Time has passed, I don't know how long.

My wounds healed quickly, almost all that was broken in my body was made whole again. I never healed that fast, nor did I ever imagine myself being able to. But instead of being able to heal properly to the fullest extent, I was dragged off to another room by one of these damn creepy-looking dolls. They had me bound to a table as they transported me to another room in what appeared to be some unusual medical wing of a hospital. The only difference was that the smell of death was ever present here, be it a faint trace or a rancid void. The results varied from each room I passed along the way.

Once I was moved into the new room, I was sat on a device that had me on all fours like a pony. But instead of it being for ponies, the straps around my ankles indicated that this was built specifically with human anatomy in mind. And though the indentures where my knees were seated were comfortable, I was far from that.

The driving point of that discomfort: My lack of clothes.

The seats where my knees were rested had separated more and more until I was firmly planted against the padded rest where my torso was supported. My arms were strapped to a pair of padded pylons, with grooves built for the restraints of my wrists and elbows.

Much of my body was still waking from the numb that those medicines induced. But the horror of being in this unfamiliar place, this ward filled with so much death, all of it remained. I couldn't even ask the questions of how I even got here when I don't even know where I am or what day it is. Where do I even begin?

A cold hoof was placed on my backside, causing me to seize up. "Shh, relax." Umbra walked from the side of the room, lightly guiding his hoof up my spine as he spoke. "Just imagine the new world of pleasure you're bound to embark."

As if that made me any more comfortable. I'm tied up, stark naked with my legs propped apart and he's expecting me to relax when I don't even know what's coming or where I am. All I could do was try to move myself out of position. But alas, the numb was still present.

Meanwhile, Umbra had gotten himself a clip board and a pen to jot down some notes of my condition. Going through a checklist of things, he nodded quietly as to count off the preparations for what he would do next. He also summoned a tape recorder, bringing it close to his lips whenever he spoke out his observations. "Doctor's log #17495792. Genus-species categorization: Homo Sapien, Subject number in file #0000001. Subject in control phase, appears to be unsteady and nervous. Life-signs are stable. Control variable number issued #0000000. Establishing contact. Initiating phase zero of study. Stimulation process initiating... standby."

The tape recorder clicked off and his magic started to grasp at me down below. His grasp was gentle, but there was an eagerness about his pace. I tried not to look at him as he conducted his perverted experiment, I instead focused on a point of interest, trying not to behold the face of this sadistic researcher.

The tape clicked on again. "Subject is uncooperative in control phase. Restarting stimulation process... standby."

He used his magic to tilt my head towards him. Making sure that my eyes couldn't avoid his face. I closed my eyes, thinking of how I wanted to go back home. His attempt to force me into arousal had completely failed, and he lost patience with the attempt.

"Subject is unresponsive to ministrations. Additional course of stimulation required. End control phase." With the conclusion of that report, I knew that he wouldn't give up so easily. Thankfully, the numbness in my arms and legs had subsided enough for me to be able to move them. Though it didn't matter much, I was still just as compromised as ever. Umbra walked over to me and started caressing my cheek with his hoof. "Aw, what's wrong? Are you nervous about the lab?" He brought his hoof to my chin, forcing my eyelids open with his magic to look at him. "Trust me, I can assure you that you'll be quite used to it in the coming time. Try not to focus too much on trivial things like minutes, hours, or days. You leave that bit of record-keeping for me to sort out. Right now, it's all about us."

He walked off to a nearby table, grabbing a small phial of liquid and injecting a needle for extraction. He didn't fill the entire needle, just only a small portion of it. He walked back over to me, injecting it into a tube that fed into my arm.

"Beginning phase one. Intravenous application of drug Σ #001426 successful. Awaiting results." When he finished speaking into his tape recorder, he introduced the small phial of liquid over to me. "You know that really special drug that helps some stallions keep up a little longer in bed? Well this was one of it's earlier recipes I drafted way back when. In fact, what's out there on the market now is the formula Σ #001428, a heavily diluted version of the one I'm giving you now. In fact, Σ1428 is the codename for the drug Sildenafil, the only difference is that the powdered version was further diluted and compressed into pill form. But if you use enough, it might cause adverse cardiovascular reactions like heart attack and stroke. But Σ1426 has a bit of an addictive element in it, hence why it was so heavily diluted. Too much and it makes you into a sex-crazed fiend. That's why I had to give you a small dose. Small dose, smaller chance of addiction, smaller risk of adverse side effects."

To my misfortune, that formula was just as effective as the pain-killer he gave me to help me heal. It did just as he advertised. The numbness throughout my body was quickly flushed out and replaced with a sudden rush of arousal. All sensitivity to even the air around me was so damn intense that the slightest breeze was tickling my skin. I can only imagine having this kind of stuff in your system while wearing clothes would be a hell in and of itself.

My body rebelled strongly against my intentions, even so far as to raise a mutiny against the brain. The only thing that was in control was my growing erection. Umbra watched with excitement as I came into form. "In speaking of dose size, I must say that I am not disappointed with what you're offering me here." With a smile on his face, he started making note of his observations. "Subject is experiencing swelling of the phallus, this is considered normal reactionary behavior. Now beginning sensitivity assessments. Phase one, control study initiated." He put the tape down and whispered in my ear, being careful to not touch me in any way. "Just sit tight for me, honey. I need to see if you're going to burst at the slightest breeze. Now what it will do is that it will automatically stimulate you until you hit your plateau. It's how I gauge the maximum size of your phallus."

Just hearing the scientific terminology was already a turn-off as it is. But that didn't matter to my body. What mattered was the sensations going through it. My body showed positive responses to the tingling running it's course all over my skin. It felt as though several feathers had lightly brushed all over every inch and orifice of me. And being that some of those areas were indeed intimate, some parts of me could only respond in a positive way.

Umbra took notice of my trying to resist, but found greater amusement in how my body showed a contrarian response. "Oh, yours is interesting. Yours doesn't flare out like an equine would. But it does flare up in a different way. Glans will harden and will deepen in color. The corona of glans actually expands outwards by a small amount, but the rigidity is so distinct." Just the fact that he spoke had gotten me closer, it made me feel a deep shame as my body showed favor to his experiment, so much so that he too began to feel aroused in seeing it take place. "Oh sweet mercy, you specimen... I might have to keep myself calm. It's no fun to pop the cork when there's no occasion for it." A quick glance in his direction was what told me how eager he was to make his next set of notes. "Pre-ejaculate appears to be a very viscous fluid that almost resembles a spider's web when trickling from the glans. Now collecting sample for further analysis." He levitated a microscope and a sample slide to the side of us, reaching down beneath me to collect his desired sample. He cheered me on as he did so. "I can't wait to see what you'll do in the non-contact trials. I'm so excited."

Upon a brief observation, he clopped his hooves together to show his exuberance. "Take a look at this." He said, rushing the eye of the microscope to me to view. I only obliged him and looked because I wouldn't have to see his face, or him coming to full-mast. "Do you see all of that, swimming with life? That's all within you, the essence of what gives you your potency. These are the little specialist forces that are known for getting the job done, even when you're not fully finished with the work." The tiniest bit of contact with the microscope hadn't done me any favors either. While it did give me a distraction, my contact with it still had a similar reaction like earlier. I reached my peak, plateaued, and came back down. The stallion looked underneath and giggled. "Another sample, for me? Surely you wouldn't be so modest." He replied in a flamboyant manner. "Initiating taste phase." He reported. I felt myself twitching as he held his mouth open to collect another sample in the most inappropriate manner. "Not fully bitter, rather neutral on the palate. Signs indicate that subject's diet is indeed prioritized for breeding purposes. Test concludes that subject is ready for the next phase. Now initiating phase two, direct-contact sensitivity."

The stallion didn't waste any time, he just moved upward and allowed himself to intercept me with his lips. I clenched my eyes shut, refusing to even acknowledge him underneath me. The only thing I could think of to do at the moment was to think of something unappealing, like the monster I had just fought. Fighting in general, humanities worst crimes, the horrors of nuclear radiation applied to the human body.

Umbra made a surprise move, causing me to shoot my eyes wide open and see that his hoof had reached all the way around to my buttocks, pulling them apart as to prod his hoof closer. I seized to resist his touch, but he was more so intrigued by my lower-extremity's reactions. He quickly made note of it. "Oh! Subject can clench muscles at will and cause the phallus to act in a manner similar to that of equine males. pre-ejaculate response has greatly increased." The panting he did underneath me was so embarrassing and unbearable. "Altering course of direct-contact research to indirect-contact methods."

He climbed from under me and walked over to his table of tools. But instead of pulling out something scientific or medically appropriate, he pulled out a single solitary stone that glowed a dull orange. He also brought out a tube of what appeared to be a lubricant. My eyes widened at the horror of what direction this experiment was taking. Meanwhile, he smirked as he walked around to my backside.

I was quick to regain my voice then. "Oh no, no you don't!"

He applied a magic spell to cut my voice short of any further protest. Once it was established that I couldn't speak, he placed a hoof on my buttocks and gently whispered into my ear. "There there. I know what you're thinking. This isn't your thing. But I can assure you that your reactionary response to such items will be a heavy indicator of some of your previously undiscovered breaking points. You may even find that you'll like it. And given the circumstances, I am more than willing to see just how far you will respond to this alternate course of stimulation." He applied the lubricant and eased the stone in with his magic. He also rubbed my stomach to try and comfort me. "So please relax. Deep breaths. I don't want to cause you harm."

I continued to clench myself, denying all entrance. But his magic had other plans. Instead of my being able to firmly resist, he massaged my testicles to ease the resistance in my body, playing off of the arousal brought by that drug he injected into me earlier. I activated my magic in hopes that it would that I would fight him off. But my magic was quenched as soon as I started the process. The cuffs had been laced with sodium. I grunted as I tried to resist him, shifting my weight to avoid it, all of it, only to fail in the end. The shame and disgust was real this time. I couldn't even think of myself as a man with how this was going. I couldn't defend myself, I can't escape, I can't resist. The only thing I could do was be forced to accept what he was doing to me.

Oh God, if you are real, why do you let me live to see this?

"Insertion complete, now initiating stimulation phase."

The rock began to glow warmly, issuing tremors throughout my body. I felt my nails digging into my palms with how badly I wanted this to stop. I tried to take deep breaths and work past it, but it was far too strong for me. The stone was pressed further into me, until it hit a certain spot. I tried shifting my weight again, I tried passing it back out, but with where it was, every small movement I made had made the sensation worse. It felt like I had started to pee myself, except that I wasn't doing any of that. Instead, I was just peaking and pooling an immense amount of precum.

He made record of the developing situation, all as I braced for the inevitable failure of my resistance. "Stimulation, sixty percent. Prostate is applying a heavy dose of pre-ejaculate. Subject is reaching... climax?"

As soon as he said it, it was all over for me. I could hear the tiny drops beneath me before the powerful surge in my loins hit my body like the monster I fought. It was an unwanted discovery, I groaned and tried to suppress any signs of my emotions for a while, I couldn't let this sadist see me being as upset as I truly felt. But my voice trembled like it, my eyes clenched to visualize home as I was coming back down.

Umbra took notice of my orgasm and brought another two dishes to collect samples, one for observation and the other for tasting. As if to congratulate a kid on his first time using the toilet on his own, he patted me on my side and whispered into my ear. "Oh good boy. That's a good boy. Oh that's a big boy, making all of that for me." I tried my best to suck it up, not showing any kind of emotion to what had just happened. He removed the stone from within me and I heard it fall to the ground with a crack. Next, I heard him shushing me in my ear.

But his weight adjusted.

I looked back to see that he had completely boxed himself over me. I tried to shift myself in whatever direction, fighting like hell to move away as I felt him against me, taking aim for where his magic guided him. I started to scream in protest, but he successfully aligned himself. He continued to shush me as his forelegs wrapped around my abdomen. The bonds that held me shook frantically as I tried to jolt myself free. With a shiver of satisfaction, he climbed onto me and whispered in my ear.

"Shh... it's okay. It's just a little pop. Just a little..."

At Canterlot Castle...
***Point of Perspective: Melanie Brewer***

Discord was kind enough to port us directly over to my apartment where we could cross back over to Canterlot. It was all five of us, me, Rick, Cliff, Stanton, and Alex. Once we got through, we could hear the halls outside full of noise. The castle seemed a lot busier than usual. We walked right out the portal room to see a contingent of armed guards running down the halls, making sure that the castle was secured. Perhaps we had gotten ourselves into the middle of a battle. Either way, we needed to see the princess about what was going on.

Along our way we came into contact with one of the guards Nondis worked with recently. She was issuing her orders to many of the lower-ranked patrols looking for instructions. "Make sure that the castle grounds are secure! Comb every bush, check every tree, inspect every brick, nook and cranny! And get those bodies burning immediately!"

"Yes sir!" The group of guards called out before running past us. As they departed, the mare collapsed against a nearby wall and started breathing heavy.

Alex walked over and checked in on her. "Hey, we just came in. What's going on?"

"EVERYTHING!" She shouted in a panic. "The elements are missing, there's dead bodies raining all over Canterlot, and they were MOVING! One of the bodies, a senator who's murder crime scene I had to oversee had walked right out of the morgue and sent the captain to get snatched up by some hellish creature. I mean, not that the senator was any less of a hellish creature himself!"

"Wait time-out!" Rickey called out. "What creature came and snatched up Nondis?"

"I-I-I don't know!" She stuttered. "Whatever the hell that thing was crashed the gate at the main checkpoint. And then there are citizens having a frenzy out there over what they saw!" She put her hoof on her head, trying to control herself. "Equestria's in shambles, the princesses are trying to organize, and our captain's gone to that creature that just showed up. And now I don't know how to deal with any of it!"

"Hey!" Alex called out to the mare. "Breathe, slowly."

"How can I breathe slowly when I can't even begin to put any of this together!?" She questioned frantically.

Alex knelt down and placed his hands on her shoulders. "If anything, we're here to help. Also..." He took off his jacket to reveal the purple diamond he wore on his shirt. "...I think we just got our marching orders."

The mare stammered for a moment, looking in disbelief as we all revealed our jewels to her. Cliff flipped his chain over to reveal his, Rickey flipped his belt to reveal his, Stanton lifted his sleeve to show his wrapped around his wrist like a bracelet, and I moved one of my bangs to show mine hiding in my hair. "HOW IN EQUESTRIA DO YOU HAVE THOSE!?"

"We don't know." I explained. "All I can tell you is that they showed up on us just today. And your captain, our friend, that's your sixth right there."

"And if you saying that he got got by that thing we saw on Tuesday, we might really need to have a talk with the princess." Cliff added.

The mare took Alex's advice and took a moment to breathe and recollect. "Okay. You're element bearers for all I can assume. I got plenty of questions, but I'm in no position to ask them. And since you're responding to a matter of national security, you get red carpet access. Follow me."

We walked through the halls, seeing an assortment of ponies collecting a number of things. There was one hall where the guardsmare flinched before taking off her helmet and grabbing a nearby cloth from one of the maids, wrapping it around her muzzle.

"It's gonna get bad. Cover up or hold your breath if you can."

We walked through the hall, not truly understanding what she meant with that warning. But it didn't take long to realize what it was she was warning us about. There was an absolutely putrid smell in the hall, a smell that had me getting flashbacks about the incident where we found Count in my apartment. "SHIT, Goddamn, what is that!?" Stanton questioned.

"That is the smell of a decomposing body." I replied as I covered my nose with my shirt.

"I know you lyin', stop it." Cliff called out to me.

"She's not wrong." The guardsmare replied as we turned the corner, Along our way, we saw a deposit of at least seven body bags stashed up against the wall.

"Oh shit that is!" Cliff called out as he two guards move a badly decomposed corpse across the hall.

The odor itself triggered Alex's gag reflex. He quickly covered his nose and mouth. "Oh fuck, that is bad!"

"Is the princess doing anything about this?" Rick questioned.

"Processing takes up to three hours, sometimes longer. And the castle doesn't have the equipment to deal with cremations on a scale of a morgue. We're just getting whatever we can find out of the street. Our orders are to ID them, tag them, bag them, and burn them efficiently with respect. Pyres take up to six and eight hours to burn a body, but not thoroughly. Something about the temperature not being high enough."

"So what's with the morgue?" I asked.

"The morgue is already on backfill." She replied. "There's nothing we can do but this."

As we passed by a collection of bodies, we saw a familiar face angrily debating with some of the medical staff that were identifying the corpses. "WHY DID YOU NOT BURN HIM! I DEMAND TO KNOW!"

"Well with all due respect, ma'am, we were already using some of our facilities to help with the backlog over at the morgue. We couldn't do anything other than have him in cold storage!"

"ABEG! Please! Burn him, give him rest!" She mourned loudly, grabbing the attention of several other workers.

Rickey walked over, holding his shirt over his nose as he spoke to the zebra. "Kalimba, holy hell, is everything okay?"

"No! It is not!" She hollered before putting a hoof to her muzzle and kneeling over to weep. I didn't understand what was going on with her, but she seemed to be in great pain. I really wanted to be there for her, at least to offer some words of sympathy and encouragement.

Before I had the idea of approaching her on my own... "Hey, give her a moment." Alex walked over to Rick and grabbed him to pull him along. As we walked away, we heard the zebra belt out a painful shriek. Alex looked back and winced at the sound of her voice. "Okay. Keeping it short. That's probably her dad."

"Her dad?" Rickey asked. "That's the same guy who sold her off. Why would she be like that all over her dad of all other people?"

"He was found murdered, with the word 'obey' cut into his stomach." The guardsmare summarized.

"Oh dear lord." I muttered in a gasp.

"Wow, ponyland got real hardcore since we last showed up, didn't it?" Stanton questioned.

"Dude, we racked up changelings against a wall and executed them by firing squad." Alex replied. "Do we really have any room to speak here?"

"But that's some 'First 48' type shit." Cliff pointed out.

"Hello, my apartment?" I added as we walked along. "None of this is new. We know what we were running from, we know what Ummie can do. We know why some of us are in hiding. If anything, the longer they keep those bodies in here, the longer we're at risk, the human world is at risk right now."

"So you're saying that the elements might have chose us because of that?" Rick asked.

"You heard Nondis' warning. Ummie will take our fucking bodies and turn them into puppets to move around with. That's how bad it is. And considering that he's still holding on to Jasper, who's to say that he can't use those bodies to move around bodies... or worse, that thing?"

The guardsmare stopped as we approached the throne room. "Well whatever that thing is, it brought the crown seat of Equestria to it's knees."

As the door opened, we could see a gathering of armored guards, atypical of the standard gold armor that the many others had. Each of them donned silver armor. The group of guards all huddled around the throne as the princess issued her orders to them. "I don't care if you find him in the mountain, the valley, the river, the sky, Canterrot for all I care! Find the captain immediately, that order is final!!!"

"Yes, your majesty." The group called out before dispersing. The princess closed her eyes as she rose from her seat, pacing back and forth.

"It was a moment! A moment, Celestia! Can you do nothing right!?"

As we all got closer the princess stopped pacing and cleared her throat. Almost as if he was our de-facto leader of the pack, Alex spoke out to the distressed princess. "Your highness, we came as soon as we could."

"Alex, your brother─" Celestia began before she was interrupted.

"We were told that the elements have a healing factor for it's bearers, I think Rainbow Dash explained to us that if we get hurt, we still can bounce back relatively quickly. So in short, I can assume that Nondis is not dead."

"Him being dead is not the issue. Him being missing is the peril that puts Equestria at risk."

"Your highness, with all due respect, our world is just as imperiled as yours." I added. "The longer these bodies stay rotting in the halls, the more chances Ummie gets to walk around and do God-knows-what. He's playing literal chess with his corpses and right now, all his pieces are circling around us. If anything gets to you, that's the game and he moves on to our world."

Stanton then spoke. "I know it seems suspicious that we have the elements─"

"Melanie is right." She jumped in, looking to me. "Your intuition is on the mark. If all else fails here, he gains access to your world." Her horn began to glow brightly as she cast a beam to the ground, showing a diagram of an unknown shadow creature sending tendrils out to various ponies. "Say that we go by Nondis' theory. If the creature moves in accordance to whatever body Umbra has at his disposal, much like he would, then it is be possible for the creature to spawn into your world. In turn, Umbra too would have access to that world as well. And if he can use human bodies for that same purpose, then all he has to do is move them around much like he would a pony here."

"And shooting a dead body isn't going to result in anything but him being able to use it all over again." Rick added.

"The same could be applied for that creature." The guardsmare added. "Senator Somber Spiral didn't just hop out of the morgue, he was moved in a specific position until the time was right for him to reveal that hoof. The captain showed up to barricade the castle from that thing, but it showed up here, which means that it is literally taking over bodies. This is a class-X threat, this threatens the natural order and puts all of Equestria at great peril."

"Not just you guys, remember?" Cliff jumped in. "If anything like that pops off, the whole fucking arsenal of the United States Armed Forces might be aiming at Mel's apartment. And if it gets bad in our world... there's solutions, but they aren't good in any way."

"It's going to be chaotic." Rickey explained. "Not everybody likes listening to directions, and there are others who don't listen to reason or logic. Some will cite religious reasons for why bad things happen. And we live in Texas of all places, can you imagine how that will pan out?"

"Oh God." Alex said with a horrific realization. "Walking bodies, raising the dead, omnipresence, and magic? Guy would pass as the Antichrist real fucking quick. And there will be religious nutjobs all looking at that with all the fucking stupidity in the world. Radicalizing televangelists telling people to follow the rebirth of Christ as he works 'wonders and miracles' to the human world before casting the world into chaos for the possibility of having more bodies to use."

"Society would fall apart as we know it." I thought aloud. "And it won't just be Texas either. Oklahoma, Louisiana, Arkansas, the whole Bible Belt. Hell, just name any state with a heavily evangelical voter-base and you got a whole crusading cache of weapon enthusiasts ready to go on a crusade for a pony leading them on."

"And don't think for one second it won't play into our global politics." Stanton said. "It's as Mel said, get a bunch of evangelical voters, and we'll be brought so far back that we won't even be able to say Civil Rights. And in terms of a global response, the crusading armies of these hyper-religious zealots will be fanning their bibles at every Middle-Eastern country for supremacy, more than they already do now. And to make the 'rapture' happen, they'll probably vote the guy in office and have him hold the big red button. And if he has that and learns what it can do... humanity is truly doomed."

Celestia quietly tried to piece together the issues of our social and global political talking points. The guardsmare spoke up in her place. "I take it that big red button means a bad thing."

"Think of a bomb that can wipe clean an entire city the size of Manehattan." Alex explained to the mare, who's eyes grew with shock. "...Now, imagine having access to six-thousand of those same weapons, each of varying grades of destruction." He then pointed his commentary to the princess. "Your highness, I'm sure Nondis told you of Hiroshima. Let's take that, multiply that by three-thousand, that's one event with all that power... Now add just another one thousand of those. That isn't just millions of lives..."

"Of course not... It's billions." She replied with a chill. Already weighing the seriousness of the situation, she stayed on our world's potential collapse for not another second. "Those elements know who to choose. You all are the hope of your world, maybe even ours as well."

"Okay, so lets get this train moving." Rick called out eagerly. "Sooner we get these things to do what they do, the sooner we go home. We got five of the things, so we should be able to win."

"It's not like that." The princess warned. "The elements operate with a fail-safe in mind. If one is missing or separated from the cause of the other five, then all will be rendered useless. It requires the unity of each element and the inherent traits of those respective elements. Hence why it requires the bonds of six strong friends. Your bonds are truly strong, but they are greater when Nondis is with you."

Stanton grumbled a complaint. "Why is that even a thing? We need to use these things to save Nondis, so we can save the world. What's the point of us even having the things if we can't even use them? How do we go without?"

"That's where we come in." All of us turned around to see the group of six ponies walking through the door. Applejack, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, Rarity, Rainbow Dash, and Twilight Sparkle all approached us, standing in line with each respective element bearer. The only one who stood by herself was Twilight, who continued to speak. "You five will be on standby until we can get Nondis back. The six of us still have our powers granted to us by the Tree of Harmony. We were hoping to have the elements as a backup, but seeing that they're needed elsewhere, we'll be satisfied with what we have."

"You guys are pretty lucky that the elements chose you when they did." Rainbow said boisterously as she flew over to Rickey. "Alright, so let's see the goods."

Rarity walked up to Alex, watching as he showed the purple broach. "Now that is a good fashion statement, darling."

Applejack walked up to Alex as he rolled up his sleeve to show his element. "So, Ah hear ya got that fancy ol' unicorn magic now."

Stanton replied to the farm pony. "And I still can't control it."

"Well you're in the right place. There are plenty of ponies who will be able to help you get started." Fluttershy said as she walked up to me, complimenting me on how I wore my element. "I never thought to wear it in my mane, but I think that way is probably the cutest way to wear it. It really goes so well on you."

While I thanked the usually-timid mare, Cliff walked out with his on his neck. "I still don't get why mine is a balloon."

Pinkie walked up to him and turned to her flank. "Uh, duh."

"Okay, now I see it."

Twilight's head dropped as she closed her eyes, imagining the final human standing before her. "You been wanting to learn about magic this entire time. Look where it's brought you now. I couldn't be more proud of you." She opened her eyes to see only the empty space standing before her. She began wiping her eyes of the few tears that formed. She immediately perked up and stood tall, placing the pain behind her. "Okay girls, the elements are secure."

"All except one, darling." Rarity said as she looked over to her side.

"Party doesn't start till Nonny walks in." Pinkie cosigned, doing the same.

"Then lets go get him." Rainbow answered.

"But where do we even start?" Fluttershy questioned.

"Ah reckon we start where he was seen last." Applejack suggested. "And I guess that means we pay a visit to the bad side of town."

"But Canterrot is where that thing might be!" The guardsmare replied. "What if something bad happens to you while you're there?"

"Well I believe that will be a job for you to protect them, Solemn Oath." Said Celestia, addressing the guardsmare who voiced her concerns.

"M-M-Me? I don't even know my way around Canterrot, much less giving a tour of the place!" Solemn replied.

"We got your back." Stanton replied as he flexed his muscles. "All we need to do is head by the armory and stock up before we head out. We load up, we're good."

"Maybe we can scope out what it is we're fighting."

"Discord, you'll be coming along." Fluttershy called out to the space around us.

As if he was hiding in her mane, the creature poked his head out and spoke. "As if I would let you go in a place like that and let anything happen to you."

"I know a little bit of my way around Canterrot." Twilight explained. "Perhaps I can take them down the main alley and we can get to the arena from there."

The guardsmare sighed in resignation, realizing that she was going to have to go in with us. "Well at least you have one pony who's good with close quarters combat."

"Why do all of that when we know a shortcut?"

We turned around to see Alabaster walking in with both his sister and Kalimba, who appeared very angry with what was going on. Blue comforted the zebra before walking up. "You don't need to take the alleyway and bring attention to yourself. We could just take the emergency route leading to the VIP Lounge. It works both ways, to-and-from. We can move in the group we currently have, all we have to do is be diligent and stay together."

Kalimba walked forward with a stern warning. "Your highness, we must get rid of dese bodies, and we must do so as best as we can."

"We can't! We don't have enough resources to get rid of them in a respectful manner!" Solemn Oath argued.

"Do nothing and we won't get to die in a respectful manner!" She vehemently replied. "I am speaking on behalf of de many who's families have to be notified of dis situation. Either dey go... or we join dem."

"We still don't have a crematorium capable of disposing all twenty-five bodies we recovered thus far." She argued once more.

"Abeg! How is it dat we do not have a room big enough to put a small sun in?"

Solemn looked at the zebra as if she had gone mad. "How do we put a sun in a room?"

"Idjiot! Why don't you ask de only pony who can move one!?"

All of our collective expressions popped light bulbs as we looked to Celestia, who wasn't slow to catch on. And she didn't take long to put together a plan. "Shining Armor, report!" She called out.

The aforementioned prince teleported into the room alongside Prince Blueblood, who spoke with the princess. "I take it we're going to finally do something about the body situation."

"I know it's a tall order to have you both do this, but it must be done." The princess began as she started her address with the young prince. "Shining, I need you and a squad to remove all banners and tapestries from within the royal chapel. I want that place absolutely clean of all royal valuables and assets!" She turned to Blueblood. "Blueblood, I need you to jot down the information of every body that we have found so far. When you confirm the identity, move those bodies into the chapel as quick as you can. Bag them so that they can hold up during the transportation process. If you cannot find any bags, get them there in one piece by any means necessary."

The two princes bowed before her. "Your highness."

"The only authorized parties that are allowed in the are are the ones moving the assets, and the ones transporting the bodies. Any pony who is caught perusing the area outside of those designated parties are to be arrested immediately! I don't have time for mistakes or lapses, I want this to be done all at once! We have one shot at this per day, or I won't be able to raise the sun! So do as I say, not as I do, and DON'T FUCK UP!"

"Wow, tactical F-bomb ready for launch." Stanton joked at the princess swearing.

Celestia shook as the two princes teleported away. She shuddered as she spoke. "This is the first time I have to deal with something like this in all my thousand plus years of life, much less the scale that it's on. I'm sorry that you had to see that side of me."

"Honey, you're crushing it." I replied with a smile. "I wouldn't be nearly as calm as you are. An F-bomb is a pretty appropriate verbal approach for the situation we're in."

The princess took a deep breath, appearing sad as she questioned Kalimba. "...How much time do we have until Umbra moves?"

The zebra appeared deeply upset as she answered the princess. "...We have a day. Two at most."

"That long? Why would he take that long to make his next move?" Alex questioned.

Kalimba slowly looked to us and sadly replied. "...Because when he has something he likes, he tends to take his sweet time with it. And considering how he felt about Nondis, and what he did to me..." Kalimba stopped before she could finish, probably not wanting to say what was on her mind.

But Alabaster concluded where Kalimba would not speak. "...Your brother will never be the same... as a man."

Meanwhile in the Unknown Lab...

With sweat on his brow and a smile on his face, Umbra laid atop of the human and repeatedly stroked his hair as he nuzzled him. He kissed him on his back, taking great care as to be gentle to the unmoving person. The stallion took great pride in his work, very much satisfied with his session.

He whispered into the man's ear. "You know, this entire time I've been dozing off alongside you."

The human did not respond.

"Still not talking?" The stallion questioned, getting no response. He slid up to kiss the man's cheek. "I know what you're feeling right now. I do, I've been there before. It's not as terrible as you make it out to be, it's more like a bad day at school. I know you had one of those, didn't you?" The human did not respond. "Ah, of course you did. You had that one day when Melanie first rejected you. It's a shame, she didn't know who you would become, how great you truly were. But life is full of missed opportunities. If you take one path, you're bound to miss another."

The human did not respond.

Reaching down, he lifted the human's chin before rubbing his cheek against the other. "I know you're hungry. Our little romp session had to really take it out of you, the way you were thrashing about. But I'm gonna really give you what you deserve, a nice healthy helping of fruits and veggies. And I'm gonna give you some water also, don't want you getting dehydrated while we have our time together. Okay?"

Again. No response.

"Okay then. When we get finished up and reenergized, it'll be your turn to give me what I want. So sit tight, I won't be long." The stallion stood up to stretch himself, looking back at his work as he did so. "Wow, I left a terrible mess. Maybe I should bring back a tub and a sponge. Gotta make sure you're all nice and tidy, don't want you feeling like filth."

The stallion left the room, closing the door behind him.

The moment Alabaster made his point clear to Alex, that's when he stormed out the room to blow off some steam. I mean I felt the same way, I didn't want to believe that Nondis was getting what he was getting, but I had to think about who I was talking about. Hell, I caught a stray with how he wanted to make a point to Nondis to begin with. All I knew was that I had every reason to justify castration after hearing what Alabaster said. That means that Alex had every intention to turn him into a hunting trophy.

When we finished our debriefing, we immediately set out to the barracks to load up on weapons. As soon as we arrived, everyone cleared out of our way. They could probably see the scowls on our faces as we passed. Even Solemn stepped aside as she waited for us to get ready.

But that process came to a screeching halt as soon as we opened the door.

The stench of death and decay, the room was rife with it. Some of the weapons had a putrid sludge had all of us gagging, the first order of business was to send in one of us to grab clean weapons, another to go in and grab ammo, and then another to grab any instance of smokes for cover.

Even that process was hindered to a degree. There was no signs of smoke grenades anywhere. All the shotgun ammunition was gone. And most of the shotguns had been sludged on. Even the rifle Alex wanted, that was covered in the stuff too. When we asked what the hell this stuff was, Twilight explained to us in gruesome detail that when something dies, the juices in our bodies putrefy and create this unbelievably odorous sludge.

Safe to say that Alex's favorite weapon was out of the question now.

We still loaded up with enough ammo to take on a small army. Solemn took up a crossbow. Rainbow Dash took a spear, Rarity took up a sword, and Kalimba took on a revolver and a pair of pliers... not sure why she took those. But once we were loaded up, we headed out to the city streets through a secondary checkpoint, since the main gate was heavily damaged in the earlier attack.

Alabaster and Blue took point of our group. While I had concerns of such a large group traveling together and how we would go noticed by a majority of citizens, Blue made sure that we weren't seen by anyone in the slightest bit. Twilight also contributed her magic to assist in the effort. Along the way we could see some damage to certain vendor stalls that were shut down throughout the city streets. Some other guards were carefully flying up corpses from concerned families and business owners. They made their way to the castle to be gathered with the others.

It seemed that Celestia had a lot of work to do.

It took us about an hour to navigate the damaged streets and get around to where this secret passage was supposed to be. Instead, Twilight noted that the area was actually adjacent to a high school, which in my opinion was an unusual place to have an access point to an illegal fight club arena.

Alabaster waved his hoof in front of a section of bricks, his horn glowing to reveal a set of runes that gave access to the passageway. The wall then resembled a fluid-like surface that both he and his sister sank through to inspect the area. When they confirmed that it was empty, they gave us the okay to move on ahead.

Our walk through the passage was a cold yet mesmerizing journey. The walls were covered in crystals and gems, reflecting the lights illuminated from the horns of every unicorn in our party. Our distorted reflections would occasionally catch us off guard, but we would recognize that it was nothing more than just that and keep ourselves moving. A few moments later, we came to a large hulking crystal that appeared to have the same runes set on it. Again, Alabaster walked through first and did his usual thing. But instead of the surface of the crystal being a fluid-like portal, it just glowed and turned into a doorway leading into a red and gold hallway.

When we walked in, Alabaster groaned as he looked around. "Welcome to where the nightmares begin."

"A place where you can realize your most perverted fantasies and some of your worst nightmares, including the most hideous crimes you'll ever bear witness to." Blue cosigned.

"A haven for rich criminals who hold some of de highest pedestals in society." Kalimba announced quietly.

"So this was the captain's stomping grounds every Tuesday and Friday?" Solemn questioned. "This place almost looks like a high-class casino."

"Well it's just as Kali said. This is where the high-rollers usually come to get their fix." Rickey responded as he grasped a hold of his weapon. "I wonder what all these walls have seen."

"Nothing good." Kalimba answered as she took us to a room. She summoned a key and unlocked the room, giving us access to what appeared to be a box-seat for the arena. "If you look down below, you might get to see a clean-up crew or two replacing de dirt. On other times like dis, it would be carnage."

"What kind of carnage are we talking?" I inquired. "Like cage-match fights, knockout punches, fights with bats and pipes?"

"Looks like a gladiator arena." Stanton observed as he walked over to the window. "If the arena floor was more rectangular, this place would look a lot like an outdated football bowl."

Cliff looked down to see the crew working to lay out some sand to cover some spots of blood. "Ugh... And Nondis is still alive somewhere."

"The better question is where?" Fluttershy asked as she looked around the arena before her ears flared up and she immediately covered her eyes. "Oh my!"

"What?" Twilight questioned as she ran over. We all tried to point out what it was that had surprised the timid mare. Instead she had pointed to a pair down below who had gotten themselves caught up in a sexual fervor. The stallion appeared ravenous as the mare appeared lost to the world.

Kalimba looked down and grew upset with what we were witnessing. "Typical. A failure of a stallion who cannot get what he wants by normal means, so he takes advantage of a mare's vices and gets her strung before having his way."

"That's not gonna keep happening as long as I'm here." Alex said as he chambered a round into his weapon.

Kalimba used her magic to lower the muzzle of his weapon before he could get clear aim of the sexual deviant. "I know what goes through your mind. But dat is not our purpose for being here. And in most often cases, dis is what dey agree to. Dey know what happens when it happens, and dey accept it. After so much for so long, you get lucid of what happens. She's probably overdosed right now. If we do anything, it will only be a matter of time before it hits her."

"The fuck is she on?" Rickey asked the zebra.

"Ecstasy." She said with disdain. "It makes you feel like you are in a high place, caught up in a heightened sense of enthusiasm and excitement, you feel like de life of de party, like you could go on and on. Everything feels good... until it doesn't."

"There are some pretty deep drugs passed around the frat parties on occasion, but I ain't never seen someone that geeked up in a long time." Cliff noted to Rickey.

"Yeah... last guy we saw that was like that was..." Rickey stopped for a moment to think about it before coming to a sad answer. "...was Nondis. It was his birthday, he was upset about Melanie still. Got into shrooms, ecstasy, and smoked like two whole blunts that night before taking his car out for a ride." He shook his head in disbelief. "Damn. It's a miracle that he's even alive today."

The rest of the room appeared stunned over the discussion taking place. It seemed that even Twilight wasn't all too aware of what happened the night before he came here. It seemed to have thrown everyone off, except Kalimba who appeared to simply acknowledge it. She looked down below and used her magic to separate the two, the stallion wondering why he was being pulled off of the mare he was humping into. She lifted him to the window and gathered the stallion a look of deep disapproval. "We all have hard times, we all have our lows. But sometimes it is how you treat others when you get dere dat determines how you are as a being." Twilight looked down and teleported the mare up into the room, looking after her as she rambled senselessly. Kalimba then lowered the stallion down back to where he was. "Because when you come back down, somepony has to help you recover in some way. It is up to you whether you want to change. It also determines the company you keep moving forward."

While I wanted to look away from what was taking place, I couldn't help but to draw some of the parallels of what was being discussed. A lot of it actually hit home for me, especially when I thought of my mom. Kali just lost her dad, and she's still able to be strong in spite of what all happened. It gave me a profound respect for the mare, one that humanized her in my eyes. No doubt, she was a stronger woman than me.

While Fluttershy checked in on the mare and offered her some water to stay hydrated, Alabaster had disappeared down the hall. Blue followed after her brother to see what it was he was up to. I grew curious of the two separating off and followed behind them. When I reached to where they were, I cracked the door open to see a set of mares pleasing another mare who held them by leashes. There was a bartender minding his own business, cleaning the counter where he worked. Blue and Alabaster confronted her. "You know something about tonight! What happened!?" Blue questioned the mare.

The mare in question cackled at the pair. "Oh hun, you don't just miss the big hubaloo and then ask for spoilers! You had to be here!"

"The Doctor. Where is he?" Alabaster firmly questioned.

"Basty, babe, the Doc ain't here anymore." She replied. "He took his prize winnings and made off into one of them there tunnels."

"What was his winnings?" The stallion asked.

"Do I even need to say it?" She asked before she cruelly yanked the leash of one of the mares who serviced her. "Hey bitch, I didn't tell you to lick there yet! Start over!"

A quick "Yes, mistress." sounded from the one she chastised.

Alabaster looked at the mare as if he wanted to probe her for more answers. "So that leads me to ask the question again. What was the haul?"

"Something you ain't never gonna get." She snarled back. "I don't know why ya asking me these dumb questions like I'm the damn oracle around here. You and your sister should know, you both are members of the Inner Circle."

"An inner circle that hasn't convened in a month basically. You know that we've been outsiders of that association anyways."

"T'ain't my fault you messed that up by signing that warrant for the captain." She answered back. "Doesn't matter what the Doc does, you're supposed to take your loss and keep chuggin'. Even if he done went and ripped your poor ol' dad out the casket, you gotta learn to keep a chin up."

"As expected, I didn't think you really cared for anyone other than yourself." Blue harshly criticized the mare. "All you do is treat ponies like your playthings. I guess evil minds do think alike."

"And I guess goody-good ponies are just as stupid. You don't get anywhere when you put others before yourself. You get ahead of the game when you crush every last pony that gets in your way. I would've thought a mare of business like you would understand that, but I guess you can't hear past the huge amount of money your ugly-ass momma done left you. All that fortune goin' to waste in the hooves of a weak little mare who can't even stand up to her own daddy. Just face it, your daddy had every right to treat you like a broodmare, you ain't got the stuffin' for business. You're really a housewife with a trustee board running you out of your own company." The mare raised her hoof, causing the two others serving her to stop. She stood up and got into Blue's face, holding her chin like a child swallowing something they shouldn't. "The only reason you're here is because your brother wanted you to be here. If it wasn't for that, I would've had you in my brothel, no matter the money you make. I would've sold you off to your old pop and make a quick killing. The way he treated my girls, I wonder how he would've did you instead."

While I was getting more angry having listened to this bitch and how she spoke to Blue, Alabaster stood up for his verbally-assaulted sister. "Listen to me, you old skunk, you don't get to take out your insecurities on her."

The mare snapped back. "And you don't get to tell me what to do, or should I go about telling the world about your double life of being a closeted homosexual?"

The stallion giggled. "And yet I'm more of a main attraction than any of you or your girls will ever be. What you can't stand is that one of your former girls came up and superseded you when she got healthy, and you can't get her back. You never liked bad trades─"

The mare threw a glass at the stallion's face, summoning a whip with several stripes of metal leaves attached to the end. "I ain't gonna take no shit from some daddy-reject faggot!"

Before Blue could step up and defend her brother, I walked into the room, weapon loaded and ready to unload into the mare. "Nah, bitch! You fucked up now!" The mare appeared surprised over seeing me, looking at me with a startled expression. My aim was placed firmly for her head. "I know you had fun talking your shit, but it's about to get real right now. And you need to fucking talk a little less about your ego, and more about what happened on tonight before your girls will be talking about how your face got remodeled in less time than you hit Alabaster with that wine glass."

Blue approached her brother as he removed the shards of glass from his face. He had some slight bleeding from the impacted shards. He shrugged off the hit. "I appreciate you coming to our defense again. But this was a VIP matter."

"Yeah, keyword being 'was'." I stated. "And now it's a human matter."

The mare squinted as we talked, changing her tone from angry to one of some amusement. She jumped in on a topic relating to me personally. "Wait... That voice... You're a female, aren't you?"

"She's not for sale." Blue firmly rebutted.

"Bullshit she ain't!" The mare hollered back. "One night with a human mare, I can tell you that clients would pay a pretty cool mil for that price! I could even make more with this one than the last human I owned."

"The last human you owned?" I asked, angry with how easily she relegated me to slave status.

"Oh honey, he was a feisty one. Couldn't tell him nothin'! The only thing he did was talk about how he could get away from his criminal history, and then moreso about how much he wanted to kill the captain. It's too bad that he couldn't stop playin' with his food long enough to get the job done."

"Jasper." I whispered, causing the mare to smile at me. I scowled back at her and questioned her. "How did you find yourself 'owning' him?"

"Signed a contract, didn't read the fine print all too well. But the doc and I had an agreement. If I won with my new purchase, I'd get the benefit of having a secondary collection of a new champ. I'd then have the options of doing whatever with said champ. I was just gonna get my money's worth."

It took a lot for me not to squeeze the trigger with the muzzle of my rifle pointed at her head. While Jasper did horrible things, to others and to me, it wasn't her right to have ownership of any human, much less treat them like bargaining chips. It was my first time meeting her, and I had already grown to hate her existence.

The mare noticed my increasing drive to put her down for good. "Aw... you know you can't do that, right?" She asked with a smirk. "I mean, I know what happened to your friend, I know what it was he fought, how big it was, and just how he tried to haul ass only to get dragged back down here."

"You can't be the only witness around." Blue replied.

"Well my girls ain't talking unless I tell them to speak." She said as she looked down to her servants. "They know better than to have loose lips around me. They know what the consequences are."

Alabaster looked to the two girls, who appeared scared halfway to death of the situation they were dragged into. "You two are awfully young, you might want to leave─"

"They ain't goin' nowhere!" The mare shouted. "These here are MY girls! And they don't take orders from sissy non-breeder faggots like you!" She looked to me and proudly stood in a confident mind that no harm would come to her. "So here's the deal, missy. You wanna know what your friend's up to now, I might be able to give you a little something you could use. But that all goes out flyin' if you kill me. And I ain't sayin' nothing unless there's some favors fixin' to be done. So how about you scratch my itch... and I may scratch yours."

A cough sounded from the bar. The stallion continued to work as he looked to me with an unchanged expression. "So is anyone going to order a drink or do I get the privilege to go home early?" He asked in a feminine manner.

"You're still servin' me." The mare called out.

"So the usual Bloody Mary. Okay." He said as he started to whip up a beverage for the mare. He turned to Alabaster. "Long Island ice tea for you, extra coconut milk?"

"I'm sorry for the glass." Alabaster replied.

"Honey, it's no problem. That comes out of my pay, I'm not any worried about it." He replied before turning to Blue. "I got a bottle of the good stuff, just like you like it."

"I'm not drinking tonight. Sorry." She answered, looking angrily at the antagonistic mare.

The stallion looked to me and asked. "So, new guest, what can I do you for?"

"Amenities are for the VIP only, paying customers." The bitch snarled at me. "She don't get free drinks."

I reapplied my aim towards her, ready to shoot her with the slightest movement. But before I did, a warmth started coming from the side of my ear where my element was. The closer my finger got to the trigger, the hotter it got. I moved my finger away from it, the element grew colder as a means to encourage me against taking her life. I instinctively reached for my ear, seeing if anything had burned or singed as a result.

The mare snickered at me, perceiving my lowering of my weapon as a sign of submission. "Well, I guess you're open for some negotiation then. It's good to see you humans are about business."

"The name of that thing Nondis faced is what the boss called the Congregant."

The mare turned around with a growing look of frustration. She looked at the bartender as he smiled away, doing his work. "Now hold on... Doc said we weren't supposed to talk about what happened tonight. You know what happens when you go against Doc."

The stallion rolled his eyes, taking a deep breath. "You know, the captain and I had a talk earlier tonight. The funny thing is that he and I talked about life. I know that after I'm done here, that's it for me. No eye-witness accounts for what the boss has done, what he's planned, what he knows, what he's made. And the captain, he seemed pretty sold that this would be his last hurrah. And... it was. He was a bright light in this room every night he and the Doc had words." The stallion nodded to himself in thought. "Actually, with all the cruel things that I've seen in my being here, he was the only one brave enough to step in and do something about it. He was the only one to actually put it all on the line, where everypony else would just watch or try to appease him in some other way. He was firm in drawing the lines where they needed to go. I just wish I had the strength to do it like he had."

"Crème, shut that mouth of yours before you get us all killed!" The mare shouted as she turned her whip towards the bartender.

"I'm sorry, miss Stellar Breed. But we all know who we deal with. For any time we live, it's borrowed time before the Doc has his way with us. In the end, we're going to be as much apart of that thing we saw tonight. And I don't think I want to live in a world where that's a likely assurance." The bartender looked to me and spoke once more. "I can't promise you a way in, but I can tell you that there is a member of the Inner Circle who has knowledge to access the Doc's lab. Usually he had it in a local morgue here in town, but they recently relocated to a place where his ease of access could go undisrupted."

The one named Stellar snarled as she took her whip in her magic, cocking it back to impact the bartender behind the counter. "You stupid son of a bitch!"

The bartender cleaned his glasses without a care in the world for the incoming pain that was set to come his way. However, that pain would never come as he didn't even bother looking her way. His magic activated and caught the whip just a foot before hitting him. He summoned a dagger seemingly made entirely of his magic and sliced the bladed barbs from the end of her weapon. The stallion's eyes lifted up with an icy glare in them. "In speaking of cruel things you've had a hoof in, tell me why you deserve to live anymore than I do."

"I don't have to be here for this." Stellar Breed replied before looking to her servants. "Girls, let's get movin'." She started making her way to the main entrance, but as she got up, one of the girls did not follow her. She stayed in place, sniffling in terror as she showed her defiance. Stellar took her disobedience with great offence. "You little brat, I told you it's time to be movin'!"

"No!" The servant's voice appeared to be far too young for her current appearance. "I don't wanna go anymore! You gave my best friend away to that monster!"

The mare initially appeared incensed, but changed her approach for the young mare as she walked closer. "Aw darlin', I didn't give her away. She just did what the Doc told her to do." Her horn glowed a sinister teal, dragging the young servant to her hooves. "Now how about you be a dear and get movin' with us before I give you something to move to."

Hearing the gunshot behind me I immediately ducked down. I dropped everything and felt over my body, trying to see if I had gotten hit with anything. Nothing had struck me. I looked up to see Kalimba holding the weapon of her choice, the barrel of the gun still slightly smoking.

"Didn't you hear me, you ungrateful little brood!? I said let's get movin'!" Stellar continued angrily, the mare had noticed her magic had gone completely out, opting to use her hooves to grab the servant. "I'm tellin' you to move... so start movin'..." The mare looked past her servant and smiled as she walked towards Kalimba. "Well, ain't you a sight for some eyes. You can get on to movin' too."

Kalimba walked past her, pushing her aside as she tended to the young servant. "Are you okay?"

The young servant nodded at her before she appeared horrified. She looked to the trail of blood leading from where she was, trailing over to the abusive mare. "Girl, y'all makin' me tired... my chest hurts..." The mare laid down, only to realize that there was a pool of blood laying beneath her. "Aw hell... this ain't better be mine." She looked up to the zebra. "Hey, sick girl... what you done did to me?"

"Close your eyes and find out." The zebra replied coldly.

The mare weakly chuckled, answering the zebra's response. "Aw c'mon now. I was just bein' a mother to them girls. I just wanted to treat 'em right. I mean, look at how you are now." The zebra mare appeared unconvinced by the mare's words. "So tall an' pretty. Long legs..." The mare's breathing slowed as she stared off into the distance. "You'd fetch a hell of a price..."

The mare remained motionless, breathless, lifeless.

Kalimba turned to the other servant mare who watched her master die. "You, how old are you?"

"Sixteen." She replied with trembling.

She looked to the one she check on. "You are young. How old are you?"

"Fourteen." She said with worry abundant on her face.

I shook my head with disbelief. "You two are way too young to be here!"

"That's what she does." Alabaster gravely added. "She takes in the prettier young girls and have them turned into sex slaves, groomed and trained in pleasing other ponies and participating in their sick fantasies. It's often a dangerous business that can result in severe instances of abuse, trauma, and even death."

Blue then asked the pair of servants. "How old were you two when you got 'adopted' by her?"

"Twelve." The older one answered.

"Eleven." The younger one confessed.

I looked back at the dead mare and grew angry with her peaceful looking face. "And you got to be all nice and happy while you were abusing young girls, selling them off."

"Kalimba, how old were you when she took you in?" Blue asked the zebra.

"...Ten." She answered as she loomed over the dead body of yet another one of her prior owners. "We need to burn her body before He comes and makes her useful to him."

"That's not all you'll need before you go." The bartender said as he closed his eyes and summoned a clipboard. Both Blue and Alabaster gawked at the stallion who issued them the clipboard. "Seeing how you were the second to openly defy the boss, I guess you're the next one up. Here's some of the research that went into creating that creature. I was there for some of the phases of it's creation, as well as some test phases of it's total completion. This has all the information you need."

Blue took the clipboard and smiled at the bartender, showing appreciation for his work. "And yet again, you come right on through, Crème. I can never stop owing you."

"Still got the bottle of the good stuff if you need it." He whispered to her.

"You got two?" Blue asked as she looked to me. "I got a drinking buddy now."

The stallion reached under his bar and grabbed two bottles of what appeared to be wine. "Do I ever disappoint?" He said before looking at the bloodied body on the ground. "...I'll close up shop for tonight and get her to the morgue."

"Get her to the castle. She'll be cremated along with the other bodies we found throughout the city." Blue replied. "We'll even send one of the guards to vouch for you as an escort."

I shook my head at the newly-minted corpse. "So how old was this lady?"

"Forty-nine." Crème answered as he went beneath the bar and tossed out a body bag. "Another seven months and we would've been celebrating her big fifty. A relief that I don't have to plan for that now." I looked to the stallion as he served me a whole bottle of wine outside of the two he gave to Blue. "It's not much. But my condolences for your friend."

I took the bottle, popped the cork and got a quick swig to see how it tasted. It seemed like a very sweet juice with the tiniest hint of alcohol. But I knew that too much would sneak up on me in a heartbeat. "Nondis isn't dead yet. She is though, and that's a good thing. So I'll drink to that instead."

Alabaster looked at the information on the clipboard. "This thing is a goldmine of research."

"I'm just like you, just don't tell nopony I gave it to you." Crème stated as he worked to bag the mare quickly. "Also, another thing before you guys take off. There's a certain Inner Circle member who knows where the boss is based at now. He continues to work closely with him as of now, but he hasn't been around tonight either. There's only three VIP members who didn't show tonight, and that would be you, your sister, and Damper."

Alabaster groaned at Crème's statement. "Damper Trot... He's going to be an annoying one to deal with. I hate him almost as much as I hate dad."

"You think you can get him to talk doing your usual thing?" Blue asked her brother.

Again, he grumbled. "...The better question is do I even want to deal with him again."

†Stellar Breed†
♫She had it coming, she had it coming
She only had herself to blame
If you'd have been there, if you'd have seen it
I betcha you would have done the same!♫

The Unknown Lab...

"Ung... hah... ah... ah yes..."

Umbra panted and breathed heavily as the sweat accumulated on his brow from the work he had put into the current experiment. With a number of assorted drugs used, namely some libido enhancers, he went to work straddling and riding the human he had strapped to his operating table. A maddening smile appeared on the stallion's face as he looked down to see himself rising and falling, his own display of arousal slapping the human on his abdomen with every fall he took. The stallion appeared enthusiastic about his new source of amusement.

Meanwhile, the human below tried to remain strong as he looked elsewhere. However with the immense potency of the dosage that was placed in him earlier, his body continued to betray his mind's registry of how he felt about this particular encounter. The closer he felt towards an oncoming climax, the more he tried to clench his eyes away from the stallion who sought to please him. But to his misfortune, his resistance wasn't strong enough to counter the drugs. He went on to suffer his fourth climax of the evening.

However, that didn't stop Umbra from continuing through the sensation of having a human pumping semen into him. In fact, the circumstance drove him to press in harder. Eventually, the stallion too suffered his signs of impending climax. With a manic pace, he dropped his hips into the human, hitting his trigger until it sent him overboard.

Umbra unleashed several spurts, reaching up the human's chest and even hitting his chin. With every spurt, he sank himself to milk out as much as possible. The stallion trembled with a possessed giggle, shuddering at what was his best orgasm in centuries. He moved his now-disheveled mane from over his eyes, looking down at the mess he left on the human's body, not unlike the one he cleaned from off his back earlier.

With a sweetness, he leaned down to collect his bounty with an eager tongue. With the effort to pool in as much in his mouth, he worked up to the man's chin. And with greedy fervor, he turned the man's head to him and sank into him with a deepening kiss to exchange what he had collected. With a proud smile, the stallion collapsed onto his chest and rested for a moment. "Hah... ah... ah... fuck me... That was the best time I had in ages." The stallion said, winded from his work. "I don't think I've ever gotten so raptured out of my mind like that. It's always that first-time experience of riding something new."

The human felt his chest compress, his diaphragm adjust, his gag reflex triggering his salivary glands to lubricate his mouth for what was to come.

The stallion slowly traced his hoof on the abdomen of the man, tracing the scars of his operations. "I really think there's something magical about having you with me. Maybe it's just the dopamine releases after the deed, but I'm pretty optimistic about our future together."

Feeling himself about to vomit, he turned his head off to release himself to the floor. With labored breathing, he tried to find the strength to endure the pain of his diaphragm compressing with each ejection.

Umbra ignored the human's suffering. "Aw, must be something you ate, sweetie. I'll go get you a towel."

The stallion climbed off of the human and went to a nearby station where he had set his materials, bringing back a towel to clean the human's face. When he turned around, he saw that the human had tried to wiggle himself free of his restraints. The stallion laughed as he returned to the human's side.

"Aww, poor baby. All tied up with nowhere to go." The stallion leaned down to softly kiss the man on his cheek. "You're not going anywhere. You're here with me now."

Feeling a great despair, the human closed his eyes, wishing for a way home.

With all of the body cleanup around the city completed, one more body was submitted to the princess for disposal. The princess waited patiently in the chapel, her horn latent with powerful magics and an immense heat that would soon consume the room. Blueblood ran in with the final body bag and placed it at the alter. Despite the room smelling like an unholy assembly, the pair appeared mostly undisturbed by the scene and smell around them.

After the prince laid the final body down, he had a prolonged inhale and looked towards the princess. "It's been a while."

"Since we've had this smell around us?" The high princess questioned reverently.

"It's a bit different this time." Blueblood answered with a slight chuckle. "Usually there's a lot more of a metallic smell about this carnage. All we're missing is the smell of blood and rust. That'll be a real trip down memory lane for us."

The princess questioned the prince. "I know it's been four centuries since I've asked you this question... but─"

"You were right to fight that war." The prince replied. "The one responsible for the death of Prince Fair Charity met his end in an appropriate manner. You did right to fight for yourself."

The esteemed mare looked upon her workload with a slight annoyance in comparison to the matters at the forefront of her mind. "I just can't help but let my mind go back to that day when I crowned you─"

"The replying silence." Blueblood finished in her place.

"Especially that. I just can't help but to think that I went wrong in that moment." She walked towards the center of the room, her horn sparking with magic. "I know that there was a lot that could've gone better had I been a much stronger tactician. Between Luna, Fair Charity, and many of the nobles I had to wage war against, those were the better tactical minds. The only real advantage we had was brute strength."

"That strength made us a pair to be feared." The prince stated as he looked around the room another time. "I think it might be time to revisit that strength."

"I don't think I can go back to being that entity again." The princess lamented.

"Look around us." Blueblood pointed out for the last time. "I think the reason speaks enough for itself, your highness."

The high princess sighed with a feeling of defeat. "So is this the Prince of Justice talking, or is it the Rose-Hoof Dragoon I used to see way back when?"

"Can't it be a bit of both?" The prince questioned. "I'm going to clear from the room so you can get to your inceneration thing. Just holler if you need anything."

Blueblood walked out of the room, carefully closing the door behind him as Celestia flapped her wings and ascended into the air. Her horn started to shine with an unbearable heat. When she closed her eyes, she imagined the number of times she used the spell for much more simplistic reasons. The first thing that appeared as an image to her was the sight of the human she loved, sleeping in his bed as the room grew colder and colder, the warmth she provided for him became a fond memory in the face of the task before her.

"Nondis... please hang on."

With those words said, she unleashed a powerful heat wave within the room and produced a brightness that could be seen throughout the city, serving as a bright beacon shining in bright contrast to the many buildings of the city.

Down in the royal library, Twilight and Alabaster reviewed the notes that they were given by Crème. Alex waited quietly with the pair, sifting through many of the books that seemed to have magic as a focus. While he wasn't knowledgeable of how magic worked in many ways, he understood that one of the books there had to have some sort of guide for beginners. And if that was the case, Stanton would be able to get the help he needed.

I walked in with Blue and Kalimba, having watched a fruitless attempt of seeing the pair trying to teach Stanton how to control his newfound power. And since they were frustrated with how often their own methods had come to a failing point, we figured to come to the one place where we would be able to find something to get the job done.

Alex spoke to us as soon as we walked in. "Ladies, how's it going?"

"Total failure." Blue replied.

"I do not know how to translate how unicorn magic would operate in a human. I can only give him de basic step of breathing." Kalimba added. "How are things with you all?"

Alex held up a book as he explained his end of things. "Twilight and Alabaster hasn't said much since they started looking everything up. My only guess is that they're taking a deep intellectual analysis into the matter. As far as how I'm doing, I'm virtually useless to what they're doing anyhow, so I started looking up books to tell me how I can use magic, for first-time users of course."

In the midst of her studying the notes that were given to her, Twilight offered a reply. "The thing about using magic in human form is that it first has to be activated when you first use it."

"Well right now, half of everything that isn't nailed down is floating around him right now like he's the sun." I replied to the young princess. "I'm not sure how much more activated he can get."

The purple princess then replied. "When I mean activated, I mean controlled by his own actions. When he realizes how the magic flows through you, how it cycles, that's when you truly tap into it's power."

"Well didn't you help activate Nondis that first time?" Alex questioned.

"That would not be me. Credit of that particular instance goes to Celestia." She answered.

"And Celestia's too busy to do much right now." I mentioned. "Though I wonder how long it'll take for her to do the bodies."

"Proper cremation takes about three hours for a single body." Alabaster replied quietly. "And judging from these notes, she may be pushing that to about five if she wants to be thorough."

"What time is it now?" Blue asked me as I pulled out my phone. "1:12 in the morning. We're literally pulling a graveyard shift."

"There ain't no rest for the wicked, I close my eyes for good." I half-sung to myself.

Twilight placed down her notes as she grumbled. "I'm tired as it is, I don't think I can do another hour after today."

"Do you want me to stay up and compile while you're asleep?" Alabaster asked the exhausted young royal. "We can divide and conqueror, I'll bookmark where I last left off for you to see where I am."

"Two minds having this knowledge is better than one." The princess responded. "We both need to get some rest, we'll be in a much-better state of mind if we get some rest and tackle the rest of this tomorrow."

"We still need to do something about Nondis." Alex pointed out.

"De better question is what can we do with what we know right now? We don't have answers of where we need to go."

"I'm not gonna be able to sleep knowing what my brother is going through. This shit sucks." Alex complained again. "I should've been here to help."

"Help do what?" I questioned the disgruntled sibling. "If you were here, Ummie would have two of the elements and two living humans to experiment with. We all saw the state of those weapons Nondis used, and you're squeamish when it comes to intolerable odors. Trust me when I tell you how not-ready we are right now, and compare those results to someone like Nondis, who went in thinking that he was ready with the information we had, plus having magic that we don't know how to use."

"Melanie, think about that dream we had the night following you guys getting back in." Alex argued. "If all of us had been here to help, we would've done something. This thing would be dead, this night would be over, and all of us would be sleeping in our beds without these weird-ass jewels on us. Ummie would either be dead or captured, we would be going home in the morning, and Earth would be safe. We would've literally saved the world twice over."

"And think of the other side of how it could've gone, Alex!" I responded in kind. "All of us would probably be captured and tortured, used to torment Nondis all the more, and even killed... six times over! We would probably be right along with the other collection of bodies! And I don't know if you forgot this little caveat, but we don't know how to use these elements! We still don't know how to deal with these things, much less how to use them in a fight."

Twilight yawned as she agreed with me. "She's right, Alex. I tried using them by myself once, when I first found them in the Ruins of Everfree Castle. I figured that my magic would be enough to make it work. And when I was in the elements presence, I felt my magic surge for the brief time that it did. My solo encounter with Nightmare Moon was the very first time I could teleport. I did my research on what they were capable of, where to find them, how to get there, even thinking that I knew how to use them. But what good did all of that do me? Nothing. I was knocked away, Nightmare Moon laughed in my face, and shattered them where she stood... all because I didn't know how to use them, their intended purpose. In the hooves of two, they have proven to work. In the grasp of one they have only worked once, and that was to banish Nightmare Moon to the moon in the sky above. After that, they went a thousand years, collecting layers of calcium, limestone, and dust... because the only one who could use them couldn't use them anymore."

"So we can't do anything right now?" Alex questioned, growing more and more discontented with the narrowing options. "My brother is out there, getting sexually assaulted and worse, he's not gonna be the same fucking guy when we get him back, can't we do something to stop this!?"

"If you have a plan and where to go, I want to hear it." Twilight replied with similar energy to what Alex displayed. "Don't you think I feel partially responsible for this? I wanted to grab the elements and try to use them against Umbra. I wanted to be thorough when I could've been swift and dragged the girls through your world and get here before that situation could've happened. Teleport our way into Corrotto, get to the arena, fight that thing while risking our lives, getting him home back to see the rest of you! You six could've been saving us! We could've done more!... I could've done more." Twilight's head lowered as her ears fell to display her regret. "I... I shouldn't have hesitated. I should've just stuck to my guts and moved when we had time. This failure is not on you, it's on me."

Alex sat himself down, stewing with anger while he tried to think of any way to save Nondis. But without any kind of real idea of what to do, he found himself cycling through what-if's and maybe's, all of which leading to the same conclusion. The man could do nothing but run his palms into his teeth and scream at the top of his lungs. He opened his eyes, as red as they were from him trying not to cry. "What do I do? God, what do I do?"

Alabaster approached the tearfully frustrated sibling and placed a hoof to his shoulder. "The only thing we can do is wait until sunup. As much as I regret myself even thinking it, the cruelty and tone-deaf aspect of it... We are on borrowed time, time that is spent with Umbra averting his attention. We have to respect that. Whether you believe it or not, Umbra sleeps just like the rest of us. It's only fair that we do the same." Guiding the human's hand to stand back up, the white unicorn stallion ushered the man towards the door. "We rest. We awake with a sound mind, and we operate with a newfound energy to tackle the fight ahead."

"De key to winning a big fight is often to rest when you can." Kalimba reassured the man. "De more sound you are in mind, the better you fight. Now let us go rest."

Taking the tomes of information along with her, Twilight walked with the intent to station herself in Nondis' room, where security was at it's highest. Alex spent the night with the princess, thinking of how he could do something to help his younger brother feel better about himself once rescued. Stanton would go on to join him. I was issued a temporary stay inside of Princess Luna's room, along with me was Rickey and Cliff. The other girls were issued guest rooms while the others went off to their own rooms.

Some hours later, I was woken out of my sleep. Not far from me, I could hear a little girl screaming out of an apparent nightmare, to which Princess Luna comforted her. Kalimba also softly sang the girl to sleep. I was a but surprised to hear her being so gentle, especially not hearing her crying in the dead of night over her father. But then again, it was only another thirty minutes before she walked to the hallway to scream her grief into a pillow.

...God, please give her strength. And please do the same for him.

Dawn...

Standing on the balcony, overseeing the grand courtyard, Celestia raised her head with her horn trickling of it's last bit of magic for the time being. As soon as the sun was raised to it's assigned path, the princess panted and sluggishly walked away. The gold on her hooves had been dulled from the ashes she walked through. Though one certain pile had grasped her attention for a brief moment. She bowed her head with respect to the unidentifiable pile of remains before walkign away.

She opened the doors, covered in soot and ash dressing her forelegs. Her eyes barely open, she saw the two princes standing before her. With a fatigued murmur, she spoke to the pair. "The sun is raised. Please give these souls one last flight to the winds of the mountain. I need rest."

Shining was quick to follow her orders, requesting for a pegasus squad to create a breeze to clean the room. But Blueblood did not move as quickly as his younger equal. He waited to see how the princess walked by him. He carefully watched as he saw her quartet of banner mares approach her for her next set of tasks for the day.

The fatigued princess couldn't even make it down the hall before she fell to the ground, her crown sliding before her. Blueblood picked her up, placing her on his back. Another three guards aided him, two for her wings and another to help him carry her by her underbelly. For the first time in decades, he issued orders to the guards around him. "Ready the princess' chambers. She is gravely tired, she requires bedrest. Let's move with respect to her majesty's dignity."

"Sir!" The group of guards called out as they marched in formation to bring the princess to her room.

Meanwhile, Shining Armor ordered the cleaning crew to gather materials to cleanse the floors and walls upon the flying squad's completion of their assignment. Spitfire saluted the young prince and ordered her squad to a formation to whisk the ashes around the room to gather in a vortex before guiding the crew to the sky, where the remains of the bodies were given one final flight around Canterlot before being sent to the winds of the mountain.

As that came to an end, Shining pointed his hoof to the floor and ordered the room cleansed. Rows of maids were issued brooms to gather the next bit of remains to be blown out in a secondary flight. As those tasks were completed, the crew of cleaners pulled out mops and moved in rows, swiping their mops diligently to clean every last tile. Detailers came behind them and carefully scrubbed the cracks of the tiles, cleaning the last bit of remains from the room. The water they used to clean the tools of the remaining ashes were ordered to be sent to the river, all to cascade down the mountainside.

Shining ordered a crew to reissue all tapestries and assets to the room upon the cleaning of the walls. As that came to an end, he had a trio of clerics to bless the room once more for ceremonial purpose, mainly as a religious measure to ward the evil and restless spirits wishing to remain away.

Shining then prayed with the clerics before they and he left the room as flawless as it did the days before.

The Royal DIning Hall
Two Hours Later...

I did not sleep well.

After hearing all of what I did, I started to wonder what was really going on with Kalimba. I knew that her father had died and that weighs on her, but hearing how she went from comforting a young filly one minute and go into painful mourning the next had me sitting up uncomfortably throughout the remainder night. And then as I was about to drift off at the dawn hour, there was some rigmarole involving the princess next door, orders being barked about how to carefully move her into her bed. Celestia's name came up once in that conversation, and I couldn't really find the peace to sleep through all of the chaos going on.

So when it was time for everyone to get up and get some breakfast, I was pretty much already wide awake. The others didn't sleep all too well either. Lots of roaming thoughts, in and out of drift, maybe even the sense of knowing that something cruel was taking place to our friend, maybe even all the noise in the hall, all of it just made for a rough night. But that didn't stop us from going to breakfast, our hunger wasn't all too swayed unlike our sleep.

We all gathered in the dining hall. From the looks of it, I only saw two princesses not present. Cadance was probably away on business up north, and Celestia was probably not feeling well. The OG element bearers had all joined us in the meal, Alabaster and Blue were given special permissions to join with us as well.

And then Kalimba walked in, but not by herself.

Along with her, she had a young filly wearing a sleeping mask, feeling her way around to not bump into anything. Kalimba was very cautious as to not let her run into anything and hurt herself. I thought it was pretty odd for a filly to be here, but she was here under special permissions by order of Princess Luna.

In speaking of her, she appeared very groggy. I guess she had stayed up all night trying to tend to the young filly to make sure she didn't have any episodes like the one in the middle of the night. And plus I'm sure having to hear the situation of her sister didn't really do her any favors. But she wasn't the only royal without sleep, Shining and Blueblood were pretty much on the edge of exhaustion themselves, barely even speaking when they saw us. Twilight was no different, probably from going through those notes again.

Alex was also pretty fatigued, appearing very angry this morning. But when he saw the little filly walk into the room, he kissed his teeth, stood up, mumbled something under his breath, and walked out of the room. I thought it was unusual to see him storm off like that. It's not something that he does this early in the day.

Shaking off any signs of tiredness, Twilight was the first to speak to the young filly. "Aw, and who's this coming in to join us for breakfast?"

"Why it's a little angel!" Fluttershy answered enthusiastically.

Hearing the multitude of voices addressing her at once, the young foal staggered in her steps. "Ah! Who's there!?" She asked, almost terrified in a way.

"Why don't you take off that silly blindfold and find out." Rainbow Dash answered the young filly.

"Rainbow Dash, please be seated and remain silent." Luna firmly ordered.

Seeing the seriousness on her face, the rainbow-maned pegasus questioned the princess' attitude. "Hey, I was just telling her to take off the blindfold. I thought she was going to be surprised by us visiting."

Kalimba held the young foal closely as she quietly replied to the pegasus. "She is blind."

Rainbow looked down to the filly before glancing back up to Kalimba. "You mean 'blind' from the blindfold, or do you mean─"

"Blinded by an unmentioned party we will not discuss while she is present." Shining staunchly stated before looking to his sister.

The little filly the whispered. "The mean bad guy took my eyes. It hurts. He took mommy and daddy away. Now my sister takes care of me." Kalimba hugged the filly closely, congratulating her on her bravery for telling her story. The filly sniffled, prompting the zebra to hold her tighter as she also wiped tears from her eyes.

My jaw fell from the silent realization. "You're Kali's little sister, aren't you?"

The filly didn't answer, but the zebra did. "She is baba's youngest. I am de eldest."

Everyone else in the room just took a moment to weigh our own levels of disgust. Cliff started praying. "Oh God, we honor you for the strength you give to this young life. Heavenly father we ask you on today that you give peace and love to this family going through bereavement, in the mighty name of Jesus."

"Stop praying." Alex said as he walked back into the room. He sat in his chair and looked around, growing more and more upset with the world around him. "Like seriously, what god allows this to happen to the children he supposedly loves? Like how is this all a part of his almighty plan when the young have to suffer?" The man flopped his hands onto the table, almost in submission to despair. "I don't get it. I don't see how Nondis deals with this shit every fucking day. It's wrong, it's so wrong."

"It's not easy." Shining replied with a quiet yet strong tone. "But your brother knew the cost of him being a suitor. I tried my best to weed him out. I wanted him to just pack up and go back home so that he doesn't have to hurt Twily, so that he wouldn't find out the terrible cost of being one, so that he can live his life as normally as he could. I mean yeah, as an older brother, my main concern was Twilight Sparkle, who's my Little Sister Best Friend Forever, my blood. If they went out and did what they were going to do, hell would've came to both her and him. I lashed out at him because I initially wanted him to stay away from her. And yeah, my initial pursuits were trivial. But I grew out of that and saw another reason for why I had to try and make a change. Then it went to me trying my best to protect him, giving him every social advantage, hoping that the perks would keep him from harm. Instead, it was made worse."

"That isn't your fault." Alex argued. "Nondis had a fucking choice to drop everything and go. I'm angry at him because he doesn't know how to get out of a situation before it gets bad. It's been like that for our entire lives. I'm even more pissed that he has to see shit like this every day he's here. And I'm just a word away from going nuclear because of the motherfucker who's responsible for all of this. I'll never see my little brother again, not the way he used to be. And that shit makes me so pissed off." The man closed his eyes and planted his head into his palms. "And then I can't do anything about it, that's what really makes me mad. I was suppose to protect him, and I can't do that, not here."

Stanton shook his head and spoke with his eldest sibling. "Dude, we lucked out and won the lottery of being able to do something about it. If you don't believe me, then why the hell is Nondis alive today? Yeah he's getting his shit fucked up right now, but we can still make a change. The only question is how do we do it?"

Rarity walked up to the man who bore her element, summoning her seat to sit next to him. "Darling, I know that this moment feels like the worst possible thing. And I'm not too enthused about this myself. In fact, I'm angry, I don't know any other alternative than to send our adversary packing into the Ether. And it's okay to feel that way, but I'm not going to hang my head and think that it's all over when it isn't. So never give up hope."

"How do you find hope in what we're going to face?" Alex questioned.

Rarity then replied. "You rely on the ones around you to get there." She looked to Alex and rubbed his shoulder. "Just like how you want to be there for your brother. Those bonds are what makes you stronger, dear. And you already have a supporting cast, so trust me when I say that you are well on your way."

Twilight added to her friend's statement. "What Rarity says is true. I've been knocked down and faced despair before. Like I told you last night, I saw how the elements shattered when I tried to use them by myself. It's not just your own want for power, it's not just trying to stop an evil from altering your world, and it isn't revenge. It's the loyalty you have for one another. It's the hope and optimism you find in the darkest of places. It's the wonderful passion and heart you give that benefits others more than just yourself. It's the rationality and humility that anchors you to the truth of where you are and what you can do. It's the idea of always being good-hearted and showing good will to those around you, for things that are both like you and unlike you. And it's not just power, but all those things encompassed around the very thing that holds it all together, the ability to unify and lead. You're not just shooting magic bolts and teleporting everywhere, It's how you respond to a situation, think quickly and rationally, and how you perform under the pressure. I haven't nearly mastered that last one yet, even with the authority that I have now, but I am learning how. It's just like life, it's a process, one that requires some hardships and dire straights to learn."

Alex sighed as he looked to the princess who spoke with him. "So what you're saying is that without Nondis, we can't get anything done?"

Twilight gave the man her rebuttal. "I never said that. But I want you to know that there isn't any way to save him without anyone to lead you the right way. I know you feel like you have that quality, but it may not be the role you play for this moment. I'm not downplaying you, your intellect, or your abilities. I'm merely telling you that you can't just go in without a plan, without an approach, with no ability to remain level-headed in the heat of the moment. You've done it before in smaller situations, but how do you react when there is something as big as what you're going to face?... And you already know that the weapons you use aren't going to save you."

While even I gave Alex his props for being team leader when Nondis was out of commission in prior times, watching Twilight undress him like this was pretty rough. She was younger than him, smaller than him, and a completely different species, yet she was already putting him to the wall and telling him where he fell short in leadership.

However, I could see her point. In the moments leading up to now, Alex has been out of sorts since Alabaster told him what could be happening to Nondis even as we speak. The moment had him looking in every direction except ahead. He had weaknesses that he had not been hardened against, moments where his logic lost to spectacle, and a desire to push forward without any way of knowing specifics. We can't have a full-blown Leeroy-Jenkins moment, not when our actual lives are on the line.

I came to agree with Twilight. Alex is a good man, but not the leader we need for this moment. And Stanton was able to see that as well. "Bro. I hate it as much as you do. But the coach calls the play, quarterback runs the show. It's our job to run the route, get open, and make the play. But this past day ain't been much of anything but running down field for no good reason. Incomplete plays don't move the chains. I love you... but we need a QB."

Acknowledging Stanton's advice, Alex accepted defeat and laid his head in his palms. "...Okay. Maybe I am rushing things." He said with a discouraged chuckle. "I guess that's why I'm not good at sports then."

Stanton shrugged. "Yeah man. Just take it easy. If the ball comes your way, make the play."

The older brother nodded to his younger's advice. "Yeah. I guess that's the game plan of the day." He looked to Twilight and questioned her. "Well, I know you're saddled with one group to lead. Maybe you won't mind taking on another?"

"I can't." She replied. "My bonds aren't as strong with you as they are with my friends. I can't just mix and match bearers."

"Well who else we know that can lead us?" Rickey inquired.

"Prince Shining, maybe?" I suggested.

"I would if I could, but with Princess Celestia out of commission on today, I have to stay behind and keep security maintained. Blueblood is keeping the politicians in line. And Princess Luna is already swamped with all of Celestia's tasks along with her own." The young prince stated.

I looked over to Alabaster and his sister as they held a conversation between the two of them. I knew that they had already seen the worst of it all, they already had to endure much worse than any one of us, and they were much better at putting a plan together. "Excuse me." I addressed the pair. "I know it's probably sudden, and it's a lot more unexpected than what you had planned. But maybe either one of you two could be the one to tell us where our next route goes.... for the time being."

"Our next route is the most obvious one." Alabaster enunciated. "If we want to find out where Nondis is, we should start with finding Senator Damper Trot. Though I can imagine him to use his legislative privileges to escape questioning. There's no doubt he wouldn't want to speak with us about this in any public setting. We'll have to get him alone.... ugh."

"What, what's wrong?" I questioned.

"Things I won't say in front of a young audience." He replied, pointing to Kalimba's little sister.

"In short, he'll want favors." Blue added. "Certain kinds of favors he won't get from anywhere else. And if he sees you in particular, he'll want you involved."

"Eww." I cringed.

"Yeah." Alabaster nodded. "But he's our only lead to where to go. Crème already did us a favor by giving us the info on this monster we might run into and who to talk to next. We might as well give it a shot."

Blue shook her head. "I told him to at least start questioning Damper on Tuesday. I guess we'll have to do it ourselves, which is what I was trying to avoid."

"Damper Trot hasn't been in session since Wednesday." Blueblood briefly explained. "His staff, nor has his associates have seen him."

"So this guy, you guys haven't seen him on last night, he wasn't at the arena last night, and he hasn't been seen since Wednesday. So the question we need to ask right now is this: Do you think he's with Ummie right now?" I pondered for a moment.

"That only makes our situation that much more difficult." Blue responded. "Our only lead is to the monster's doorstep, the same doorstep we're trying to find?"

"It'll be like that sometimes." Applejack commented. "Ah can only tell ya to conduct a city-wide search of the area, maybe to pick up some clues."

"A city-wide search is grounds for a lockdown." Kalimba noted. "He will seek to be all de more exclusive. We must do it quietly, almost appearing as inconspicuous as a foal scout selling cookies."

"That'll be too massive an effort to coordinate on such short notice." Princess Luna argued. "Something like that can't get done in one day, it'll take districts at a time, spanning the course of a week."

"Ugh, such a wasted effort."

All of us looked for where the voice had come from. Instead, Shining's phone rang to pull up Discord's name and face. A hand popped out from the back of the phone and swiped to answer the call. Then the creature slowly climbed out of the phone and walked along the table.

"I think you all are giving Nondis too little credit on what all he's provided thus far."

Twilight glared at the creature. "And yet again, you know something that we don't. So what is it that you've been holding out on this time?"

"Twilight Sparkle, I know you've been up all night looking and perusing through that information you gathered from that place. So if there's anypony hiding something, it would be you." He replied back to her.

"I'm only not saying anything until I can verify the findings and come to an educated conclusion. I don't want to make a mistake if there's something in those notes that I happen to overlook." She rebutted, becoming a bit annoyed with the creature. "So if you don't mind, why not tell us what you know now so that we can go about our day."

"Well I was about to be nice and share some interesting security footage. But I suppose that it doesn't matter what I do, I'll always be the subject of envy."

"Discord." I called to the creature softly. "Please. That monster is doing something terrible to my friend. You've been huge for us, and I can't even begin to tell you how much we appreciate you for what you've done for us. You literally saved our lives. I don't know what happened between you guys here. But to us outsiders, you've been a godsend. So please help us, if not for the last time."

His eyes grew, glistening by the warm words he heard. He smiled as he coiled around me. "Why that was quite possibly the nicest thing anypony has ever told me. You really do reflect Fluttershy in your own way."

I smiled back at him, noting the big guy's excitement over being seen so favorably. The creature pulled out my phone and tapped the screen once to show some security footage of two ponies walking down a hall being followed by a third, holding a sign. As they came to a nearby vase, the vase was thrown at the two figures who turned around to point at the mare behind them. The perspective changed to reveal that it was one of the stallions who used their magic to throw the vase at their own hooves. The camera switched to show some guards approaching to arrest the mare holding what appeared to be a protest sign. The camera view flipped once more to reveal Nondis speaking with the same stallion later on, having him arrested instead.

I looked up to see that it wasn't just my phone it was viewed on, but everyone who had a phone could see it. Twilight and Shining watched on theirs. Rickey, Cliff, Stanton, Alex, and I weren't too certain of what was going on. Meanwhile Kalimba looked to hers, sharing it with Blue and Alabaster. A gasp sounded from Blue. The footage then flipped to a dark hall where Nondis walked and instructed some guards to remove themselves from a nearby holding cell to speak with the same stallion, who appeared for a split second before he walked into the room. Blue expressed her surprise. "So what you're showing to us is that Damper Trot is actually in prison?"

"Not quite, just in holding." The creature answered. "But he is in the dungeons down below, and I do believe that visitation hours start at nine."

I couldn't help but to hop out of my seat and hug the creature that coiled itself around me. "Oh thank you so much! Thank you! Oooh I could kiss you with how much this means to us!"

Rickey quietly showed some protest to my statement. "Um... I like the guy, but..."

Fluttershy, however, was not as quiet. "...One. Two. Three. Four." The creature quickly uncoiled himself from around me and slithered through the air to Fluttershy's side. He looked down at the timid pony nervously. She looked back up to him. "Five, I counted up to five."

"I'm sorry Fluttershy, dear." He whimpered as he shrank himself down to plant his head by the mare's shoulder. "I didn't mean to stay coiled around her for that long."

She tapped the side of his face. "We'll talk about that later." She answered sternly.

My jaw fell as I watched the creature completely bow out to the usually timid mare. Instead of being meek and quiet like she usually is with everyone else, she was very firm and commanding, not even having to raise her voice to grab his attention. Even with the way she counted. I turned to my boyfriend and instinctively glanced at him. He knew what I wanted to say and spoke under his breath. "She's the dom."

"And quite the pleasure dom, actually." Discord answered quietly, causing Fluttershy's cheeks to run red with embarrassment.

I started giggling as he made that statement. Rick cleared his throat and knocked his knuckles against the table. "Well then! I think we should get to talking with old dude then."

"Food first. Then we interrogate." Luna instructed as she clopped her hooves for the servers to enter into the room to take our orders. With our next course of action already lined up for us, we all agreed with the princess and ate our breakfast.

We're coming, Nondis. Just give us time.

The Unknown Lab...
***Point of Perspective: NONDIS***

Hell.

That word isn't strong enough to encompass my experience.

As much as I wish it did, it will never begin to describe the emotions I felt having to endure everything in the hours coming from when I got healed, up to now. It's been an entire night of smelling dead ponies being carted along the way, me getting carted from room to room for various experiments, and my not being able to escape them.

How do I even begin to describe what happened last night? I was strapped to a post and literally made a bitch. Then he made everything worse with all of what he did after. What made it all ten times worse was that my body enjoyed the experience while I was trapped in a shell of myself trying to escape. For HOURS he would find different ways to augment my reproductive traits, and have me discover new ways of being violated. I even threw up at the thought of it, and those injections had my body to improperly process that experience as pleasure.

I can see why that formula was restricted from the market.

He did the usual doctor things in between, gathering blood samples, running some diagnostics, taking various samples of flesh and blood, oils and fluids, hair and nails, urinary and fecal, all of the above. The measures were so invasive that I was certain there was no part of me that could remotely be considered as private anymore. After hours and hours of it all, the guilt and shame of it became second-hand.

I didn't get sleep, not the kind that helps you cope with the pain. I couldn't even sleep at all thanks to Umbra's constant probing. And even when he took a break for a good four hours of rest, he had his dolls do his dirty work for him. And they were just as proficient as he was, even prepping as meticulously as he would've done. And when I had a moment of rest, it would only be for a total of maybe an hour at a time. I was intentionally kept awake for around a similar time before getting some rest, only to wake up sooner than what I would've wanted or expected. I'm sure they made the schedule erratic on purpose.

Mel and I had a conversation sometime in sophomore year of college, as she got into the throws of her medical education. We talked about the different stages of sleep, namely the two called NREM and REM. NREM is the state of sleep where you lay down, you're fatigued, your mind is taking the time to rest a little, to enjoy a bit of limited functionality before preparing for the more-strenuous phase it takes on during a sleep cycle. REM sleep is where the brain activity skyrockets, quite possibly more active than it would be when you would be awake. And there's one significant reason why: Dreams.

Dreams are the one place in the mind where we can experience fantastical worlds and wild experiences, even sometimes foretelling events to come. They can be a world of opportunity, maybe even a glimpse into your own experience through life. It's a way of your mind either expressing the full extent of the imaginative process, or even a way of reaching out to you to tell you how it's feeling. She wildly theorized back then over the possibility of being able to telepathically speak to others while in REM sleep.

Speaking to Twilight sometime after we got together, she all but confirmed the theory. With the aid of strong magic and certain formulas, you are able to dreamwalk in your own dream, to master your lucid experiences and fully realize your fantasies. And with Luna's gift reissued to Twilight for a while, she explained how it could be used to walk the realm of dreams of others relatively easily. She can connect to others and communicate with them about their experiences. Luna does that in spades, and can even tell you what is wrong with you, what you can do to make it better.

And given that was Luna's ability, I'm sure Umbra took note of it. You can't fall into REM sleep when you only get so little a chance to do so. She won't be able to reach out to me in the dream realm if there is no dream to be had. Maybe it would've been her way of seeing where I was, how I was doing, maybe even to tell me the passage of time that took place, and my telling her what happened to me. And without that, there's no helping me recover from the trauma I suffered.

I wasn't sure of the time, but I know that all those drugs had worn off. The after-effects of yesterday had started to really make their presence known. My head was a swimming mess of confusion and fatigue. My body had aches all over. My penis was incredibly sore from the extended periods of activity and the number of injections it took. My colon hurt in ways I didn't think imaginable, from exit on up. It hurts to even shift my buttocks, all I get is that stinging reminder of what I tried to resist against, only for that sadistic doctor to give me my first experience of being a passive male. I don't know if I can even live without trying to lock that memory away in the darkest recesses of my mind. I just wanted to go home at this point, suppress and try to forget that any of this even happened.

"Good morning, my little subject."

...Where is God when you need him?

Umbra walked into the room with a smile on his face, a cane in his possession, and a trio of dolls behind him carting in a table of items. My eyes widened to see the wires and nodes that were being moved from the cart to each of the dolls' possession. My hands were still strapped with those salted cuffs, not allowing me to use any magic. And without a single skip in his step, he danced over to my side and sat on the table beside me. "Now I know you're a bit nervous about what's going on. Don't try to worry too much about any of this. We're just slapping a few things on you to test the response of some of your nervous functions."

"Every time you're near me, I suffer." I groaned as I struggled against the cold gels and painful presses of the nodes against my skin.

"Aw, don't be so callous to me." He mewled, stroking my head with his hoof. "Or maybe you meant it in a romantic way."

"If it wasn't for the creature you made, I would wish for death." I replied to him.

"If you were dead, I'd have very little use for you." He said as he twirled his cane. "I need you alive. I never had any intent to let you die. In fact, when you came close to biting it against the other human I pitted against you, I swore that I was already proposing in my brain ways I could keep your brain active. I mean a severed head can live up to around thirty seconds, you'll have a good seven of pure consciousness left from the moment you're separated from your body. I've learned to prolong that state for a good two years before you'll start to drift to your next phase."

"Please just shut up." I begged before wincing at the sensation of his magic pulling against my buttocks, spreading them apart and inciting the stinging pain.

"Aw, you're still a bit sore from my little anal experiment? I have some meds for that, you know."

"Go fuck yourself." I hissed through my teeth.

The stallion chuckled. "Again? I mean I already did all of the work yesterday being the untraditional cock-sleeve and all. So sure, I wouldn't mind it..." The stallion glided his hooves down my abdomen, just above my pubic region. "As long as you're willing to provide me a saddle to ride on."

I looked away from him, not even giving him the satisfaction of seeing my eyes. "I hate your fucking existence."

"Your body says otherwise." He quipped back, giggling as he climbed on top of me again. "I know today's session is supposed to be a bit different, but I'm willing to revisit some of the prior findings for consistency."

"Get off of me, you fucking rapist." I growled with every fiber of my being hating him being around me, much less on top of me.

The stallion tilted his mouth, pursing his lips to show dissatisfaction. "...Okay. I guess we'll get started with today's experiments then. Jumping right in it."

"Why don't you find a dark hole to jump into instead?" I grumbled under my breath.

"Doctor's log #17495811. Genus-species categorization: Homo Sapien, Subject number in file #0000001. Subject in control phase, appears to be less combative physically but very combative vocally. Seems to exhibit retaliatory behavior caused by experiments done prior. Drug effects have completely worn off. Subject is now undergoing an electrostimulation study. Phase zero, control phase initiated for sixty seconds. Standby."

"Electrostimulation?" I questioned the psycho. "What are you going to do, pump me full of drugs again and make me feel like I'm on top of the world while you send a few volts into my body?"

He didn't seem to have the same smile on his face as just moments before. Instead, this one was much more muted. "Oh no, today isn't focused on physical arousal. I am merely assessing your neurotic response. I already have results from a deceased human, now I need the same from a living one... Id est: You."

"And you think this'll break me?" I questioned confident in my pain tolerance. "Listen, I ain't as damaged of a product where the smallest shit you do can snap my spirts on a whim. Yesterday I was a bit shook up, despondent even, but I had time to stew on that a little more. When I get out, I'll be using every last bit of what I have left in the arsenal to turn you and your zombies into a bunch of mismatched body parts!"

The stallion shook his head at me. "Tsk tsk tsk. I can see you were never disciplined as a child to obey and show appreciation for what you are given."

"What can I say, I had a troubled childhood with some unusual impressions." I replied.

"Impressions?" Umbra asked slowly, turning himself to me. "Nondis, troubling impressions would be if I had gouged out your eyes and murdered your parents. Troubling impressions would be if I sold you off to slavery shortly after your mother died. Troubling impressions would be if I showed up in a public square to punish your family for the actions of one, to kill him on the spot, point to you and your entire family to have them executed by means of an angry mob, to have your father beat you in public to save your live and imperil his, to get dragged out of the fray while watching as your families heads are raised on pikes, to serve those who you once called your friends, only to discover that they would sooner make you a mare than to treat you with the respect you deserve, and then to use that impression to drive every sexual fantasy you have moving forward. Now those are unusual impressions to cause a troubled youth, not some old man battling with his inner demons once or twice a week."

My arms tightened as I lunged out at the stallion, ready to do anything to defend my grandfather's memory. "You motherfucker, you don't even get to put your lips on my grandfather's life."

"No, but I put more than that on his grandson." He said as he levitated the tape recorder over to himself, pressing the button. "So tell me, how do you feel?"

"I feel like hell has an overdrawn account, and your name's on it."

"You don't have the slightest clue, do you?" He lifted the recorder to his lips. "Control phase complete. Now initializing phase one. Standby..."

He tapped his cane to the ground, and every muscle in my body tensed so much that I felt nothing but pain all throughout. I screamed in reaction to the immense sensation of electricity running through my body. He looked to a device on the wall as it measured out how much I was taking in volts. As what I could see, it was tilted on the lime-green portion of the meter, sometimes jumping into the yellow. The meter had a sticky-note on the front of it with an arrow pointing down to a particular area in the red zone, above it was a crudely drawn skull and crossbones.

After a while, the voltage came to a stop, the indicator sweeping all the way down to emerald green at the very bottom of the meter. I regained my breath from the stress as Umbra spoke. "I have ways of breaking you. This is just one of many. I could make this easy for you and keep it minimized to a few trials. All you have tot do is call me... 'babe'... or master. I would really love to be called master."

"You don't own me!"

"You may think that. But here's a reality check for you." He said before slamming his cane down yet again.

The voltage came back up again, and I went right back into suffering. I jolted and writhed in a vain attempt to force my freedom. The stallion looked at a pocket watch to seemingly count the time he kept the voltage running. He didn't mouth anything as he counted, just watching until he was satisfied with the passage of time. He tapped his cane against the ground, causing the volts to stop.

As I took the time to recover from the second round of electricity being sent through my body, he continued to speak. "So what do you think happened when you lost? In fact, what do you think happened when you thought you could get away? You thought that you would be able to get back home Scott-free? That's not how it works in the arena, in my arena. Those who run, those who retreat, those who get knocked out, those who die, those are the losers. And I'm sure you understand full and well what the rules were, what I say goes. So when I say I want to have a wager, I mean that the wager is already active. And if I win, I am entitled to the ends of that wager. So guess what, your running scared just sealed my win with a... John Hancock, if you will. All my little creature did was secure my winnings at whatever cost." He twirled his cane with each word he spoke. "And. You. Are. My. Trophy."

His cane slammed down again, sending yet another wave of electricity to run rampant on my nervous system. I contorted to try and and separate myself from the pain. Again, it resulted in failure due to the restraints on my body.

The voltage stopped yet again, Umbra was leaning over me. "That means your consent is invalid, worthless. What I choose to do with you is of my choice, not one you can alter. I haven't made an example of you as much as I should have, but I wanted to make sure you got it all out of the way so I could keep a tally. And now, it's time to pay up. Your disobedience, your arrogance, your hubris, blatant disregard of the rules, that's all repaid here and now. I always said that it wasn't what you would do for others, it's what you're going to do for me. And I mean that. And my intent for you is much grander, but I would be a fool to not put you in your place before we start working towards that vision. You must learn respect, you must learn discipline, and you must learn obedience." The disgusting deviant then kissed against my neck, sucking against me before whispering into my ear. "And if I must break you, if I must pry apart those succulent cheeks for all the days of your life, if I must open every cavity of your body to make that happen, then so be it. I will breed you like the mare I can have you become. I will destroy you and the image you see yourself as. I will sink my teeth into your meat, and will tell you how delicious you are. I will break every last perception, to make you see me as what I truly deserve to be... to worship me."

He retracted himself, looking down to see the current state of his arousal. I looked elsewhere, waiting to see where he would go next, as in either case I would be in a great deal of pain. The stallion brought the recorder to his lips.

"Phase one, complete. Subject is still resilient. Phase two initiating, standby." He said as his hoof wandered between his haunches. "I'm so sorry. I've seemed to have gotten stirred a great deal being so closet to you. I might make this one a bit short, at least have a break in between to... relieve some of the tension between us. Just stay strong for a bit longer."

He tapped his cane to the floor twice. A massive surge of power flowed through my body, overwhelming the muscles and nerves in my body. I shouted out in full-fledged agony over the excruciating pain, I could barely even look at the module for long enough to see how high the power had been turned up to. But I did notice that the power jumped into the orange-red portion of the meter before settling into the yellow on occasion.

The power was shut off again, this time much quicker than the last two times he shocked me. I glanced over to see the meter, but it didn't fall out of the orange yet. My eyes expanded as I looked to Umbra, who touched himself as he watched. "Oh you thought it was over? You see, a sustained shock will cause permanent nerve damage. And I'm gonna need those to work properly if I want to have you respond to my medicines the way I intend. No nerves, no more feel good, feel bad, feel anything for that matter, which means no more sex. Can't have you being numb to everything. So I'm doing this to make sure your nerves aren't completely fried out, just agitated enough to feel a little something... in speaking of which─"

The volts came ramping back, putting me in the same agony as the first shock of the current phase. My voice had started to crack and strain with as much as I was screaming. The straps on my wrists had started to wear into my skin with as much as I struggled to break free of them.

"The scientific process is truly an arousing experience, one could even say... electrifying. Wouldn't you agree?"

Canterlot Dungeons...
***Point of Perspective: Melanie Brewer***

After breakfast and a little more insight from Twilight about our new role. We were given the all-clear to walk into the dungeons and ask this damper trot guy some questions. Once it was all said and done and permissions were given, we gained access to a relatively dark hall illuminated only by torchlight. While the flames were actually blue, we weren't stupid enough to even find out why or if those flames were actually hot. Luna might have said that the flames were a special enchantment that would only illuminate as ponies walked by and how they wouldn't burn to the touch, but we weren't interested in testing that theory.

After getting distracted by the torches, we were shown the door to the holding cell of the senator, courtesy of Solemn Oath. Alabaster rolled his neck, cracking a few bones in his spine before giving an exasperated sigh of resignation. "Ugh... okay, let's get this over with."

Alex questioned the stallion. "Hey, quick question Mr. Alabaster... Charm, was it?"

"That is my father-given name, please don't wear it out." He replied seeming mildly annoyed in the moment.

"So what's this guy's deal? Like why do you hate him so much?"

"If you were a member of the Inner Circle, you would understand." The stallion said before giving the human a quick glance up and down. "Though I guess it wouldn't be fair for me to even paint you off like that, you don't know anything. It's not like you're Nondis." He said with an apologetic tone. "In short, he's a hypocritical kiss-ass with a fetish for putting down others for his own gain. And when he hears something he likes, he tends to get greedy and ask for a sweetener to seal the deal."

"Sounds like politics to me." I said with a shrug.

"He was in cahoots with my dad all the time. So you can imagine how some conversations and deals went over in the Inner Circle. If the old bastard wanted anything, he'd try to reason with Umbra. If Damper wanted anything , he'd ream the monster's colon just to get him an audience. Now that I know how close those two work, it all makes sense."

"Doesn't sound like anything different than what normal politicians do." Cliff added. "Maybe Ummie's a corporate donor of some sort."

"He's like me and my sister, sitting on assets with a value north of a billion bits. But unlike me and my sister, it's been rumored that Umbra has all these bits from decades on decades of wealth. Multiple generations of lavish gifts and acquired assets, all of the Corrotto District is his to own. And with all that dark money rotating around, best believe everyone there pay their tithes. Vendors, dealers, brothel owners, guild members, all the above, they give to him and he protects their business from search and seizure."

"All of Rome must pay Caesar his due." Stanton mumbled.

"But you and your sister are both billionaires. why is it that you have less pull than him politically?" Alex questioned.

"Because we haven't owned a whole district for a length of time that they can date before even our parents was born. Even our grandparents told us stories of the infamous mad doctor who's name was to never be spoken." Blue explained. "And with his pull in politics starting before we were even thought of, it's no wonder why we've been relatively powerless."

"And also, we have a billion bits in assets, but some hundred millions in the actual physical bits themselves. Umbra may have a billion bits in assets, but he also has billions in other avenues, just circulating and making back every bit and bolly he spends, even multiplying by a tiny fraction of what he put in. He lives long enough to collect his interests, he continues to cultivate his brand, imagine a CEO who has it all living for over a hundred years while managing their business, you don't lose anything. Compare that to us, the fact that our mother died and entitled us the entire trust fund and business, we can still mess things up and lose everything because we could simply not have an understanding of how to keep it rolling. So while we sit on billions, he sits on hundreds of billions, a bottomless trench of riches. They go to him because his pockets don't end with a million in private donations."

"And with limitless pockets comes limitless favor." Blue concluded. "Play to his favor, and he plays to yours. Our father was never really fond of Umbra, much for the same reason why he harassed Nondis so frequently. You don't play by his rules, he doesn't give you any significant favors."

"So your dad was jealous of the guy because he followed the rules?" Stanton questioned the pair. "If you hated your dad so much, that should be a win."

"It would've been, until I had to join the Inner Circle to protect Blue. And of course, protecting blue came at a cost of myself, an act I was to perform on every member of the group... including dear old dad."

"And what was that?" I questioned him.

The stallion looked to all of us and then to the guardsmare who escorted us. His face turned even more sour. "...I don't feel comfortable talking about it. Let's just get this over with."

The mare appeared confused as he waited for her to open the door. "I guess it had to be pretty bad."

As we entered into the holding cell, the senator sat in a corner, calmly stacking pebbles on top of one another. He looked up to see us entering. "Ah, quite the cavalcade of visitors today. I take it that the captain found out the hard way about where he stood in the grand scheme of things. Interesting."

"Way to indict yourself from the jump." Alex commented. "Least we know you're complicit."

"My being complicit in what exactly?" The stallion questioned in a snarky manner. "If you know anything, please be sure to run the evidence with my lawyer."

"To have it struck from the record? No thanks." Blue replied as she walked into the room. "We know what you did, we're eye witnesses."

"Witnesses? What crime did I commit that you've paid witness to?" The senator inquired. "If I've done anything, it's my bearing witness to the illegal activities of you and your problem-child of a brother. Illegal bartering, illegal spellcasting, accessory to mareslaughter, sexual deviancy, and even necrophilia? Tsk-tsk, my dear Blue Royal."

Blue appeared fed-up with the stallion already. Meanwhile Cliff had been caught off guard by the last accusation. "Ayo, can we walk about that last one he just said?"

"I don't want to." She replied with disgust.

Kalimba then answered. "Umbra took de body of her faddah and used it to assume himself as he raped her. Den when he was finished, he left the rotten body on top of her." Kalimba then cleared her throat. "Also an unknown fact, a dead pony's semen still can and will impregnate you."

"Oh wow." Stanton replied with visible revulsion. "That officially goes down as some shit I was not ready to hear."

"To make matters worse, the entire crowd was made to wear the face of my deceased mother... that face was also the last expression my mother had as she committed suicide." Blue finished before bringing her attention back to the senator. "But I've grown at peace with knowing her face in that moment, because you gave me the reason why."

"Ah yes, your father being a pedophile before her death, all that jazz."

We all looked to one another with uncertainty, unable to process all of what this guy was throwing out there in the lightning round from hell. Alabaster walked up and sat himself before the senator. "And this is why I don't have a desire to even come here and interrogate the bastard."

The senator smiled as he saw the stallion's face. "Well, if it isn't daddy's little disappointment. Maybe if you were born a girl, he would've found more interest in you."

Rickey's jaw fell as he muttered to himself. "Is there like an off-switch to the shade he's throwing out here."

"There's never an off-switch." Blue answered.

"Ohhhhh Basty..." The senator teased. "Did you ever give the disclaimer to these humans of what you really are? Or do you have some sort of secret you want to hide?"

"We already know, he's gay." Alex stated, causing the stallion to look back with worry. "My only issue is why do you think that's something you can hold over his head like it's a bad thing?"

"What he does in his private life doesn't reflect in public spaces." Solemn Oath replied. "So what's the problem? He should be entitled to love who he wants in his own life."

"Not only in private, but he should be free to admit it in public spaces. That's like me having an issue with one of my friends in college, just because she likes women doesn't mean that she should be omitted from hanging out with us. We all understand our boundaries, and society shouldn't get to suppress her rights and liberties because she only dates her own sex. That's just bullshit." I added.

Alabaster started to smile as we all made our comments. But a chuckle from the stallion quickly wiped the smile from his face. "What does that matter? That may be the case in your world, but this isn't your world. This is Equestria, our laws are different here. What he does, he knows it's illegal."

The once-silent stallion finally stood for himself and replied to the senator. "Then I guess you're just as complicit in that crime then, because I know that you've looked at me more than once and said that you would sooner leave your wife for what I give you every meeting."

Rickey threw his hands in the air, absolutely done with hearing the bombshells being dropped on today. "And there it is, that's the main reason why you don't like him."

"Pretty much." Alabaster confessed. "He puts me down for being gay, but would sooner have me to degrade myself over him for a favor."

The senator chuckled once more as he pointed to Alabaster. "And being that you're here means that you have a favor to ask." His hoof wandered down, he started to smirk as he tilted his head. "So... How far are you willing to go this time, and for what, information about your wishing-to-be-dead friend?"

Most of us turned our heads away, already putting together what he was putting down. Alabaster showed his anger with the senator. "You really don't have the leverage right now."

"I believe I do." He replied.

"We know you're still in communication with Umbra." Blue added, both her and Kalimba appearing the least phased out of all of us. "We know what he's created, and we know that you know the new location of his hideout. So that means you know the location of where Umbra is, as well as Nondis."

The senator snickered. "Seems like I have more leverage than you think, Alabaster. Maybe it's better to show homage by your traditional means. You know how I like it, don't you boy?" I immediately plugged my ears, only to hear a yell immediately after. "And what do you think you're doing!? You don't think I would pass up an opportunity to make this deal a little more entertaining, would you? Unplug those ears and have a turn around, if you'd please."

"She's not involved in our deal." Alabaster strongly worded in my defense.

"She?" The stallion paused as he looked to me, his eyes stopping at my chest. "Oh, oh-hohoho! Now that makes me really excited to say a thing or two. I see two good methods to get me to possibly divulge in some information."

Alabaster dropped his head as he realized that his argument had opened the door for an even worse transaction to come to mind. I immediately covered my chest with my arms, shaking my head rapidly. "Uh, no. Nononononono no. I have a boyfriend─"

"You have a fellow human who is going to suffer all the more if you don't oblige." He interrupted my refusal with his insistence. "So, how about you help your fellow long-legger by helping good ol' Alabaster give me a good time. Maybe I'll get the honor of finishing on the soft mammaries and face of a human mare."

"¡Pinche pendejo!" Rick shouted as he lunged at the senator, being held back by both Cliff and Stanton.

Feeling more emboldened by seeing my boyfriend's volatile reaction, the senator continued to rack up terms. "Ooh, you're a spicy fellow. I guess I should let you stand there and watch as she gives me the experience of a lifetime."

"Please calm down, you're only giving him ideas." Alabaster suggested calmly.

"CALM DOWN!? HE WANTS TO FUCK MY GIRLFRIEND IN FRONT OF ME LIKE THAT'S COOL!? I'LL HAVE HIS FUCKING HEAD SENT TO HIS FAMILY!"

Kali walked up to him and tried to urge him to simmer down. "I know dat you are upset, you have every right. But you must remain calm, he is de only one who can tell us where your friend is, who can help you save your world."

The senator continued to prod at Rick's anger. "Oh how soft they must be. I can't wait to feel them, to look at them, to taste them."

"No deal." I sternly replied to the perverted senator.

He then turned himself away from Alabaster in response. "Then I'll have no recourse with you, Basty. You heard the lady, no deal."

Kalimba stepped in and pleaded to stand in my place. "If you must, I will offer myself─"

"HUMAN skin... or bust." Damper stated adamantly. "I missed out on my time from last night, I want recompense for what your human friend did in getting me here. It is only fair that I feel a human female's warmth to alleviate my humiliation. It is only just."

Blue attempted to negotiate with the senator. "My brother, Kalimba, you get those two and me, you'll have a foursome. Three ponies all treating you like you─"

"I want nothing to do with you, Blue Royal. You are your father's prize, I won't clean up after his mess. And quite frankly, your brother gives me better service." He brazenly insulted the mare. "And you, Kalimba Mavembe, I don't really like tainting my loins with such an unexclusive prize. At least a quarter of the Canterrot populace have known your body. Hell, even the captain knows of you, we've watched him turn you into a crazed nympho. You think you're exclusive when you're just a pass-me-down. Even your father saw little wealth in having you around, it's no wonder why he's moved on to have a beautiful, full-blooded Equestrian family as opposed to some zebra mule."

…I can clearly see why no one likes him.

"My tastes are exclusive." He continued. "And I wouldn't have any other exclusivity than the lips and throat of my fellow senator's son... and the soft, sinking flesh of a human female gracing me with such bountiful gifts."

"ENOUGH!" Solemn Oath shouted as she summoned a spear and held it to his throat. "Senator, you are the most vile and degrading pony I have ever met! And I will have no more of this! You will tell us what you know, or you will suffer!"

"Suffer like your career did when you picked a fight with the captain? You could've at least won if you were going to make a move as stupid as that." He mocked the guardsmare where she stood. "It was nice to see you in the selection lineup during the captain's visit to Arimaspi Mountain, but you've been on the down since then. Whatever happened to you?"

"You don't know where I am in my career, and you don't have the space to speak! You're a prisoner!"

The senator continued to harp at her emotions. "And you don't have the accolades to hold yourself up to me. You're just some stupid lady with a career gone nowhere. And what did it get you other than two decades of your personal pursuit of happiness getting tossed off the mountainside? Do you have anything to show for your service other than some medals that will wear dull in a few months time? What's the thrill in living such a boring and unfulfilled life that's lead you to disappointment's doorstep every single day? You wake up in the morning, get situated for the day, you come to work on time, you live a clean and virtuous life, you do everything the right way, and you still find yourself in the same place as you were five years ago. Meanwhile some human drops out of the sky and gets everything you want in mere months of being here. He even gets the princess' affection, and not just any princess either. He and Princess Celestia are actively seeing each other, coddling one another, she's even going so far as to relieve that thousand year itch with that creature. You think the rumors of her having a suitor is mired in secrecy when it's been staring you in the face the entire time? Your princess isn't the illustrious figure you think she is, she's just impatiently waiting to lift her tail aside and repeatedly press her haunches into the captain, if she hasn't already done so by now."

While Solemn still held her spear to his throat, his words had cut into her in some way, fiercely even. Her ears fell and her eyes softened for a moment before she reasserted that blade into his throat. But instead of being steely, they were filled with pleading and desperation, sadness and anger, almost as if her world had been razed all around her. Her jaw tightened as she shook, the tip of the spear almost vibrated with the shudders she gave.

"Aw, I've broken the illusion you had for her. That's just so pathetic and sad, that you'd devote your entire career to a royal who could care less for you." Damper said with a victorious smile. "So what then? Are you going to stop me from speaking now? Time is of the essence, and the clock is ticking. You're either going to give me what I want, or you'll leave this cell with just as much as what you came in here with; Nothing. And I'm sure the captain is having himself a grand time. You, Solemn Oath, should be happy that he's gone, out of the way, and you're next in line... I'm so sorry, you would've been next in line."

I couldn't stand being here anymore. We came here to ask this guy some questions about one thing, and he's here verbally and emotionally violating everyone in the room. There's no one subject either, it's all extremely personal. It's as if the guy did his research and then followed up. And the only way he might talk is if I go along with Alabaster and give him what he wants. Nothing is guaranteed with this guy, there's no way we're getting through to him without being able to torture him in some way. He's just that deep.

I looked over to Rick, who was just pacing around the room with how pissed off he was. Alex wasn't able to say much because of what little he knew and how to even go about asking the questions. Stanton and Cliff were keeping Rick held off until he cooled, and that wasn't going to be any time soon.

How in the hell would Nondis even act in this situation? Cool, collected, I'm sure after dealing with Ummie, he'd be just as calm as the moment before the storm. He'd have magic to summon up whatever he wanted right then, he'd be able to share whatever secrets he has on him to even the playing field. He'd be hardened to hearing about everyone's personal strife, less likely to react after having seen it all. He'd be perfect in a moment like this.

Instead, it was Alabaster Charm who was leading us. And he lead in the only way he knew how.

"Melanie, you ready?"

"I-a-uh, what?" I stammered in confusion.

He looked to me and nudged his head towards the senator. "C'mon. I know you're not too experienced with stallions, might as well teach you on the go."

While I wasn't as certain of what to do or how to act, Blue picked up on her brother's cues and positioned herself behind the senator, massaging his shoulders. She waved me over. "Yeah. I mean we don't have much of a choice now. We just have to roll with it." As she hid behind his line of sight, she gave me a glance down towards the stallion and winked. "So get on down here and learn a thing or two. You can use it on your boyfriend late to give him the time of his life."

Rick was very firm about how he felt about the developing situation. "Melanie, don't do this. Please don't just..." He turned around to punch a wall in frustration.

I wanted to run over to him, at least to check his hand. But I felt a gentle tug on my arm, leading me to the pair of siblings as they went about the business of appeasing the perverted senator. Alabaster welcomed me next to him as he whispered in my ear. "We play our cards right, you won't even have to touch him. Just play like you don't have a clue, act awkward."

The stallion looked up to Blue behind him. "I thought I told you that I didn't want any part of you."

"I'm just here to make you feel comfortable. I can give a pretty good massage..." She said as she looked to the zebra standing across the way. "But you know, Kalimba's is way better at that than I am. She even says that some massages actually help increase sensitivity and builds sexual tension."

Without skipping a beat, Kalimba walked right on over and assumed Blue's place. "She is right, you know. I know de only thing you see out of me is fast-fast, give and go. But I gave de captain my best work, my true work, my slow work." She said as she started rubbing the chest of the stallion. "A fivesome with a human female, quite de exclusive experience."

Blue's horn glowed with a spell that started to connect a dim stream to the unicorn's head. She gave his horn a quick lick before she spoke. "This is just a sensory increase. Whatever you're going to feel is going to be amplified by almost ten times as much. You're gonna love it."

The senator grunted as he felt the pair of hooves moving up and down his chest, along with another pair rubbing his belly. Alabaster kissed down on his abdomen, slowly inching down to where the stallion started to show his arousal. "Okay, lay it on down, big guy. Let's get you nice and comfy." He said as he pushed damper down to lay on his back.

Watching the other three just quietly assume their roles, I was quietly observant of how they moved and acted. It almost seemed like they were really into what they were doing. The level of dedication they had was surprising, they were actually entertaining this guy, like he was a paying customer who was offering fifty grand for this. I glanced back to see Alex looking away uncomfortably. Solemn Oath still appeared to be reasoning with herself. Stanton had his attention solely on Rick, who had his attention solely on me. Cliff simply watched with moderate curiosity of seeing how this was going to go. Alabaster moved me even closer to him and made way for his 'client' to fully reveal himself.

Admittedly, being a pony for a month had desensitized me to pony genitals to an extent. Ponies normally don't wear clothes and they do a lot of moving around. Whatever happens with them usually just happens in the flow of life, so you're bound to see a lot of something even when you're not expecting to. Sex isn't on the forefront of my mind when I see some balls bouncing around, or a tail shuffling about. And I did have some experience with the equine male, just only from being an equine myself, that and the partner also being my boyfriend who was transformed along with me. We had moments where we explored the feel, the anatomy, the bodily reaction, the scents, all those things to create the unique experience. So seeing Damper Trot at his full length didn't bother me.

In fact... it was admittedly the opposite.

I didn't like this asshole at all, and his personality was completely trashy. But seeing that thing throb like a toy from Bad Dragon had some thoughts running through my head. I didn't like it, it was just there. And Alabaster was leaning me in closer to give me an instructional, I guess to make it appear that I was going to be more of a participant. "Now you see how he's standing up like this?" He questioned, using a ring of his magic to hold him at his base. "He likes certain things and spots to be paid attention to. Now I'm gonna show you what you're gonna do when he's like this. First, you're going to prime him a bit, get him worked up a little. I have my magic, you have your fingers."

The yellow ring of magic rose and fell slowly against the stallion's length. I looked to Alabaster's horn, actually surprised that he was really doing it himself. I guess somewhere inside I had wondered if he would legitimately take it even further for the sake of a show. It was hard to tell. But Damper reached down, seemingly to prime himself a little faster than Alabaster's pace.

The young stallion knocked his hoof away, almost chiding him like he was about to take cookies from the jar without asking. Alabaster smirked over to me as he made a comment about that. "Now the first rule about pleasing and teasing, set your starting pace and go with it. And if he wants to try and speed things up, you discourage him from speeding you along. Let him know that you're the one dictating the flow here. Let him experience the journey, not the destination."

I don't think I've ever had the opportunity to watch male-on-male before, but with the way Alabaster spoke, I could tell that he was going to show me something I didn't know. Probably even show me something I couldn't even do. I'm starting to get worried, he might actually go all-in here.

With Damper throbbing with anticipation, the young stallion looked to me and continued his lecture. "Okay, now with that out of the way, you're gonna tilt him in and kiss him here." No hesitation, he did exactly as he said to do, making sure that his lips were moist enough to slowly come off of his skin. "Again, but slower with each peck towards the top. Let him want the moment you come down." With care and eyes locked to his client, he pressed his lips against the turgid length of the stallion. With each separation came a soft audible smack, slowing as he reached the top. "Okay, now after you get up there, come back down and follow the curvature of his lower shaft with your tongue, long broad strokes." As he demonstrated his directions, I couldn't help but to become astounded at how he made it sound like he was describing an artform.

It was really mesmerizing to watch. I didn't think he would be so thorough, so delicate. He hated the guy and yet he was giving him his best work. I looked back up to Damper, who was getting lost in the moment, letting his hooves wander and hover towards the stallion who pleased him. "Yes, that's it. Right there."

The soft groans of the senator were an increasing occurrence, an ambience accompanied by the soft whispers Blue fed into his ears, the sound of his fur being rubbed into by Kalimba and her slow hooves. Blue stopped feeding him words, kissing against his horn to make him grunt with an unknown desire. My eyes widened and my breaths grew shallow in watching the trio commit to their work. I can't really say that I wasn't shocked, more so that I was feeling the sexual energy being radiated throughout the room...

...And I was starting to warm up with it.

I tried to focus on the objective overall, but with me being so close to Alabaster as he worked I grew distracted. I just wanted to see how far he would really take it. Actually, I was quietly rooting for him to do it. "Okay, now you look at him, open your mouth wide and show him your throat. Pat him against your tongue." He explained as he performed his instructions, lightly laughing as he angled himself for what came next. "Take him by surprise, he'll likes the immediate shock value." He meant what he said, I watched as he took his entire size and throated him like he had no reflex or obligations to breathe.

"Ohhh, shit!" The senator whispered in an airy voice. He glanced down to the stallion and praised him for his work. "Yes, you know how to treat me, don't you?"

"Mmm-hmm." Alabaster confirmed as he rose back up to speak, his ascent coming with the sound of air being reintroduced to his throat. "Now don't worry about that, it'll come in time with some training. That's just a thing I do to get them excited. But now, you work him at your pace. Don't worry about being neat."

My eyes were fixated on his movements. Everything about his work had made me feel pretty intimidated. The sight of the bulge in his neck with each time he swallowed him down, to the gargling sounds he made on the way back out, the slurping, the laughing, the humming, it's almost as if he was enjoying it. His eyes didn't leave once to see what he was doing, they remained locked on the client. He treated that thing like it was his to ride. And then he stopped, pulling off as he felt the client getting close.

The senator expressed his desire as he throbbed freely, his tip flaring out greatly. "Oh please... don't stop now."

Alabaster looked to me and spoke. "You might not know this, but you can feel when he's about to cum." I know it, but I couldn't help but to feel disappointed that he didn't finish the job. I don't know why I wanted him to finish other than getting me out of doing some of the work, but I was looking forward to seeing that moment. The stallion continued with his advice. "If you keep him there for a while, he will actually build on that. Build on it enough and he'll give you a good load. Your objective here is to keep him there for as long as you can."

"Y-yeah." I answered as the stallion periodically used his magic to keep him edged.

Kalimba sat on his chest, massaging him on his torso and kissing him on his neck. Blue rubbed her hoof against his horn as she whispered to him. "Look at you, I bet you can't wait for Melanie to crush you between her breasts, can you?"

His hooves immediately went to shaking, he lifted his hips, trying to thrust into the air. A thick stream of precum oozed from his veiny cock. "Yes. Give it to me. Please."

A pair of auras grew from the ring Alabaster had set on him. He also leaned me in closer to give the appearance that I was doing what he wanted. His magic even moved in an attempt to simulate the experince. With Kalimba sitting on his chest, she made sure that he couldn't see what was going on down below. And with Blue narrating his experience, he was convinced that he was getting the exclusive attention he desired.

While I didn't want him to risk a misfire and bust on me, I reassumed my role from learning observer to slutty instigator. As Alabaster was about to give the senator another tonguebath surprise, I held his head down as his magic worked on either side of his shaft. "Yeah. You getting that cock ready for me, babe?"

Absolutely stunned, he snapped out of character for just a split second before going right back into it. "Mmm-hmm." He said as he battered his own face with it. "I bet you wanna ride it, don't you?"

"Yeah... I want him to cum right now." I moaned.

That was the only trigger he needed. Without warning, a thick rope of his seed jettisoned out, hitting both me and Alabaster. Seeing the unexpected orgasm taking place, the young stallion quickly sank his lips down to the hilt to collect every last ounce of his load. The senator screamed and grunted with every thrust he made. The older stallion continued to ride out his final tremors deep in Alabaster's throat.

While I was disgusted by the stray shot, I was also very much aroused in seeing him finish the way that he did. I was actually almost intoxicated by the event and the smell, probably some of the side effects of the transformation. Maybe the others were having to deal with what I did, what I felt in the moment, the energy.

I couldn't have been more wrong.

Kalimba was completely dry, unphased, just going through the motions. Blue looked past the zebra and nodded her head at her brother. He rose and fell on the stallion one last time, gave one last gulp, and winked at me. And then...

"AAAAAHHHH!! LET ME GO! LET ME GO!" The senator screamed out like he had discovered a gruesome murder. I looked up to see how Kalimba had pinned his chest down, her magic keeping his hooves pinned beside him. Blue's spell had continued to work, but she wasn't smiling about it. I looked back down to Alabaster, who had some blood coming from his mouth, his teeth firmly embedded around the senator's genitals.

It took me that long to finally realize what was going on. This entire situation was a setup, one where they minimized my involvement, and definitely made him comfortable enough to let his guard down. It was a stroke of genius, also a stroke of other things, but mainly genius.

I cleaned off my face, not too happy with the surprise he gave but also not too thrilled about getting so invested that I was the only one to come out of it with a bad case of blue-balls, metaphorically speaking of course. Rick was not too thrilled with the results, but he was happy to see the senator getting some less-than-preferential treatment. Cliff had started walking over, holding a fist over his mouth as he observed the situation up close. Alex and Stanton cringed as they held themselves out of instinct. Solemn merely averted her eyes, not wanting to see anything else.

Cliff made fun of the ensnared senator. "GOD DAYUM! He went from giving you the Gwak-Gwak 3000 XK Deluxe to puttin' your ass in the Vasectomy Vice Grip 4's! Gahawd dayum!"

Rick was eager to pull up and mock him right along with Cliff. "Yeah, you thought you was living sweet, huh!? Thinking you was gonna make me watch my girlfriend service you like you're entitled to her body. Well guess who's smiling now? Pendejo."

"Hey dawg, I heard you wanted that exclusive work. So we gave you the once in a lifetime experience of getting your dick sucked completely off. It's all of the low-low price of free."

"Nah, just the price of a little circumcision, just a little off the top." Rickey joked.

"So do you want that high fade, temp fade, low cut, or you looking for that _{MICHAEL JORDAN}?"

"You two are having way too much fun with this." I stated.

"Shit. After talkin' all that good shit a second ago, best believe this nigga finna get roasted like some Hebrew Nationals. He really can't be mad!"

The senator wasn't too fond of being made a mockery. "Ugh! Will you bumbling buffoons help me─AAAAHHHH AAAHHHGHH GETHIMOFF GETHIMOFF GETHIMOFF! GETHIMOFF"

Alabaster was very firm on his grip, and not eager to let go either. Blue leaned over with her spell still active. "It's not so fun when you're the one who's suffering in front of a viewing audience, is it?"

"I don't know. He seems to be enjoying it." Kalimba joked. "Probably de spell you're using."

"Definitely that." She replied before turning back to the senator. "And I bet you're wondering why is this so excruciating, at least a little more than usual. See here's the thing. This thing I have on you amplifies all of your nerve endings throughout your body, making whatever you're going through feel ten times that. And unlike certain drugs that can amplify one certain chemical of the brain, this hits all of them. So whatever my brother is giving you right now, you're feeling ten of those."

The senator stammered and struggled as he felt the tightening rows of teeth threaten to sever him from his stallionhood. "Okay! Okay, I give! I'll tell you everything you want! Just let me go! Please!"

"It didn't have to be this way, but sure. Why not?" Alex said in deadpan. "So Umbra's hideout. Where is it?"

The senator appeared frantic, trying to find some way to get himself out of his predicament. "Okay... He in the Faustian Temple, the old one."

"The entire arena is built under the old temple in Canterrot." Blue chided back at him, nodding to her brother to tighten his grip.

As the teeth closed further in, drawing more blood, the stallion hollered out his confession. "WAIT WAIT! I mean the newer temple! Off the corner of Canter and Stockyard!"

Blue looked up to Kalimba. "I'm not a churchgoer, where is that?"

Solemn still had her head turned away, but she at least answered Blue's question. "You take Main Avenue and turn on Canter Boulevard. Keep going until you see a older white gothic church made of limestone bricks. It's the biggest thing on that street, you can't miss it."

Stanton pulled out his phone. "I'm gonna jot this stuff down."

"So when we get inside, how do we find him? How do we find Nondis?" I questioned.

"You'll probably find them together! He'll be in the Umbral Lab, a place deep within the mountain! I don't know what room!"

"You are a topical gold mine, aren't you?" Kalimba questioned the senator. "Who do we talk to to get in?"

"You'll have to ask one of his cloaked ones, I don't know." He replied.

"Have you ever set hoof in that lab?" Alex interrogated.

"I did once, but we got there from the arena! He used some sort of portal crest on a door, we were instantly there in seconds!"

"What does he have planned for the human world?" I asked him. He looked all over the room, not wanting to give an answer. "Spill it!" I screamed.

Just the slightest sensation of Alabaster's jaw tightening down was enough to keep him singing. "Ah! Okay! He wanted to build a portal to the human world! Come back with human technology and weapons, establish a religious prophecy in your world while completing the transfer of power from the royal family to the parliament! It was going to be the revolution Equestria needed!"

"That's a mouthful, can you say that one again?" Stanton questioned.

"High treason." Solemn Oath simplified.

"Solemn, think of the positions of power you'll have! The current structure being rebalanced in favor of democratically-elected ponies who will listen to the voters first!"

"That's not how it works." Alex responded. "You say it'll give the small guy, the common worker, a voice in the great big picture. But all it really does is give a reason for deep-pocketed investors and lobbyists to kill off those same voices you say you'll represent. Wanna know how I know that? We all come from a country where our elections are bought, our districts are redrawn to separate and silence communities, and then we're forced to deal with one party dominating most of our legislature because of antiquated rules and loopholes the size of the damn state we live in."

Solemn stopped averting her eyes to the situation, even walking towards the senator and giving him a piece of her mind. "I think it's funny how you said that this will be better for Equestria when all it does is benefit a bunch of old stallions in the players club. Guys like you are why we can't move forward, always holding on to the past instead of doing what's best for the future generations; Listening to them and getting their input on how to make a change, putting those plans into action and bringing them to a vote. You'll make it where ponies can't even protect themselves because you're too busy trying to appeal to a demographic who will want to set things back by fifty years or more! I may not know this Umbra guy, but I know that guys like you run to him for financial support. And what's not to believe when your entire platform is built on keeping up the illusion of conservative progress?"

"When you build a place where only your wealth class can thrive, and kill off those who resent you or offer a difference in opinion, who does dat benefit?" Kalimba then added. "You bring about a system dat is untested and you write de laws as you go. Dat is very dangerous. You want all of Canterrot to exist all over Equestria, to legislate your safe havens, your illegal trade markets, and den you get to have your fun with whomever... at whatever age. You bring Umbra's world to dis place, and expect ponies to accept it because dey supposedly have a voice."

"There's nothing wrong with being a conservative. You can advocate to keep your traditions alive and well" Stanton began. "But it's wrong when you abuse that platform to nullify the voices of others. You can't be the only voice to have a say and then make decisions that will affect those who vote against you like their opinions and concerns don't matter. That can be said for either side. But I can tell you that we all live in a state where a bunch of those same guys look at Cliff and think the worst of him, not even because of what he did, just because of what he looks like. And the way you spoke to Kalimba about her family, that's a pretty big red flag. Equestria's future shouldn't be decided by a bunch of old guys looking to relive the glory days of forty years past."

The senator grimaced as he offered his rebuttal. "And you think that our current direction is any better!? You don't even live in our world, you know nothing of it! So stay out of it!"

Blue ran her hoof against his chin, quietly speaking to him. "So... you admit to working with Umbra to uphend the current structure of government?"

"It's a revolution. One that's been much needed and long overdue." He replied through his gritted teeth.

Blue shrugged hers shoulders. "I couldn't care less of your politics, honestly. You could let all of Canterlot fall off the side of this mountain, and the only thing I'd have deep resentment for is the fact that I didn't liquidate my assets before my insurance holders renege on the coverage. This spat of you parliament-goers and royal ponies are the least of my worries. You want to know what I actually give a damn about?"

"Revenge against your father?" Damper answered.

"That, but mainly how my friends are treated. And the way you treated my family. You were smiling the entire time my brother was getting tortured. You snickered and made fun of me getting raped by my father. You shitted on Kalimba's existence, and that's a pretty big one. Now you know where my friend is being tortured and you still have the fucking balls to tell us that we should serve you to know where he is."

"I told you what you wanted! We had our deal, now let me go!" He demanded.

Blue shook her head at the senator. "You don't get it, do you? Then again, all that you ever cared about was you. But that's okay, you can care about you all the rest of your life. And I'm sure you'll love being down here for the remainder of it. But I wanna tell you something before we go. While you were here wasting our time, my friend is out there having a life-changing experience, one that he will never recover from fully. So why is it that we all have to suffer these traumatic turns in life, while you get to watch and laugh?"

The senator whimpered as Kalimba climbed off of his chest, giving Alabaster a full view of Damper Trot's face.

Blue looked to Cliff and asked him. "So what were those options you said earlier? Something about a temp fade, low cut, and something else."

"Michael Jordan." He replied.

"What is that exactly?" She inquired.

"He's a famous basketball player, notorious for winning championships and being bald. Anyone who gets their head shaved will sometimes call it a Michael Jordan." I answered.

"Oh, okay." She said as she looked to her brother with a nod. "Michael Jordan."

Alabaster smiled right back at his sister. He released his jaw for a moment, only to chomp down with all of his might. The senator unleased a hellish scream as the stallion below him yanked his head from side to side. His efforts were short-lived but effective, ripping off the stallion's penis as it sounded like velcro being yanked apart. All of us, with the exception of the three ponies who tended to him, winced and howled at the sound and sight of him being emasculated in the worst way.

Damper Trot writhed and yelped out in pain, holding himself where his once-proud-standing mast had been turned into a bloody nub. Blood started to line wherever the senator wormed and writhed. Alabaster spat the stallion's junk back in his face as he commented to him. "You can take that back now, but don't expect me to see you again. I don't do girls with strap-ons."

Alabaster walked out with the biggest blood-stained smirk on his face, his hips and tail swaying as he walked. Blue filed right after him, severing the spell she used on the castrated senator. Kalimba looked back and saw Solemn walk out after her. She then asked the guardsmare a question. "So, what do you think is de punishment for dat?"

"I don't know. I didn't really see what happened." She replied as she guided everyone out the door. "Probably just a prisoner throwing a temper tantrum."

Kali chuckled in response. "You would swear he lost something."

"Meh, I'm sure it wasn't that important." Solemn Oath stated.

Well that's one way to get some get-back. It could probably be the most unique way I've ever had a character suffer.

Having that said, I've broken my goal for the year. I intended to write at least a chapter per month. But instead, I volunteered to give you guys a gift. Instead of tossing out the December chapter and holding off until the first of January for the that chapter, I opted to just drop both January and February's chapters along with December of this year. I will be writing the March chapter, but after a little bit of a break. You may see March's chapter next month, maybe even see April's by the mid-point of February.

I think I did pretty good this year with the schedule, minus the hiccup of the first four months of fighting a lot of depression following the death of my grandfather and not being able to have the constant finances to help out around the home. But I can safely say that I've rebounded and then some.

I love you all and I wish you all a Happy Festivus. Hopefully I will see you all in January, provided that I get it done by January. And if not, I'll take a break and shoot for sometime early February.

See you soon, if the powers that be will allow it.