The former pegasus looked at her body. She felt very very different. Her mane and tail had softly glowing green streaks through them, her cutie mark now had little ponies trapped in the bubbles, but the changes didn't stop there. She ran her tongue around in her mouth, there was quite the armament collection where her blunt teeth used to be and she opened and closed her mouth experimentally. Her wings were still her wings, for which she was thankful.

"You seem to get caught in the middle of things every time, Muffins." Gel reached a hoof out and over the mare's withers. Even though he had gained stature, she had as well. "Wonder how much changeling is in you now?" The stallion stepped back and admired her exotic new shape.

But there was one thing Gel had to settle. He was still linked to nearly every pony in Canterlot. Though most now slept, he could feel their loves and desires, each one a small trickle of energy that became a torrent of power by the time it reached him. He tried to let them go, one by one, or in greater numbers, but the dominant beast he had let free within made him snarl and fight to keep them, strengthening the links.

"Gel what's wrong?" Muffins ignored her strange new self for a moment, her concern for the stallion making her reach up with a hoof to try and pull him into a hug.

"I can't let them go, I can't stop myself feeding." Gel was shaking a little, real fear permeating him as he reached back and hugged Muffins. "We need to get to the princesses, Twisty should have kept them safe."

The changeling's legs were actually shaking, every time he thought about giving up one of the ponies he had bound to himself it was like a sense of ownership swelled inside him, part of him deeming them all his by conquest. Stepping back through the halls of the castle, feeling its emptiness, Gel looked around, finding the place a little strange… from a different height.

"You're alright!" Twisty came galloping up and hugged them both when they reached the solarium Chrysalis was interred in. Her tight hug reassured Gel, she smelled of power and changeling. "Wow, what… what happened out there?" She stepped back from the stallion and the odd changeling-ified mare.

"We drove them off." Gel shrugged and gestured to Muffins. "Well, she drove them off, I kept them from feeding on anypony."

"But… I can feel it, YOU are feeding on them instead." Twisty leveled an accusing hoof at him. Behind Twisty, two very confused princesses started to rouse. "Oh, you are okay!" She forgot her accusation and trotted to the two mares she had just started to care for.

Celestia blinked back confusion. The drug had been activated, magically. Her cheeks blushed as memories of her and her sister, begging the changeling to mount them, flooded in. "Oh, uh, we…" The alicon princess of Eqeustria then saw them, odd-looking changelings, clearly felled with well-placed magical bolts. A glance at Luna got her a shrug and she suddenly realized what must have happened. "You guarded us?"

Twisty nodded and leaned in, snuggling against a slightly uncomfortable Princess Celestia. "Sure did, I… I had to drink a little, from both of you. And her." She pointed with a hoof at the pod. "But you are safe!"

Realizing there was nothing else for it, Celestia nuzzled back the changeling, her mind spinning and noting her stature was on-par with both her own and Luna's. Her eyes fell on what she had to assume was Gel and… "Muffins?" The oddly hybridized mare nodded and trotted up, bending and bowing to her.

"Your highness, we have cleared the city there… is a complication, but all external threats have been banished… except for three ponies at the water source." She gestured up to where the spring flooded from the mountainside above the city. "Two changelings and a zebra… you are going to need to dispel the latter, Gel… made them unable to walk."

Celestia looked at the mare a moment longer, noting she resembled a cross between a changeling and an alicorn. Then she looked to Gel. The stallion was larger even than herself. He stood proud, practically bursting with power. Celestia noticed something and reached for some magical sight. Cords of power flowed out to what must surely be every pony in the city. Wait, no, they flowed in. "Gel, what have you done?"

"It had to be done." Muffins was making excuses, looking back at the big stallion. "There were changelings everywhere, strange ones, they were feeding on everypony. Gel reached out, broke their connections and tied them to himself.

"Sever the link at once." Celestia clopped a hoof on the ground and she saw something in Gel's eyes. He trembled. "What is the matter?" Fury quickly washed to worry and Celestia stepped forward, her sight still engaged toward magic. She saw something very strange in this already odd changeling. There was a darker energy. "What is this?"

Gel felt the twang against that new part of him. Celestia, most powerful pony in the entirety of Equestria, had focused her attention on him. Part of him swelled with pride, wanting to show off and earn the mare. Another part whimpered and reached out. It was the latter that won, in this instance. Gel whined softly, a tremble pouring through him. "Please help… I don't… I don't want it. All of this…" His legs failed, the changeling flopping to his belly as tears flowed. "I had to embrace it, to take it, I couldn't let Canterlot fall!"

A warm snout pressed to Gel's forehead in a soft kiss, just below the curved horn that had never lit for the changeling. "Be calm, we will fix this. You saved my ponies, you did this for them. The sun can forgive much that is done in the dark, if it is done for the right reasons."

Gel had thought himself a match for her, that all this energy would certainly put the goo-changeling on part with one alicorn. He was so very wrong. In a stand-up fight, he might be her equal, but Celestia opened her heart and the power of forgiveness, of acceptance, stomped all over his angry, dominant changeling 'king' power.

A burn as hot as any the sun could produce seared the changeling as he lay there, looking up to Celestia, feeling her power grow hotter and hotter. Pain and fear incinerated, the binding links to the ponies of the city reduced down to barely a thread and then, one by one, they broke. The sun poured in through the glass roof of the solarium and Gel felt as if it all funneled into him.

Celestia used the warmth of her element to remove the things her pony had been forced to take on, to protect her city. She invited the absolute searing heat of the sun to burn away the immense swell of energy that came from feeding on hundreds of ponies, of being connected to them still. She seared each of those links, seared and immolated them. She felt the pony, left naked and without his excess, basking in her warmth. It was an odd sight, a changeling loving the clear sun, but she leaned in and kissed him on the snout. "Stand up my pony, don't fear my light."

Gel still was on fire. Everything burned in ways he knew he would be spending months delving completely, but it was a good burn. It felt very right. The kiss distracted him with the warmth of it but it didn't feel as that other part of him had wanted it to feel. It wasn't the kiss of a love, it was the kiss of a mother. Gel stood up, rose up and lifted his head. He was a phoenix, reborn and right in all the ways that mattered to him.

"Oh, oh! What about me?" Muffins bounced in place. Celestia reached toward the mare but, oddly, felt nothing wrong. No corrupting magics. She was just a happy pony alicorn-changeling. Confusing as that was.

"You are alright as you are." Celestia reached a wing out and brushed one of her most trusted investigators. "I have no clue as to how it happened, but you are at peace with yourself, your body and mind accepted this."

"Huh?" Muffins looked confused, as was evident by her accidental eye-shift, taking on the derpiest of looks. Gel couldn't resist himself and reached out, hugging the buggicorn close.

"You are perfect, Muffins." Gel snuggled the mare who he had come to realize was 'his mare'. The part of him that worried so much about what 'his mare' meant seemed so far away. He didn't care, he loved her.

It was right about then that Gel blushed hotly, his eyes going wide. "Oh Celestia, she took it off…" His eyes unfocused as one of his gooplicates was slid back into his awareness, it's memories taking just a moment to be added to his own. A whole day with Twilight, or Fun Time as she had been known to him. "Excuse me!" Gel ran, a laughing alicorn changeling chasing after him.

"How many did you secure?" Queen Vicious looked around at what remained of her hive. Some were missing, captured or killed she assumed, but most of her changelings had gotten out of Canterlot, one way or another.

"We got nearly fifty. Most are already fitted with mobile pods, just a few of the stragglers are bringing in theirs." One of her lieutenants, one of her trusted ones, was reporting numbers to her and the queen made some calculations.

"Not a total loss. We will hit some towns on the way home, see if we can't make this little adventure really pay off. What was that next town called?" She unfocused her eyes, pondering how fun it would be to just walk into the midst of ponies and declare them her own chattel.

"Ponyville, my queen."

"Ponyville? Lets empty it. Every last mare, every last stallion. We can even grab the young and grow them up to a life where they belong to me." Vicious licked her lips.

The guard stallion had been caught. He knew he was in it deep. There were changelings everywhere and, worse, they were putting things on other ponies… on their heads. A fumbling hoof found his little locator. It was a device attached to every guard's armor. It was used so that equipment didn't get lost. A simple scry would find it. He worked the plate armor with his hoof, the weld holding the locator finally breaking and he discarded his uniform.

"Come on pony, your turn next." A hissing voice called almost right beside him. Brave Heart felt a prod of magic at his flank and moved, feigning a cough and putting the locator in his mouth. He gulped sharply, feeling the odd little device sink down inside him.

The green glowing balls looked, at first, about the size of his hoof. But he had seen what they did. One was lifted up before him, in changeling-green magic. "Head forward, slave." As Brave's nose got closer, the tentacles of the strange thing reached out, the ball unfolding into what looked like a glowing green sack. The first made contact with his nose and the stallion sneezed as they started to squirm into his nasal cavity, undulating and pulling, tugging his head forward into the embrace of the pod.

Deep sickly green flooded the pony's vision as the pod pulled around his head, more tentacles finding him, some working into his ears, a thick one his mouth and more thin ones his nose. It felt like those ones were miles long, they worked down deeper and deeper, leaving him throwing his head around and trying to dislodge it. He remembered, between panicked gasps, that those other ponies had tried to thrash and get the thing off. None had managed.

The tendril in Brave's mouth seemed to push deeper, down into his throat and as it seemed to reach where it wanted to be it swelled out, making the stallion gag and try and wretch, but it was doing a good job of keeping him from doing any such thing. Then the thick, rope-like tendril reached down outside the pod, curling around his throat.

The grip of the hood-like pod extended just to the bottom of his neck, so when this new tentacle tightened it effectively tied the pod to the poor unicorn. Gasping, struggling, he realized he could breathe easily but something else was happening. It tightened more and more and with each passing moment it got harder to think, harder to focus. His consciousness dipped down and it let go a touch, then tightened once more.

If Brave knew what it meant to have the blood flow to his brain reduced, he would know exactly what the pod was doing. Then it's magic started. Inside the pod, Brave smiled happily as pleasant thoughts filled his mind. Walk forward The words penetrated his head and he smiled wider, it was so easy to just walk forward. Stop And now it was simple to stop. The commands sunk easily into his malleable, oxygen-deprived brain. Thinking was hard, waiting for commands was so much better. Brave's belly gurgled with the new tracking chip inside it. Nopony cared, especially not Brave.

Author's Note

Okay, it isn't breath-play, but this is on par with it. I am not sure what to tag this with except 'sexy'

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