Ten Minutes Later-

“You really like keepin’ me on my hooves, don’tcha?” Talia eyed Gleaming’s freshly expanded womb, it's ivory size glinting with six dots. “Then again… this might explain some things.”

Twilight and Talia had arrived within minutes of their summoning, and were now examining Gleaming on the bed while Cadance looked on.

“Am I okay?” Gleaming fought to keep her voice level. “Are they okay?!”

“Calm.” Talia slipped on a stethoscope and placed it on Gleaming’s chest. “Breathe in for me, nice and deep... now let it out slow. Few more times... that’s it…”

“Okay, just so I’m following.” Twilight looked between Cadance and Gleaming. “You were engaging in intimacy when Cadance started giving you an infusion. You were caught up in the moment, and thus forgot to mention you’d already had two today.”

Gleaming cringed. “I-I know we talked about that earlier, but I didn’t really—”

Twilight held up a hoof. “So she started giving you magic, one thing led to another, and she started performing cornucoitus while giving you magic at the same time. Upon penetration, there was some kind of reaction that overwhelmed both of you, and when you came to…”

“Gleamy was like this.” Cadance rubbed her sore horn, a headache building behind her eyes. “And my reserves are totally drained.”

Twilight frowned. Without a word, she fired a quick burst of magic at Cadance.

“Oh!” Instantly Cadance felt the pressure lessen. “Ohhh, that’s much better. Thank you, Twilight.”

Twilight barely heard. She was already checking the matrices and failsafes of Gleaming’s spells.

Talia checked Gleaming’s pulse. “Tell me how ya feel right now. What seems different? Anything at all?”

Gleaming clicked her teeth. “I feel... warmer. More than usual, I mean. Not sick-warm or sweaty-warm, just… toasty. And heavier, obviously.”

“Hmm.” Talia produced some instruments from a saddlebag. The first was a thermometer, the second was a cone-like hollow instrument made of metal. “Is it the same kinda warmth you’ve felt since the infusions started?”

Gleaming nodded. “Only stronger.”

“Let’s cover all our bases, then.” Talia stuck the thermometer in Gleaming’s mouth, then the cone on Gleaming’s horn. “Now, I know you’re only thinkin’ about them kids of yours, but they’re not the priority right now. You’re the linchpin in all this, and if six heartbeats goin’ strong in there, that’s good enough for the time being.”

It took all of Gleaming’s willpower to not argue.

“Arcane threshold failsafe was fried,” Twilight muttered, half to herself. “No wonder, didn’t expect a magic surge to come from inside the body... Internal pressure parameters were exceeded and readjusted, that’s intended... Lactation spell’s fine, Appetite spell’s fine, Genderswap’s fine, all the respective spell matrices and their interlocking components are fine. Nothing looks even stressed aside from the one failsafe...”

“Check her arcana system,” Talia said. “See what shape that’s in.”

Gleaming felt Twilight ‘approaching’ her mind. She lowered her mental defenses and tried not to squirm.

“Well…” Twilight said after a time. “I definitely see some kind of activity. Her magic reserves show signs of rapid growth, but also... rapid depletion? The ley line path from her magic reserves to her abdomen is widened, so it’s pretty obvious where the magic went… hmph, also likely what it did.”

“But why?” Cadance asked. “What triggered it?”

Twilight chewed on her lip. “Let’s make sure everything’s stable before we ask that.”

Cadance’s ears drooped. “Sorry.”

Talia checked the thermometer. “Temp’s normal.” She next removed the cone-like device. “Redeposited ambrosiac aether saturation is—”

An unknown emotion flit past her face.

“Twilight,” said Talia. “You know that thing you told me you’ve started checking for this last week? The thing Celestia wrote ya about?”

Twilight’s eyes went wide. She stopped casting and instead focused in on the center of Gleaming’s chest. The light left her horn as she stared at something only she could see...

“Ohmygoshohmygoshohmygosh!” A huge formed on her face. “Gleamy!”

Gleaming cocked her head. “Eh?”

“You see something?” Talia asked Twilight.

“Look!” She conjured up an image of a tiny (but bright) spark like a pinprick of pure-white flame.

“This is what it looked like before…”

The spark swelled to the size of a blueberry.

“This is what it looks like now!” Twilight squee’d and danced in place. “Eeee-hee-hee! This is so exciting!”

It took a second for Cadance and Gleaming to get it. Was she referring to...

“I’ll be damned.” Talia now began casting spells of her own, chanting softly under her breath. Gleaming felt parts of her itch, each time accompanied by the icy blue of the doctor’s aura. “Lung capacity’s up… heart strength’s up… pulmonary rhythm and ventilation are steady… overall artery and vein integrities are intact… blood volume and oxygen capacity’s way up… crying out loud, girl! You’ve got the cardiovascular and respiratory systems of a damn triathlon runner!”

It took Gleaming a second to find her voice. “That’s… good?”

“Good?! That’s great!” Talia summoned an orb of light before Gleaming, which she moved back and forth to see if Gleaming could follow it. “Are you in any pain right now?”

Gleaming shook her head.

“Anything numb or tingly?”

Another shake.

“Feel lightheaded or woozy?”

More shaking.

“How’s your vagina feel?”

Gleaming blushed. “U-Um… okay? It’s not sore or anything.”

Talia studied Gleaming, eyes shrewd and sharp. “Wanna try standing up?”

Gleaming hesitated. “My balance...”

Talia looked to Twilight. “Help her.”

Cadance spoke up. “I can—”

“No.” Talia trotted over and lowered her voice to a whisper. “I don’t want you doing ANYTHING right now. For shit’s sake, you look like you’re about to pass out.”

Cadance grit her teeth. “Forget me! Gleamy and the kids are more important right now—”

Talia gave her a GLARE. It was if a cockatrice and a basilisk combined their powers together, had had a bad day, then encountered their worst enemy in a dark alley.

“Eep.”

Talia brought the orb of light over to hover it in front of Cadance’s muzzle. She moved it back and forth, but Cadance’s eyes glazed over.

“I’mma be straight with you,” said Talia. “If my guess is right—and it usually is—you just tapped into one of Gleaming’s latent alicorn abilities. But seeing as she don’t got the magic to fuel it yet, the bulk of the power got pulled outta you. I don't mean to scare ya, but if you'd pulled this stunt any later in the pregnancy, you mighta put yourself into a coma.”

Cadance felt her skin prickle. “That spark Twilight showed… Was that...”

Talia nodded. “You got the devil's own luck. Not only’d you just find a potentially repeatable way around your sterility, you also mighta just put Gleaming on the fast track to wings. I’d say you’ve done enough for one night, and I don’t care if you throw me in the dungeon for saying so. Living Room. Couch. Now.”

Cadance didn’t even protest as Talia guided her out the door, the old doctor’s words echoing over and over in her mind.

“R-Repeatable…”

Gleaming scooched to the edge of the bed. Already she could feel the increased mass of her barrel, its hefty bulk buzzing and wiggling. Flutters and kicks tickled her as she made to stand, a helpless smile forming on her face.

Twilight furrowed her brow. “What?”

“They’re ALL awake,” Gleaming said, giggling. She heaved herself up with a grunt, the internal weight swirling around. “Feels like a storm of feathers—oh, geez… yep! Yep, there’s another one in there… yeesh, I feel like a whale... and here I was worried they might be cramped!”

From Twilight’s head-on perspective, Gleaming’s barrel was wider more than anything else. Her pear-shaped middle pushed well beyond her frame to conceal her generous hips while also bulging out below her knees. Even from a simple movement like getting up, her slow, sluggish weight impressed a powerful strength and inertia.

“Try taking a few steps forward,” said Twilight.

Gleaming rubbed her foreleg. “Can you put your field on me?”

Twilight’s magic enveloped Gleaming. “Whenever you’re ready.”

Gleaming did some marching in place. She eased her hips back and forth, getting a sense for her warmer, BIGGER baby bump. She took a few tentative steps, her corded legs tensing and flexing.

Twilight watched her like a hawk. “How’s it feel?”

Emboldened, Gleaming tried an easy trot. Months of practice had taught her the trick, so it was just a matter of rediscovering her center of balance. She half expected her girth to be swaying all over the place, but her own sturdiness surprised her.

“Like I just stuffed my face,” Gleaming said with a snort. “Then again, food weight is—oh, God… I’m gonna have to eat even more, aren’t I?!”

Twilight snickered. “Probably.”

Gleaming cursed. It wasn’t the weight gain that bothered her—it was the damn hunger pangs. They drove her nuts!

“At least we should still be good on breastmilk,” Gleaming grumbled. She waddled at a steadier pace, her thoughts a whirlwind. “Holy shit, Twily! Is this real?! Did I really just get pregnant with a SIXTH foal?!”

Twilight chuckled. “The correct term is ‘sextuplets’.”

Gleaming moved around faster, now almost at walking speed. “We’re gonna need to add to the nursery, get extra supplies, hire another nanny or two, find another crystaller, adjust the feeding schedules, eventually get another tutor… we need more of everything!”

Twilight nodded. “But at least you know what you need, right? You were already preparing for five, so what’s one more?”

That thought was... surprisingly sobering. Almost immediately, Gleaming’s thoughts slowed to form an orderly list that, to her relief, didn’t have any question marks.

“Of course I don’t mean to downplay things,” Twilight said quickly. “One more foal is one more foal, after all! But in terms of preparation, the difference between five and six seems negligible. You still have to do all the same things, right?”

Gleaming looked back at herself. Her line of sight was eclipsed by her own womb—a womb round and teeming with life. The muted wigglings had quieted down, her six little ones settling into their new spots.

“You may need to modify the stretching spells on my maternity brace,” she said.

Twilight laughed.

“Was that my spark you were looking at before?” A rush filled Gleaming’s chest. “Does that mean I did this? Could I do it again?!”

Twilight’s eyes fell on the six shining points of light. “Let’s wait until Talia comes back before I say more. She and I have been meeting all month to talk about her theories. Granted, this instance discredits a lot of those theories, but it supports her main one.”

I didn’t surprise Gleaming to hear Talia and Twilight had been working and comparing notes. “Her main one?”

Twilight tilted her head at the door. “Let’s have her explain it.”

“How considerate.” Talia hobbled back in with a yawn. “Twilight, do me a favor and never lose them manners of yours. They’ll serve ya well in the years to come.”

Gleaming noticed that Talia was alone. “Where’s Cady?”

“Asleep on the couch,” Talia replied. “Leave her be. She needs it.”

Gleaming pursed her lips. “Is she okay?”

“She will be.” Talia motioned for Gleaming to keep walking so she could see. “Poor girl's plum exhausted, is all. You nearly tapped her dry of all she had.”

Gleaming had had a feeling Cadance was more tired than she’d been letting on. “So I did do this.”

Twilight patted her shoulder. “One thing at a time.”

Gleaming sighed. She kept walking around for another minute to get the hang of how the new weight moved with her. Gravid, thick, and prominent, her belly was nothing short of awe-inspiring. The more substantial weight around her middle was considerable, billowing outward in a warm, fertile sphere. The change was definitely going to turn some heads.

“Heh, you got bigger, but more wider.” Talia smirked. “Make sure you have the clearance for doorways, else ya might get stuck!”

Gleaming blew a raspberry at her.

“Alright, I’m satisfied.” Talia cracked her neck with a muted pop! “Let’s have a look at that new foal of yours. Twilight, can you teleport down to my lab real quick?”

“What do you need?” Twilight asked.

“The beam scale right by the window,” Talia said. “It shouldn’t be—”

FLASH!

Half a second later…

FLASH!

“What else?” Twilight stepped off the beam scale.

Talia blinked several times. “Er… Gleaming’s file. It’s in my left desk drawer. And the ultrasound machine on wheels by the culture shelves! S’under a clear plastic sheet, I think.”

FLASH!

“Hot damn, she’s handy,” Talia muttered.

Gleaming elbowed her. “Our whole family’s got a knack for teleporting. Don't worry, I won't be getting stuck anywhere.”

“Guess not…”

FLASH!

When Twilight reappeared, she had a manila file under her wing, and her hoof on a familiar-looking machine with a monitor on it.

“Bully.” Talia bade Twilight wheel the machine over while Gleaming stepped onto the scale. “Now, let’s start by weighing ya. Obviously there’s another baby, but I’m hoping there’s also a larger uterus, more blood and dermal tissue, amniotic fluid, hopefully another placenta and richer uterine lining…”

Gleaming stepped on to the machine. She immediately noticed that Talia had to move the main weight over a good deal more to the right than the last time.

Talia took the file from Twilight and flipped through it. “Looks like you’ve gained about… yup, twenty-three pounds. I’ll bet you’re feelin’ it, too.”

Gleaming stood up as straight as she could, her belly bouncing. “You know? Not so much! I could probably fit a few more in there if I wanted.”

Twilight and Talia exchanged a look.

“Whoa, whoa!” Gleaming waved her hooves. “Learn to take a joke! Jeez…”

Talia was stone-faced. “How’s your back feel? Gettin’ achy at all?”

Gleaming gave her a dull look. “I said I’m fine. Really.”

Truth be told, Gleaming felt better than fine. She did feel the increased weight, but the laden feeling was rather comfortable. Not to mention she was confident she could support it after hearing about her improved physique.

Talia had Gleaming lay back down while flicked some switches on the ultrasound. “Mmkay, so while the machine warms up…” She turned to the six glowing dots and ignited her horn. “Let’s figure out which is the new one.”

Gleaming raised an eyebrow. “How do we do that?”

Talia summoned a quill and parchment. “Like this.”

Gleaming felt a deep-seated tingle centered around one of the six dots that she recognized as a chronology scan. A second later, Talia muttered something and wrote down a figure. Her spell then moved to another of the dots, then a third… a fourth…

“There!” Talia pointed to the lowermost dot. “Chronological age of twenty minutes. HA! Gestative thaumic noise, my ass!”

Gleaming recalled Talia using that term the last time she’d used this spell. “Didn’t you say a while back—”

“I need to check something else.” Talia scanned the rest of the dots, writing down more numbers as she went. “YES! I bloomin’ knew it! Remember me saying that all of your foals all had the same chronological age, save one?”

Gleaming nodded. “Reidy was the outlier. You said he was showing up as sixteen weeks younger.”

“And he still is.” Talia slathered a stretch of Gleaming’s tummy with blue gel. “At first wrote it off as the spell messing up due to feedback. How could it not be? He’s at the same point in development as the others! How could that could that be if he’s sixteen weeks younger? How could he have even been conceived?”

Gleaming didn’t have an answer. It didn’t make any sense, unless...

"This here’s for all the chips.” Talia lifted up the ultrasound wand, eyes glinting. “If the foal with the twenty minute age doesn’t match the gender-race combo of any of your five kids, we’re on the right track. And if that foal also has have similarly-developed organs and a body size in line with the others, we’re really, REALLY on the right track.”

The monitor flickered as Talia pressed the wand to the newest dot of light. There was a shifting of black, white, and gray before coming into focus, revealing the outline of a foal.

A curled-up little filly… with wings.

“Awwww…” Twilight cooed.

Talia wore a shit-eating grin. “I love it when I’m right.”

Gleaming’s world fell away to just the screen. She stared at her new daughter with wide eyes, watching those tiny, twitching wings. “I-Is… Is she…?”

Talia examined the screen as she moved the wand. “She’s got a placenta... a cord… organs are where they should be… heartbeat’s good… wing bone structure's alright... overall size seems right for thirty-two weeks… unless I’ve gone senile, that’s a healthy pegasus filly.”

The pieces all started to fall together. Azzy’s spa. Being alone with Cadance before the helpers came. The banter and escalation. Cadance ravishing her on the table, using her horn just like she had just now…

Talia checked the locations of other foals to make sure. “Your pega-boy’s over here, so we know Vanguard ain’t had a sex change... Reidite and Eventide are right beside him, annnnnd... your alicorn gals are still up by your ribs. You don’t have names for 'em yet, have ya?”

Gleaming heard enough of that to shake her head. “N-Not yet.”

“Mmm.” Talia looked around at things for another minute or so before switching off the screen. “Guess you can keep thinking about that while you figure out a name for your new girlie. She looks like a thirty-two week old fetus should near as I can tell, despite nowhere near being that old... Heh, seems the age old saying doesn’t apply to you, honey—you can indeed, get more pregnant!”

“Gleamy, this is important,” Twilight said. “Did anything like this happen sixteen weeks ago? Something you didn’t think to mention?”

Gleaming sank back into her pillow. “I... didn’t think anything of it at first. I doubt Cady did, either! She wasn’t drained by it at all….”

Talia poked Gleaming’s side. “Think about it. It wouldn’t take as much to make or sustain a sixteen week old fetus as it does a thirty-two week one. Why d’you think you eat more the bigger and taller you get?”

Gleaming had to admit that made sense. Maybe. “It happened at an underground spa on the edge of town…”

She recounted everything that’d happened: The things she and Cadance had said, the way she herself had felt, how Cadance had been acting. Gleaming was as thorough as possible, Talia and Twilight taking and sharing notes.

“So one thing right off the bat,” Talia said after Gleaming finished. “Do NOT let Cadance stick her horn in ya again. You’re not in control of this yet, and the energy’s gettin’ pulled outta her as a result. Same thing as before still applies—it’s likely the energy required for this is proportionate to the age of the foals you’re already pregnant with.”

Gleaming wet her lips. “Bigger foals, more energy. Got it... but what if—”

Twilight cut her off with a look. “Positive response to repeated drains or not, alicorns aren’t immune to magical exhaustion. Wait until you’re not pregnant to try this again, or you could really hurt Cadance.”

Gleaming gulped. “N-Never mind, then...”

There was a moment’s pause while Talia scratched her chin. “One thing I don’t get though is why Cadance sticking her horn in your vagoo would be the catalyst for this. Any thoughts, Twilight?”

Twilight was quiet. She looked up at the ceiling, wings twitching at her sides. She then looked all around the room, attention wandering as she stared off into nothing.

“Sombra’s curse functions by inhibiting the magical component of conception,” she said at last. “The physical components are all intact, it’s just they never receive the signal to combine and begin mitosis.”

“Which carries over no matter what form she takes,” Talia said. “Small wonder it ain’t contagious.”

Twilight worked her jaw into a pout. “Theoretically... if one were to provide a direct, sizeable injection of raw magic directly into the reproductive system, it might be able to overwhelm the residual hate energy and stimulate a zygote. It’d change what we thought we understood about Cadance’s condition, but… mayyyyyyybe? But it'd also hinge on there being a zygote in the womb to be stimulated, and that shouldn’t be possible while already pregnant!”

Talia sucked on her teeth. “I got an inkling. We’ve known for a while now that Gleaming absorbs Cadance’s gametes when she becomes a stallion and they have intercourse; we just haven’t known why. D’you think Gleaming’s body’s been storin’ it? For this superfetation ability?”

Twilight made a face. “I… suppose? Either that, or the conception works through parthenogenesis. Although that would mean the, ew... m-male gamete absorption… is the result of something else.”

Talia watched the curve of Gleaming’s belly rise and fall, like a living fuzzy mountain with a rosy top. “Makes me wonder if she’s storin’ it for any other reason. Good thing Cadance hasn’t made a habit out of pleasuring you with her horn, eh? You’d be a LOT more pregnant than you already are!”

Gleaming wasn’t sure if she found that disturbing or arousing.

Talia was silent for another moment. “Gleaming, have you recently had sex with any other ponies besides Cadance?”

Gleaming adjusted herself. “A few others, yes.”

“Of course she hasn’t—” Twilight did a double take. “WHAT?!”

Gleaming regarded her. “What? Cady and I had some group sex with our old friends from the Canterlot Guard. What’s the problem?”

“What’s the problem?!” Twilight’s eyes bugged out of her head. “If you can store genetic material for conception at ANY time, then your foals may not be Cadance’s! She may have just been a mana battery for you!”

Now that made Gleaming laugh. She put her hooves on her burgeoning middle, stroking it with her fetlocks. “Don’t worry, they’re hers.”

“How do you know?” Talia asked.

Gleaming shrugged. “I just do.”

Talia raised an eyebrow. She focused back on the glowing dots, her horn flashing with another spell. This one took much longer, the stretched out silence dragging on and on.

“Parental DNA strands are all the same,” Talia said at last. “Half yours, half Cadance’s. Guess you do know.”

Gleaming folded her hooves. “Told ya.”

Twilight pinned her ears against her head. “Gleamy…”

“Oh, relax.” Gleaming sat up, her mammoth, motherly shape resting heavy on her legs. “I love those guys, but not like that. They’re just friends… well, friends with benefits, I guess. The only kids I wanna have are with Cady.”

Talia was taking more notes on her parchment. “Did any of your friends ever insert their magical conduits in your vagina?”

Twilight groaned. “I’m not hearing thiiiiiiiiiiis…”

“No,” said Gleaming. “We just stuck to normal stuff. Oral, vaginal, a little bit of anal. Cady and I had separate quickies with two of them when we went to the Revel, although we had a real good time with the three of them when they came up here five months ago. Won’t be forgetting that any time soon...”

Talia noted that. “Five months ago was before you started receiving infusions, yes?”

Gleaming nodded. “Long before.”

“And your friends are all stallions? Did they ejaculate inside you?”

Gleaming laughed. “Many times.”

Twilight put her head in her hooves. “Sweet Celestia…”

“And nothing came of it?” Talia pressed. “None of the occurrences you’ve told me about when you’ve had sex with Cadance? How about absorbing their gametes? Did that happen?”

Gleaming fiddled with the bedsheets. “Not when they came up the first time, but when we went down for the Revel, yeah. The one friend was also able to have multiple orgasms without a break, and he only got more eager with each one! He didn’t slow down until after I’d had my own, and I figured that was good enough... so I stopped.”

Talia tilted her head. “Stopped what?”

Gleaming suddenly drew a blank. “Uhhhhh...”

Talia sat on her haunches, quill hovering in her magic. “Twilight, I need your input on this.”

Twilight was starting to look a little green. “I need my memory scrubbed…”

“After we’re done,” said Talia. “I need ya to focus.”

“Errrrrgh…” Twilight rubbed her temples. “According to the letters Celestia has sent me, a spark of ascension is nurtured by performing acts within the proper domain. The more significant the act, the more the spark develops. If these occurrences are all linked to Gleamy’s domain, the emotions and desires of the parties involved would serve as an activator, amplifier, enabler, inhibitor, et cetera. Her capabilities are tied to the progression of her spark, so increasing manifestations of passive abilities would be expected. Except these occurrences could be subtle, obvious, gradual, intermittent, ongoing, scaling, or any of the above.”

Gleaming knew that Domains were something all alicorns had. Celestia had light, Luna had darkness, Cadance had love, Twilight had friendship. Twilight and Cadance were still relatively new to their powers so they didn’t have the experience and depth Celestia and Luna had, but all things associated with an alicorn’s domain, they supposedly held mastery over.

“Would an example be Gleaming inherently knowing who sired her children?” Talia asked.

“Possibly,” Twilight admitted. “It’d certainly be in line with her other known passive abilities. But more importantly, Celestia told me a developing spark is quite volatile. In the right circumstances, an ascending alicorn can tap into an active ability—powerful manifestations that can define an entire aspect of their domain. What happened here tonight is likely an example.”

Talia turned back to Gleaming. “Twilight and I have flirted with the notion that the infusions are hastening your ascension. It’s good if they are, but it also means your magic's being put on a hair trigger. There’s no telling when you may do something on accident, so you need to start learnin’ control, quick like.”

Gleaming chuckled. “I don’t mean to downplay any of this, but almost sounds like you’re saying I’m going through alicorn puberty.”

“That’s not a bad way to put it.” Twilight met her sister’s eyes. “This is just the tip of the iceberg, Gleamy. Your spark is only going to get stronger… YOU’RE only going to get stronger. We may have an idea of your domain, but there’s no telling what you can do with it. The better grasp you have of your powers, the more acts you’ll be able to perform. And the more acts you perform, the faster your spark will mature. We pretty sure this process is gradual, but it seems to be happening faster than we thought.”

It took a moment for Gleaming to get her head around that. She rubbed the sides of her belly, the foals all settling down.

“You only have an idea of my domain? I’d have thought it pretty obvious.”

Twilight glanced at Gleaming’s cutie mark. “Fertility likely plays into it, but something that applies to only one gender strikes us as too specific. Domains are broad things that can encompass multiple topics, subjects, and ideals.”

“But it’s not our place to figure it out beyond that,” Talia cut in. “This is your journey, honey. You gotta discover this on your own.”

Gleaming glowered. Answers had led to more questions, all the harder to decipher. “Did you go through something like this, Twily?”

Twilight pawed at the ground. “Sort of. Friendship’s a very passive domain, so much that nopony knew that’s what it even was! I stumbled around a lot, did a lot of things out of order.”

Gleaming remembered that much. “Like becoming a princess before even knowing what you’re the princess of.”

Twilight’s wings fluttered at her sides. “Yeah, heh…”

Gleaming patted the spot beside her. “Did Celestia ever tell you before it happened? That she saw the spark in you?”

Twilight scooched up beside her. “SShe wanted to tell me about my potential, but she worried it’d cause too much pressure. She also knew I needed to go off on my own to flourish, but she was reluctant to do it for… well, a lot of reasons. It was a long time before she worked up the nerve to send me down to Ponyville.”

Gleaming scrunched up her face. “So how’d you know what to do?”

“I didn’t!” said Twilight. “I just did what came naturally. I didn’t even have any accidental expressions of my powers to help figure things out! You’re really lucky in that regard.”

Gleaming sighed. “In more ways than one, it seems.”

Twilight put a wing around her. “What do you mean?”

Gleaming looked away. “I don’t like that I almost hurt Cady.”

“Key word being 'almost',” said Talia. “She’ll be fine with some rest, so don’t go beating yourself up over it. You should be concentrating on that our suspicions just got confirmed on a heap of things! That alone’s a HUGE leg-up over your sister. As long as you're more careful from now on, I’d call this a win-win!”

Gleaming sucked on her teeth. The future just became more uncertain with a lot more challenges and objectives. Something told her the coming months wouldn’t be as low-key as she’d thought. “You said to learn control. How do I do that?”

Twilight smiled. “Our domains may be different, but our powers likely have overlap. I can run you through the gambit of mine to see if you have any response. From there, though, you’ll have to do some soul searching.”

Gleaming nuzzled her. “Oooh, that first part sounds like more quality time with my sister.”

"Hehe." Twilight turned to Talia. “Do you need to check anything else?”

Talia flipped through Gleaming’s file a final time. “There's one more big thing you both should know. The reading of Gleaming’s magic breakdown I took indicated her aether gland’s now producing two separate types—unicorn, and alicorn. It’s hard to say what the ratio is right now, but if I had to guess, I’d put it somewhere around 8:2.”

Twilight stiffened. “She’s producing alicorn magic on her own?!””

Talia floated over the metal cone to show them. “Before tonight, the breakdown in her reserves was ten percent infused alicorn magic, ninety percent unicorn magic. Take a look at what they say now.”

Gleaming swallowed hard. “Zero percent infused, ninety nine point-nine-five percent unicorn... point-five percent alicorn.”

“Ahhhhhh!” Twilight hugged Gleaming. “Yes-yes-yes-yes-yes-yes-yes-yes! My sister’s turning into an alicorn! WOOHOO!”

“We already knew that, Twily!” Gleaming said. “Gah!”

“SHHH!” Talia swatted Twilight. “Your other sister’s tryin’ to sleep!”

Twilight bowed her head. “Sorry, sorry-sorry… buuuuuuuuut ohmygosh this is so amazing!”

Gleaming had a thought. “Wait, does that mean we don’t have to keep doing the infusions?”

Talia didn’t answer right away. “...I’d say keep ‘em up for another six weeks, just to be safe. I suppose it’s your call after that, but I’d keep doing them until everything’s said and done.”

Gleaming decided that could be figured out later. “Well, if nothing else… I guess this explains why I feel warmer, doesn’t it?”

Talia laughed. “I almost wanna say it’s like an ignition system—the infusions have been priming your body, but tonight’s little episode turned the key. I’d imagine you’ll produce less and less unicorn magic moving forward... until you stops making any at all.”

Twilight tickled Gleaming with her wings. "And guess what thaaaaaaat meeaaaaaaaaaans~"

Talia yawned again as she put away her other instruments. “Well, I trust you'll take plenty notes, so I’ll show myself out. Have fun, you two.”

Gleaming frowned. “Wait, have fun? What are we—”

FLASH!

“—doing?”

The sheer cold slammed into Gleaming like a punch to the face. Her vision reasserted to behold a snowy cliffside, the expanse revealing the tundra below. The deafening winter silence pressed in on her ears as she sank into the deep powdery snow.

Twilight got to her hooves. “First off, do you feel cold at all right now?”

Gleaming looked around. “What the—where’d you take us?!”

“The Himaneighya mountains!” Twilight gestured to their right, where the colossal Mount Everhoof dominated the horizon. “Seven thousand feet up Mount Manechenjunga, to be precise."

Gleaming ran a hoof down her face. “It’s Hearth’s Warming Eve, Twily! Can’t we at least wait until tomorrow?”

“No.” Twilight poked her in the chest. “You’re a magical loose cannon right now. We need to get you under control.”

Grumping, Gleaming eased herself up with Twilight’s help. “Is this for squicking you out?”

Twilight swished her tail. “Do you feel cold or not?”

Gleaming kicked at a chunk of snow. “It’s not that bad out tonight.”

Twilight’s horn flickered. “It’s twenty-five below.”

Gleaming stared. She cast a temperature spell of her own to verify Twilight’s claim.

“What the...”

Lightning crackled in Twilight’s eyes. “Celestia thought there might be some similarities in our abilities. Mom's fire affinity aside, I started being able to tolerate temperatures of either extreme within a month of moving to Ponyville.”

Gleaming was at a loss. It was one thing to hear Talia and Twilight spout a whole bunch of technical stuff, but this?

“Passive abilities like this are good outward indicators of your spark’s health,” Twilight went in. “The more of them you display, the farther along you are. The challenge comes in recognizing them.”

Gleaming snorted. “And here I thought I was plenty far along already.”

Twilight ignored that. “Certain passive abilities appear to be baseline for all alicorns: Immortality, the traits of all three tribes, heightened resilience, various immunities, rapid healing and regeneration, extraordinary magic capability, increased stature… the things most ponies think of. Many more are internal, so you may not even notice you’ve developed them until after the fact. Also, it’s not a set in stone rule, but the most noticeable physical effects tend to show up much later in a spark’s development.”

Gleaming watched Twilight’s breath float away in a swirling fog. “So the first things to show up are the most subtle? How does that make them good indicators?”

"I’m not finished.” Twilight gestured to their height difference. “Some baseline abilities vary in how strongly they manifest, to the point that they become obvious. There are also passive abilities exclusive to a few, or even just one of us, and those can be anything at all. Exclusive passive abilities usually tie into active ones, so if you do notice you’ve developed one, it’s likely going to build into something else.”

Gleaming tongued the inside of her cheek. Conjecture had been rampant tonight, but a lot of it made sense in context. Talia’s guess on that she was ‘banking’ the seed of her partners suddenly didn’t seem so far off. “What about active abilities?”

Twilight looked up at the stars. “You probably can guess the overlaps there. Luna and Celestia can both control the sun and the moon, Cadance and I can each look into a pony’s soul to see their relationships, things like that. It’s hard to say anything about yours just yet, but outside of a few notable instances, our active abilities are unique.”

A frigid wind blew through Gleaming’s mane. “I suppose…”

Twilight shook her head clear. “But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. We’ve got a lot of work to do here, and I don’t wanna call it until we’ve made some progress! We shouldn’t waste any more time.”

“C’mon Twily, you can’t really expect us to get anything done tonight.” Gleaming gestured to herself. “I know I said I was fine, but that doesn’t mean I’m up for staying up late training in the mountains! I’m eight months pregnant! With SIX foals! I've got a whole hockey team inside me!"

"They'll be fine! Your resistances will extend to them while they're inside your body—"

"Do really want me to be sleep deprived right now?” Gleaming asked. “Even if I wasn’t pregnant, we can’t show up to open presents tomorrow exhausted! Mom and Dad will read us the Riot Act!“

Twilight’s reply was to grin like a shark.

Gleaming felt a chill that had nothing to do with the weather. "The last time I saw you with that look, I was picking cookie dough out of my mane for a week. What are you planning?"

Twilight's horn glowed. “Time Snap spell.”

The realization made her groan. “Oh, fuck me…”

“No thanks.” There was a loud crackling sound. Afterimages formed around Twilight and Gleaming for an instant, the air becoming thick and syrupy before clicking back to normal.

“I’m setting the spell to snap us back in an hour," Twilight said. "I can maintain it for thirty-seven cycles, so let’s get to it. Time for some practical application of alicorn magic.”

Gleaming threw a snowball at her.

Hearth’s Warming Day (Week 32)-

The next morning found a sleepy subdued Crystal Empire with almost empty streets. Even at nine a.m, many ponies’ homes were still dark, the lights only just beginning to turn on. Well, those that didn’t have children, anyways. The ones that did had been up long before, tired parents yawning as their kids ransack the gift pile. Sleep would come for them later, likely after brunch when the food coma set in.

Velvet and Night were the first to arrive at Gleaming and Cadance’s. In their magic floated a healthy assortment of gifts sorted out by coat color. Velvet was carrying most of them—all Night had was a single parcel with lavender wrapping paper.

Velvet eyed the lone package. “Set it down. You don’t have to keep carrying it.”

Night shrugged. “I’m fine.”

Velvet sighed and knocked on the door. “Suit yourself.”

The smell of cinnamon greeted them as Cadance opened the door. “Ha! I knew you’d both get here first! Happy Hearth’s Warming!”

“Happy Hearth’s Warming!” Velvet gave her daughter-in-law a hug. “Where should we put the gifts?”

“Anywhere by the tree’s finnnneee~” Cadance pranced to the kitchen while humming a tune. “Want a cinnamon roll? I just had the kitchens bring up a whole spread of goodies!”

Velvet smiled. “Sure!”

“Make it two!” Night called after her. He took his present over to the tree and gently—gently, set it on the floor.

thud

“Coming right up!” Cadance could still be heard humming from within the kitchen...

CRASH! Tinkle-tinkle...

“Cadance?!” Velvet said.

“I’m okay!” she said. “It was just a plate—”

CRASH-CRASH! Tinkle-tinkle-tinkle...

“...Annnnnnd two glasses. Did you want orange juice, by the way?”

Night and Velvet exchanged looks. Velvet was still carrying the presents, so Night went into the kitchen to help.

Velvet hadn’t known Cadance enjoyed Hearth’s Warming so much. She made a mental note of it as she focused on where to put her presents. There wasn’t a whole lot of room left under the tree, but that was because the presents weren’t organized at all!

“Hmph.” Velvet surveyed her prospects. “We could have this here, and that there. This is for Twily… this is for Spike… Cadance… Night… Night again… Rainbow Dash… Gleaming…”

Velvet was so focused she didn’t notice hoofsteps behind her, nor the gentle wave of warmth that washed over her.

“Hey, Mom.”

Velvet’s ears twitched. “Hey, Honey! Happy Hearth’s Warming!”

“You, too,” said Gleaming. “What’re you doing?”

“Trying to get all the presents under the tree.” Velvet pushed a stacked pile farther back to create an open space. “I swear, it’s like you just chucked all of these under here!”

Gleaming laughed. “Mom, turn around.”

Velvet rolled her eyes. “I’m just trying to—”

“I know,” Gleaming said. “Just turn around a sec.”

Velvet relented. She did as she was asked—

—and promptly dropped all the gifts.

“Surprise!” Gleaming stood at a three-quarter view, prime to show off her bigger, more pregnant belly. “Guess who’s getting a sixth grandchild?”

Velvet’s jaw hung slack.

“—been awhile since I’ve done a Mending spell,” Night said. He and Cadance emerged from the kitchen with rolls and glasses of juice. “Think it was—Velvet! Why’d you drop all the gifts?! What—”

His eyes fell on Gleaming.

“—uhhhhhhhhh…”

Cadance giggled. She sidled over to put a hoof on Gleaming’s middle.

“We made a little discovery last night…”

Knock, knock, knock!

“Gleamy, it’s us!” Twilight said from behind the door. “Are Mom and Dad there?”

“I wanna see!” came Spike’s muffled voice.

“I smell cinnamon rolls!” said Rainbow.

One Explanation Later-

“And that’s what happened,” said Gleaming.

Everypony was in the living room munching on snacks from a supersized breakfast platter. Gleaming was stretched out on the couch, the grand bulge of her womb impossible to ignore while Cadance stood behind preening like a peacock.

“That’s… quite the revelation,” Night managed. “I don’t know what to say.”

Gleaming smirked. “Too bad this isn’t a debate. I’d have finally beat you.”

“So you went up into the mountains last night to… what, again?” Velvet put a hoof behind her head. “I’m sorry, this is a lot to take in…”

“To see if we could figure out any of Gleaming’s other abilities,” Twilight said.

Velvet frowned. “All the way up in the mountains just for that? Really?”

Twilight gave her a tired look. “I was trying to be safe, alright?”

“Well, obviously you were, so NOW will you say what happened up there?!” said Rainbow. “You wouldn’t tell me last night!”

Twilight got a coy smile. “Gleamy?”

Gleaming tapped a hoof to her lips. “Who should we use?”

Twilight pushed Rainbow forward. “Her. She’s the most curious.”

“Wait, what?!”

Cadance winked at her. “Don’t worry, it won’t hurt... Probably.”

“Rainbow, what’s a thing or pony that you hate?” Gleaming asked. “Something that if you saw it right now, it’d make your blood boil. You’d just wanna smash to bits!”

Rainbow wet her lips. “W-Well… I, uh…”

Twilight leaned in and whispered something in her ear.

The effect was immediate. Rainbow’s nostrils flared, her lips curling back in a snarl.

“Yeah,” Rainbow spat. “That’ll do...”

“You don’t mind?” Twilight asked. “It’ll just be a construct, so you can pound it to bits if you want.”

A cruel grin crept up on Rainbow’s face. “Go for it.”

Twilight gestured for everypony to move back. Her horn sparked as her magic gathered in the center of the living room.

FLASH!

Where once had been nothing, there was now a serpent-like creature with feathers, bird-like talons, and VERY sharp teeth. Its beady eyes were alight with malice, and its snout was flecked with spittle and blood. It made an eerie chuffing sound as it laid eyes on Rainbow.

Rainbow made to leap at the serpent—

Zap!

—only to stop dead in her tracks. She stood from her crouch, still glaring, but not making any hostile moves.

…

…

…

“Erm…” Spike scratched his head. “Rainbow?”

Rainbow regarded him. “Sup?”

“What’s with the statue act?”

Rainbow looked back at the monster and sneered. “He’s... not worth the effort.”

Twilight couldn’t hold back her grin. “I don’t think everypony here has read the latest issue of Daring Do. Why don’t you explain who this is, Rainbow??”

Rainbow scoffed. “You guys seriously don’t know? This is Quetzalcoatl, the main villain of Daring Do and the Calendar of Doom. He’s this Grade-A scumbag that—”

Velvet covered her ears. “La-la-la-la-la!”

Rainbow blinked. “Uh...”

Night tilted his head at Velvet. “She hasn’t caught up yet.”

Rainbow chewed on her lip. “Without giving anything away then, Quetzalcoatl’s bad. Like, really, really, REALLY bad. He’s one of those dudes you just love to hate, you know? And he’s SUPER dangerous, so if you ever got the chance in real life and knew who he was, you would end him.”

Twilight nodded. “So why aren’t you?”

Rainbow blinked. She looked over at Gleaming, whose eyes were glinting with dim light.

“Ohhh.” Rainbow pointed. “This is that one thing Twilight can do, but never does 'cause she’s too chicken!”

“Hey!”

Gleaming chuckled. “Pacify. That’s what she and Cady call it.”

There was a murmur around the room.

Twilight dismissed the construct with a pop! “As most of you know, Cadance and I are able to even out volatile and extreme emotions as part of our domains. Aggression, hostility, zealousness, obsession, depression, euphoria.... We found last night that Gleaming can do it, too.”

Gleaming let her power fade. “Phew… it’s definitely not easy, though.”

Cadance rubbed her shoulders. “It’ll come with time.”

“I was half worried it’d be a lot of time snap cycles before we nailed something down, but it was only a few,” Twilight went on. “And now that she knows how to access her magic, it’s just a matter of practice.”

“Practicing what, though?” Night asked. “How is knowing how to use one ability supposed to provide her better control over all of this new magic? I get that this buildup in her reserves is making her prone to magic surges, but if it’s also speeding up the process, shouldn’t she be saving it?”

Twilight shrugged. “It’s not speeding it up THAT much. A few months, half a year, tops. The infusions are basically supplements now, and as Talia put it, the hardest part of all this was ‘priming the engine and turning the key’.”

Night pursed his lips. “Hmm.”

“There no lesson plan I can follow for all this, Dad,” said Gleaming. “Twily and Cady can help here and there, but the only way I’m gonna learn most of this is through trial and error.”

“AND listening to your gut,” Cadance added. “You’d be surprised how often those little urges and ideas prove right. If you get a strong feeling to do something, don’t sit on it.”

Gleaming laughed. “I’ll keep that in mind. But all my gut’s telling me right now is that the kids are hungry, so...” She took eight of the gooey cinnamon rolls from the platter and used magic to smush them all down to a bite-sized morsel.

Twilight’s skin prickled. Those rolls had each been the size of a grapefruit! “You’re still hungry? After everything you ate at breakfast?”

“That’s my secret, Twily.” Gleaming devoured the compressed pastries in a loud gulp. “I’m always hungry.”

Cadance smiled. “I got the biggest platter they had for a reason.”

Twilight watched dumbstruck as Gleaming attacked the platter without mercy. Muffins, toast, hash browns, eggs, hay bacon, sweets... all of it was funneled into her sister’s maw, many of the things compressed down like the rolls so she could eat faster. Gleaming’s belly gurgled and growled, throbbing more and more as each smushed bite became normal size in her stomach, but still she pressed on.

“I… suppose the last twelve hours have been pretty energy-intensive,” Twilight said. “In the throes of a growth spurt, no less…”

Gleaming patted her expanding paunch. “Plus that new mouth to feed.”

“Do we gotta wait until she’s done now?” Spike tapped his foot. “I wanna open up the presents!”

Velvet nuzzled him. “You’ve been patient long enough, sweetie. Go ahead and start.”

“Yesssss!”

“Wait! I call going first!” Cadance said. “Gleamy and I have a proposal for Night and Velvet.”

“Nooooo!”

Night and Velvet quirked their eyebrows.

Cadance came around the couch to sit down beside Gleaming’s head. “Do, erm... either of you know what a crystaller is?”

A pair of blank stares was her answer.

“I figured.” Cadance gestured out the window. “A crystaller is like a godfather or godmother, except the crystal ponies place a lot stronger emphasis on it. They’re present at a new foal’s crystalling, plays a role in the their education, and essentially serves as mentor to them. It’s a pretty big responsibility.”

Night and Velvet looked very thoughtful at this.

Cadance’s smile became forced. “Gleamy and I are obligated to honor the tradition, which would be fine… exceeeeeept tradition dictates there be a different crystaller for each foal. That means if a couple is blessed with twins, they’re expected to have two crystallers. If a couple winds up with sextuplets through shenanigans...”

“You need six crystallers,” Night finished. “Six separate ponies, each expected to play a significant role in the lives of one of your children.”

Rainbow winced. "Talk about a tough sell."

Cadance blushed. “We can’t ask just any old pony to do this. They need to be living in the Empire, they need to be someone we trust, and they need to be someone who can deal with being in the spotlight. You don’t have to answer right away, but what with you two moving here...”

Velvet and Night whispered some things between them.

“Which two would you have us take?” Velvet asked at last.

Gleaming swallowed her latest mouthful. “The alicorns. You’re the best choices, considering you've already raised two.”

“Technically, you’re not an alicorn yet—” said Twilight.

Gleaming shushed her with a pillow.

Night got a playful look in his eye. “But what if we don’t want the alicorns? Maybe we just want one of the normal ones. What if we want to mix and match—”

Velvet punched his arm.

“We understand,” she said to Gleaming. “Those two are going to have the most eyes on them, so you'll want to be most careful who you let into their lives. Our only concern is that if we’re expected to pay special attention to them, the other four will see it as it’s favoritism.”

Cadance’s ears drooped. “I can’t promise what they’ll think. They could be fine with Grandma and Grandpa spending more time with their sisters, or they could start to get jealous. Your guess is as good as ours.”

“There’s nothing simple about this.” Gleaming put a hoof on her belly. “We can’t guarantee anything.”

Velvet sighed. “Then I suppose it’ll be up to all of us to drive the point home. But you two better be as adamant about it as we are! We can’t be giving them mixed messages.”

“Kids will say whatever to each other, but as long as the grown-ups practice what they preach, the message will get through,” said Night. “Solidarity and consistency are what’ll win out.”

Cadance leaned forward. “Does… does that mean you’ll do it? You’ll both be crystallers?!”

Night rested his hoof on Velvet’s. “Yes, Cadance. We’ll do it. We’ll join your crystaller brigade.”

“YES!” Cadance sprang forward and hugged both of them. “Thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou!”

“NOW can we do presents?!” Spike demanded.

Gleaming smiled. “Tear into ‘em, Bud.”

He was over by the tree in an instant.

Subtly, Twilight came over beside Gleaming to whisper in her ear. "Not counting Mom and Dad, how many total crystallers have you gotten so far?”

Gleaming snorted. “Zero.”

Twilight facehooved.

Author's Notes:

This chapter concludes Part 2 of the story. The remaining 20 weeks of the pregnancy will make up Part 3, which is the final portion. As you might have gathered, the goals and objectives of the story have become more clear here--not only is Gleaming going to be experiencing everything that comes with late term pregnancy, but she's also going to be discovering more about her budding powers and how they fit into her overall domain.

Part 3 is going to be a journey of self-discovery for Gleaming. There will still be plenty of emphasis on her pregnancy (this is a fetish fic after all) but her experiences will all tie into who she ultimately becomes. I look forward to writing it all out, and I hope you all enjoy the ride!