyes and stuck her tongue out her and began to turn away. “Ly- Li...? Lee…? Lie-ra? Hey, if you change your mind, swing by the store later. Even if you don’t want to meet my stallion friends, we can all hang out afterward and play some board games. Lily really wants to try another round of O&O and I’m sure at least one of those thestrals could play a great rogue.” Rose grinned over her shoulder as she trotted away.

“Sure!” Lyra grinned. She was the best at board games and amazing at Ogres and Oubliettes. If Roseluck wasn’t careful Lyra might even be able to score a romantic interlude with any stallion friend she might bring along. Surely, she could coax away a colt with her superior roleplaying-game skills when compared against Rose’s weird tree-climbing activities, whatever they were. “Of course! I’ll bring the cheesy poofs.” Lyra half-whispered as she ducked into the door.

Inside the pharmacy/furniture-store hybrid, Lyra slid down the middle aisle hissing in frustration as her tail knocked over a small display stand filled with harness-bells, causing an explosion of jingling noise.

“Oh! Hello there, Ms. Heartstrings.” A middle-aged unicorn yawned as he looked up from his work behind the counter, setting aside a prescription bottle he had been filling. “Don’t worry about that, I’ll clean it up later.”

“It’s Hartstrings.” Lyra corrected, tiptoeing up to the counter (and kicking random harness-bells as she did so).

“What did I say?” The pharmacist asked, scratching his head. “Anyway, strange to see you here this time of year — are you having another one of your out-of-season heats? I’ll need to get the industrial-grade suppressant out of the back then…”

“No!” Lyra groaned. “Mr. Pill Popper, can you maybe NOT broadcast to the whole world how bad my heats are?” Lyra growled, leaning over the counter. 

She hated coming into the pharmacy — whether she needed medication OR a new armchair… Pill Popper had a big mouth, and no qualms about talking loudly about everypony’s medical predicaments. If you went into Pill Popper’s Potions and Armchairs store for an earache, chances were, by the end of the day, your neighbours would be politely whispering to you so as not to cause you additional pain.

Thanks to him, everypony now knew the cinnamon musk that surrounded the Heartstrings household every spring wasn’t coming from Lyra’s kitchen.

“Ah, here it is,” Pill Popper nodded, adjusting his spectacles as he found what he was looking for amongst the many shelves of behind-the-counter potions and medications.

“I said I’m not here for that! I need a special order —” Lyra’s shout slowly turned into a hissing whisper as another pony lined up behind her, surely about to overhear Pill Popper spill the beans about her embarrassingly powerful estrus cycles! Why couldn’t Pill Popper learn some discretion!? She hated ponies that were so oblivious to their own faults.

“Nothing to be ashamed about, dear,” Pill Popper hummed as he lifted a giant bottle of heavy-strength hormonal suppressant onto the countertop. “It’s actually quite healthy to have such a powerful estrus-drive! Means all your plumbing is in good order: you must drive your colt-friend absolutely crazy in bed wi-”

“ENOUGH!” Lyra stomped her hoof, a blush rising into her cheeks. She found talking about bedroom stuff really embarrassing, especially in public. “I’m not in heat, doc. I need supplies for a mission.”

“A mission?”

“Yes. I need a suicide pill and a protein pill.”

Pill Popper stared back at her, a whole beat of time in which there was no sound at all — you could have heard a pin drop.

“What?” Pill Popper broke the silence first.

Lyra reared up, slamming her forehooves on the counter in frustration. “ALL good secret agents need a suicide pill! In case they get captured, obviously!” Lyra leaned in to the pharmacist, who was shrinking back from her anger. “Can’t you understand that I’m on a super-secret mission from the Crown, Pill Popper? If I’m captured, I’ll need to make the ultimate sacrifice.” 

“What.”

Lyra paused, tears beginning to form in her eyes. All the things she would never be able to do, the songs she would never get to play, the cupcakes she would never get to eat… the thought of dying was intensely sad. The tears began to stream — “A civilian like you could never understand.”

Pill Popper began to smile, then giggle… before bursting into a deep belly laugh.

“H-hey! That’s no joke! How dare you disrespect my noble sacrifice?”

The doctor’s laugh slowly trailed off, becoming a lighter and lighter expression of mirth as he caught his breath, “Hee-hee-hee…. Ah, sorry, sorry. Very noble of you. But I could never fill a suicide pill prescription — that’s against my hayppocratic oath.”

“But how am I sup-”

“And...” Pill Popped continued, cutting her off, “A protein pill? What the hay do you even mean by that? You know there are like a ba-jillion different types of proteins that do all sorts of different things, right?”

“Ah-HEM.” The pony behind Lyra cleared her throat loudly and stepped forward, an earth-pony mare with light-blue fur and a turquoise mane… and a very unique cutie mark. “Listen, can you two hurry this up? I need to get some supplies and get out of here, quickly. Just give this crazy mare some digitalis concentrate in a gel-capsule and send her off on her merry way.”

Pill Popper frowned seriously at the new mare. “It seems you know enough about medicine to choose a potent poison, Miss…?”

“Miss will be sufficient.”

“Well, Miss, I would never issue such a dangerous pill to so clearly a delusional pony-”

“HEY!” Lyra puffed her cheeks out, stepping in front of Blackheart to cut her off from the counter. “Delusional, huh? OK wise-guy, I’ll have you know that I’ve been officially deputized as an official deputy secret-agent for the official Crown!” She snagged Pill Popper by his white lab-coat’s collar, pulling him in close to boop her nose against his and scowl directly into his face. “I’ve been assigned to track down a recently purloined human. Hence why I need that protein pill. Protein is meat, in case they didn’t teach you that in medical school.”

“It’s n-” Pill Popper began to stammer.

“AND.” Lyra snarled, cutting him off and continuing her lecture, “In case they also didn’t teach you this in medical school: humans need meat. As an expert in human-inity, I happen to know that humans require over three-hundred pounds of meat per day! So know that you know my bonafides… that’s Prench for ‘knowing her stuff’ by the way… ISSUE ME MY DAMN MEDS!” Lyra shook him back and forth with each of her last shouted words for good measure.

Her raucous simulated-earthquake complete, Lyra stared at the pharmacist… who promptly readjusted his spectacles, cleared his throat and, completely unfazed, replied: “No.”

“Augh!” Lyra groaned, throwing both her hooves and her head up in frustration as she stormed out of the store. “You haven’t heard the end of this, Doc! And if you dare tell anypony who isn’t authorized to know about my mission… you’re gonna go to jail.” Lyra shouted over her shoulder before slamming the door on her way out.

That showed him.

She was the Chief deputy SPECIAL secret agent, after all!
> Launch!
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


 *****


A moment passed, as the bouncing jingle of harness-bells that had jumped from the sheer velocity of the door slam calmed, finally leaving the store in a becalmed silence.

“Well,” Pill Popper began with a sympathetic sigh, “I do apologise for that Miss, there are some ponies in this town that I swear would be far more agreeable if they were on lithium… perhaps even clozapine. But I’m only a pharmacist!”

“Hm.” The mare seemed to be staring off at the departed Lyra. Understandable, considering the scene that she’d just played out.

Popper took the huge estrus-suppressant bottle off of the counter, “Anyway, you said you had supplies you needed to pick up?” He reached forward and carefully plucked the hoof-written note out of the mare’s grasp, eyes scanning down the list she’d penned.

“Oh-? Oh yes, I do… sorry, I was just thinking about that mare.” The earth-mare shook her head, rousing herself from some deep focus-filled thinking. “Just who was that… agent?”

“Oh, that was Lyra Heartstrings. I wouldn’t worry about her she’s ju-... Ah, hm.” Pill Popper paused as his keen eyes picked out some rather dubious chemicals on the mare’s request. “The meat-replacement meal potions I can fill easily… but I’m afraid some of these chemicals are controlled substances, Miss. I can’t actually issue them to you without a pharmacist’s registration number and name-”

“453666 Blackheart. Researcher Blackheart.”





“...so, overall, the prognosis is still quite negative, Princess.” The Royal Physician whispered, looking gravely down at his chart as he briefed Luna and Bon Bon. “He’s barely responding to any of our medications, magics, or potions. We’ve started therapy, but the sessions can barely begin before he becomes entirely despondent. I’m very sorry.” He bowed and stepped back to the table outside the cell’s door.

Bon Bon nervously swallowed. She’d never heard of a curse or spell that couldn’t be reversed by the intercession of the Princesses. It was a nice comfort when on missions against arch-criminal masterminds and eldritch horrors to know that being turned into a mushroom while on-duty for the country was no death sentence. To hear that there was something so corrupt that even the princesses couldn’t help… Not good.

“Princess Luna, I don’t understand. Isn’t there some way that you or your sister could reverse the spell? Perhaps the elements?”

“No, Agent Drops.” Luna’s face was grim. “The insidious nature of these spells is such that there is nothing to undo. Black magic of this sort overwrites whatever once existed of our noble captain. The pony he was is gone. Forever.” Luna’s eyes glistened, hard and sad, as she stared into the cell.

Bon Bon’s heart jumped a beat in fear. “But… could we perhaps recover the spell, and use it again to ‘reset’ Captain Stalwart to be back in love with his wife and daughter?”

Luna’s sad eyes flared, her wings stiffened with astonishment and she wheeled on Bon Bon, casting an angry glare that pierced right through her. “We would caution you to cease this line of thinking, Agent Drops. Two wrongs shall never make a right.”

Bon Bon frowned. She hated trite responses to complex questions, particularly when they came from the wise and ancient. “But… in this case… it could, couldn’t it? I mean, we simply overwrite his love for this criminal with a l-”

*Thwap*

A stiff slap of Luna’s left wing across Bon Bon’s muzzle shocked her, though it had been delivered with just the right force so as to not cause pain. “Enough! You would have us destroy yet another free destiny in the hopes that the new one created is better? Who art thou to decide that the fate of the Stalwart in that cell is worthy only of destruction?”

Bon Bon stammered, still stunned by the physical slap she had just received. “I-I… I didn-”

“There have been many times, Agent Drops, where we could have changed the natural fate of a pony with force. Where we could have twisted the natural destiny of somepony with the raw power of black magic. When we were young and foalish, there were many times we actually did.” Luna turned away, tears forming in her eyes. “Forcing such black changes against the Creator’s will… one destroys fates, lives, the harmony of the Eternal Worldsong. And all because one is so arrogant as to think they know the Truth of the world.”

“I didn’t understand…” Bon Bon mumbled, looking down at her hooves. It was clear that she was well out of her depth with respect to the potency and effects of the spell.

“How could one know if the Creator’s will was not for a fallen fate to find redemption on its own? Or to allow some other fate to light the way by triumphing over the evil? How dare one rob the world of such intricacies?” Luna shook her head, and turned back to face Bon Bon. “And once we started, why should we stop with criminals and the disturbed? Why not also change the fate of liars and the immoral? Change the fate of the disrespectful and disobedient… write a forced happiness into the very fabric of the world? THAT is how tyrants form, Agent Drops.”

“S-sorry.”

“Believing one can exceed the Design of the Creator’s Worldsong is the height of hubris, my little pony. We know this personally.” Luna shook her head with her eyes closed, as if remembering something too terrible to behold. “Our world needs individual free-will, not black-magic-wielding sorceresses… even those with the best of intentions.” Her wings shuffled and resettled along her barrel, just as Bon Bon caught the last of a mumble from her muzzle. “The darkness of the Moon needs the Sun, forgive me, sister.”

Bon Bon hesitated, not wanting to ask the next question for fear of yet more reprisals… and because she really did feel like she was totally out of her depth when talking about the nature of fate, destiny, and the will of the Creator herself with an immortal alicorn. Yet, she had to know. 

Bon Bon’s stubbornness was world-renowned, after all.

“But… there are some ponies, some ‘fates’ that I do think should be destroyed. I’ve put some of them into this very prison.

“Do you truly think so?” Luna coldy intoned, her whole presence seeming to grow larger and more terrifying, crackling energy seeming to surge through the down-barbs of her feather, her mane beginning to hover and roil. “Verily, many there are… those who deserve death, yet still live.”

“Ah… uhm…” Bon Bon stammered, bending in her knees instinctively, for whatever good an attempt at dodging could do for her against an Alicorn. The fear the Night Princess could summon at whim was oppressively powerful, even for a seasoned agent like her.

“But there are even more, Agent Drops… who deserve life, and yet died.” The whites of Luna’s sclerae seemed to fill with the blackness of the night-sky, a terrifying void that surrounded her deep blue eyes. “We knew many ponies, so robbed. Can you give that life back to them?”

“No.” Bonnie shook her head sadly. A wave of emotion came over her as the names and faces of fellow agents that had fallen in the line of duty, some in her own arms, dredged forth from her memories through the almost-cosmic pull of Luna’s gaze. The whole hallways seemed to be getting vaster and vaster, time and space expanding outward. The lights seemed to dim and fade, leaving only an interminable black void surrounding Luna and herself. “I can’t.”

“Then do not be so quick to give death and destruction, young Agent,” Luna sighed. 

In less than a moment, the terrifying veil of power drained away. Suddenly Luna’s eyes were back to those soft, beautiful pools, her wings and body had returned to their normal size. The lights had blazed back to luminescents and the very time-space fabric and dimension of the hall had normalized — and yet Bon Bon felt as though nothing had really changed. Had it all been in her head?

“Forgive us, young one.” Luna smiled kindly. “We know you mean well, which is why we care enough to prevent you from making our terrible mistakes. But you have candor, and courage, Agent Drops. Noble qualities.”

“I’m sorry, Princess.”

“No further apologies, Agent. Not from either of us.” Luna caressed Bon Bon’s still-stinging cheek with her wing, tenderly. “We must attend to the Captain, support him without destroying him a second time.”

“I understand.”

Luna nodded, pushing open the door and motioning Bon Bon to enter. Upon entering the dim cell, a pleasant perfume of vanilla tickled her nostrils: coming from a nearby brazier loaded with a calming scented candle. Pleasant sounds drifted into her ears, a mixture of relaxing classical music and the white noise of waves crashing on a beach, piped into the chamber through speakers that had been installed into the padded walls of the cell. To one side was a comfortable bed with magically non-removable sheets and pillows, covered in books that seemed to be abandoned by the reader only a few pages in.

Soft, mumbling sobs interrupted her inspection, drawing her eye immediately to the furthest padded corner.

There sat the formerly noble guard-pony Captain, his face pressed into the joint between the two walls. He was wearing a straitjacket with the overly-long sleeves buckled behind his back, totally restraining his fore-hooves. Over his horn was a magical constriction ring, affixed comfortably with a pad but still preventing the stallion from doing anything more than moving about with his hind-legs.

She walked in tentatively, approaching the mumbling pony carefully, as if she were approaching a wild animal. Luna watched from just inside the door, also keeping her distance but ready to spring should the need arise.

“H-hello there? Captain Stalwart?” Bon Bon called, softly.

There was no reaction from the pony, still shuddering and mumbling, his shoulders heaving up and down as he did so. For some reason, it was even more terrifying having him facing away.

“Captain?” Bon Bon carefully reached out with a free hoof to touch the former guardpony’s shoulder.

At her touch, he jerked upright, as if startled. His head shot up taut with the fast reactions of a trained guardspony in a combat situation.

Bon Bon pulled her hoof back like she’d touched a hot skillet, her knees instantly bracing to spring away…

But then he slowly turned toward Bon Bon, revealing a tired face which had clearly seen better days. The fur under his eyes was dark and tear-stained, heavy rings of sunken flesh that showed he had been filling his sleepless nights with long bouts of crying. Even now, little rivers of tears slipped from his eyes, and snot trailed from his nose.

Truly pitiable and pathetic.

The Captain came to his senses, realizing that he had company… and that one of his guests was a Princess. He struggled to wipe his face with the shoulder of his straitjacket while rising to hooves, stumbling as he did so and falling into one of the padded walls.

“A-at ease, Captain.” Luna stammered. Bon Bon noticed that even she seemed upset by the poor Stallion’s state. “Please, remain comfortable.”

“H-hello?” He croaked, wobbling on his hooves as he braced himself against the wall. “I-I’m so sorry, Princess.” His voice wavered between a sob and a whisper, “I-I’m sorry I’m in such a state — I-I can’t control myself.” He took a shuddering breath, his diaphragm hitching as if it were about to break into a fresh round of crying.

Bon Bon smiled kindly at him, returning her hoof to his shoulder to reassuringly stroke it. Here was a fellow servant of the Crown, a comrade in arms. A fallen comrade in arms.

“It’s OK, Stalwart. I’m Special Agent Sweetie Drops, from S.M.I.L.E.” She spoke calmly and softly, “I’m here on behalf of Princess Luna. I don’t want to take up any of your time… recuperating, I just wanted to ask you a couple of questions about the heist.” Bon Bon chewed her inner-lip with concern, then turned back to look at Luna, “Can I take these restraints off of him? He should be more comfortable as we talk, this isn’t an interrogation — he’s one of us.”

“Not a good idea,” Stalwart piped up, before the princess could even open her mouth, “I-I… I’m the one who asked to be restrained.” He gave a strained smile, his eyes staring with darkness out into the middle distance, “I’ve… I’ve had some pretty dark thoughts recently. I’ve been worrying that I might… might do something I regret.” He stared with shame at the ground.

“Captain…” Bon Bon mumbled, wishing she could do something for him, but being unable to do anything more than stare ineffectually.

“I feel so pathetic for letting such thoughts take hold in me. I know it’s no excuse, b-but when I think about w-what I did to that poor mare…” Stalwart paused as pitter-patter drops of tears fell from his face to the jail floor below, “...to the pony who used to be my wife!”

Stalwart began to sob again, tears streaming down his face, following the well-travelled salt deposits left on his cheeks from hours of crying his heart out.

“I’ve tried.” He choked out, “I tried so hard to remember the love I had for my wife… for my daughter. But there’s nothing there! It’s just empty!” He shook his head, sending a spray of tears off of him, “All I can think of is some teenage c-criminal’s plot. It’s the only thing I care about! The only thing left that matters in my life — all I can do now is cause pain to other ponies...”

Bon Bon wrapped her other hoof around the Captain’s shoulders. The least she could do for the poor stallion was give him a hug. Pulling back, she slid a hoof under his chin and held his head up, getting him to look at her. “Captain, I know you’re hurting… hurting really bad right now, but please…” Bon Bon carefully chose her next words, “You… you are a brave stallion, and you can prove instrumental to bringing these monsters to justice — if you can find it in yourself to help me.”

Bon Bon watched his eyes sparkle… just a tiny bit. He nodded slightly, sniffling to clear his nose, “An-anything! Ask me anything — I’ll do whatever I can to help.”

Bon Bon smiled before going on: she knew how to ask questions to glean that critical piece of information, after all.





Lyra had no clue how to get the information she needed. But she had a plan for where she might get it!

She was the Executive Chief deputy SPECIAL secret agent after all.

“TWIIIIIIII-LIGHT!?” She bellowed out at the top of her lungs, loud enough to leave a resonating hum in the transparent crystal walls of Twilight’s castle. She was currently standing at the entrance to the castle’s publicly-accessible library.

She’d never liked coming to the new crystal monstrosity of a domicile. She always got lost in the maze-like corridors and the multitude of unused rooms. It didn’t help that the library was buried deep within, past all sorts of throne-rooms and map-rooms and grand ball-rooms (which Lyra was disappointed to find had no ball-pit… such a misnomer!).

She much preferred the old town tree-library… a pony could get some serious comic-book reading done in there. 

Before Twilight blew it up.

“TWWWWWWWIIIIIIIIILIGGGGGHHHHT!” She bellowed again, impatiently before entering the library. “I thought Spike said you were in here, helping somepony to find a book?”

“Lyra?” Twilight’s answering chirp finally came from down in the archival stacks, “Sorry, I was helping somepony else… how can I help you?”

The smile on Lyra’s face ramped up from mild to ‘shit-eating’. She swaggered over happily, a bounce in her step as she approached the Princess of Friendship. Finally, she would be able to show Princess Know-It-All just how she was the true authority when it came to humans.

 “Please Twilight, I simply can’t permit you to obstruct my business today!” Lyra did her best to affect a Trottingham accent — surely that made it more official. “Don’t you know that I am the executive chief special secret deputy agent chief agent acting on behalf of the Crown on a critical secret mission?”

Twilight simply raised an eyebrow in confusion, her head tilting to one side. “Th-the… what?”

“All you need to know is that you need to help me… or else you could face punishment for disobeying the Crown.” Lyra sniffed, haughtily.

Twilight’s eyebrows knitted together, her wings ruffled slightly, before she gestured with a fore-hoof to her head, which currently sported a small silver diadem under her horn. “Uh… but I am the Crown, Lyra.”

Lyra’s smile faltered.

Oh shoot — that’s right. Twilight IS a Princess, too! Wait, does this mean I’m not currently her superior?

Thinking quickly, Lyra stuffed her moment of panic away and cleared her throat, regaining her composure. “Err… ahem… no… No! This is the senior Crown. Senior to you. Way more important. See, I’ve been put on a mission by Luna herself.”

“Wait, Luna asked you to do something?” Twilight asked, clearly surprised. She let out a little sigh, then shrugged, “OK, of course… what can I do to help y-”

“NO. No no no, Twilight.” Lyra stuck a hoof out to plug Twilight’s mouth. She glanced left and right suspiciously from under her fedora. “I can’t actually tell you about my mission, you see. Far too classified. Only the princesses and I have the authority to know about it.”

Twilight, with her mouth still plugged, simply rolled her eyes and gestured at her wings expectantly.

“Ah, oh… only the senior princesses and I have the requisite authority. Really, actually only me. They have entrusted me to be their superior on this mission.”

“Gah,” Twilight pulled back from the muffling hoof to catch her breath, “Lyra… I’m actually kind of busy so if you just want to pl-”

“Twilight, I have a direct order for you.” Lyra snapped quickly, “I need every book in your library that mentions humans, and I need them immediately!”

“Seriously, Lyra?” Twilight groaned and reached a hoof to massage her temples. “Lyra, you wrote half the stupid books in here on hu-... wait.” Twilight paused and looked at Lyra with a new wave of suspicion and wonder. “Did you just say that you’re on a mission from Luna and you need a book on humans?”

Lyra nodded.

Instantly, Twilight’s horn blazed to life. A powerful purple field engulfed both of them, thrumming with energy that Lyra had never thought possible for a spell-caster to achieve, but Twilight seemed to do it with ease.

A crackling snap followed a moment later, as Twilight whisked the two of them to a deep, secluded corner of the library while keeping the thrumming bubble surrounding the two of them — blocking out any sound from escaping the thaumic field.

“Lyra — tell me the truth immediately: are you involved in the investigation regarding the human that was hi-jacked enroute from the South to Canterlot?”

Lyra hummed, chewing her lip and leaning back, looking away from side to side, trying to avoid the Princess’s penetrating gaze. “... not telling.”

“LYRA — you have to tell me! I’m technically tied for the highest rank of leader in the country: I’m entitled to know every state secret.”

Gah, this sucked. It was no fun if she couldn’t lord this over Twilight! “Well… uh… you could be a changeling!”

Twilight brought a hoof to her face and paused for a moment, pinching her brow in frustration. “A changeling… a changeling currently casting a non-green thaumic energy field… with non-green eye-sclera?”

“You could have purple contacts on!” Lyra offered helpfully.

“Wauuuugh!” Twilight growled, grasping Lyra by both of her shoulders and shaking her with sheer frustration, “Just tell me, you imbecile!”

“AHH!” Lyra squeaked, as she was thrown back and forth, “I’m blown! It’s over! SUICIDE PILL!”

“Wait, what!? Lyra, NO!” Twilight shouted, stopping her shaking as Lyra magically lifted a bottle out from her saddlebags and downed the contents faster than the Princess could blink. “Why!?”

“Goodbye, cruel world!” Lyra sighed, theatrically slumping to her side and letting the half-empty bottle spill on the library floor. “At least I never confirmed to Changeling-Twilight that I was assigned to the human-hijack investigation!” Lyra let her tongue out of her mouth and shut her eyes, before letting out a final: “Blehrgh!”

A moment passed, with no sound but the thrumming of Twilight’s thaumic bubble.

Then, Lyra could hear Twilight shuffling and inspecting the bottle. “Lyra… these are sour candies.”

Lyra opened her eyes and popped back to her hooves. “Well, I had to use something, the damn pharmacist wouldn’t give me any suicide pills! I figured, I don’t like sour candies… so pretty close to the same thing, right?”

“Lyra! Stop playing around!” Twilight’s tone of voice was deadly serious — unlike anything Lyra had heard from her over the years of their rivalry with the uptight princess, enough to make her sit up and snap to attention. “This is no game!”

“I… I know that,” Lyra groused. This was typical Twilight. She never knew how to have any fun with anypony. What was the point of anything if you couldn’t have fun while doing it? “Sheesh.”

“I mean honestly!” Twilight groaned, throwing her head back in frustration. “What the hay was Luna thinking!? I told her that this was extremely serious — that humans are dangerous creatures despite their lack of magic… but all she cared about was that damn black-magic spell!” Twilight shook her head as she stared at the humbled green-unicorn sitting before her, “So, of course she probably put all her resources on the spell… and only assigns this goofball to tracking down the human!”

“Hey!” Lyra harumphed, crossing her arms. “I’m not just a goofball!”

Ignoring her, Twilight went on, “She probably thinks you’re some kind of authority on humans… but you barely know anything relevant! All you ever focus on is fantastical, lurid human-pony smut!” Twilight hovered a nearby book over — one which Lyra knew immediately as one of her earlier works, “This one spent over forty pages detailing the reasons why a human hand is the ideal masturbatory tool for a mare, for Celestia’s sake!”

Lyra shot back, “Hey! So you did read the whole thing. More importantly, was I wrong?”

That got Twilight to pause her diatribe. She blushed, eyes scrambling left and right. “I-I mean… I guess t-technically I don’t know about how hands would interact with pony genitalia… although I did consider… I mean, after going the the mirror I only had the opportunity for experimental experience using my hands with my own geni-.” Twilight paused, coughing and clearing her throat. “S-still… more to the point, this is a serious crime you’ve been assigned to Lyra. Are you really sure you’re up to this task?”

Lyra smiled, patting the stressed-out alicorn on her left shoulder placatingly. “Twilight, Twilight, Twilight… when it comes to humans, I could sniff them for days straight.”

“What.”

“Uh… I meant: I could sniff their location out within a few days.” Lyra grinned sheepishly, “Seriously! I know all the signs that ponies would leave behind as they tried to figure out how best to care for a human! I can do this! I just need to get access to my reference material!”

Twilight paused, tilting her head and looking back over toward the reading area of the library where she’d just come from. “Actually, it’s funny you should mention that. I was watching this one unicorn all morning: he came in asking for everything I had on rare creatures and mythical-monsters.”

“So?” Lyra shrugged.

“Well… as time went by, he’s been picking up more and more of your books on humans. He tries to mix in books on other animals and creatures so it’s not too obvious… but he barely touches those ones once he brings it back to his reading area. He’s only reading and making notes about humans. He’s checked out nearly every piece of human-related literature I’ve got.”

“Really!?” Lyra’s eyes widened in alarm. “Where?”

Twilight pointed with a hoof toward the central reading area. A midnight-blue unicorn with a strange buzzcut of black hair was busy scribbling a telekinetically-held quill over a piece of parchment paper, enclosed on all sides by towers of books authored by Lyra on pseudoscientific human-lore. 

He had a strange cutie-mark: a snowflake crowned by an atomic orbital diagram of hydrogen.

He looked dark, dangerous. Fierce.

A shiver went through Lyra as the gears began to click in her mind. She whispered through her teeth to Twilight, “Only reading books on humans… mere days after a human was abducted. Twilight, do you know what that means!?”

Twilight nodded back, her face grim. “Yes, I was thinking the same thing. He could be here for the exact same reason as you — to compile notes on how to take care of a recently captured huma-”

“HE’S A FAN!” Lyra squeaked excitedly, clopping her hooves together. She had always wanted a fan. She was sure somepony out there truly enjoyed her groundbreaking work… and here he was!

“Lyra, wait!” Twilight hissed, reaching out with her magic but missing as Lyra bounded happily outside of the thaumic bubble.

With two happy skips and a jump, Lyra crossed the distance from the stacks where she and Twilight had been holding their clandestine conversation and trotted right up to the strange unicorn.

“Lyra!” Twilight’s agonized shout was entirely ignored as Lyra sat next to the pony in question, leaning in to try to catch his eye as she beamed with a smile more than a foreleg-length wide.

The unicorn glanced at her, scrunching his eyebrows momentarily and then slowly turning away from her — like a pony might do if accosted by a crazy homeless person on the street.

“AHEM.” Lyra smiled even wider, as the unicorn’s gaze snapped back to her. She leaned onto the table with one elbow, smugly nodding as she pointed at the spine of one of the books, which had her name emblazoned upon it in gold leaf.

Once again the unicorn glanced away.

Dang it! Lyra groused, internally. I knew I should have invested in those author’s pictures for the dust cover! Well, there was no other way then — this fan simply had to know he was in the presence of his favorite author!

“Hello there! My name is Lyra Heartstrings…” Lyra lifted her nose up and leaned back, affecting a yawn to show how casually cool she was, “No big deal or anything but I actually wr-”

“SHHH!” The unicorn glared at her, holding a hoof over his mouth and hissing the universal sound of silence. With his other hoof, he gestured at a nearby sign that hung over the reading area.

Silence, please!

Lyra frowned. This was certainly a very rude fan. This must be what all the elements complained about when it came to the vagaries of fame — it really was difficult to manage having adoring fans! Still, she simply couldn’t let him miss his opportunity to meet her.

She lowered her voice to a whisper, but continued on, “Uh… maybe you don’t realize it, but I’m the author of most of the books you’re reading right now. The world-famous, beautiful, mysterious, genius author… Lyra Heartstrings? Maybe a little thanks might be in order.” Lyra sniffed, “Maybe even a little adulation, Mr…?”

“Freeze,” the unicorn whispered back, eyeing her suspiciously, “Quantum Freeze.” 

“Well, Mr. Freeze — would you like me to autograph your copy of my book?” Lyra whispered confidently, smugly; she was such a good author to her fanbase.

“Autograph this copy… this library copy… which I won’t be checking out?”

“Sure. It’s no problem.”

“Actually, I think you already did that on most of these books.”

Shoot! She’d forgotten that she’d come in and autographed all of her ‘first-editions’ in Twilight’s library when she’d donated them — she’d heard that it was something that famous authors sometimes did: sneaking into a bookstore and autographing their own works.

“W-well… I’d be happy to make a new autograph out to you personally!”

Quantum ignored her and turned back to the book he was poring through, before responding out of the side of his mouth, without turning his head,  “To be honest, if you were the author of those books…” he gestured toward the stack of textbooks with Lyra’s authorship on them, “I really only found them to be useful if I were going to be a human manicurist… or maybe a human breeder. Neither of which are really on my to-do list.”

Lyra blinked, stunned. Was he making fun of her work? She felt her temper begin to rise.

“In point of fact, this text...” Quantum pointed at a book set aside from the others, the only text in the whole pile which had been authored by Twilight Sparkle, “...was far more in-depth and fundamentally sound work. The Princess’s analysis of human ‘high-school’ age behavior and social norms was far more professional.”

That book. Lyra’s eyes bulged with anger. That book!

She’d flipped through it herself, of course. A beyond ridiculous account of what it might be like for an Equestrian transported into the human realm, set from the perspective of an Equestrian transformed into a human. It was rife with incorrect concepts, and didn’t even bother with the most essential question of human science: is a human male the ideal mate for a mare?

Lyra had done her best to deface every copy she came across in Twilight’s library, until Spike had stopped letting her check the book out entirely.

And this… idiot thought that book was the superior work!?

“Oh… OH YEAH!?” Lyra whisper-shouted (though it was more shout than whisper), and stamped her hoof, causing the small tower of textbooks to come tumbling down. “Well, Mr. Quantum Freeze, I’ll have you know that my work on humans is so well-regarded by the real experts that I was recently appointed as the president, executive, chief deputy president special president agent in charge of conducting the Crown’s investigation into a kidnapped human!” She slammed her hoof onto the table, right smack dab in the middle of the page that he was reading. “So maybe, just maybe… you should pay attention to what this mare is saying, hm?”

Quantum Freeze looked at her, eyes wide with shock… as if he’d just seen a ghost. He searched her face deeply, his eyes racing over hers, little beads of sweat breaking out on his forehead.

“Hah.” Lyra grunted with satisfaction, happy to see the effect that her new credentials had on the once-haughty stallion.

“E-e-excuse me, miss…” Quantum stumbled out, hastily grabbing his scribbled notes and stuffing them into his saddlebags, “I think I’ve got everything I need.” He scurried out of the library, shooting furtive glances over his shoulder as he went.

Twilight trotted over rapidly, watching as the unicorn stallion quickly slipped out of the library doors, “Lyra, what did you say?”

“Aw shucks, Twilight…” Lyra sighed, polishing a hoof against her chest, “Sometimes my fans just get a bit starstruck when they meet the real deal, just overwhelmed by my pure beauty, I guess. You know how it is with fans…” Lyra glanced over at Twilight, letting her eyes trace over the Princess, “...well, maybe you don’t know.”

Twilight rolled her eyes. “Lyra, did you ever stop to think that maybe that stallion was doing all that research because he has a human in his possession?”

“WHAT!? HE HAS A HUMAN?” Lyra perked up, eyes flashing with excitement. “But… HOW?”

Twilight face-hoofed again, “Lyra… he probably stole the human from that convoy.”

“Oh… OH!” Lyra nodded, slamming one hoof into another. “I see now! Don’t you get it, Twilight? He was the one who kidnapped the human!” Lyra hissed at Twilight.

“Yes. Yes, wow. Your deductive skills — incredible as always.” Twilight monotonically stated, as if trying to contain some anger.

“I’ve got to follow him!” Lyra jumped up to all four hooves, “It’s the quickest way to seeing a flesh and blood human with my own eyes!” She began to scurry off, when suddenly her tail was yanked — hard — by a telekinetic field.

“Woah! Woah there, Lyra!” Twilight snapped. “Stop! If we’ve found the culprit, we have to let the guard know — this is dangerous!” 

“Aww c’mon Twilight, aren’t you like… some kind of Goddess-Princess? Didn’t you beat off a super-powered centaur-Tirek single-hoofedly? Can’t you just teleport all of those baddies into a cell?”

Twilight blinked, relaxing her magic hold on Lyra. “Wh-what? I mean… yeah, I guess.” She seemed to be mulling something in her head, as if perplexed by Lyra’s statement, trying to work out the logical flaw in the unicorn’s argument — with difficulty. “Uh… but… procedure! Yes, that’s it! Procedure!” Twilight sighed, nodding. “We have to do this by the book, Lyra. Books! They’ll never steer you wrong! And the book says — you report crimes to the guard!”

“Pfft, you’re just being lazy, admit it.” Lyra rolled her eyes, testing just how strong Twilight’s grip was and whether it could restrain her. “You know, if you sit on your plot all the time like this, it’s just gonna keep getting bigger.”

“W-what? You can tell?” Twilight squeaked, ears folding back and looking at her rear.

“Mmhmm… and it ain’t nice bigger, like mine!” Lyra wiggled her hips. “That’s cookie-dough cupcake-icecream bigger.”

Twilight frowned, her face going red. “Well, at least my fat deposits are ending up in my butt and not between my ears!”

Lyra smiled. Finally, she’d managed to get under Twilight’s fur, after all this time! She made a mental note that Twilight’s weak point was her butt — that could prove useful. “That’s the spirit, Twilight! A little fight in you, like the old days! Now, let’s go get my human!”

Twilight blinked, took a deep breath, and let it out in a controlled sigh as she extended a hoof away from her chest — almost meditatively. “Ohhh kay… NO.”

“What! C’mon! Twilight… the human! This might be my only chance to see one!”

“Lyra, no. I’m sorry,” Twilight apologized, genuinely. “We may have our disagreements, but I’m not going to put you or any of my other friends in danger. This is real. You could get hurt.” 

Lyra’s ears folded back, whimpering like a sad puppy.

Twilight’s expression softened even further. “Tell you what, if you promise me that you’ll go straight home and wait until the guard takes care of this… I’ll do everything I can to get you an interview-session with the human once we’ve recovered him.”

Lyra’s ears perked up. “A private interview?”

“Sure, if you’ll let me keep some recording devices for posterity.”

“Oh, Twilight!” Lyra purred, “I didn’t realize you like to watch! Kinky.”

Twilight’s face turned red yet again, this time out of embarrassment. “W-what? Oh. OH! Private like… Lyra!” She sputtered, eyes looking down at her hooves as if trying to work out the mechanics. “I didn’t mean like that! I mean, he’d have to want… and then what about the size differences… the biomechanics… compatibility…” She began to trail off, quietly adding at the end of her little musing, “...well, I suppose if it’s for science… and it’s recorded.”

“That’s the spirit! I’ll warm him up for you!” Lyra squee’d.

“What!? No! How are you so good at getting me off-topic?” Twilight groaned again, “Look, no private sessions if you don’t promise me you go home, right now… ok?”

Lyra groaned, looking back at the door where the mysterious unicorn stallion had just exited. “...fine. I promise.”

Twilight smiled, then gave Lyra a little hug, releasing her telekinetic field. “Thank you, Lyra. I’m glad I can trust you, and that we’re friends again.”

“Yeesh, there you go, hamming it up with that friendship stuff again.” Lyra grimaced, “I prefer our intense rivalry… which I am winning, by the way.”

“Of course, Lyra.” Twilight sighed, turning away. “Now I’ve got to write a dragonfire letter to Luna, immediately. I’ll keep you in the loop as soon as I know anything. Now — go home.” She flew off, out of the library, leaving papers scattering in her backdraft.

Lyra waited until she had left, before her grin crept upwards into an evil, cock-sure smile. 

“Heh heh heh...” Lyra carefully chuckled her well-practiced ‘evil laugh #2’ as she rubbed her hooves together, “Little does Twilight know: the head president and chief head executive deputy special agent in charge of special executive actions is fully authorized to deceive junior princesses in order to accomplish her mission!”

She slunk carefully out of the castle, peering down from atop the high set of stairs.

There! On the main road!

Lyra spotted the unicorn-stallion in question, hurrying along as he made his way out of Ponyville’s main district, toward the warehouses that comprised its eastern outskirts.

“Besides, if I don’t follow him, he might get away! I’ll just tail him, find his location, rescue the human, capture the whole bad guy squad, and become the most famous hero in all of Equestria! No big deal!” Lyra nodded to herself, then began to sneakily sprint after her quarry.

She was the Chief deputy SPECIAL secret agent in charge, after all!





“...and then the next thing I remember, I was being woken up by the guard’s search and rescue team.” Stalwart finished, with a heavy sigh.

Bon Bon felt flushed, wiping a bit of the sweat that had formed on her brow and fanning her heated face with a free hoof. As traumatizing as the whole thing had been for the poor captain, the sheer detail and description of his sexual encounter had come through in agonizing precision.

It was clear in how Stalwart had shared the most minuscule minutiae regarding Dusk Wing’s vaginal texture, her pelvic floor strength when she orgasmed, the sound that his flesh made against hers… that he pined for the teenage criminal.

“Ahem,” Bon Bon cleared her dry throat. “Th-thanks for that, Captain. I guess you never know just what might prove useful.” Bon Bon glanced back at Luna, still standing impassively by the door. “Though I hope I don’t need to use Dusk Wing’s ‘weak spot’ myself. Is there anything else that you’d like to tell us?”

“Yes.” Stalwart sighed, looking down at his hooves ashamedly. “I know how this is going to sound… Dusk Wing: she’s just a stupid kid. I don’t think she’s all bad. She’s had some bad things happen to her, but I don’t think her heart is completely evil — otherwise, she would have slit my throat and my squad’s throats before they left.”

Bon Bon awkwardly looked away from the captain, frowning. She was sure this was coming from the corruption in his heart, but she didn’t want to embarrass him further by throwing that in his face. If he could see her grimace, her doubts would be betrayed.

“I knew it.” The captain slumped, able to understand despite Bon Bon’s attempts at concealment. “You don’t believe me: you think this is just the love poison talking. I don’t think I’ll change your mind but… that poison made me love that filly. And my heart is still strong — it will tell me a lot about her, I don’t think she’s fully evil. I don’t know if that will help you… but I had to say it.”

“Th-thanks,” Bon Bon mumbled, not wanting to say more and let Stalwart know just how little she agreed with his statement.

The captain paused for a moment, then looked up brightly, hope having returned in his eyes for the first time since Bon Bon had entered the cell, “Do… do you think, if you capture her… do you think I could see her again?”

Bon Bon frowned and Luna stirred, stepping toward the captain with concern.

“I know, I know… probably not a good idea.” The captain began to fidget, “But, when I think of her — of what I could do for her, do with her…” He began to blush.

Bon Bon began to blush as well as she caught sight of a certain part of the captain’s body, beginning to stir. “S-stalwart?”

“I-I… oh Goddesses this is embarrassing. I’m so sorry.” He mumbled abashedly as his stallionhood slid out of his sheath, spilling out onto the floor like an oversized sausage. “But… when I think of that little plot-hole, and the way she gripped me…”

Bon Bon looked away politely, though in her peripheral vision she could see that the captain had raised his flagpole to full mast. It really was true what they said about guards-stallions being picked for their size — in all respects. She did her best to resist sticking her tongue out in disgust — she hated the look of the bigger ones even more. So grossly immense, yuck.

“She is probably the sexiest little mare in Equestria — hooves down.” The captain smiled bashfully, awkwardly shifting his hind legs to try to conceal his huge, throbbing stallionhood. Normally a stallion would use his forehooves to politely occlude himself in such a seated position. Unfortunately for the captain, his were currently fastened behind his back.

“Uh…” Bon Bon lifted a hoof to try to shield her peripheral vision, unsure of what to do — it was like a train-wreck: brutal and horrendous but something one couldn’t simply look away from.

“When I start to think about her… my heart just… pounds.” Bon Bon watched the grotesque meat-stick pulse and strain against its own skin, like a fleshy water-balloon being filled from a fire hydrant. Thick veins bulged up and down the sides of his shaft.

A pungent musk began to fill the air — thick and oaky. Bon Bon could see the now freely flowing trickle of stud-nectar streaming down the underside of the captain’s shaft, sliding over his fat medial ring before it dripped off of his two heavy testicles which currently lay against the padded floor.

She had plenty of mare-friends who would go on and on about how amazing stallion-musk smelled.  Even outside of estrus season, they would swap stories about which colts and stallions had the best ‘studly-perfume’. Some would even giggle about how their favorite pastimes included burying their muzzle in a stallion’s sweaty sack and just inhaling.

Bon Bon always thought it smelled like an old gym locker mixed with two-week-old cheddar cheese.

Gross.

She couldn’t help but crinkle her nose up, sneering slightly at the olfactory intrusion — she knew it wasn’t Stalwart’s fault, but she just found the stallion form to be so… un-sexy.

“S-sorry…” Stalwart panted, his tongue dropping out of his mouth, “I… I just can’t control my thoughts once they start going… that tight little ass of hers. Her cute-little fangs. Her love-nub, oh Princesses! Her love-nub! Hnngrh!”

Bon Bon took a cautionary step back as the captain’s penis bulged, darkening as it seemed to blossom and thicken even further. His heavy cockhead began to flare outward, fattening to the size of her hoof as the clear trickles dribbling out of its slit began to spurt and sputter more voluminous splashes.

“Captain,” Luna shuffled her wings and stepped forward, in front of Bon Bon, “I thank you for your help. But now you must rest and focus on being well — repose in the realm of dreams, the doctor will check in with you in the morning.” Her horn glowed and she stepped forward, carefully sidestepping one of Stalwart’s spurts to touch her long horn to his head. Instantly the captain’s eyes rolled back and he slumped against the wall… and he immediately began to snore.

He was asleep.

Luna sighed and turned away from the captain, fixing her eye to Bon Bon before she began to speak, “well… I believe-”

“Hngnrrghh…. Haaaaa!” Out of his slumber, Stalwart suddenly began to moan, even louder than before. His still-hard stallionhood pulsed, once… twice… then erupted in a geyser of frothing white stallion-essence.

The fountain-like spray came in great gouts — at least six spurts, each one contorting and twisting the hapless sleeping stallion as he came.

Luna was quick to bubble up a force field, a magical umbrella against the soaking that she would have otherwise received.

Bon Bon was not so lucky.

She was far away enough that his opening salvo couldn’t reach her, but his follow-up volleys, each more potent than the last, splattered across her chest, neck, and chin with the stinging impact of a fire hose.

Ugh! Bon Bon shivered. She hated the disgusting, gelatinous ooze — always had. In her limited experiences with it, in any case. It reminded her of snot, if snot smelled like squid-slime. The fact that the substance was filled with millions of squirmy, wriggling tadpole-like sperm that wanted to swim into her like little alien parasites didn’t help either.

Gross — some of it got in my mouth!

Bon Bon stuck her tongue out, sputtering the bitter, salty taste onto the floor as she spat to clear herself. She couldn’t understand why some mares actually had a fetish for the stuff. She’d rather roll in garbage.

“Apologies, Agent Drops… we let our hypnos-avatar meet with Stalwart in his dreams to provide him some quick… relief. we did not expect this to have so profound an effect on his physical form: perhaps we should have waited.”

Bon Bon could barely hear her as she hurriedly tried to get the ichor off of her chest and chin, only to find it was now all over her hooves.

“Here, allow us.” A warm field of magic passed over her, gently cleansing and lifting all of the stallion-essence from Bon Bon’s fur. “We apologize that we didn’t get our field up sooner. In the old days, a mare would see such a stud-offering as a portent of good fortune and fertility. Times have changed…” Luna smiled, then paused. “Although, we do know that you would not have been a fan of the male form… or function… in any age.”

“You can tell?” Bon Bon arched her eyebrow. It never seemed like anypony around her understood that she was a filly-fooler; though perhaps living with a pony as oblivious as Lyra for so long had lowered her expectations.

“Yes, of course, my little pony.” Luna nodded warmly, “We have trodden your dreams, all of your dreams, since you were but a foal. We have seen all your desires.”

Bon Bon stiffened slightly, patting her own fur to check that it was clean. Reassured, she took a deep breath to regain her composure. “I don’t think it’s that weird, Princess. Times have changed since your da-”

“Oh, Agent Drops,” Luna chuckled slightly, covering her giggle with a wing, “If you thought I meant that your preference for the feminine form was unnatural you misunderstood me! And in ‘my age’ it was far more common for a matron to take even a whole harem of nubile mares and fillies! Pah. My most skilled bedchamber-agents were oft of the ‘fillyfooler’ predilection.”

“Huh.” Maybe Luna was a bit more open-minded than she thought.

Luna wrapped a wing around Bon Bon as they walked toward the cell entrance. “Only those colt-cuddlers are abhorrent — robbing our ponies of their birthright… wasting their precious genetic resources in such disgusting practices. Stallions must know that, in the bedchamber, their desires must come second to those of mares.”

“Huh.” Then again…

Luna began to stand a bit taller, her wings slowly extending from her sides as she riled herself up. “My Sister hates when I talk about these topics... always telling us that such, female-centric policies have died long ago: that mares do not need to protect and pursue their mates as in the days of yore! Yet look at the state of the kingdom: love-poisons and banditry!”

“Uh… Princess?”

“Ah. Yes, our apologies again.” Luna shrank, regaining herself. “Back to the matter at hoof: did our poor captain’s testimony assist at all in providing clues as to where they have taken the human?”

“No.” Bon Bon shook her head, “Names and leads, some clues and hints about the gang’s MO. But nothing more… Like looking for a cake-slice at Celestia’s birthday banquet.”

“How do you intend to proceed then, agent?”

“This case will take a lot of good old fashioned hoofwork. We’ll need to alert the spy networks across the nation and territories, start rounding up our confidential informants and pressing them for details, get the security wonks screening every citizen’s mail, magic-messages, and dragonfire-letters... It’s not like we’ll be able to just fall into their hideout!”
> No plan survives contact with the enemy...
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------





Lyra had fallen right into the criminal gang’s hideout.

Well, stumbled was perhaps the more accurate term. She’d followed the strange stallion, Quantum Freeze, from Twilight’s library for the better part of the afternoon. He’d made a few efforts to shake off any tail — sometimes pausing at corners or darting into other pathways, but Lyra had a fixed bead on him… and plenty of experience in sneaking counter-subterfuge from her years of attempting to surprise her roommate.

He didn’t stand a chance.

Well, at least until he had darted into an abandoned silver mine on the outskirts of town. The abortive venture had been left pretty much untouched since it had been hastily constructed years back — the Flim and Flam brothers had come through in a whirlwind pitch, convincing half the townsfolk to invest their hard-earned savings into the speculative mine over the course of a three-minute, catchy song.

Lyra had been one of them. The fact that Ponyville had never been a source of rare ores of any type had seemed less important at the time than the catchy beat and memorable stanza of the brother’s lyrical performance.

In the end, the brothers had bilked the town’s investors through heavily overcharged construction and labor, then skipped town when the first mineral returns started to come back with nothing more than feldspar, gravel, and clay. 

It was all OK though! The Crown had bailed all the town-investors out, so nopony had lost a bit. Lyra never understood why the more fiscally-conservative ponies who hadn’t invested complained about it so much: it wasn’t like they were the ones paying investors back! It was the Crown: they could basically mint new money anyway. It was free!

In any case, the town now had a never-used mine sitting on its outskirts. From the outside, it appeared to be a dim warehouse-like, square building.

When Lyra had ducked in, moments behind Quantum Freeze, she quickly noticed that there was no massive conference table surrounded by evil masterminds. There were no guards patrolling hallways with goofy looking and obviously evil uniforms. There wasn’t even a death-laser or automatic-magic turret system!

Just boxes.

A lot of boxes. Big metal heavy ones like shipping containers, stacked up to the high ceilings.

At first, Lyra had worried that maybe Quantum had given her the slip, but careful inspection of the perimeter had not revealed any other exits or entrances than the front door — and Lyra hadn’t sensed any burst of thaumic energy that would have come with something as powerful as a teleportation spell.

She was just about to give up when her hoof caught on one of the many cracks in the concrete flooring of the building. Stumbling forward, she fell against one of the huge stacks of boxes that were littered throughout the floorplan. To her surprise, the massive tower slid easily forward.

It was on rollers!

Lyra carefully pushed the boxes further, slowly revealing the mine-elevator in the floor that led down into the shaft. The brothers had actually bothered to try digging, after all.

Voices trickled up from below, and Lyra pressed her ear closer to the opening.


*****


“OK everypony,” Quantum grunted, walking up to the large conference table they’d fashioned out of a slab of concrete. To his surprise, his whole crew were already gathered around the surface, each poised in their own chairs like some sinister board meeting was underway.

Apparently, they were already discussing something.

“...and I say that we cut our ties and gallop. We don’t need this human for anything! He was an accident! The family is expecting the spell, nothing more. We head back east to the coast and the safety of the family.” Blackheart growled, slamming her hoof down.

“Typical cowardice, ya’ friggin’ pussy. Let the guard come and try to take us down! The boss’ll freeze ‘em dead and then I’ll-” Dusk Wing nodded toward him as he trotted up.

“We’ve got a problem team,” Quantum barked, cutting off the discussion.

“Damn right we do!” Blackheart snipped back at him.

“You don’t know the half of it, boss.” Dusk Wing nodded.

“Save it you two — I have to tell you both about something that happened at the library. I was looking into any research on our ‘guest’ when this crazy mint-”

“Green-” Blackheart nodded grimly.

“Unicorn.” Dusk Wing shrugged, completing the sentence.

“Huh.” Quantum blinked, trying to process the fact that all three of them had run into the agent on the same day. “Anyone else?”

Around the table, his two muscle-pony bruisers shook their heads. Truncheon and Clover Crunch had been mostly guarding the mine — they were big and strong, but not exactly subtle. They stood half a head taller than even the larger guardsponies, the type that would stand out in any crowd; ponies in a smaller town like Ponyville would instantly notice the Clydesdale-sized, battle-scarred grunts. 

Better to leave them behind in the mine.

“Well — it’s still pretty bucking bad, guys,” Quantum grumbled. “Obviously she made us a while back and has been following everypony in the gang. And now she’s turning up the heat. Probably trying to flush us out so we make a run for Manehattan so she and the guard can scoop us all up in one go.”

Blackheart leaned forward, “We gotta get the hay out of here, Quantum! The family-”

*BANG* Quantum slammed his hoof in frustration down on the tabletop. “I didn’t want to involve the family just yet. If I head back to Manehattan with only the raw spell, I’m just a gopher-grunt to the dons.” He grumbled, then stared icily at Blackheart, “I wanted to have the poison into a commercial form by now — so I could get the respect I deserve. What is taking so long!?”

“I’m close, but not there yet,” Blackheart frowned, “This chemistry is arcane, ancient. Even for a black magic researcher like me — it’s not like there are any instruction manuals around about how to dilute a soul-altering fate potion!”

Dusk Wing tsked haughtily, shaking her head as she smirked. “Whatta fuckin’ joke. Just mix some water in with it.”

Blackheart rolled her eyes. “Sure I’ll do that, how about I try the pilot dose out on you once I follow your brilliant ‘just mix it with water’ idea? Honestly, if you don’t even know how to read you shouldn’t open your filthy muzzle, moron.”

“Kiss my ass, Blackie.” Dusk snarled, eyes flashing. She turned toward Quantum, “Oi Boss, why are we sweatin’ this anyway? Let’s charge up there and kick the shit out of this pony-town, with your talent and the boys we c-”

“Shut up, Dusk.” Quantum sighed. The little brat was more vicious than a diamond dog near a crystal deposit, but she lacked any sense of tact to say nothing of her tactical priorities, being willing to take on Guardsponies earlier for no other reason than spite. “I can only handle so many before I’m overwhelmed. Besides, I’m not the only unicorn with special talents — if the guard brought out a battlemage we’d be bucked.”

“Boss, just let me go up an-”

“Enough, you’re stuck here as well until Blackheart finishes the addiction spell. Now, how’s the monster?” Quantum glanced toward the makeshift cage they’d fashioned out of one of the shipping containers from upstairs. Punching out the thin steel of one wall of the containers was easy work for Trunch and Crunch, and made for a secure jail. He’d not expected the human, that was for sure — and he still had no idea what to do with him.

If his research today hadn’t yielded anything beyond him being a curio, his plan had been to off the strange creature: he was a burden that would get in the way of any meaningful escape. Slitting the strange, hairless monkey seemed to be more and more likely to be his only option now that the possibility of a simple escape seemed reduced.

“Eh, he’s fine. A pain in the flank, but fine. It’s been tough to keep him fed and clean — if Blackie there would just let us dose the big oaf then I c-”

“You’re not touching that love poison ever again you motherless bitc-”

“Just shut it already, the both of you!” Quantum growled. These two would be the death of him, he would never bring them both on a job together ever again. “If you two could just be professionals, for once in your worthless lives…” He took a deep steadying breath to settle his frazzled nerves.

The two mares tore their dagger-glares away from one another and stared at Quantum.

 “We’re not going anywhere, not until the commercial addiction potion is completed. I’m not going to have my chance at moving up in the family snatched away from me.” Quantum stated. “The next thing we have to do is find out everything that we can about this ‘Lyra Heartstrings’ and what her next move is going to be.”

Truncheon spoke up for the first time, chewing his lip nervously. “I don’t know, boss. These agents… they’re like ghosts. Forget about tailing one, let alone capturing one. They say they’re so skilled you can’t even find them if they were right in front of your muzzle!”

“Clover — you did background for us on this job: did you pull any intel from your informants about an Agent Heartstrings?”

The pegasus bruiser shook his head, “No Boss. And my informant got me access to all the guardspony files. I’ve never heard of her: she must be some kind of elite super spy. I don’t think we can expect that she’s going to just fall into our laps.”

*KER-CHUNK*

The loud electric motor of the cargo elevator whirred to life, the gear and chain assembly clinking and clattering loudly as the platform began to descend from the warehouse. Quantum felt his heart freeze in his chest as the steel elevator cab slowly descended into view behind its chain-link fence shaft-wall.

Surely they were doomed.

The platform would be filled with SWAT guardsponies, elite soldiers and spell-casters. He’d be able to make them regret taking such a straight-forward approach, in such tight confines as the elevator… but if they were so bold as to simply barge right in, it must mean that he and his crew had no chance!

The whole crew craned their heads, sweat forming on their brows as each contemplated their inevitable fates.

Until the elevator rider came into view.

There, standing alone on the lift with a nervous smile on her face, was the unicorn from the library.

Lyra Heartstrings.

She awkwardly rubbed one of her forelegs with the other, shifting her balance from one hoof nervously. Then adopted a sort of apologetic grin and lifted the same hoof to give a mild, meek wave.

“Uh… hi?”





“Faster! Faster my steeds!” Luna’s cry rent the darkening evening sky.

“Ahhh! Please, be careful!” Bon Bon yelped, gripping tightly to the leather strapping on the inside of the royal chariot.

“We must make all possible haste, Agent Drops! You saw the missive from Princess Sparkle, the chase is afoot!” Luna half-cackled, half-giggled from her position at the sky-chariot’s driver-spot. “What, dost thou not enjoy flying?”

“No.” Bon Bon groaned, suppressing her nausea. One thing she hated was heights. earth-ponies were meant to stay on the ground. I mean, it was right there in the name! “Besides, don’t your night-guards get annoyed at being driven?” She nodded toward the two powerful thestral chariot-pullers.

“Hah!” Luna grinned. “These two do not mind. ‘Tis an honor to be whipped by the Princess of the Night for a noble thestral… regardless of the circumstance.”

“Uh-huh.” Bon Bon stifled another surge of her stomach, “Just let me know once we’re there.”

It was a bumpy couple of hours, racing through layers of cloud as the waning orange sun ceded to the rising brilliance of the shining moon. Travelling by air was technically the fastest route from Ponyville to Canterlot, but most ponies still found the concept of air-travel distasteful. The problem of turbulence had still not been solved — and only pegasi seemed to have a natural aptitude to handle the bouncing, jarring jumps that associated rapid aerial transit.

Bon Bon was grateful when their trip finally concluded, as they descended in a blindingly steep approach to Twilight’s castle, performing a screeching halt in her gardens that left two deep furrows in the ground.

Twilight was already waiting for them, “Princess! Bon Bon! Thank goodness you’re here!”

“Princess Twilight!” Luna curtsied politely, neither too deep nor too shallow in an exemplary demonstration of etiquette.

“Oh, ah.” Twilight hurriedly responded in kind. “Forgive me, but there have been developments since I sent my letter. Bon Bon — I’m afraid the deputy you and Luna assigned to this case has been captured.”

Bon Bon blinked, tilting her head to one side. “My… what?”

“Lyra,” Twilight responded. “She insisted on tailing the unicorn that I told you about in the letter. I put a magical tracking ward on her… and within the hour it disappeared, winked out of the thaumic field. The only way that would have happened would be if someone put a restrictor-ring on her horn.”

“What!?” Bon Bon yelped. Her heart was pounding in her chest now. For the first time in a long time, she was feeling real fear on a mission. She’d braved all sorts of dangers — monsters, mines, crates and criminals… but never before had a loved one been in the line of fire. “WHY WAS SHE TAILING THEM!?”

“I don’t know! I thought she was working for you?” Twilight replied, her tone also rising in fear, likely in response to the panic she could certainly hear in Bon Bon’s voice.

“Lyra! You blithering idiot!” Bon Bon groaned. She really should have just arrested her when she’d eavesdropped on the call. At least she’d be safe in an Equestrian holding cell now, instead of subject to the savage whims of these criminals.

“We must assault at once!” Luna stamped her hoof, looking over to her night-guards. “Two princesses, an agent, my stallions and the local constabulary will more than overmatch whatever force they could array against us!”

“W-wait!” Bon Bon chirped quickly, knowing from first-hoof experience how hard it could be to stop the night-princess from implementing her legendary wrath once her ire was raised. “There might be another option.”

“What option, Agent Drops? One of our citizens has been captured by these vile scum — we must act… now!”

Bon Bon held her hooves up, pleadingly. She knew how hostage situations typically turned out in these kinds of cases: sometimes good, sometimes bad… very bad. “Luna… that’s my friend in there! If we go in horns blazing and a spell goes the wrong way, or they decide to use that black magic… I… I just can’t.” Bon Bon’s plea came out half-chokingly as the reality of what she could lose began to set in on her.

Luna softened slightly, the burning fury in her eyes dimming ever so slightly, the grim facade fading to a light pity as she looked upon Bon Bon. “We are sorry my little pony, in our zeal to cleanse the blight, we had forgotten about your friend. Is… is there something else that you might recommend?”

Bon Bon took a deep breath. It was hard to steady herself against the wave of panic she was feeling. Deep down she knew how these things usually turned out — a hostage was a terrible situation: negotiations had incredibly poor outcomes, as did assaults.

She’d never even heard of ponies trying to sneak in for a clandestine rescue. That didn’t give her a lot of hope as to that option. Still, she was one of S.M.I.L.E.’s best agents. She could sneak up on a chimera with three heads pointed in different directions… that wasn’t a figure of speech for her, she’d actually done it.

And so… even though everything in her gut was telling her that the best option was to go with Luna’s plan of direct assault… that a foolhardy rescue attempt was more likely to result in two hostages instead of one…

She had to try.

For Lyra.

Who knows what horrible tortures she was being subjected to at this very moment? Screaming in pain, enduring pure terror as those criminals tried to obtain information from her, Bon Bon couldn’t stop imagining the raw screams that might be pouring from her muzzle.





Lyra giggled and chortled again, unable to wipe the mile-wide grin from her face. She was buzzing with pure joy.

“Um. Hi there pony-lady? Are you… are you OK? Are you broken or something? Hello?”

How could she not be internally hyperventilating? Every muscle of her body tensing and firing with pure joy, her every neural synapse rebooting again and again as the vision in front of her did not disappear from a simple blink? Sitting right in front of her, not three feet away…

...was a human!

A real-life human! Flesh and blood! No blurry photograph or strange mud-print in the ground… the real deal!

“Hey, uh… other pony-people? I think that the one you just put in here is having a stroke or something.” The human called over his shoulder casually, as he waved his hand in front of Lyra’s face, “I think this one is, uh… damn, is she drooling?”

Lyra shook her head slightly and brought her hoof up to her muzzle, quickly wiping up the strandy trickle of drool that had started to accumulate there.

That body! That face! That strange mane! Those weird clothes! Those muscles! … Those hands! 

Lyra’s thoughts raced as her eyes poured over every inch of the strange creature’s body. This was everything she had ever hoped for, everything she had dreamed of, right here!

She couldn’t take it any longer.

“Heee heeee!” Her animal whinny-laugh escaped her lips as she barreled across the cell floor, galloping headlong toward the hapless human.

“Ah! AAHH! STAY AWAY!” The human yelped, scrunching away from her and huddling against one wall of the cell, terrified of the onrushing crazy-pony about to assault him.

Lyra didn’t mind, choosing instead to leap the final few feet in an aggressive huggle that wrapped the human up around his midsection. She squeezed with all her might, nuzzling happily into the human’s belly with a contented sigh; she was finally holding a human, in the flesh!

“Uh… OK.” The human had stopped screaming after a moment or two of her simply snuggling him, “uh… thanks, I guess? Are you OK?”

“I am now!” Lyra grinned, looking up at him. “You’re real!”

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that.” The human reached behind his head and scratched his neck, “Honestly this whole thing feels like so much of a fever dream I’m no longer sure if you’re the strange psychedelic trippy illusion or if I am.”

“Nah, you’re real.” Lyra asserted with a smile and a new squeeze, nuzzling him once again.

“Pft,” He smirked, letting one of his hands come to rest on the back of Lyra’s mane, “Friendly little thing, ain'tcha?”

The moment that touch landed on the tip of Lyra’s head, she knew her world had changed… forever. The feel of those five tips of pressure, sliding around on her scalp, exploring the messy tufts of mane and fur, pressing into muscles here and against bone there… it was heaven.

She’d never even considered the possible ramifications of human-hand scritchies! How could she have been so short-sighted, so ignorant of the theoretical possibilities! Well… that was what experimental science was about, after all: she wondered what other wonderful talents her human might have.

After she had frozen in place, trying to simply focus on the raw and wonderful sensation of fingers on her scalp… the hand paused, then withdrew. 

“Ah! Oh shit, sorry about that, silly pony-lady.” The human held the scratching hand up and away, as if it had performed something offensive of its own volition and needed to be kept at bay. “I suppose that’s not a very polite thing to do… you just reminded me of a happy golden retriever with the way you bounded over and uh, I kinda…”

“Put it back!” Lyra growled. She had instinctively tried to yank the hand back with her telekinetic magic, which was blocked immediately by the constricting spell-inhibition ring that had been affixed to her before she’d been tossed into the cell. Instead, she had to reach out with one of her forehooves, grabbing his hand and pulling it down.

“O-OK.”

She almost didn’t want to let go of the hand once she did touch it with her hoof. A real-life hand! With those fingers, those nails, so dextrous, so curious! Nothing like a dragon’s claws or a minotaur’s metacarpals. But once she’d pulled his palm back onto the top of her head, the relaxing swirls of his head pats convinced her to fall more heavily into his body and sigh with contentment.

“So… you have dogs in Humantopialand too?” Lyra mumbled, eyes almost crossing from the pleasure of having her neck stroked by the human.

“The what-now?”

“Humantopialand. Where you’re from. That’s the name of your home asteroid that orbits Equestria.”

“Uh…”

“Isn’t it?” Lyra hummed, tilting her head slightly to get those wonderful fingers to go where she wanted.

“I… I don’t think so. I mean, I don’t remember many specifics… but I’m pretty sure I was from Earth, which was just a planet.”

“Specifics? Ah ah ahhhhhh!” Lyra’s eyes crossed, and her tongue started to slip out of her mouth. The human’s fingers had found their way behind her left ear, sliding along the delicate crease where pinna met head, scritch-scratching in such a way that the whole auditory apparatus flicked with delight.

“I can’t recall my name, who I am, what I was doing… just some vague notion of home and how I was brought up. Then suddenly, poof!” The human used his hand to gesticulate, which made Lyra grumble at the interruption of her newfound favorite pleasure. She sidled up into the human’s lap and craned her head upward to make her intentions clear.

“Sorry, sorry.” The human resumed his petting, now making his way down her spine also. “So yeah, suddenly there I am in the middle of some Aztec temple with a bunch of evil priest horses chanting, until some crazy pony-Indiana Jones rip off swings in on a vine and scoops me the heck out of there.”

“No memories?” Lyra looked up so she could see into the human’s face. “Oh! Shoot, I almost forgot — I’m Lyra, Lyra Heartstrings! What’s your name?”

The human sighed, tilting his head. “Dunno.”

“That’s a fun name — we don’t have names like that in Equestria.”

“No. I don’t know.” The human’s eyebrows raised in exasperation. It was remarkable just how pony-like his facial features were!

“I apologise.” Lyra hummed, “You have to forgive my pronunciation — I’ve not had any experience with your exotic human names.”She cleared her throat and tried to intone clearly: “Eyedoantno. Did I say it right?”

The human sighed and rolled his eyes. “Seriously? No. That’s not my name. I’m saying I don’t have a name, you know…?”

Lyra could only tilt her head. Just what did he mean? Was it some sort of social construct of humans? Did they not have names?

He shrugged at her bewilderment, “Like… I’m anonymous?”

“Your name is Anonymous?”

He groaned and touched his other hand to his temple, shutting his eyes in a brief moment of frustration before shrugging again. “Yeah, sure… the name’s Anonymous.”

“Ah, well it is nice to meet you, Anonymous.”

“Sure thing, Lyra.”

“And don’t stop that scratching, whatever you’re doing,” Lyra added quickly, shifting her butt to get even more comfortable in the human’s lap. Her mint green tail wanted nothing more than to thump left and right with playful happiness and it was currently trapped between her bottom and Anon’s pants.

“I kind of gathered that you were enjoying my scratching.”

“Mmhmm… you won’t believe this, but I’m actually an expert in your species.” Lyra sighed, leaning back against the human’s big, wide chest. They really did make wonderful chairs!

“Oh? Are there a lot of people running around? Maybe someone who could help me figure out what the hell is going on?”

Lyra tilted her head slightly, “Uh, no. You’re the first confirmed human to make it onto our planet-”

“Equestria, right? I heard those other ponies talking about it.”

“Yeah. But I’ve been studying all the legends and myths around you and your kind.” Lyra shifted around again. Her plot was up against something a bit bumpy — not that she didn’t find it kind of… pleasant to be rubbing against, in the current circumstances. “For instance, I know all about how your hands and fingers were actually evolutionarily-designed to be the most perfect pony-pleasers in all of existence.”

“W-what?” The human seemed a bit taken aback. “By pony pleasers… y-you just mean for like, scratching and patting, right?”

“Sure, sure! Patting, scratching, grooming, rubbing…” Lyra began to list off happily.

“G-good, because for a moment there I thought you meant something a little more risque-”

“...tickling, pinching, hugging, penetrating, masturbating…”

“W-what!?” The human’s hand froze, mid-stroke. “Suddenly, this feels more than what I signed up for”

“Why?” Lyra asked innocently, trying to push her head back under the human’s hand. She never wanted his scratches to end! She was already conceiving the construction of a special harness that would allow her to be carried by him at all times — right within hand-scritch range.

“I mean, no offense or anything but I didn’t mean to imply anything when I started patting you — I… I mean, you’re a cute little pony-girl-thing and all but…”

Lyra looked up at him again, her big golden eyes sparkling with curiosity.

“...but I mean, I don’t really find you… uh, sexy.” Anon grimaced.

“Awww, why not?” Lyra frowned, putting on a pouty face. “I think you’re the sexiest thing since Celestia made her royal bodyguards wear tail-buns!”

“Uh, OK…” Anonymous’s grimace lengthened. “I have no idea who that is, or what those are… but thanks for saying I’m sexy.” He paused, letting out a sigh. “I just… you’re like… a horse. A talking, cute, sentient horse and all… but we’re so different. Completely different species! Doesn’t your biological weirdness at least kind of hint that I’m maybe funky looking?”

“Pshaw,” Lyra scoffed. “You kiddin’ me Anon? Those broad shoulders, those big, long limbs. Perfect for snuggling a pony and holding her down.”

“Wow, oh God… oh Jeez… oh God… Please no...”

“And then those hands! Once you’ve got me pinned, you could lift me to Luna’s moon over and over! And that would all be before you plow me with that legendary human dick!” Lyra squee’d clopping her hooves together as she thought about it, the culmination of all those years of ‘research’ and speculative porn fiction written by the foremost human expert herself. “I know that what you’ve got tucked in here could put any stallion to shame.” She ground her butt let and right over his crotch, feeling the bump nestling against her soft plot.

“OH-KAY!” Anon began to pull back from her again, grabbing her under the forearms and walking her a safe distance away from him. “Again — thanks, but no thanks. I ain’t no sentient-alien horse-fucker.” He let out a breath of nervous tension, “I mean, do you even have a —”

Lyra grinned, lifting her rear and flicking her tail up high. She knew from her own practice-sessions in front of her mirror what Anon was seeing — what? A filly needs to practice her stallion-pickup-moves! — a full face-blast of scrumptious Lyra-butt.

Her cute little dock would be wagging adorably above her quivering mint-green tailhole, a bit-sized ponut of powerful muscle, framed by her sumptuous but toned buttocks. Just beneath that would be her delicate mound of her marehood — a plump set of thick lips that would already swollen from the excitement and ministrations of the human. 

She felt wet, but wasn’t sure if she was quite dripping yet. A quick squeeze of her powerful mare-muscles made sure that she flashed the human male a glimpse of her hot, twisting, pink-interior… as well as the love-button that protruded from the bottom of the cleft. If he was at the right angle, he might even have caught a glimpse of her slender mare-teats, and the aroused eraser-like nipples hanging from them.

A sure-fire stallion killer! If this didn’t cause Anon to drop out of his sheath for her, nothing would.

“Ah! Ugh… ew!” Anon’s eyes went wide for a moment before he twisted away, sticking his tongue out and shielding his eyes with his hands. “Oh man, please… put that away!”

Lyra grumbled, setting her jaw with frustration. “What!?”

“I didn’t expect to see a pony-lady’s balloon knot and clam-shell today…” Anon groaned, turning to peek again at Lyra’s still fully-presented backside,  “...although, I guess it’s less of a balloon knot and more of a… donut?”

“Sheesh!” Lyra grunted, backing up toward him, menacing him with her sexual expose, “Why aren’t you worshipping my plot yet? Are you more of a scent-species? Go on then, take a whiff! Take a big inhale! I’ve been told I smell like honeysuckle!”

“Uh, pass,” Anon grunted, leaning away from her, trying to keep his distance. “I’m really sorry Lyra… but I’m just not into non-humans. I don’t think I’ll ever be.” He shrugged apologetically, as if he could tell the impact his words were having on her. “I think it is a human thing — we don’t have any other sentient species back where I’m from — we aren’t designed to like anything that isn’t… well… us.”

Lyra’s mind was racing. All her hopes and dreams. All her theories. Her fantasies! Dashed! Surely this was just a big mistake, some kind of environmental issue — the cage, the captivity, the low level of light. She was so sure that humans were supposed to be the ultimate pony-lovers!

She just had to break through to him.

Somehow!

“Well, Mr. Anon…” Lyra gulped, eyes flicking left and right, “you do want to get out here, right?”

The human shrugged, staring left and right at the metal confines of the cell with indifference. “I mean, I guess. I have to admit that I’ve been safer in captivity than I have at any other time in your world. Though to be fair, the only other time I spent in your world was on a sacrificial Aztec altar.”

“Exactly,” Lyra nodded, ignoring the finer details of the human’s argument. “So if you want to get out of here…  let’s just say that I’ve got the key to getting out of here hidden in a very sensitive area.”

“Wh-what?” Lyra watched the human’s eyes flick toward her still completely exposed backside and then back to her face, clearly taken aback perhaps even slightly disgusted. “You put the key… in there?” He pointed at her rear.

Lyra nodded.

“I mean… like… backdoor or…”

“No!” Lyra shook her head, blushing. Was butt-stuff a human kink? She was never particularly into it herself even if some mares she knew like Roseluck were. If it was something he insisted on, she might be willing to consider it, of course. Anything for her human. “No, what am I? Some kind of weirdo?”

The human simply arched an eyebrow at her.

“I’m not,” Lyra harrumphed. “The key to our escape is in my marehood, not my butt. I’m reasonable. Sheesh.”

The human grunted. “So… get it out then.”

“I can’t.” Lyra bit her lip and attempted her best sexy, pouty, smoldering sexy-times face. “I need you and your big, strong human hands to do it for me.”

“What?” The human scrunched his face, confused. “You got it in there, you can get it out. Why are you trying to make this weird?”

“I’m not making this weird!” Lyra pouted, angry that the human seemed to be shrugging off her advances so easily. “You’re making this weird! I’m just asking you to use your fingers to-” 

“That’s weird.”

Lyra rolled her eyes and let out a gasp of exasperation. “Look, Anon… I can’t do it myself. See this?” She pointed with a hoof at the magic-restriction ring present on her horn. “This cuts off my ability to use any magic, so I can’t use my magic to —”

“What about your hands?” Anon suggested, crossing his arms and shrugging.

Lyra looked at the human with a cocked glance, then back down at her hooves, then back at the human.

“Hooves, I mean.”

Lyra blushed, looking at her own hooves. “I mean… I could try. I haven’t used them and they’re kind of… y’know… big. I don’t think they’d work so good.”

Anon was quiet.

Lyra was too, simply staring back at him with the biggest puppy-dog eyes that she could muster.

“Please…”

Slowly, Anon’s facade began to crack.

“Pleeeeease….”

“Fine.” Anon carefully uncrossed his arms, flexing his fingers into fist balls before stretching them out again, as if limbering them up for a great challenge. “Can’t believe I’m about to do this.”

Lyra let out a little squee, before backing up toward Anon, rump held high.

“Don’t you dare tell any of my human friends about this, you hear?” Anon muttered under his breath.

Lyra felt the first of his fingers as it touched her on the inside of her left thigh, sending a shiver through her body. Just the graceful touch of his digits as they slid up her leg, closer and closer to her sex was enough to elicit a soft groan from her.

This was really happening.

Anon’s right hand traced up to her plot, sliding over her rump, smoothing the hair and softly feeling the plump pertness of her muscular bottom. It came closer and closer to the center of her rear with each subsequent stroke, shyly approaching the warm heat of her sex with each subsequent movement. His left hand stayed planted on her left ass-cheek, steadying the motion of her wiggling, happy butt.

Finally, the tips of his fingers grazed the outer limits of her sex, touching the smooth, plump skin just where the mons pubis began to become distinct from the lightly-furred flesh of her plot.

As soon as he touched her there, his fingers recoiled, withdrawing slightly. “H-hot.” Anon stammered, before clearing his throat and correcting himself, “It’s hot.”

“Mmhmm... “ Lyra agreed, pressing back ever so slightly. “Don’t be shy, Anon.” Lyra squeezed her powerful pelvic floor muscles, commanding her vulva to flex and wink, sending flashing pink skin to slip out and meet her human’s tentative fingertips, while releasing a small dribble of her love-honey.

“Ah! Don’t do… whatever that was.” Anon yelped, surprised. He pulled his fingers back to a safe distance, out of range of any winks.

“Do what? This?” Lyra squeezed again, flashing her tight, hot interior again.

“Yes! That.” Anon grumbled, carefully moving his hand back, regaining the ground he had lost. “What the hell was that.”

“Oh… that just means a mare likes it. Now stop acting like a little colt on his first date and get in there!” Lyra huffed. She was starting to get a bit worked up: her heart had already been chuffing like an express locomotive for the past ten minutes — this teasing was just driving her nuts. Stallions in Equestria weren’t exactly known for their foreplay — in the bedroom, mares expected their stallions to do as they were told: drop, get hard, mount up, and let ‘er rip… then roll off and go to sleep.

But these fingers were enough to make her pant, and he hadn’t even really touched her yet.

“OK. God forgive me,” Anon whispered, and moved his fingers towards her narrow entrance. “This isn’t going to hurt you at all? You’re looking a bit on the small side, there…”

“We’re very stretchy.” Lyra rolled her eyes. How was this basic pony fact not universally understood among humans? Were their women really so fragile as not to be able to mate with something over twice their own body weight? Pathetic! Lyra was doing this human a favor, if you were to ask her. “Now hurry up and get in there while there’s still time!”

Lyra felt a single-digit slide into her. Parting her lower-lips so easily — the finger was slender and she was already drooling wet — it carefully maneuvered its way into her up to his second knuckle, the warmth of his digit easily overwhelmed by the sheer heat of her nethers.

“Mmm~!” Lyra groaned out, as her body winked on its own, her powerful sex contracting to suck at the inch or so of thin human flesh inside her, wrapping and swirling around it.

“Damn.” She heard Anon mumble to himself. “Lyra, I… I don’t feel anything in here… is it — is it deeper?”

“Mmm! Deeper!” Lyra grunted, pushing back at him, trying to get a little bit more of his finger into her. “D-down!”

“D-down?”

“AH! Yes!” Lyra squeaked, her tail lashing left and right as the human’s finger crooked, hooking downwards and pressing into the floor of the early-opening to her vagina, pushing up right against the swollen engorgement of her clitoral bud.

“Oh, I feel something hard down here,” Anon mumbled.

“Yes! YES!” Lyra groaned, backing up even further, driving more of the wondrous digit into her hot, twisting marehood. The way it was grinding into the nerves of her pleasure-organ was electrifying, not just the smooth pressure of a stallion or his synthetic replacement… this was sheer, hip-thrusting, skin-quivering pleasure. “Go deeper.”

“O-Ok,” Anon agreed, hesitatingly.

Lyra could feel his left hand squeeze her ass-cheek even harder, gripping it in that powerful grasp of his to steady the actions of his other hand. The firmness of how his fingers dug into her glute were so much more forceful than the simple grip of a pony’s hoof — so dominant. They were Like a griffon’s talons but without the risk of serious injury.

“Ahn!” The moan slipped out of her unbidden as the human’s finger slid deeper into her, his tip brushing through the quiver meaty-pink folds of her grasping love-tunnel, tracing the engorged bulge of her clitoris through the thin vaginal wall separating the sensitive organ. Lyra knew that a mare’s love-nub was like an iceberg — only the small tip was visible of a mass of pleasure-flesh that surrounded a mare’s vaginal canal… but she’d never truly realized the extent to which the lust-inducing sensory organ extended. 

Not until she’d experienced the joy of Anon’s finger.

“I think I can feel it — underneath the… uh… folds?” Anon mumbled, pressing and prodding the swollen ridge in her vagina, each touch sending firework-lightning-bolts of pleasure arching along every one of the supremely sensitive nerve endings. “Why do I feel like I deserve to be arrested for this?”

“Yes! Yes, that’s it!” Lyra gasped as much as she spoke. Sweat was beading on her brow now, messing up her mane. She hadn’t felt so hot in ages. “Get it!”

“Hang on, is it… is it deeper?”

“Y-yes!”

Lyra felt the single finger slide all the way to its absolute depth, the bulk of Anon’s hand pushing against her plump outer labia. Her body was reacting on its own now, swirling and clenching around the intrepid digital explorer, trying to pull him deeper into her mare body.

“Dang, I still just feel the bump. I’m going to have to…” Anon grunted. She felt more fingers pressing at her opening, parting her folds even further. He was sliding in more of his hand to be able to get deeper. “...sorry Lyra.”

“AHHN!” Lyra squeak-groaned, as her mare-lips strained to engulf the human’s second finger. She was stretching — not wider than she’d been stretched by a pony or a pony-toy, of course… but the feel of two wriggling, alien-like fingers in her just seemed so much more filling!

“Damn. I still can’t feel any key, Lyra,” Anon apologised, his two fingers squirming left and right, searching in vain. “Maybe… maybe I can squeeze it out… like a tube of toothpaste?”

“Mnnghh…” Lyra greed. Or tried to agree. At this point, her lolling tongue was really getting in the way of trying to form any cohesive sentences. 

And that was when Anon began to press. Hard.

Pushing against the swollen ridge of her clitoris through the vaginal wall, as if he could somehow slide the whole thing out of her. It was like a deep tissue massage on the most sensitive part of a pony’s body.

“AHNNnn BUCK!” Lyra felt her front legs buckle and bend under her, slamming her chest onto the floor as her plot continued to be held in the air by Anon’s squeezing fingers. The mixture of pleasure and pressure was so intense that Lyra couldn’t tell if it was painful or mind-meltingly ecstasy-inducing.

By how much her marehood was dripping, she figured it was probably the latter.

“Almost… there.” Anon’s slowly pressing fingers continued to squeeze out the trace of her clitoral ridge toward the opening of her vagina, pinching as it went. Finally, Anon clasped the throbbing-red bit-sized clitoris in a pinched, ‘OK’ style grip. With the offending nub trapped between his thumb and forefinger, as it pulsed a deep-crimson with engorged blood, massaged into it by Anon’s deep prodding, Lyra felt her body begin to wrack with spasms.

The whole of her muscular, clenching marecave was beginning to convulse, clenching and relaxing against an absent phallus — begging to be released from the raw stream of sensation from having its crown jewel trapped in such a vise-like grip. Her hips began to gyrate of their own accord, humping against the air.

She was so close.

“Lyra…” Anon’s voice was stern.

So close! That twisting spring in her gut was winding tighter and tighter — Anon was about to make her cream all over him in under two minutes!

“Lyra — this is your clit. There’s no key.” Anon’s voice sounded pissed. “What the hell, Lyra.” He released her, pulling his hand away.

NO! She was so close! The mounting tension suddenly stopped, leaving what felt like a black hole vacuum of pleasure in its wake. An aching, burning need that demanded attention like a whining foal — without any of the sheer mind-melting pleasure that had been present just moments earlier.

She whirled her head around, her eyes wild and desperate.

Angry, furious. 

Celestia-help any stallion, of any species who gets between a mare and her ‘trip over the rainbow falls’. 

“What the BUCK, Anon!” Lyra snarled, stamping her hoof. “I was just about to-”

“What the fuck, yourself!” Anon growled. “You were just trying to get me to finger you off? You said you had hid a key in your damn pony-cooter! What kind of twisted crap is that?”

Lyra puffed her cheeks out. “I said I thought I had the key.”

“Lyra, you’re not going to convince me that you thought maybe you misplaced a freakin’ metal key in your horsepussy and then forgot about it.”

“OK. First off,” Lyra growled, still looking back over her shoulder, “Horsepussy is very rude. Second? I never said there was a real actual key in me. I mean, look at the cage: do you even see a lock?”

Anon paused, looking over at the bars. The door seemed to be welded shut. Quantum Freeze had used some kind of scroll every time he’d brought Anon or Lyra in or out of the confinement. The door was magically sealed.

Anon grumbled, crossing his arms. He was still pissed. “I specifically recall you mentioning keys AND vaginas.”

“Yes!” Lyra rolled her eyes, then gestured at the constricting ring again. “I was referring to this. I think if we can maybe overload this thing it might pop off, and then I could use my magic to get us out of here!”

Anon’s head tilted, but his frown didn’t change. “And by overload this thing you mean…”

“Make me pop.” Lyra huffed, wasn’t it obvious.

“Make you pop. You mean: make you cum. Bring you to orgasm?” Anon groaned, reaching his hand to his temple and massaging it.

“Yes! If the surge of magical energy breaks this ring, I think I could manage to override the spell, keeping the door shut.”

“I can’t believe this. And why can’t you… uh… take care of business… on your own?”

“As I said, I always had my horn to help me.”

“What about your ha- I mean hooves?”

“Again, as I said before — not something I ever used. Not since I was a filly and learned my telekinesis spells. Honestly, I have no idea how earth-pony mares do it — these things are just so… clunky.” Lyra looked at her hooves with distaste. “Nothing compared to those wonderful fingers of yours.”

“Great...” Anon grunted, looking at his own wet fingers with a modicum of reluctance. “Is this… is this really happening?”

“No, it isn’t,” Lyra huffed. “It was happening until you stopped. Now, can you please get back to it?” She waggled her rear, stepping back toward Anon.

The human paused for a long moment, staring at Lyra’s plot, then flicking his eyes to his fingers, then tracing his gaze one more time over to her face.

“C’mon!” Lyra whined, the pulsing heat of her marehood still throbbing with raw, unsatisfied need. With a flick of her dock, she let her heavy, sweat-damp tail flop over Anon’s groin, right over where she knew that delicious, legendary human dick would be located. “If you help me out, I promise I’d return the favor.” 

“Uh, not necessary or desired. Pretty sure what I’ve already done to you constitutes a felony offense regardless of what dimension I’m in.

“It would be my pleasure, though.” Lyra purred, lifting a hind leg to rub against the human’s private area.

“Woah. Hey.” Anon jerked backward, knocking her pony-hoof away.

“Oh,” Lyra paused, biting her lip. “Your erection felt a lot smaller than I thought it would be. No need to be shy, even if humans are a bit small I’d-”

“I’m not erect.” Anon grumped. “I’m not turned on. Honestly, I’m a notch away from being sick all over our cell.”

“What!?” Lyra pushed her butt back again, waggling it from side to side. “Why? I know for a fact that I’ve got a damn sexy plot! AND that humans are basically designed to buck ponies senseless! What is with you? Are you defective? Did I get a defective human?”

“You know what? Forget it, let’s just do this.” Anon grunted, sliding his hands back onto Lyra’s plot. “But don’t take this to be anything more than what it is! 

“Oooh…” Lyra purred, the human’s hands gripping her rear much more forcefully now. “Now we’re talking!”

“You just tell me what you like, Lyra,” Anon grunted, his hands gripping her asscheeks and then pulling them apart, spreading her plot wide and opening the musky, pink heat of her marehood to the cool air of the cell. “Let’s get this over with so we can both get as far away from each other as possible.”

“Oh, yes!” Lyra squeaked. She felt Anon’s fingers slide right back into her, his index and middle finger probing deep on their first stroke, up to the very limit of the human’s main knuckle. Her vaginal wall clenched, hoping to retain the invading digits — but Anon was already pulling them out, pumping them in and out with a slow rhythm.

“B-buck!” Lyra’s tail shot back up, flagging high as she was slowly finger-fucked by the human. “Goddesses, your marefriend is lucky.”

“Don’t have one of those,” Anon grunted. He began to flick his fingers wider and twist them on each stroke, pressing back against the powerful pelvic-floor contractions crushing his digits together. “Damn you’re strong in here… tight.”

“Ah! Ahnn! Ahhhn!” Lyra’s response became three choking moans as her pussy convulsed in a set of involuntary winks. Just how could human mares do anything but receive this kind of pleasure from their hands with every free waking moment they had?

“Ah, you liked that, huh?” Anon mumbled to himself, “How about, this?”

Lyra felt the human’s left hand slide along her butt-cheek, moving closer to the hot center of her backside that was her plot. The thick thumb of the human slid along the sensitive crevice between her ass-cheek and dock, swirling closer and closer to… her tailhole!

“Eeeep!” Lyra squeaked, her dock instinctively snapping down and covering herself as the human’s thumb pressed against her tight, quivering ponut.

“Oh, not into that? That’s alright, a lot of human girls aren’t either.” Anon withdrew his hand, sliding it quickly along the outside of her thigh and then moving it under her belly. “I noticed that these were in a rather new location.”

“AH! H-holy hay!” Lyra mewled, as she felt the human’s hand encompass one of her teats entirely, cupping it softly and groping, a gentle caress that seemed to be testing just how firm her mammaries were. “I’ve ne- AHhN!” Lyra’s reply was cut off as Anon slid a third finger into her marehood on his next stroke, seamlessly stretching her even wider, wriggling his ring, index and middle finger in a wave-like fashion as he pumped in and out of her body.

“A bit smaller, but they feel pretty firm, actually,” Anon observed, squeezing Lyra’s right teat a little bit harder. “And these are actually pretty neat,” Lyra felt him take one of her eraser-nipples between the tips of two fingers, pinching her lightly and rolling the sensitive-nub playfully back and forth. She’d never experienced anything like that!

“Damn, that got you gushing!” Anon almost whistled. Lyra could feel the squirts of liquid slipping out of her sopping marehood now, each outstroke of Anon’s pumping fingers bringing a splattering of her hot sex-nectar out with it. “Are you close?”

“Mmm! Mmmhm!” Lyra tried to squeak, shutting her eyes against the cacophony of sensation coming from the continued masturbatory techniques assaulting her. That spring was already back to where it had been before their pause — a creeping, ever-intensifying miasma filling every part of her being, pushing her inexorably towards her inevitable release.

“No? Well how about…” Anon moved his groping left hand and slid it up to her winking, splattering sex. Without pausing the rapidly increasing rhythm of his pistoning right hand, he slid two of the fingers of his right hand into position — right over the top of her painfully erect clitoris, which protruded from her like some erotic flagpole.

“Ah!”

And then he started to vibrate his hand. The quick, shaking movements of wrist and fingers led to a blur of grinding tactile stimulation, right on that impossibly dense concentration of pleasure nerve endings in her bulging love-nub.

“Oh F-FUCK!” Lyra swore for the first time, the curse drawn out of her gut like she was exhausting a small part of the raw pleasure that was brewing in her. She’d never felt anything like this before. Sure, she knew the myriad of magic vibratory spells that every unicorn mare learned about the same time they got their cutie marks and went through their first heats. Sure, she’d had the opportunity to try the legendary COOLCO vibrating models.

But compared to the skillful buzzing ministrations of the human’s flesh, it all ran a distant second.

She could feel the tension building up in her horn too. Unicorns almost always had some kind of a reaction to the build-up of sexual energy in their bodies. The meta-thaumic system was a reflection of how a living organism’s internal energies, emotions and spiritual essence were flowing, after all. Lyra had never paid much attention in school about the fancy science of spellcasting and how it all actually worked… but every mare knew that the closer you approached to ‘frolicking in Celestia’s hidden garden’ the more potent and charged one’s whole magical system became.

It varied for different mares of course. Just like the physical effects of achieving ‘Cadance’s blessing’, every mare reacted in varying quantities… both thaumic and organic.

Lyra had always been an outlier in both.

She could feel it now, a painful tension building in her skull, at the base of her horn. It felt like charged lightning bolts were racing back and forth just under her cranium, pulsing with electric tingles that singed her very gray matter. It wasn’t quite as unpleasant as a migraine — the surging throb of the energy brought with it feelings of heady pleasure as well — but each crashing wave of sparks roiled up her horn before smashing against the runic barrier of the restrictor-ring.

Lyra bit down even harder on her lip. She almost kind of liked this restriction. The painful inability to let the surging, instinctive magical sparks spatter from her horn.

Roseluck had often chatted her ears off about how some of her conquests had involved bondage and restriction… maybe this was something she would like too?

“G-goddesses!” A new squeak escaped her throat, and she mashed her face into the ground as Anon began to spread his fingers more widely with each thrust, stretching her tight marehood open into a fleshy-pink triangle… before she snapped all his fingers back together with one of her many, cascading clenches.

“Are you close?”

“MMmm!” It was all Lyra could manage. She could feel one of her eyes unfocusing as the other wobbled in its socket, overwhelmed by the random, bizarre neural signals escaping her pen-orgasmic brain.

“Just go already!” Anon huffed, a mote of exhaustion in his voice. Perhaps this was hard for him to keep up? “Damn girl… here.”

Lyra felt his left hand pull away from her clitoris, giving her a momentary reprieve from the almost blinding stream of pure sensation. She drew in a great gasp of air, having not even realized that she’d been holding her breath as she endured the raw blast of powerful pleasure-nerves from the unending stimulation of her love bud.

And yet she almost immediately missed the vibrating assault from Anon’s amazing fin-

*KER-SLAP*

Her ears barely had time to flick backwards at the slight hiss she heard as the human’s hand cut through the air with terrific velocity… before slapping with a meaty impact against her backside.

OH FUCK!

It was like nothing she’d ever felt before. She knew some stallions liked to spank — some sort of dim hearkening back to their own childhoods where they’d been at the total mercy of an authoritarian figure — but whenever she’d received such a blow, it always felt… unsatisfying. The heavy clop of a hoof felt more like somepony bumping into you than anything… sensual.

Anon’s human hand was completely different.

The wide surface area. The soft, yet springy flesh of his fingers. The small concave in his palm that made such a satisfying clap as it slapped against her buttock! It was all so perfect. Like his human hand had been used to strike the buttocks of ponies since they were ancient horses, to drive them… lead them… master them.

The slap sent a recoiling wave through her fleshy-butt, a ripple that was sharp enough to shock the already overwhelmed and convulsing muscles of her marehood… to send a new surge of even higher scorching sensation along her overloaded nervous system… to explode into her mind and send her reeling over the edge of pleasure.

She was cumming.

Hard.

“AhhnnNnnnnN!” 

It began as a crack, a small chink in the armor girding her self-control.

. One which quickly broke open, pouring forth the flood of potent neurochemicals and stored up energy in a wave of orgasmic pleasure that spilled down her spine. As it passed every one of her vertebrae, it raced out to the various muscles and organs of her body, filling every synapse, cell and muscle fibre with heady pleasure and relaxing bliss.

And then it reached her lower spine. The nerve attachments there, already surging with signals meant for the brain from the young mare’s overworked and overstimulated reproductive system, were drowned out by the wave of pure orgasm crashing down in the opposite direction.

 In an instant, Lyra’s womb, her ovaries, her clenching vagina, her quivering tailhole, her winking inner and outer labia… the whole of her plot was awash in a messy mixture of intoxicating pleasure-chemicals.

She felt her whole marehood act as one, as she never had felt it before — even during the best sex of her life — milking in long, powerful contractions from her drooling opening to her uttermost depths. Pulling against Anon’s fingers as if they were a flared stallionhood, drawing him deeper and deeper into her, trying to pull the tips of his digits against the blossoming gate to her womb, in hope that the human’s phalanges could somehow give her the stallion-seed her body so urgently expected.

With each thrumming, milking pulse her body emitted heavy dollops of steaming mare-nectar. Hot, squirting fountains of sticky, musky marejuice splattered out of her, soaking the human’s forearm and making the most obscene sloshing, splattering noises.

Of course, Anon’s fingers were no stallionhood. They barely made it to the quarter-mark of her twisting, spasming depths. But her body still suckled against them as much as it could, sending her engorged and overexerted love-nub shooting out each and every time, grinding against the human’s knuckle as she came like a madmare.

The crashing wave had arrived in her plot… and now it rebounded. Strengthened by the raw sensational pleasures of her climaxing sex, it raced back up the path it had just travelled, stronger and fiercer. Lyra could almost feel the sparks of biological electricity as the nerves sparked up her spine, making her back arch and flex, driving her hips back and forth in pseudo-humps.

And then it was back. Back in her skull. Mixing and merging with the thunderstorm of part-organic, part-thaumic madness that had grown into terrifying proportions.

The migraine of constrained energy became sharp. Blinding. It was like some kind of recursive spell that was quickly overloading, threatening to burn out her brain or make her head pop as the waves of crackling energy grew and grew… with no outlet.

“Ahnngh… ahn! Ahnn!” Lyra grunted like a fool with each convulsion and crashing wave of energy. She wasn’t sure if her stupefied reactions were perhaps the result of actual brain damage occurring as a result of the burning surge of unicorn energy trapped inside her. She wasn’t even capable of that thought… only the raw reaction to the sheer pleasure.

But then there was a spark.

Like a tiny pinprick of Celestia’s sunlight burning through a dark, impenetrable overcast… a single ray of potent, excess magical energy spilled forth from the tip of her horn, hissing and sputtering with an acrid, gunpowder-like smell as the laser pointer of pure magical power drew lazy circles upon the cell floor, in synchronicity with Lyra’s bobbing, gasping head.

It felt like somepony was placing their hoof over the end of a garden hose, only allowing the tiniest sliver of flowing water to spray out with all the intensity of the constrained force just behind it.

But it was something!

“Ahnngh… mnnngh… mnghh…!” Lyra groaned out, her words turning to mush before they even formed in her head. It was like her brain could only reserve a tiny fraction of its processing power to be used for the purpose of formulating any thought, plan, or speech.

“Are… are you OK?”

The dim words of Anon’s concerned voice were lost to the haze, as were the sensations of his hands… since removed from their stimulating attack upon her sex and now simply stroking her back and thighs… trying to comfort her. If she had more wherewithal she might have understood the sheer concern in the human’s voice, from the seizure-like orgasm she was experiencing.

But that tiny glimmer of Lyra’s consciousness, the last vestige of herself, a tiny pony upon a flimsy canoe bobbing in the roiling tumult of the hurricane-force of her ongoing orgasm, was entirely trying to focus on the task at hand.

This was her only chance, their only chance. She had to bring that tiny point of spell-casting escaping from the restricting magical-ring to bear on the sealed door!

Some part of her knew just how impossible the task was — even had she not been magically-restrained, even if she had all of her mental faculties available to her to attempt the difficult task of unsealing a magical prison door… she doubted she would be able to break through.

But if she didn’t try, that would mean that all of this had solely been for the purpose of soliciting a ‘fingerjob’ from the human… 

Admittedly, that’s pretty much what she had done.

Still! She had to try!

“Ahnnn… ahnn!” Lyra tried to tilt her head, desperately aiming the laser-point of sparkling, erratic magical energy from her horn. It was nearly impossible — with each twist of her neck muscles, some new wracking convulsion of sheer pleasure would crash into her… jerking her head and demanding that she simply submit to the waves of ecstasy. 

It was so tempting! 

The siren call to simply let go: to ride out the storm of sheer pleasure in mind-melting submission to the aching pleasure-storm on fire in her head, her body, her burning sex.

But if she did that, there would be no chance to cut through the restricting ring. It had to be now!

She groaned again, turning her sweaty head with difficulty, her unfocused eyes seeing the sparkling point of light as it drunkenly traced its way up the cell door in wild, wobbling patterns.

There!

The spot of light had traced over the magically-welded joint of the door. She was sure of it! Perhaps only for a moment. But she’d done it!

…

Of course, nothing happened.

A randomly fired, completely unfocused, un-crafted pinprick of neutral (though perhaps sexually-flavored) unicorn energy had zero chance against a joint that was specifically crafted to prevent any type of opening spell save that of the magical scroll it was linked to.

Even a skilled arch-mage would have trouble given hours of time inspecting and crafting all of their vast and skilled energies for the explicit purpose of disabling such a lock.

And yet she tried! Doing her best to bring the pinprick back over the joint.

By Celestia! By Luna! Lyra’s thoughts bubbled above the boiling eruption of sheer cognitive fire, before the final, quaking, surge of pleasure twisted her whole body in a paroxysm of pleasure, eliciting a gushing release from her so voluminous and thick that it impacted the puddle already on her cell floor with a resounding -

Sploosh!

By Cadance’s winking, bucking, mare-cunt! She swore internally, unable to hold on any longer against the pleasure, slamming her head down in frustration… And also bringing the point of light right over the door jam.

*Ker-CHUNK*

The heavy clacking sound of metal unbinding from metal filled the room, a sharp punctuation to Lyra’s gasping moans and grunts.

She’d done it! Lyra squeed internally, feeling her magical ejaculatory beam losing power and being cut off by the horn-restrictor once again, as the waves of her powerful orgasm began to ebb, bringing her to a slow landing of comfortable, warm happiness in the pool of exhaustion that was her sweaty body and tired mind. A miracle!

“Aihhh… deeed… eeet…” Lyra’s grunting groan felt strange, like her tongue was too fat for her mouth. She’d never been so exhausted. She turned to smile at Anon with an orgasm-drunk smile, her eyes lazily blinking. “W-wuh… ahn… We’re f-freee….”

Anon looked at her, but he wasn’t happy. He wasn’t smiling. He looked partially concerned at her state… but even more-so, skeptically annoyed.

“Uh-huh… sure. You opened the door.” The third voice wasn’t Anons. It sounded more like that bruiser that had shut them in there. “It wasn’t Trunch and I. You’re right.”

Oh.

Lyra turned her head slightly, aided by Anon who was carefully petting and comforting her, trying to ease her down from the lofty, Canterlonian heights of her orgasmic experience. There, standing at the opening to the cell, were the two bruiser-goons. Truncheon handed Clover Crunch the spell-scroll.

“We just had to see what all this racket was about,” Clover grinned.

Trunch nodded, sniffing the air deeply. His nose turning up and his lip retracting in response to the pungent, hanging musk that drenched the cell. “Damn… if I’d known you were so backed-up miss spy-pony extraordinaire… Clover Crunch and I would have made sure to interrogate you sooner!”

Lyra groaned in defeat as Crunch chuckled back at his friend, his wings starting to extend from his body.

“Hey Trunch, aren’t you supposed to show a prisoner the tools that’re gonna be used on them before an interrogation? Makes ‘em more likely to talk doesn’t it?”

“Good point, bud,” Truncheon grinned, turning to one side so as to give Lyra a side profile view of his body. “Smelling this heated little-mare already made me drop!’

There, right in front of Lyra’s face… was Truncheon’s giant, earth-pony stallionhood. He was a big stallion to start with, but Lyra was beginning to suspect that his namesake had little to do with his preferred weapon of choice… but rather the weapon between his legs.

The huge log of ponyflesh was bigger than anything she’d ever seen. Drooping down so far that it just kissed the floor. A massive, thick, mottled-pink and black shaft. It was no mere dick.

That was a horsecock.




> Mission FAILED
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------





She had to be careful not to let the blood rush to her head.

Bon Bon was upside-down.

Suspended from a belaying cable that hooked onto a quick-release harness. The other end of the sturdy nylon climbing rope had been tied off to a support column in the mining warehouse above. Usually, she preferred for somepony else to be ‘on-belay’ when doing any sort of clandestine wire-work like this, especially if that other pony was another agent with plenty of experience in the kind of things that could go wrong on an op when suspended in mid-air without the aid of pegasus wings.

But Bon-Bon had sternly resisted any attempt by Luna and Twilight to send any ponies to reinforce her on this little rescue-raid attempt of hers — the risk of being detected before freeing the hostages too great to chance it. Even as she’d methodically searched the warehouse, lurking from shadow to shadow before quickly discovering the hidden elevator, she’d known in her gut that this thing had a high probability of failure.

But she had to do this.

For Lyra.

She’d made it clear with both the princesses as well as the captain in charge of the SWAT team that she was to be the top of the spear. Once inside, she’d do a thorough reconnaissance before signaling the follow-up attack to clear the base. To that end, she would observe but not intervene, until the attack could begin so stealth was everything. 

Still, part of her couldn’t deny the increased danger she was putting herself under: it would be better to simply have the risk Lyra falling victim to a spell magic crossfire casualty during the eventual assault than Lyra and herself.

Cheery thinking there, Bon Bon. 

She grimaced to herself as her blue eyes diligently inspected the dimly-lit mining cavern. She was careful not to let any more of her head appear above the rim of the open elevator door than necessary. Never a good sign of an operation when you’re already thinking about reducing the fallout from your inevitable failure.

She shook her head slightly, trying to regain her focus. She knew the odds weren’t great — but she had to try, for Lyra. She’d been in worse scrapes before!

In any case, the first hurdle seemed to have been cleared: there wasn’t anypony watching the single point of entry to this hidden enemy base. That certainly made things easier. 

But two ponies had been watching, and recently: just a few short strides from the elevator door, a large smooth slate table of the variety that Bon Bon had seen in countless villain lairs stood empty… but two revolving chairs near one end were still in the slightest of motions — their occupants had only recently vacated them.

Lucky.

If they’d been present at their posts, she’d have been spotted the instant her mane peeped over the edge of the elevator door.

With a quick whir of the climbing mechanism, Bon Bon zipped herself down to the bottom of the elevator cab, then pressed the lever that undid the harness entirely and withdrew it, lightning-fast, back up the shaft and to its attachment-point, to hide any evidence of her incursion.

With a quick hop and the softest of tumbles, she silently rolled out of the open entrance into a dark corner, behind one of the ancient wooden door-frames that propped open a side-tunnel. Her ears pricked upward, almost straining beyond their most-open state, and she held her breath, listening intently for any indication that she’d set off a magical ward, or that she’d been spotted in some way.

There were so many ways a hasty intrusion like this could go wrong, in a world filled with the strangest of spells, creatures, and technology. If it had been anypony other than Lyra, she’d have laughed off this attempt as a suicide mission.

But there was nothing. Only the tomb-like silence of the abandoned mine, and the faintest buzz of the incandescent lighting over the conference table.

But she knew better than to move yet. Slow and steady when it came to stealth. All creatures were sensitive to movement rather than stillness, ponies even more so. The still knife in the dark is invisible compared to the flashing sword in the moonlight.

Still nothing. She felt her vision begin to tunnel and her breathing become ragged and uneven — the beginnings of hyperventilation. But she’d not trained for all these years to panic in the moment of danger, when lives were on the line. So she scanned left/right left/right for threats while breathing slowly, her vision and heart rate correcting themselves..

That’s when she heard it.

The telltale buzz of a thaumic circuit closing, and the slight change of air pressure as a surge of magical energy pulsed into the very air. Bon Bon’s eyes caught the flash of light appearing beneath her hooves, as the glyphs silver-painted lines began to glow with intensity.

Shit!

Bon Bon’s left hoof flashed down to her utility belt, grabbing hold of the tactical spray can of silver-infused paint, depressing the applicator nozzle even at the same time that she withdrew it, in a well-practiced blur of muscular coordination that happened under the blink of an eye.

She painted a wide swath of silver across the glyph, immediately short-circuiting whatever intricate spell-work had been laid there as a trap. A dull whoosh of air followed, as the crackling remains of the spell dissipated in hazy waves through the atmosphere.

Crap.

Bon Bon knew she was far from out of danger: she had no idea just what the glyph had done. Stepping aside into a dark corner, she glanced out at the burnished spot on the ground, trying to decipher what she could of the trip-wire spell she’d accidentally triggered.

The streak of interrupting silver-paint certainly didn’t help, but from her best estimation… the top of the glyph was a fairly expert magical-weapon disarming spell. Further down, the glyph worked its way into a stun-spell, and finally a sonic alarm spell. 

She was lucky that whoever had crafted the thing had put them in that order — she’d managed to cut off the flow of energy just as it had touched the stun-spell scripts.

Still… I’m bucked.

Bon Bon grimaced, reaching back into her tactical saddlebag and grabbing the rapid-fire stun-spell pistol she’d brought with her. A quick inspection showed that, indeed, the glyph had completely fried all of the intricate, military-grade spellwork that made the compact weapon a formidable tool in any close-quarters encounter.

Bon Bon mentally ran through the list of tools that she’d brought with her — and stifled cursing out loud. After that glyph had triggered, she was basically left with a hoofful of zip ties, some climbing rope and the can of silver-spray paint. Her flash-gems, her stun-pistol, her holo-mimic scrolls, her dull-edged shock-knife… even her damn radio used an encryption rune!

She was basically down to using her hooves.

Buck buck BUCK!

Bon Bon clenched her teeth, glancing down at the glyph. It was right in front of the elevator. Nopony would miss the big silver streak across the front of it, clearly showing that someone had tampered with the thing. She knew that this should be a no-brains, 100% mission scrub… that she should high-tail it back up the elevator shaft, quickly escape, and tell the assault force to charge in ASAP before her failed incursion might be noticed.

She glanced at the elevator shaft, biting her lip. Hesitating.

If it were any other mission. Any other pony.

She heard it then: a faint moan, almost a whine. An echo that bounced off one of the tunnel walls.

Lyra!

But the moan wasn’t alone.

Faint conversations coming from down one of the many tunnels connecting to this central room were now reaching her ears:  a chuckle that had been just a bit too loud, bouncing down the corridor.

She began to move toward it, slinking quietly around the outside of the entrance hall, against the darkest parts of the wall with the swiftest speed that she could manage without making any hooffall noise.

She wanted to see with her own eyes the source of the sound, to start to get a running tally of how many ponies were in here with her. Once she had enough sense of their layout and patterns, she could perhaps go on the offensive — she could handle two or three ponies on her own, and if the timing was right… she might just get a chance to knock-out the whole gang without any of them even realizing they’d been compromised.

Just because she’d lost all of her equipment didn’t mean that Bon Bon was totally out of the fight.

A few further steps down the corridor and the flash of a small hoof-held mirror let her see the scene unfolding.

LYRA!

She was face down in the middle of a cell, the strange human creature just to one side, holding her. Bon Bon’s heart thumped faster for the first time on the raid as the nervous thoughts began to race through her mind — ‘Was she hurt?’ ‘Had the human injured her?’ ‘Why weren’t those guards protecting her?’

The two guards were towering over her, chuckling and looking down at the mint-green unicorn. Bon Bon could tell that they would both be very difficult opponents. Each of them towered even taller than a guards-pony! The pegasus looked like he had earth-pony genes in spades: if it weren’t for his impressively large wings, she would have wondered if he could even beat his wings fast enough to achieve lift. And the other… he looked like he could win in a tug of war contest against two Big Macs.

Bruisers.

She’d dealt with her fair share of course — the trick was to get them quickly when they weren’t looking. Trying hoof-to-hoof combat with goons was always a rookie agent mistake: thinking that your fancy martial-arts and superior agility could defeat what so many assumed were brain-dead henchmen. This wasn’t like the movies though: bruisers usually had surprising agility and years of dastardly, unfair street-fighting experience that would quickly result in an overconfident agent collecting their teeth in a plastic bag… if they were lucky to survive.

She might be able to get one of them with a quick neck-kick buck… but not both. She would have to just wait, as hard as that might be.

“...“Damn… if I’d known you were so backed-up miss spy-pony extraordinaire… Clover Crunch and I would have made sure to interrogate you sooner!”

Bon Bon’s nose flared. The air was rank with the smell of sex. And not just anypony’s arousal… that was Lyra’s musk! She knew it from the clandestine, guilty sniffs she’d steal from her roommate’s sheets during the springtime heat weeks.

Lyra! Has she been… poisoned!?

Bon Bon felt her muscles tensing, as she pressed her back against the mine wall and held herself rigid as a board, still with the anxiety that her best friend and secret crush might have already been irrevocably lost to the horror that she’d seen in the Canterlot dungeon.

“Shit, Trunch, we probably don’t even need Blackie’s addict-juice.” The pegasus chortled, “Just look at the way she’s eyeing up your shaft — she’s stunned.”

“Eh — the girls tend to get that way when they see ‘little Truncheon’, regardless of whether they want it or not.” The earth pony shrugged, then reached toward his saddlebags, rooting around in there for a moment, “I ain’t into that shit anymore, ‘sides… I’ve been hankering to try out this stuff ever since I saw how goo-goo the Captain went with Dusky.”

The pegasus sighed, then slipped in and helped his bruiser friend, lifting a bottle of clear liquid, in a container similar to what looked like a fairly standard, commercially-packaged bottle of water… except for the large skull and crossbones label adorning the side.

“Here, I snagged one for you. You do know that Blackie said she’s toned the formula though, right?” He tossed the bottle from his hoof to an outstretched, powerful wing, “Hell, the way she said she made it just a pure addiction spell, none of that soul-corruptin’ crap… makes me wonder if she bucked the whole thing up so it don’t even work no more.”

Trunch quickly snatched the bottle out of the pegasus’s wing-grip, growling back at his friend, “Well, if you’re so sure it ain’t nothing now, why don’t you take a swig and put ‘yer bits where your muzzle is?”

The pegasus shot him an eyebrow, and shook his head. “Hey bud, didn’t realize you swung that way — listen, I’m flattered but I don’t want to get addicted to y-”

“Shut the fuck up, you know what I mean.” Trunch squared up to the pegasus, cocking back an arm. Bon Bon wasn’t surprised, most bruisers wouldn’t like any questioning of their sexuality. If this did turn into a little squabble between the two, maybe even a hoof-fight… it would be just the opportunity she needed to jump in and maybe put these two out of commission!

“Alright, alright. Just joking Trunch.” The pegasus held up a dismissive hoof: there would be no such chance for Bon Bon to take advantage of some friendly-fire. “So how did Blackie say her new brew is supposed to work then?”

“Eh, says here on the label that you just pour the shit on, or into, whatever it is you want to make especially addictive. You can also shove it down somepony’s throat raw… in which case they just go nuts for the first thing they lay eyes on.”

The pegasus whistled softly. “That’s crazy. And the boss is planning to sell ‘em in bottles like that? Dude, can you imagine how bucked the Manehattan club scene is gonna be?”

“Naw, I think he wants to give it to the big bosses of the Family.” Trunch explained, turning the bottle carefully in his hoof. “We mix it in with our street shit, you see? Put all them Zeebs and Saddle Arabians out of the hard-salt business overnight. Them junkies will only want our product.”

Crunch nodded, then tilted his head a bit. “Honestly, I don’t know why we shouldn’t license this stuff to a big corporation. Let ‘em mix it into their latest formula for cigarettes, or pre-packaged foods… hell, even into the plastic for foals’ action figures!”

“That’s crazy, the crown would stop ‘em overnight.”

“Eh, they got pretty good lawyers. We should go legit with this stuff.”

“Stop thinkin’ so much: you aren’t good at it.”

“Fuck you.” The pegasus flipped a middle primary up. “So, you gonna do it?”

“Yeah.” Truncheon unscrewed the bottle cap, carefully holding the bottle away from him, as if holding an unpinned grenade. For a moment he just held it there, not doing anything but eyeing it warily.

His friend was growing impatient, “Well? What the buck are you waiting for? Use it!”

“How!?” Trunch snarled back.

“Just… pour it over your cock and let the crazy mare take a lick! The label says that’ll get her poppin’ winkies for dick non-stop, right?”

“Oh sure,” Truncheon grunted, “Pour the crazy, super-dangerous black-magic potion all over my buckin’ stallionhood and hope it all works out… great plan! Why don’t you do that, hotshot?” Trunch offered the open bottle over to his partner.

Bon Bon eased forward, darting up by one column as both looked away, but she knew it was futile — there was no way she could cross so much open terrain between the tunnel exit and the cell: she was stuck watching and waiting!

“Fuck that! What if it melts all my shit off! Or shrinks it or some weird shit.” Crunch shook his head and crossed his forehooves.

“Heh, yeah you couldn’t afford to lose anything down there, eh?”

“That’s fuckin’ horseapples, my shit’s longer than yours, bitch.” The pegasus gestured toward his underbelly with a wingtip.

“Eh, length don’t mean shit, needledick. Maybe you gots a half-inch on me. But that last mare we shared was still so tight after you’d had her, it felt like I was going in after a bare-balled colt.”

Crunch rolled his eyes. “That’s just ‘cause you got a freak, mutant buckin’ log. There’s a reason you have to pay mares to lift their tails for you, and it’s because your freak-dick ain’t fun for ‘em.”

“Last I heard, you haven’t kept any marefriend past a first date neither — fillies probably don’t like having their guts speared.”

Bon Bon clenched her muzzle in frustration. These two idiots were having a literal dick measuring contest in front of her — and yet there wasn’t any way for her to take advantage of their distraction! She’d seen it happen before: the scent of a ripe, horny mare setting nearby stallions, particularly macho bruiser-types, into a kind of pseudo-rut. Usually, it could provide an agent the perfect opportunity to slip by, unnoticed. She’d even packed some specially loaded ‘eau de mare’ scent-bombs on previous missions for just that purpose.

But the same traits that would make a male easily distractible also made them hyper-aggressive and ferocious in battle. She might be able to get a bit closer to them in this state, but she doubted she’d be able to handle one of them, let alone both.

Bon Bon couldn’t help but stick her tongue out in disgust as she saw just how turned on they were. From this closer vantage point, she could see their… undercarriages… more clearly.

Both had dropped fully, two huge and disgusting sheath-snakes that arched toward the floor. Their equipment certainly matched the size of their overgrown bodies, perhaps the result of hormone potions that she knew some of these villain henchmen types liked to abuse.

If Bon Bon was in any other situational she would have made an audible gagging sound.

The pegasus’s semi-flaccid shaft actually drooped down far enough to drag against the mine-shaft floor. A long, slender (relative to his partner) pink shaft, already starting to bulge and throb with veins and bumps as he became more aroused — already his… thing… was grotesquely long enough that it was as long as Lyra’s whole torso.

Her eyes flicked to the other stallion’s bits — not quite as long… but more matching the stocky bulk of his huge earth-pony body. The whole black and mottled pink… monstrosity... eclipsed the girth of your average fire-place log, and it was already starting to inflate — slowly pulsing its way up the underside of the stallion’s muscular body.

Gross.

And both were packing a set of big, dangling sacks. Bon Bon hated the look of those almost as much as she did stallionhoods. She could maybe tolerate accidentally seeing a colt’s dangly-bits, or a stallion that was packing some smaller orbs… if her eyes chanced to glance over them in public. But a big, sweaty set of stallion-balls? She always had to turn her head away and resist the urge to stick out her tongue in disgust when she’d see those.

And these? These were huge. Yuck.

At least they’d make a nice, large target for a well-aimed kick if she’d ever get the chance to do so.

Bon Bon grimaced to herself, wishing she’d packed a mini-crossbow, or even a simple steel combat knife. She regretted relying so much on the modern, fancy thaumic equipment… one way or the other, it wasn’t a mistake she’d make again. For now all she could do was sit, and hope for the perfect moment to occur.

“Well, I ain’t fuckin’ gonna just melt my stuff off.”

“What we need is a test,” Crunch huffed, turning.

“What — the mare? I don’t wanna melt her either, moron. Then we’ll just be back at square one: holding our aching dicks in our hooves.”

“No! The monster-thing. Make him try it.” Crunch turned and faced the human, who had been carefully silent to this point, just stroking the softly mewling Lyra.

With the attention on him, he quickly pushed away, backing up to one of the cell’s corners. “Hey, hey, hey now. I can tell you that my kind are also very much against being melted. One of our core beliefs, actually.”

“Hear that, Crunch? We got a funny guy.” Truncheon grunted, striding forward. “Always liked funny guys… they make for great cannon fodder.” The bruiser began to reach out with the bottle.

“Guys, c’mon now… don’t you think your boss will be pissed if you turn me into a puddle of goo?” Bon Bon was surprised: the human seemed incredibly intelligent. Not a monster, but a creature. He was clever enough to come up with some good arguments to maybe save his skin.

“Eh, but imagine if it doesn’t melt you. We’ll have proved this new brew actually works as intended. It’s like we’re doin’ Blackie’s animal testing trials for her.” Crunch grinned, sliding in to block any further attempt of the human to escape.

“Yeah but… I’m sure you guys don’t want me sharing in your fun-times with Lyra, right? Even if it does work, I’m just gonna get in the way of your fun,” The human nervously added.

“How noble — take the girl and leave me out of it, huh?” Crunch chided, “Well what if we just make you drink it then.”

“I’m a guy, you know. So you guys are into that sorta thing th- OOF!” The human’s snide comeback was cut-off with a quick kick to his midsection, driving the air out of his lungs.

“Shut the fuck up. I know exactly what we’re gonna do,” Trunch growled, reaching back into his saddlebags once again and pulling out a magazine.

“Hey, I bought that, you’re giving it to him?” Crunch complained, tilting his head.

“You shut it too. This shitty thing is the reason we’re both aching like a couple of teen-colts in Spring. How the fuck were we ever supposed to get off to a fuckin’ MILF magazine?” Trunch growled, waving the magazine menacingly in front of his partner’s face. Bon Bon could see the bold lettering on the adult-magazine: JUICY MILFS! HOT MOMS: DESPERATE MARES.

“It was all they had!” Crunch retorted. “Besides, MILFS ain’t that bad!”

“Luna’s puckered asshole — why couldn’t you just get ‘Butts Monthly’, or ‘Teat Fancy’.” Trunch cursed, “If it weren’t for this fetish-y crap I’d have cranked one out and all this mare-musk wouldn’t be driving me nuts.”

“For the record — I don’t like MILFS either, guys. Not really my thing.” The human offered, having finally regained his breath. “Nor am I really a fan of alien-women in general so how about we j- GAH!”

With his mouth part way open, in the process of making yet another witty retort, Trunch shoved the bottle into the human’s mouth… and squeezed.

A blast of the clear liquid shot down the human’s throat, part of the dose splashing about as he coughed and sputtered. Bon Bon almost moved from her hidden vantage point. Here was an innocent creature about to be experimented on… possibly corrupted, maybe even killed!

But it would have done no good: it was twenty yards to the cage, and then somehow she’d have to make her way through the closed door, all without the guards spotting her.

“Now look you little pink freak!” Trunch shoved the human’s face into the magazine which he’d thrown onto the cage floor. “I don’t want you falling in love with me or my partner.”

“Dude, could you have been a little more careful with shit? You sprayed it everywhere! What if I’d gotten some on me?” Crunch complained, carefully checking himself.

“Quiet! Look… at least he’s not melting yet.”

Both of them turned to watch the human, who was now panting in a heap, his face buried in the magazine. Bon Bon couldn’t help but watch too, holding her breath to see just what the potion would do.

“Is… is it working?”

“Ho… lee… shit!” The human’s low grumble built up into a shouting exclamation as he sprung to his feet, clutching the magazine. “Have you guys seen this?”

The bruisers took a step back, unsure.

The human seemed undismayed, almost dancing as he began to flick through the pages, pausing only briefly when something caught his fancy. “Guys! What the shit! I thought you horse-people were ugly as all hell… I mean, we literally have a saying in my world that someone with an ugly mug is called a ‘horse-face’... but these fuckin’ hotties!” He opened the magazine, turning it to flash the centerfold that he’d landed on to the two bruisers so that they could also see.

Bon Bon caught the sight of a rather fetching mare with a dark, reddish-brown mane, a light-brown coat, and striking white socks, all accented perfectly by her blue scarf and pearl necklace… as she looked over her shoulder, tail flagged high, presenting everything to the reader.

This Sire’s Hollow momma would like a sire to fill her hollow! The bold text along the underside of the picture proclaimed.

“Fellas, how can you even stand not going out there and bagging some of these delicious ladies!?” Anon asked, flipping again rapidly. “Like, at first I thought these pony-pussies were kind of weird looking… and their donut-lookin’ assholes too... But damn, I can’t even imagine how it would feel to bury myself in some nice, experienced horse-ass. Am I right?”

“Uh…” Crunch murmured, starting to find his words, clearly still stunned by the human’s sudden shift. “I guess… I mean, MILFs are OK, but finding a nice young filly to-”

“Nah nah nah, fuck that noise, dude.” Anon cut him off waving his hand, “Moms. Moms are where it’s at. You know they will be horny as all hell — a total freak in the sheets, right? Plus they got those massive teats you just want to suck on all goddamn day… like this one, see?”

He flipped open to another picture, a grey-coated mare with a purple and white mane on her back, her hips splayed open. Her two, sizable belly-breasts resting comfortably atop a rather hardcore shot of her marehood, all underlined by yet another obnoxious tagline — This mother’s oven has popped out royalty, and now she wants to cook dessert!

“I mean, I used to think that it was pretty fuckin’ gross that your pony-tits were on your stomach. Boobs belong up here-” The human lifted both his hands to his upper chest, “But hell if I wouldn’t mind sucking on those beautiful mother udders.”

“Ok, Ok. That’s enough now, shut it.” Crunch groaned, reaching forward to try to confiscate the magazine.

The human jerked it away, twisting and dodging the goon. “Hey, what the hell man!? Don’t take this from me.  It’s my lifeline! This is like, the first non-crappy thing I’ve seen since I’ve come to your dumb horse-planet! I feel like I actually, finally have a purpose! To fuck MILFs!”

Crunch looked over at his partner, eyebrow raised.

Trunch grinned back at him. “I guess the stuff works.”

“Yeah, but what do we do about him now?”

Trunch shrugged, “Eh, let him go crazy with the oh, what the buck!” Trunch suddenly began to swear, flinching and turning his head away.

Bon Bon saw that the human had dropped his pants, and had pulled out his… stallionhood.

“What? I can’t just put up with this smorgasbord without some relief!” The human laughed, taking his phallus into his hands and looking at his magazine… as he began to… pleasure himself.

Bon Bon’s eyes briefly flashed over the strange human penis. A rosy pink. Smaller than the average stallion, by far. Less thick too. Honestly? Kind of cute, in a pathetic, naked mole-rat kind of way.

And still a gross display of masculinity… it didn’t matter what species it was attached to — a dick was ick.

But Bon Bon wasn’t tunnel-visioned, she had no problem keeping the whole scene in her vision at once, not flinching nor focusing… unlike the two bruisers.

“What the BUCK.”

“PUT THAT SHIT AWAY YOU LITTLE FREAK!”

Both Crunch and Trunch were shielding their eyes, looking away from the self-pleasuring human toward the ground, their hooves blocking out any chance for them to see the pink-sausage… and any part of the room to boot.

This was it! Her chance!

Bon Bon found that her hooves were moving under her before the thought had even finished forming. Like a Saddle Arabian zephyr, she glided from her dark hiding spot, picking up speed as she crossed the room in two simple trots.

The two bruisers were still stuck in their paroxysm of machismo, both still turned away from her as they attempted to avoid catching an eyeful of the human’s debauched acts.

Her rubber-soled horseshoes barely made any noise on the ground as she reached forward, skillfully pushing the unlocked cell door open just in time to let her slip through at speed. All of her movements were pure instinct now — her hoof fell just inches from the prostrate Lyra’s head, as she reached her top speed, a sprinting gallop.

The door creaked behind her, a rusty squeak of the hinges as it continued swinging open from her passage. She could see the two goons’ heads beginning to slowly turn toward the sound, their hooves starting to drop as they did, uncovering their eyes. 

It would be too late, too slow. Their reactions would not come in time.

Bon Bon could already feel everything around her moving in slow motion, the highly trained aspects of her mind clicking into place without her conscious overlordship — micro-decisions about where to place a hoof, or how hard to spring all happening instantly, instinctively.

She launched from her full sprint, pushing off hard with her hind legs in one final spring, twisting in the air as she did to bring those devastatingly hard hind-hoofs forward in a flashing scissor-kick. 

One hoof for the pegasus, one for the earth-pony.

Both aimed at the base of their skulls, a soft area that would result in either a full knockout, or a stunning explosion of pain that would give her more than enough time to follow-up with a second strike or submission hold.

She was flying through the air now, fully four-feet off the ground, her instincts subtly guiding each hind-hoof toward their targets as her double kick came closer to her opponents’ heads. Both  were only just seeing her for the first time out of the corners of their eyes — a perfect surprise assault.

Time slowed, even further, as her hooves came closer and closer to them.

It was exhilarating, like moving through temporal-quicksand. Agonizingly approaching. Each instant slowing even further. Until.

It stopped entirely.

SOMETHING IS WRONG!

Bon Bon felt the flood of adrenaline crash away, suddenly replaced by a gut-churning sense of dread. She was frozen in time! But her mind was still functioning! Still forming conscious thoughts!

This wasn’t some next-level mastery of the martial arts — this was magic!

“Wooooooooo….” A voice from behind her whistled, followed by a slow clap of two hooves. “That was impressive. Did you see that Dusk Wing? She was about to knock our boys out entirely!”

Bon Bon wanted to gasp, to whirl on the new sound, to do… anything! But she was trapped in mid-air, her hooves agonizingly close to landing on the frozen bruisers.

“Yeah yeah, I sees it boss,” A nasally voice grunted. “Ain’t really fair-play sneakin’ like that. Oughta leave the sneaky stuff to us bats; she could put us outta our jobs.”

“No, if anypony is going to lose their jobs it would be these two.” The voice was getting closer, hoofsteps approaching from behind, “If I hadn’t shown up just when I did they’d be out cold. Arguing over smut with the cell-door unlocked like a couple of rookies right off the street.”

“Eh, you stallions all end up thinkin’ with your other heads. No offense, boss.”

“Well, let’s just see what we have here.” The pony talking casually walked into her field of view, a white-coated unicorn with a dark black mane grinned at her. Whoever he was, his horn was crackling with intense red energy, thrumming with the sheer power of the thaumic field he was currently accessing. “Well well well, looks like some kind of black-op from the Royals themselves.”

“Black-op?” Another head peered into Bon Bon’s frozen field of vision, this time a diminutive purple-maned, dark-furred thestral teenager. “Just looks like a dumb mare to me.”

The unicorn’s piercing blue eyes flashed viciously at Bon Bon. “No no, see the sneaking suit? The combat-webbing? The tactical saddlebags? I’ve got a gut feeling that this might be an actual secret-agent of some type, unlike the fake one we nabbed over there.” The unicorn nodded off toward the direction of Lyra, as he trotted around Bon Bon. “I wonder, is she military? Intelligence agency? Maybe one of that weird monster squad? I can’t imagine why the cops would send in a lone agent instead of a whole assault force.”

Because I’m a bucking idiot, that’s why! Bon Bon’s thoughts screamed behind her head.

“No matter, start taking her things off, Dusk. I can keep this time field up all day. Make sure you get everything. These secret-squirrely types can be tricky.”

Bon Bon felt the bat-mare starting to unhook the various buckles and straps that adorned her, pulling off her various tactical implements one by one.

“I’m sure she’s very confused right about now.” The unicorn grinned, stepping back in front of her. He bobbed his head with a little bow. “My name’s Quantum Freeze, and I have the very unique special ability to be able to cast and control time-stasis magic. The first unicorn since Starswirl himself, they say!”

Bon Bon’s eyes couldn’t follow him exactly, frozen as they were in place. The unicorn moved slightly forward and back, trying to get right into her focal plane.

“There, I think that’s about right. Done this a few times now. Whole area within about 30-yards is in complete stasis, except for whomever I choose to be free from my enchantment. Quite a useful spell for a Canterlot Academy reject don’t you think?” He chuckled to himself, pleased. “I may not have had the bits to attend that snooty college, but after a few months using this spell for unsolvable break and enter robberies in Manehattan… why the hay would I go to such a stodgy place of higher education?”

Bon Bon couldn’t do anything more than quiver in place, completely neutralized.

“Well, now I’ve finally got my chance. My real chance. With the haul from this job, I can go legit — taking a bit of the funding from the bosses in Manehattan to start my own business… in anything I want!” The unicorn reached into the still frozen Trunch’s saddlebag and lovingly looked at one of the bottles of the potent addiction-juice. “Foods, consumer goods, technology, hell… even media! I can put every one of my competitors down in the dust with just a bit of clever infusion of this stuff.”

“All clear boss… I checked her mane and tail too… no super-spy gadgets.”

The unicorn looked away from Bon Bon, toward the nasally bat voice speaking behind her, “Did you check inside her, like I asked?”

“Seriously? I thought you were joking.”

“No. I wasn’t. For some of the things I have planned for this one, we need to make sure she’s clean.” 

“I love it when you talk dirty, boss.” The thestral chittered with glee.

Turning back to look at Bon Bon, he went on, “That bright future… all those dreams and potential and money… it all depends on me getting out of this little trap I’ve found myself in.” He reached forward patting Bon Bon on the head derisively. “I’m under no illusions that you’ve probably got this whole place surrounded — to be honest, after seeing the quality of whoever the hay this pony is over here,” he gestured to Lyra, “I thought I had much more time to make my next move and get out of this provincial town… good little trap you laid, there.”

“Boss, uh, she’s kind of in a weird ‘flying-kick’ sort of pose… it ain’t exactly easy to-”

“So now, Miss Secret Agent, I think the only way out is if I can somehow convince you to tell your authorities that I’ve turned… and that I’m one of your moles now.” The unicorn went on, ignoring his thestral henchmare, “But I’m no fool, I know just how impossible getting an elite agent to turn will be, especially with such a short amount of time. I’m going to have to make a call to my informants in Canterlot to find out everything I can about you. Even then, I don’t think it’s gonna be possible to break you...”

He held up the liquid bottle in his hooves, and his smile grew viciously cruel.

“...without assistance.”

And then his horn crackled again, and Bon Bon’s vision flashed to a white nothingness.