Cheerilee woke first. She was flopped on her belly in her little house and atop her was… was Big McIntosh. Echoes of the previous night shuddered through her mind. Why had they gone this far so fast? She had liked him, of course, but they had agreed to go slow.

Mac woke to the feeling of a pony under him, around him, struggling to get away. "Uh?" He pulled back and up, getting wobbly legs under himself.

"Oh…" Cheerilee felt the thick length of the stallion pull free of her body and shook a little. She now remembered fully what had happened but not why. Inside the mare, something was happening. The eggs the stallion had pumped into her hatched, the tiny worms swimming deeper and latching on to the insides of her uterus, feeding, growing.

"I'm sorry!" Big Mac turned for the door and bolted through it. Literally through it. He didn't get more than twenty steps away from the house, however, when the ache started again and he slowed to a canter, then a trot, and finally to a walk before he stopped and lifted his nose. The scent of a mare caught his attention and already his shaft was growing hard again.

"So how was she?" Gel, Twilight, and Applejack were relaxing on the latter's farm, sipping tea in the farmhouse. It was the best compromise to be able to get Applejack to relax and not be too far from anything if the farm needs attention.

"Which one?" Applejack had the look of complete innocence on her face, she had mastered that because mostly, thanks to being brutally honest, she was. "I can't believe you would even ask that. All three were great fun."

"I am not talking about Celestia and her little herd." Gel levitated the cup up and sipped the dark brew from it. "I am talking about Coloratura and I certainly don't need details. I just want to know more about the mare you clearly care a lot about."

"Oh!" Applejack's cheeks colored. "She was amazing, her voice is like the smoothest apple cider. When she smiles, ah want to smile too."

Gel looked aside to Twilight and saw her smiling too.

"I remember her from last time." Twilight thought back to when the mare had first come to Ponyville, as Countess Coloratura. "She looked a lot happier."

"She was very happy." Gel cut in before AJ could reply, reminding them both of his changeling nature.

"You always do that?" Applejack waved a hoof in the air. "That changeling, drinking thing."

"Of course not. I don't drink except from the ponies who are close to me. But I can feel when ponies around me are happy and have love in their hearts. She had a lot." Gel sipped more tea.

A scroll appeared in front of Twilight and she was writing notes, it got a chuckle from both the other ponies. "What? What's so funny?"

"Nothin' Twi." Applejack reached a hoof over to Gel, who touched it with his own. She realized how much the both of them adored the alicorn. "You can feel that, then?"

Gel nodded. "Yup, I sure-"

The stallion was cut off by a knock on the door. Applejack jumped to her hooves and exclaimed, "I'll get it."

Upon opening the door, Cheerilee, in tears, looked up. "Please, Applejack, I think something is wrong with… wrong with… oh…" Her voice derailed from her intended path, a heat rose inside her as her eyes scanned the room. An ache of need stabbed in her lower belly as she saw Gel Pattern.

The stallion blushed brightly and tried to look away from the schoolteacher but there was something about her that had his attention. Gel's throat ran dry and he panted a little.

"What do you mean? What's wrong?" Applejack failed to notice the chemical signals being sent by the mare, or her sudden attraction to AJ's own special somepony.

Cheerilee seemed to ignore both other mares and step in, toward Gel. The stallion was feeling very strange indeed, but strange in a very good way. Excitement grew in him but a hoof on his shoulder brought him out of it for a moment.

"Gel?" Twilight's limb seemed to melt through her lover's shoulder as the changeling flowed like liquid. He shifted forward and wrapped around Cheerilee, surprising the mare and getting a surprised gasp from Applejack.

Cheerilee's need was quenched by the strange pony no longer looking or even feeling like a stallion. He wrapped around her and squeezed all over until she slowly came down from that aching need. She could faintly hear things being said, while her living prison wrapped her, but she couldn't follow it.

"Gel! What are you doing?" Twilight got up, her horn lighting in surprise and readiness to help in whatever way she could.

Applejack was just as quick but she had noticed something odd about Cheerilee. "Wait a sec Twi, I don't think Gel would do that without a good reason."

"I did…" Gel struggled against the need that had almost overwhelmed him. "She smelled so good, I wanted to… to screw her." The midnight black covered pony shuddered. "Something is really wrong…"

Twilight relaxed only a little, the strain in her mate's voice put her heart at ease that he had acted, and was acting, in an honorable way. "Then we need to find out what, can you expose Cheerilee's face for us, so we can ask her questions?"

Cheerilee gasped for breath when the trap she was in was opened up. She hadn't been noticing it was hard to breathe inside it, but now her head was free it just seemed better. "Please let me out!"

"Hold on a second, Cheerilee, what just happened? What did you do to Gel?" Twilight was standing right before the mare, her wings a little ruffled with her surprise at what was going on.

The mare took a deep breath to calm more. This was Princess Twilight Sparkle, she wouldn't let bad things happen. "I think… it started being an odd day late last night." Cheerilee thought back, her mind tracing things to when 'shit got strange'. "I was about to go to bed for the night, after reading a few pages of a good book," she saw the slight smile pull at Twilight's lips, "when there was a knocking on the door. I answered it to find Big McIntosh."

"What's Big Mac got to do with this?" AJ was suddenly surprised and a little shocked. "He was in bed sick yesterday…"

"He didn't seem right when he came inside, he seemed… well, horny." Cheerilee blushed a hot red at using the word. She wouldn't normally have used it but it was true. "And when I smelled… when I smelled him!"

"What about it?" Twilight was having a little trouble following so far.

"When I smelled him I got… horny… too." Cheerilee's hooves lifted and clopped together excitedly, only then did she realize her 'trap' was actually Gel and that he was letting her move again. "It must be like what happens to animals, but why would smelling Big Mac cause me to react like that?"

"Pheromones." Twilight flexed her magic and a book appeared before her. "When animals need to signal to each other that something is happening, they put out chemicals. Why would Big McIntosh do that? How is he doing that? It shouldn't be possible!"

"How are you feeling now?" Applejack smiled to Cheerilee. "Ah bet this all seems kinda crazy."

Cheerilee nodded. "We… when he and I were both feeling like that we… we…" She couldn't say it, the mare balked at even thinking about what he had done.

"You had sex." Twilight, in science mode, had no reservations about using the word. "Now contact with you excites stallions. That's it, it must be something passed on by sex!"

There was not enough red in Equestria to be able to paint a picture of Cheerilee's blush. "Wait, I did that to him?" There was suddenly a gentle squeeze all over her, it was oddly comforting.

"It isn't your fault, is what Twilight is trying to say." Gel eased off on the hug. "But I am going to keep you wrapped like this until we can work out what is affecting everypony. Big Mac is back at your house?"

Cheerilee suddenly felt panic grip her. "N-n-no… he left…"

Big Mac climbed slowly from Mayor Mare's back. The smell of her no longer enticed him quite so much. He needed food and something to drink and without thinking too much on it, stumbled into her kitchen and raided her stocks. It was hard to think, his mind occupied almost completely with finding food, but there was a tugging, as if something wasn't quite right.

The ache returned, he had only barely filled his belly when he caught the scent of another mare. As his shaft grew hard again, he trotted from the comatose mare's house, following his nose to his next target.

Twisty and Celestia looked at the details that Cherry had carefully transposed into a precise ledger. "So," began Bold, "as you can see Manehatten is handling our little hive expansion well. There are a few changeling businesses starting up, along with drones working into existing jobs." The former queen rubbed her wings together to make a little chirping sound.

Cherry Stripe pointed at the 'losses' column. "You will note that losses have decreased with familiarity, to a level that matches other such businesses." The pegasus smiled, she had been conversing with Bold for quite a while now, via letters; her numbers were perfect.

"What about the social aspects?" Celestia sat back from the table, having a sip of tea and working the tiny fork to break off some delicious cheesecake present on a hovering plate.

Bold smiled. "I took only the drones most likely to fit in well. Clever changelings who knew how to not ruffle feathers. The little ones were the key, nopony could deny that we weren't growing into the community once they saw that we had young ones with us. The little drones grow up in the same streets as the other ponies, they are already born Manehattenites."

Twisty moved quickly to Bold, pressing her cheek to the other mare's. The touching show got a smile from Celestia and Cherry, both were quite relaxed around changelings.

"So let's move it up, pick another city, spread our hive so that it is no longer just a hive." Celestia looked at the map, pressing her hoof down on Las Pegasus. "All of Equestria will be united."

The words, so certain, sent a shiver of happiness through Cherry. It was one thing to make all her little notes and write letters and ledgers, and quite another to see what the Princesses were doing with her work.

Mayor Mare woke from the daze she had been left in. Her body felt well used and it had been; the big brute of a stallion had marched in and… and she had turned and offered him her tail!

"I bet Princess Twilight will need to hear about… about…" The mayor of Ponyville lifted her snout, smelling the air. Something delightful was nearby and she followed her nose.

Carrot Cake knocked on the front door to the mayor's house. "Excuse me, Mayor? I have that marzipan you order… ordered…" The stallion's eyes unfocused and he let the box of treats fall from his back. Stepping inside the house, he saw the mare in the middle of a puddle in the living room, a puddle of… The sight of Mayor Mare, turned with her plot toward him, tail raised, wiped all thoughts from Carrot's head as he trotted in, his shaft dropping from his sheath.

"Okay, so we need to track down your Brother, then find out what we can do to stop this… problem." Twilight looked between the wrapped up mare and Applejack. "But first we all need nose plugs."

Cheerilee felt her hoof rise and she was walking toward Twilight. Her hoof pressed to the princess' nose and there was an oddly squishing feeling under it. "There you go. AJ?" Gel's voice sounded hollow, since he didn't appear to have a throat to use.

Twilight pulled back and lifted her hoof up to check her nose, sure enough, some black goop coated it, forcing her to breathe through her mouth. "Perfect."

Author's Note

Oh no, Big Mac, what are you doing to all the ponies? Big Mac! STAHP! Looks like fun though...

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