Celestia was a little bored. It was one thing to be glowing with her pregnancy, and quite another to have to keep adjusting herself on the pillows while hearing about the petty problems of one noble or another. Tilting her head to the side, she smiled at Luna, who was sporting a slightly puffy belly of her own. "And what do you think, Lulu?"

Knowing this line, as one they had discussed many times, Luna rose to her full height and loomed forward with her dark bulk only showing a hint of the swelling. "This dispute seems based in an old argument." Her attention was on the two nobles who were now shocked. "I think we should take the title you fight over and award it to another pony more worthy."

"But…" Both nobles looked to each other, things now far out of hoof so far as they are concerned. Celestia noticed, however, that there was a feeling of magic being gathered. It wasn't unusual for a unicorn to use their horn magic in the courtroom, but this was more than just manipulation.

Eyes widening as the spell's form came to her, Celestia didn't have time to throw up a shield or a counter. "No…" her voice trailed off as the 'pregnancy identification spell played upon somepony's horn, and it was aimed squarely at her.

The journalist who had wormed their way into court that day lifted their camera, awaiting the spell to hit and reveal the father; their special magic-film would catch the image presented.

Luna was standing, she too was too slow with her magic to be able to counter the spell but she was also almost in the way. With a blast of inky-black smoke, the dark alicorn reappeared fully blocking the spell. Almost a full dozen little white circles appeared above her. Celestia was suddenly giggling.

A camera flash went off but Swift Shutter cursed, the royal guards were baring down on him and, the worst bit was, he hit the wrong target!

"Well that is pretty." Twisty just then walked into court, seeing Luna aglow with the magic and her own face winking into being in each of the little white circles.

Disappearing again in another puff of black, Luna reemerged standing over the pinned down photographer. "I intend to get a copy of that." The Royal Canterlot Voice nearly blasted the poor stallion along the floor and he was nodding quickly. "Please, don't let him in court again, unless it is to deliver my photo." Luna flashed a smile at the guards, she recognized two of them as being changelings.

"So what am I? Am I just a monster the ponies who made this created?" Mane gestured at the comic. "Is all my life a lie?"

Gel had the odd earth pony cuddled against him, he felt a lot of kinship for the distressed hypnotist. "I don't suppose anypony told you about me?" She shook her head to him. "Well, let me tell you a little story about a young changeling, barely finding their final form." He reached a hoof up to ruffle one ear of Maneiac, getting a few tendrils of her mane gripping it and holding it.

Maneiac listened to the story, trying to interrupt a few times but each time the stallion would just shake his head and return to telling it. He told her all the way up to when he and Twilight started going on adventures together. But it was when she heard how he was used, abused, and forced to kill the first pony he loved, that began the tears and didn't let them stop. Mane clung tight to the stallion she knew, at any moment, could simply flow away from her.

"We are quite alike, in these regards. Our creators tried to shape and control us, tried to make us something we wouldn't be." He gave her a little more of a squeeze. "But we aren't that, we are what we make for ourselves."

"I attacked you both!" Mane tried to shake free of the changeling halfheartedly. "I did!" Gel's head kept shaking at her insistence.

"You say it was an attack, but I see no harm done, and quite a bit of fun had." Gel worked his hoof into the mare's mane and ruffled it a little, getting a giggle from her. "Ticklish there, are we?" He worked a second hoof up and into her mane, ignoring the tendrils trying to fend him off as he rubbed more and had Mane laughing and squirming on the couch.

"How is the conversation going?" Twilight stuck her head into the sitting room, smiling as she saw what was obviously a very one-sided tickle-fight playing out. Reaching out with her magic, Twilight lifted Gel away from the hysterically laughing mare. "Okay, come on, seriously, dial it back Gel."

The stallion whined and slumped where Twilight put him down. "No fair, I was going to tickle her for an hour and see if she would be able to think after it." Gel crossed his forelegs over his chest.

"The others are all preparing the castle for a big party, both Pinkie Pies seemed to completely forget their new toys when they found out they had a party to get organized. I have been working on a list for the last hour but-" Twilight was silenced from her sudden rant by a firm kiss from her husband. Closing her eyes, she leaned into him and let her heart rate go down again.

"Is the castle always like this?" Mane, with her namesake worked back into its usual wild shape, gestured to the door Twilight had just come from.

Gel drew back from the kiss, catching his wife's eyes gazing into his own. "Nope, normally it is much, much worse."

Rainbow Dash looked over to the mare her two left legs were bound to. "You sure about this? I bet they did quite a number on the things in there."

"What's the matter? Come on, they can't have done it that badly, and it was Sweetie that asked me to do this." Lyra gestured down to their bound legs. "Six-legged-pony race through, and I think we will have an easy time of it."

"You two ready? You can go when you are!" Sweetie's voice came through the broadcast device they had installed.

Rainbow started to walk and almost fell over. "Oh, right, let's go forward." She smiled sheepishly to the unicorn as they both took locked-step paces forward. Opening the first door they were greeted with an empty room, two exits on the opposite side.

"Right one." Lyra gestured with her free hoof. "Sweetie loves baiting the left side more heavily."

In the control room Sweetie and Muffins watched the events unfolding in the scrying pool. "Who do you think will lose first?" Muffins gestured with a hoof at the pair in the image.

"Oh, I think Lyra will, she will try to use magic and get out of things, forgetting that a lot of things in there eat magic." Sweetie leaned in closer to her friend. "You were right, by the way, thinking backwards really helped."

Rainbow Dash tried to call on weather to aid her but, with the still air of the cave offering nothing in the way of varying conditions, she would have no hope. "Just don't use magic on it!" She ducked to the side, her wings pulling hard to get Lyra away from the magic-eating ooze.

Pulled off-balance by the pegasus' quick evasion, Lyra fell in a heap. The ooze sensed its prey was down and lunged toward her. Despite her own mind telling her not to, and her friend, she instinctively let loose a blast of magic.

The ooze was still a good way away, but when the beam of magic lanced out at it, it was like it chased the beam back to its source. "I told you not to!" Rainbow Dash tried to dig her hooves in, the line of goop was attached firmly to Lyra's horn and was pulling her toward the ooze as surely as it was advancing on them.

Lyra's magic was drained immediately when the goop hit her horn. It felt like every drop of power was yanked away and, worse, kept getting yanked. The thing was practically suckling at her magic. "Rainbow, hel-" Her head was tugged inside the goop and something thick shoved down into her mouth. Her cheeks bulging, she felt a numbness come over her horn as the ooze was quite content to take its time drinking down her magic.

Fighting to get her hooves loose from her partner, Dash got her foreleg undone just as Lyra's front-half was dragged into the goop. The unicorn had gotten herself into the mess, but there was no need for both of them to get trapped. Biting and pulling at the rope around her back leg, she managed to bite through it and get her limb yanked clear just before Lyra was sucked all the way into the cube with a gulping sound.

The feel of the goop all around Lyra reminded her of other times this stuff had gotten her. She felt the shoving of more thick, goopy shapes into her body, the thing exploring her while it fed. Her eye caught sight of Rainbow Dash, free of her legs but not the goop. Lyra tried to yell, to warn Dash that her tail was grabbed by the goopy ooze, but a moment later she needn't have bothered.

Rainbow felt a tug at her rump and then a cool tightness around her rear. Looking over her shoulder she gave a whine. "Aww, it got me…" The mare's back legs were next to be pulled in, and even while it was still securing the pegasus, it was starting to shove into her. "Celestia but that feels good…" Dash rolled her eyes as she closed them, feeling more of her body sucked into the goop, until at last her head pulled inside as well. A tingling ran through her, an odd sensation that she suddenly realized was the ooze locating that odd mix of magic in her.

Lyra saw Dash open her mouth and moan into the ooze, saw her cheeks puff out with the thick shape it shoved down her throat. She couldn't fight the thing that was screwing them both senseless, she relaxed and calmed, the feel of the milking at her magic starting to actually feel nice.

It was her magic, Rainbow realized, it was drinking her magic she uses to control storms. It was also pounding her ass and vagina as hard and fast as anything possibly could. What was worse, the door out of this room was inches from her nose, just outside the ooze. Closing her eyes to the torturous sight, Rainbow Dash relaxed into the ministrations of the goop. It wouldn't be done with her for a while.

Covered in slime, Rainbow Dash woke on the hard stone floor and looked around in a daze. The slime had sated itself and ejected her. Across the room, Lyra was still asleep. Dash hadn't felt this drained for quite a while, then it hit her. The thing had sucked out all her magic, the new magic, the windigo magic. "Come on Dash, just like you used to be, no magic, but still awesome."

Walking to the door out of the room, the pegasus pressed her hoof carefully against it and felt nothing, no heat, no cold, not even any pressure back on it. "Can't be anything." Rainbow opened the door and slammed it closed again. "That couldn't be." Once more she opened it and slammed it closed. "Okay, it got closer, I need to distract it…" Her eyes slid over to the sleeping unicorn. "New bet!" She kept her voice low, but looked up a little, knowing at least Muffins would be watching. "If I get to the end first… I get to play with Lyra for a week. If she makes it first, she and Sweetie get me." It was win-win, really.

"Accepted." Two voices, at the same time, came back. Dash giggled and rushed over to Lyra.

"Lyra! Quick, the slime is coming back!" Rainbow Dash shouted it to the unicorn, who lifted her head wearily but snapped to attention. "You run, I'll hold it back for you!" Rainbow gestured to the door.

"Thanks!" Lyra was on wobbly legs but got a run up and was in and through the door. On the other side she saw the creature. She had heard of them. "Uh, hi?" Lyra waved a hoof at the creepy, dark critter. "You're a marionette master, aren't you?" It was odd, just a pair of sticks with a lot of strings, looking like webbing, hanging from it. "I am so screwed now, aren't I?"

The first of the tendrils lashed out and wrapped around Lyra's horn, gripping it and pulling the rest of the thing closer. She turned to kick, her back legs bucking out at the handles of the creature. She had been practicing being more physical, without her horn. It sort of paid off. The marionette master was knocked back by her double-buck, but she felt some of its strings wrap around her ankles. Gulping, the unicorn turned and tried to buck the other way, to break the strings but all that did was pull the thing closer, strings reaching out to grasp her forelegs, head, jaw, latching on and bonding to her. She trembled as it fastened more and more until finally she could barely move.

"Is it all clear?" Rainbow Dash peeked in, grinning when she saw Lyra strung up in the grip of the marionette master.

"Oh yes," Lyra's voice worked perfectly, like the rest of her, at the control of the wild enchantment, "it's clear, nothing wrong in here!" Lyra tried to struggle but she felt herself taking oddly hesitant steps over toward Rainbow Dash. "You want a hug?"

The pegasus skipped back a little from her friend, being played with like a doll was not on her plans for the day. "Oh no, I am pretty sure you could grab me up as well, but you are a lot slower with a pony attached."

Lyra cursed silently, what was her friend up to? "Aww, but I hurt myself and I need you to help!"

Dash laughed and trotted across the room, reaching for the exit door when she noticed something, something odd. "Hey, what is-" The pegasus tugged at the hoof she had raised to open the door, there was a fine thread attached to it. Panic welled in the mare and as she looked up, she saw another of the enchanted things, dropping down, tendrils reaching all over her.

Author's Note

What's this? More crazy-dungeon fun? I heard somepony asking for more of it, so here it is!

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