The sound of squeaking echoed through the kitchen. Sugar Belle had taken to juggling squeaky toys to work on her magic control. When the banging on the back door cut through the consistent rhythm she had built up, she sent the toys flying to the counter and reached out with her magic to open the back door.

"Sugar!" Night Glider moved in first, which of course meant that Bright Day ambled in second.

His thoughts were continually getting snared in fog. Bright Day didn't mind one bit as the mind-numbing gas was fed to him constantly. Inhaling and exhaling steadily, he smiled into the tight grip Night's tail had on his head.

Light cut through Bright's darkness, and similarly his first gasp of fresh air since the cave began blowing the clouds from his mind. There were other ponies in the room, but one in particular had all his attention.

"Would you like a cupcake, dear?" Sugar Belle kept Night Glider's tail busy while she offered the treat to Bright Day.

"Th-Thank you." Bright knew he was smiling at the mare, but her sunny disposition was a lot more welcome than the other three ponies and their arguing. "S-Sugar Belle, right?" The name drifted out of the clouds in his head, and the moment he said it, Sugar's smile lit up the room.

"It is. Aren't you Party Favor's brother?" The moment Sugar said the name she knew it was a tripwire that was setting off Bright Day's memories. Calmness turned to panic, which turned to horror. "Bright, right?" The stallion just nodded. "Bright, we are going back for them. But I have to get you to promise me you won't go on your own, alright?"

"But Party and Cream!" Bright jittered in place and looked back at the door. "What is it doing? Why aren't we going right now?"

"It takes a few hours to change a pony. It will probably keep them in overnight." Sugar turned at the chime of an oven timer. "And we need provisions if we are going to spend the night waiting for them."

A mouth-based oven mitten floated to Bright day, and without thinking her put it on and moved where Sugar Belle directed him. Lifting out a tray of cookies, he trembled a little. He knew she was doing this to distract him, but what he needed to know was if she was being nice or was a bad pony.

Bright knew Sugar from her shop, and didn't find it surprising that she was having him help bake. "If you are secretly evil, and are going to sneak me away to the cave too then… then you are doing it badly." He gestured to the trays of cookies cooling, some that Sugar was loading into brown paper bags.

"You probably have a million and one questions about all…" Sugar waved a hoof at Night Glider's strange tail. "And the plant and stuff." Bright nodded. "Okay, let's get some big ones out of the way. Everypony here apart from you has been its 'guest.' "

"What does it do?" Bright ruffled his wings a little in worry.

"It changes ponies. I am fairly sure most are becoming what I call 'breeders' for it. It makes you super horny when you are around other breeders, and…" Weighing up the truth against not wanting to freak the poor stallion out, Sugar picked the latter. "It is personal…"

"Then what happened to Night Glider?" Bright pointed a wing at the mare whose tail was struggling at Sugar's mind to reach out for him. "She looks really different. Was she the first pony it changed?"

Sugar shook her head. "Well… Night was the last, actually. A cactus coyote chased her into the cave and the plant grabbed both of them. She has this neat trick she can do where she grows armor and looks like a big coyote herself. I think it has made her to protect us, and to help find more ponies."

"So she is meant to grab me and drag me back to the plant?" Taking a step away from Night, Bright backed up right beside Sugar Belle.

"Meant to, but she didn't." Sugar levitated two cookies from the oldest cooling rack and passed one to Bright Day. "So you could say we are all learning here. Even the plant seems to be learning how to push our buttons. It hasn't really pushed us to do anything bad yet, though."

"What's all the noise?" Tight Squeeze poked his head into the kitchen, and quickly followed it with the rest of him. "How is my treacle?" Sugar kissed him on the cheek. Despite nausea, despite feeling achy, Tight Squeeze was enjoying his pregnancy. "Uh…" Then he noticed Bright Day standing in the midst of his friends. "Hi!" Even Bright could tell that the greeting was forced—Tight Squeeze's mind was clearly racing to put together the numbers in his kitchen.

"Hi." Bright scuffed a hoof a moment, and the movement reminded him of what the conversation had been about. His eyes studied the other stallion, and he saw all kinds of places that Tight Squeeze was still a pony, but a strange one. His tail resembled Night Glider's, but where hers had a flower bud (that obviously opened up to grab ponies), Tight Squeeze had one of the crazy black-blue vine's grabbers.

The thing that startled Bright the most was Tight Squeeze's wings. The stallion's feathers had started changing from the same pink as the rest of his fur, to a deep green color. It didn't look to be happening fast, maybe just as each feather was replaced, but all of Tight Squeeze's primary wing feathers were green. "Chill Squeeze?"

"Tight Squeeze." Tight smiled and stepped a little closer to the other stallion. "Hey, aren't you Party Favor's brother?"

Mention of his sibling snapped Bright out of the relaxed situation. His nerves started to twitch again and he found himself turning to look at the door. Turning back to face Tight, he had a moment of seeing aquamarine flash in front of his eyes before something puffed into his face. Blinking, the puff came again and he relaxed and leaned forwards into the grip of the vine.

"Not again!" Sugar stomped around to her husband's flank and pointed a hoof at Bright Day—his head neatly tucked inside the grabber of Tight's tail. "Give that pony back right now!" She glared at the tail, willing it to comply. "I said—" The rest of the threat was unneeded, as the vine released the drugged stallion. "I am so sorry Bright, unless I am focusing they have a mind of their own."

"I… I have a theory about that." Patched gestured to Night Glider's tail. "We have been doing some experiments, and it seems like it might be the plant itself, although there seems to be something odd about the direction."

"Really?" Sugar Belle checked Bright, carefully tilting his head up to look into his eyes. "I think he is ok—" She froze as his lips met hers. The kiss was more shocking than tantalizing, she jerked back as soon as her brain was working properly.

A hint of anger flooded Tight Squeeze. Part of him wanted to give Bright Day a good bucking—and not the fun kind. "That's it!"

"He didn't mean it, Tight." Sugar tried to calm her husband, but with Tight wrapped up in a storm of hormones from his pregnancy, he was not about to be reasoned with. Thinking quickly, she grabbed control of Night Glider's tail and clamped it onto Tight's head.

"Hey! Why did you do that for?" Night looked back at the pony her apparently uncontrollable (by her) tail had grabbed. "Wait, Tight?" She looked at Sugar. "Why did it grab Tight?"

"He was about to do something very silly." Sugar watched Tight's body relax and slump out of the fury he had worked himself to. "Okay darling, let go of my husband now." She reached a hoof up and tickled the bulb under Tight's chin, and reluctantly the tail let him go.

Tight shook his head to clear the fuzz filling it. It seemed to pour from him quickly, but at the moment before full lucidity returned, he realized why Bright Day had smooched his wife. "You are tho theshy!" He wobbled closer to Sugar Belle and kissed her. Unlike with Bright, she seemed perfectly willing to return his kiss.

"That is curious." Patched Scrape's attention was drawn to the kissing couple. "Notice how quickly Tight snapped out of the stupor of the tail's drugged air?"

"No!" Night backed away from her love before Patched had even graced her with their attention. "No more experiments for a week, you promised!" Backing up too far from Patched, Night felt a warm tickle run up her spine. Turning, she spotted poor Bright Day once more locked in her tail's grip. "This is getting silly. I want control of this thing, dang it!"

"Oh relax. I don't even need to test this one on you." Patched leaned in and smooched Night Glider, getting the mare to blush. Breaking her lips away, she realized Night was smiling too. "I like that my kisses make you smile."

"I told you, you are… you are soft, nice." Night's train of thought was completely derailed. "I like soft and hard." She tilted her head towards Double Diamond, who was watching the room turn into a kiss-fest without him being included. "Speaking of…"

Double watched Night Glider turn to confront him. He opened his mouth to ask Night what she was going to do about her tail and Bright, when she pressed her lips against his. His body stirred at the touch—like it always did—and he leaned into the kiss.

"Well, now I am missing out." Patched looked from Sugar and Tight to Double and Night. "Nothing else for it." She took up where Sugar Belle had left off, splitting the last tray of cookies between the bags.

"Oh, what the…" Sugar had parted from Tight's embrace and spotted Night's tail with its prey snared again. With a little shove, she had the tail release Bright Day again. "Bright, dear, let's wait outside for the others." She gave a "come hither" look to Tight as she floated all the bags of cookies out with her.

Tight watched Sugar herd the muddle-headed Bright Day outside, and had to admit that even in such a state, he loved the look of his wife going anywhere. His spirits raised, Tight Squeeze lifted his tail up a little and pranced after Sugar.

"Guys, are you coming?" Reaching a hoof out, Patched gently rocked Night Glider. "Just catch up when you get the chance, okay?" She gave each of her lovers a nuzzle on the cheek and turned to leave them to their moment. Once outside, she smiled at Sugar. "I think Night has her mojo back. You should see them in there!"

"What do you think is causing that… that odd period some of us have?" Tight kept Sugar between him and Bright Day. The night was cool in the desert, but the four ponies each had a warm fur coat.

"It is obvious in hindsight." Patched Scrape had solved, or so she hoped, another mystery. "When we do what the plant wants, it rewards us with our libido."

"Wait a second." Tight Squeeze looked at Patched with a squint. "Are you saying when we do what it wants it rewards us? Like pets?"

Patched nodded with growing excitement. "Exactly! It is training us to do what it wants. The problem is, this is one of the most insidious ways to train a creature. Because it is literally tying our enjoyment of life to its own desires, we will soon be more than happy to do what it wants."

"But now that we know what it is doing it won't work, right doc?" Sugar kept a tight grip on the actions of her husband's tail. "I mean, if we know that it is doing that, we can work around it!"

"Not exactly." Patched lit her horn to supplement Sugar's glowing light. "We could work around it if there was some way we could control the 'rewards' it is giving us. Near as I can tell it is integrating tighter with our bodies. Look at Tight's tail, it is a blending of plant and pony where his dock meets his body."

"S-So what you are saying is that it has full control of your agency? It could make you be so horny you would screw anypony, or so… bland… that you don't want to do anything at all?" Despite all he had experienced about the plant so far, the thought intrigued Bright Day.

"That is about it. Reward for being good, punishment for doing bad." Patched gestured to the cave ahead. "Maybe we should put some signs up to warn ponies away?"

Bright Day mused and pondered the situation. Being in the control of another had been his own fantasy for as long as he could remember, not that he had ever had the bravery to make it happen. His breathing quickened as they neared the cave, and part of him wanted to just run in and give the plant power over him.

Shaking his head to free it of the naughty thoughts, Bright reaffirmed his stance of not wanting to be grabbed by the plant. After all, he had only just found the mare of his dreams.

Deep below, the plant stretched its roots out to find more nourishment. It had squirmed into the minds—and bodies—of a few ponies now, and it anticipated many more. Far below the surface, the plants roots ripped into an old seam of rock and a horrible (to the plant) substance started to bubble and boil out. Pulling back, it left the gunk it had released and searched out the deep water table elsewhere.

Author's Notes:

So I do this "Ask x" thing, x can be any pony within the story. You can ask them anything and I they will definitely hopefully reply. Keep the questions appropriate to the age-rating of the stories and of course, I they will answer the best question(s) in the author notes of the next chapter. The more votes a comment has the more likely I will get it to the right pony to answer, try and keep it to one answer per post! I They will pick one question per chapter.

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