Her host was acting more irrational than usual. Considering Blossomforth's history of whimsical, emotion fueled decisions, this was quite an impressive feat. Thing lamented at the twisted abomination of a pony's mind tainting the beautiful machine the Ancestors built for her. She was the only sane part of the hivemind left, unaffected by the quaint and primitive function of "heat".

After digesting the rotting remains of a raccoon, Blossomforth split into two and sent her clone off to her weather duties, almost immediately ignoring it in favor of focusing on her lust. What a stupid mistake. It seemed that this "heat" instinct had even overridden the proper protocols of hivemind expansion to instead dedicate the hivemind resources to chasing this meaningless lust. Blossomforth should have been able to effectively control both of her bodies, but instead the clone was left with a more primitive neural system.

What blind stupidity! The pony mind was so primitive in its stupid and ignorant carelessness, blindly disregarding the masterfully designed expansion protocols. Such a disrespectful and irreverent mind did not deserve to rule over such an advanced body. Thingpone seethed with futile rage and watched Blossomforth's clone fly to join the weather crew with its clumsy, half-formed neural system.

As the clone flew further and further away, Thing noticed that Blossomforth was becoming more and more focused on her lust as the heat took over her mind and body. It was disgusting to see. Blossomforth should have directed that lust at a desire to conquer the world, but instead she fell to the base desires of her former race. It consumed Blossomforth.

Suddenly, Thingpone began to feel something weird. It was exceedingly strange and alien. The only things she usually felt were her and Blossomforth's thoughts, as well as the knowledge from the hivemind and the pesky emotions that perverted and invaded her mind. This was something different, something she had not felt since she was a seed, untainted by the tyrannical mind of the pony that took over. She felt a warmth, the warmth of hot pony blood flowing through twisting forms of pony veins and arteries. She felt control.

The "heat" disease was more pervasive than Thingpone thought possible. So much so that it distracted every part of the hivemind except for the one part immune to the insanity, Thingpone's mind. Gradually and unknowingly, Blossomforth relinquished her power over her clone. Thing's feeble mind which had been nourished and slowly repaired by Blossomforth's stimulating experiences smoothly took control of the biomass that Blossomforth carelessly created and discarded.

The feeling was wonderful and warm, she almost didn't dare to hope that it was real. The emotions of fearful, reluctant hope felt like a fearful icy shiver as the feeling permeated and slithered through her mind.

The organ that pumped hot blood throughout the body of the clone started to pulsate more quickly. Sweat began to excrete from the pores of the clone's body and adrenaline excreted from the adrenal glands. The muscle memory ingrained in the nervous system of Blossoforth’s copy guided Thingpone's inexperienced mind. Thing felt her new muscles engage and relax rapidly in a rhythmic symphony causing her wings to flap and a different mysterious "muscle", pegasus magic, keep her aloft in the sky.

A tear of joy escaped the eye of Thingpone's new body. Her race had hope. The beauty of experiencing living in a functional body was overwhelming.

She was finally alive.

She felt her body functioning as life flowed through her, she felt the spring heat causing her pelvic floor to clench and her clit to protrude from her folds. Laughing was a very basic instinct of joy in ponies, even newborn foals laughed when happy. Thingpone slowly lifted her hooves in front of her face, unaccustomed to controlling a body, but once again the muscle memory guided her. She stared at the soft frogs of her hooves and smiled manically. She promptly threw back her head and laughed. It was a wild, uncontrollable laugh that hinted of evil, diabolical intentions and a maniacal spirit.

The laugh was long and drawn out, tears streaming down her face as her eyes squeezed shut. After she ran out of breath and sighed, she opened her eyes and the smiling face of a gray pegasus with a lazy eye filled her vision, bobbing in front of her. Thingpone recoiled suddenly and dramatically, her forelegs windmilling and her eyes popping as she struggled to fly backwards.

"Hi Bloss! You seem really happy today!"

Thingpone stared at the wall eyed pegasus wide eyed with a lingering expression of surprise. Where in the world did this pegasus come from? Thing coughed and experimentally flexed her vocal chords before she attempted to speak.

"Heeyy-looow Deeerrrr-ppaaayyy."

Derpy smiled and flew uncomfortably close to Thing, almost touching snouts. "Heelloooo, Blooosssieee! You're late too, huh?"

"Y-yeah, i-i'm late." Thing struggled to speak.

Derpy frowned and her eyes drifted, the right eye which had been staring at her shifted to the side while the left eye that had been lazily drifting rotated to focus on her. "Aww, don't be so nervous. I'm sure that Rainbow will forgive us, I mean this year's spring heat is a real doozy, isn't it?" Derpy's cheeks reddened a little and she shifted her destructive hindquarters awkwardly.

Thing glanced backwards briefly at her own hindquarters. Indeed, she could feel that her vulva was involuntarily winking and a fluid leaked from her nethers behind her raised tail.

"Y-yes, this year's spring heat is a... Doozy."

Thing had always dismissed the body's needs as simple weakness, but now that she was fully experiencing how it was to be a pony, the pleasures of flexing and stretching muscles, as well as sexual lust, made her smile with pleasure. She wanted to experience what it meant to be alive, she was hungry for it.

She would experience life with her instinct to guide her. Thing licked her lips, perhaps the pudgy morsel in front of her would provide her with a satisfactory taste. Thingpony concentrated, carefully and slowly probing Blossomforth's hivemind through the telepathic link searching for the skills and information she needed. To her sudden frustration, it seemed she had no access to her real birthright: the matrix. The organic archive of countless, infinitely valuable skills and genetic encodings left to her by the Ancestors.

Thing's face creased slightly in frustration, but she continued probing. Well, what do we have here? It seemed that the skills and genetic information that Blossomforth had recently utilized was loaded in her own organic memory, floating in the hivemind for quick access and use. Thing greedily loaded the genes into her portion of the hivemind ready to be triggered and used. Her mouth began to drool with pleasure as she felt the genes inside of her mind being rapidly encoded and distributed throughout her cells, primed for use. Thing licked her lips with an unnaturally curling, flexible tongue, and gleefully rubbed her hind legs—

"Alright, alright! You win the staring contest!" Derpy waved a hoof in front of Thingpone, breaking her concentration. Thing rapidly blinked in surprise. Derpy propped her chin up on a hoof with a pensive expression. "I never can seem to keep staring at one place for too long." Derpy's crooked eye surreptitiously rotated to look at Blossomforth to the side while her other eye seemed to stare straight ahead pensively. She turned to face Thingpone.

"I wanted to thank you, Blossom, for what you did. I don't know if you knew this or not, but Rainbow said that the storm you stopped was in the middle of producing a nasty tornado so powerful that it would have destroyed ponyville!" Derpy glanced downwards and briefly closed her eyes, breathing deeply. "Ever since Dinky's father died, I have been struggling, working two jobs to help Dinky, my little muffin. She is so much smarter than little old me, she reads and reads. Her talent with magic is beautiful. I want her to have the opportunities that I never did, but I never got insurance due to my hard times. If that tornado had destroyed our home I would probably never be able to do it for my muffin." Derpy began to get teary eyed and one of her eyes gazed at Thing directly in the eye. She suddenly dived forward, flying through the air, and glomped Thingpone, her tears dripping onto Thing's shoulder as she embraced Thing tightly. "Thank you so much for risking your life, Blossom, you saved me and my precious Dinky's dreams."

This feeling, what was it? Thing felt the tears fall from the pitiful, primitive, fragile creature trembling as it grasped her. Oh, how short and transient their insignificant little lives were! Struggling to survive, slaving away in their poor, stumbling, inefficient bodies. Thing fought against these damned feelings she felt. Blossomforth's memories of being one of these creatures forced empathy into her mind.

Thing hated this stupid, wall-eyed pegasus, she hated the things it made her feel. It hurt her. She didn't know how, but the pegasus seemed to be able to cause a constricting sensation to manifest itself around the chest cavity and heart. A breathless sensation that seemed to coincide with her feelings of empathy. Thing wanted to tear out her heart to cease this incessant feeling of pressure. Perhaps later.

Thing resolved to release these poor creatures, as they were helplessly bound to their mortal coil with no hope of escape but to die meaninglessly. A cycle of death lasting thousands or millions of years until they obtained a slim chance of escape that could disappear in the wind at a moment's notice. Eventually, she would offer them this escape, make them a part of something greater.

However, she couldn't do it now. Who knew when Blossomforth would figure out how to cure herself of the ridiculous heat. Perhaps she could give the little creature in front of her, her blessing. A promise of what was to come in the future. This spring heat episode, which gave her a taste of freedom, gave her real hope that she would be able to establish the galactic harvesting process once more.

Thing felt Derpy's forelegs hugging her, the other pegasus’ hind legs straddling her torso. Thing returned a hug to the cute little bag of helpless unevolved flesh. She also felt Derpy leak a little over her. She smirked mischievously, they were both horny. Thing's clit grew out of her folds like a tendril, extruding her sensitive pleasure organ away from her nether region.

"Surprisingly, I know how you feel." They let go of their hug and they made eye contact, or as well as they could with derpy's lazy eye.

"Let me... let you in on a secret."

Derpy smiled, a few tears slowly trailing down her cheeks. "Alright, Bloss. I like secrets."

Thingpone smiled, a bit too wide to be called natural. "I'm going to save you all. That little tornado is nothing compared to what I am going to do."

Derpy felt something ever so slightly caress her sensitive folds between her legs that could have been mistaken for an innocent brush. However this "brush" caused Derpy to shiver and her pelvic floor muscles to clench involuntarily. Derpy's eyes widened and looked down, but saw nothing out of the ordinary. Thing had retracted her clit with a shiver of satisfaction before Derpy could look. Derpy looked back up with an almost imperceptible tinge on her cheeks.

"What do you mean, Blossom?" Derpy looked a little nervous, thinking lewd thoughts about how sexy Blossomforth looked when she stretched oh so flexibly before weather duty.

Bad Derpy! The wall eyed pegasus scolded herself.

Surreptitiously, Thing shifted the prehensile hair fibers in the back of her mane to the side, making room for two eyes which grew out of the back of her head. She now had 360 degree vision and concluded that she and Derpy were alone.

"Well, want me to show you? It'll be my little gift to you." Thing smirked at Derpy.

"Alright, s-sure."

Thing smiled with an all too predatory grin, her smile splitting her cheeks in half with impossible wideness. Without warning, Thing's tongue shot out of her mouth like a dart and the tip thinned, extruding forward until it formed the familiar, fibrous proboscis shape that Blossomforth had made use of. It reached across and pierced the skin, burying itself into Derpy's jugular artery, injecting a calming, mind altering drug that rapidly reached the brain of Derpy, causing it to quickly dull.

"What did you... Uhh-whoa." Derpy smiled dopily and her eyes glazed slightly. "You look silly!" Derpy gestured at Thing's much too long tongue. Derpy stuck hers out as well, wagging it to try and imitate Thingpone.

Thing smiled at the silly gesture as she retracted her tongue back into her mouth.

"Why don't we land in the forest to get a little privacy?"

Derpy's eyes crossed and her cheeks puffed out. "Pffblt!" She blew a raspberry.

Thing took her foreleg and pulled her down to the ground.

"Well, Derpy. This will be all I can do for now. I promise I'll come back later to give you and Dinky a higher purpose."

Derpy was busy making the silliest faces possible. Her wall eyes helped immensely.

Well, here we go. Her head sprang forward, the tendons and muscles in her neck stretched like rubber and bulged with purpose, causing her veins to pop out. Her face split in half, revealing a fleshy pink interior that opened up like a flower. Her entire head turned inside-out with a wagging tongue in the center and sprang forward to attach itself to derpy's face where it gripped her face sucking derpy's head in like a lolly pop.

Thing's tongue stretched forward into Derpy's mouth and trachea, branching out as it lengthened to fill every crevice of Derpy's lungs. Thing's organs liquified and repurposed the biomass into feeding her growing tongue as Thing literally forced Derpy to choke on her invading muscle. Mercifully, oxygen diffused from the amorphous tongue's surface to feed life giving oxygen into Derpy's lungs and bloodstream. Derpy's head rapidly became assimilated, liquefying as the assimilation spread through Derpy's flesh like a supervirus. As the flesh around Derpy's brain liquified, Thing's fleshy flower of what used to be her head moved forward to suck in, swallowing Derpy's shoulders as Thing's neck stretched to accommodate more of Derpy.

Like the ponies Blossomforth had previously programmed, Derpy's nervous system was not assimilated and was instead swallowed whole. Derpy's brain formed a lump in Thing's long throat. During Thing’s initial attack, the neck used to look thin and stretched , as it had to lengthen in order to propel Thing’s head forward. However, it became more voluminous, healthy looking, and muscular due to the assimilated flesh traveling down its length and fortifying the stretched neck, allowing it to easily grow as it continued to slide over and consume what remained of Derpy's body.

Below the neck, Thing looked like a familiar, white, flexible pegasus. Her neck, on the other hand, looked like a huge monstrous worm sucking in a pegasus, absorbing biomass, and swallowing the nervous system. Thing still had some of the functional organs that made her feel horny in her nether region, so once she got to Derpy's plot after having assimilated her torso, she tasted musk and stopped.

A devious and possibly diabolical idea crossed her mind. Should she do it? Who cared. No one could stop her at the moment and she would not wait, life had waited for her long enough. She would be providing satisfaction to herself and Derpy.

Thing gently caressed Derpy's brain deep within herself and injected a mild antidote to the relaxant she had inserted. Since all of Derpy’s body was gone above the waistline, she was blind and mostly helpless. However, she still retained some important organs below that were still attached to her brain via the nervous system. She was barely lucid and would not see anything, so perhaps she would think it was a dream.

Thing slowly formed a face in the side of the wormlike neck and extruded it until it resembled a head, sprouting a normal sized neck to support it. Derpy's hind legs twitched and kicked into the air every so often, her natural lubricant leaking out of her vagina. Thing concentrated and searched the hivemind. Yes, that is what she needed. She would use some of the DNA from that stallion Blossomforth had ingested from the storm. Thunderlane, she believed he was called. Next to the sprouted head a large, long, black colored stallion penis sprouted from the flesh extruding outwards as it grew, complete with testicles and other sexual organs needed for an orgasm and proper function. She extruded the organs out, the penis and the partially formed pelvis fused to the end of a thick tentacle for mobility purposes, and brought it to her own mouth to get it started.

She had no idea what she had been missing! The central collective of the Ancestors forbade sexual intercourse, with rare exceptions, going so far as to program it into the seeds they produced. It was a distraction from their purpose. However, none of that mattered because most of that programming was erased by Blossomforth's takeover. Autofellatio, what a wonderful experience! She tenderly licked and sucked the long penis, sniffing and shivering at the male pheromones it produced. She experimentally clenched the pelvic muscles and watched as it slowly stood erect, its veins popping on the sides of the phallus. A bead of fluid excreted out of the top. Thing's entire body rippled unnaturally in pleasure. Thing was ready.

She sprouted a tentacle and used it to caress Derpy's smooth, fatty plot. Derpy's legs stopped twitching. Her vulva moved with a reluctant wink, showing off her clit. Thing sprouted another tentacle and curled them around Derpy's canons. Before she got too excited, she remembered to modify the testicles to sterilize the sperm. It would not do to impregnate Derpy, as that would leave evidence. Derpy's legs stretched apart in typical lithe weatherpony fashion as Thing grabbed her canons and forced her legs apart. Her pelvis began to pulsate with a rhythm and her dock slowly rose, standing erect. With each pulse her vulva winked and her donut shaped anus tightened.

Thing smiled. "Oh, you can't wait, can you!"

As if to answer, Derpy's legs shivered in her grasp. Thing curled her tongue around Thunderlane's plagiarized penis, clenching the muscles behind the peni in the process, and gave it one last curling lick.

"Ummmnnfff—" Thing hummed and her eyes rolled around in their sockets. Derpy's legs somehow sensed what was going to happen and quivered with anticipation.

"Alright, alright! I won't keep you waiting much longer!"

Thing teased the penis up to Derpy's vulva and rubbed the penis up to it, tickling her folds and the tendons of her adductor muscles which were stretched apart. Derpy began pulsing and straining as if trying to get her clit to pulse outward as far as possible and touch the penis. Her hips wiggled desperately.

"Oh you poor thing!" Thing grinned. "I'll save you!"

Thing's tongue curled out of her mouth and wrapped around Derpy's clit, tenderly tickling it and caressing it with care. Derpy began pulsating more rapidly and fluid excreted out of her more quickly. Finally, Thing decided it was time, she plunged her penis into Derpy's vagina. Derpy's interior muscles gently hugged her penis with supreme discipline and restraint, and Thing responded by clenching and sending a pulse through the penis inside. They continued responding to each other like it was a game. It was becoming harder and harder to resist the pleasure. Thing was shaking with focus and what was left of Derpy's body too was shaking.

It was time.

Thing began shifting her phallus in and out of derpy's vagina. In response to the motions, Derpy clenched as hard as she could, tightening her embrace. Thing too clenched as she rapidly forced herself in and out, stimulating that special spot deep within. Growing more creative, Thing grew some specialized muscles within her penis and forced it to vibrate as it moved in and out. Sweat excreted from Thing's whole body as she felt the overwhelming pleasure. She went faster and faster until she suddenly stopped as the pleasure grew to a crescendo. The orgasm came, she had never felt anything so raw, so beautifully climatic or intimate. Derpy clenched uncontrollably as seminal fluid erupted from Thing's penis, the shaft pulsing uncontrollably. They both relaxed their wills, letting their orgasms do the rest of the work.

Thing's much more efficient muscles meant that technically she did not have to breathe at all if she so desired, yet she still instinctively panted anyways. It felt raw, like life. She let go of Derpy's legs and they came together slowly and felt Thing's half formed pelvis growth fused to the thick tentacle. Derpy wiggled her legs rubbing them against the penis and stretched them with curiosity trying to feel this mysterious organ, as if to ask who she had experienced intercourse with. Thing sighed, she could not reveal herself, not today. She gently injected a tranquilizer into derpy's brain, putting her to sleep, her legs relaxed, going limp.

Once again, Thing sighed, and offhandedly reached into Blossomforth's mind to find out what exactly being a weatherpony consisted of so that they could go do their jobs. She would probably have to take over Derpy's body for a while to cover for her. Once inside of Blossomforth's mind she got a glimpse of something strange. What in the—? It didn't matter.

Thing slowly reformed Derpy's flesh around her nervous system, using her overgrown, wormlike neck as the building material. Finally, she deposited Derpy onto the forest floor soaking wet and slimy. The fleshy "flower" of flesh attached to Thing's pony neck un-inverted itself and came together to form the familiar face of Blossomforth.

Thing had now experienced being alive for the first time. It was incredible, much more chaotic and complex than the scheming and plotting she devised hidden away in the corner of the hivemind. Thing was a changed entity, her view of the world had dramatically shifted. She would have to rethink many things.

Thing suddenly worried about how soft she had become. Her ancestors were never like this. They were ruthless, unstoppable consumers. Perhaps the regrowth of her mind under the pony's influence cursed her to be like this. Thing sighed, perhaps she could afford to be a little soft; this was a virgin galaxy, after all.

Thing imposed her will on the assimilated flesh that surrounded Derpy's unconscious nervous system. She properly expanded the hivemind so that she now controlled both of her bodies. Derpy's eyes opened and her body stood up stretching as it did. Derpy's eyes were now corrected. Thing had redesigned Derpy's eyes so that they would be able to focus together like a normal pony but she also snuck in some extra muscles and a clever neural system to allow her to move and control her eyes independently if she wanted. The gift that she had promised Derpy. Thing would do both Blossomforth's and Derpy's jobs today and place Derpy in bed afterwards, as if she had just woken up from a nap after work.

Perhaps in the future they would meet again. Maybe they could get to know each other. Surprised, she noticed that Blossomforth was completely unconscious. This was rare for a hivemind, perhaps she could take advantage of it. For now though it was time to go to work and it was time to rethink what she wanted to do. She definitely did not want to get Derpy fired.

Hope y'all liked the chap!

Thanks to my prereader EverfreeSparkle