Despite how great it would be to gossip with the princesses, Rarity had other plans for the day. "Darlings, you will just have to excuse me, I need to meet up with some ponies about starting a new boutique here. You understand surely?"

Twilight and Cadance both nodded and Rarity looked through the other friends present. Fluttershy had a cup of tea and was practically loving being on the edge of the conversation, Applejack had tuned out completely, Muffins was neck-deep in the chatter herself, and Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash both looked at her as if she were a life preserver. "Oh, Dashy, Pinkie, you had things you had to do too, right?"

The looks of appreciation were worth it and Rarity smiled wider.

"Oh, yes! I have to see about a flying… thing!" Rainbow Dash nodded and trotted off to where Rarity was walking.

"Me too! I need to see a pony about more confetti for my cannon!" Pinkie Pie proinked off, bouncing on all fours.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you…" As soon as they were outside Rainbow Dash had dropped to her knees at Rarity's side. "I owe you big time!"

"Well I do have some cleaning-" Rarity stopped her joke and held up a hoof. "I am just kidding darling, any time."

"So stuffy in there, last time I barely got to see anything fun out in the city!" Pinkie bounced along with the other two and Rarity thought it a most apt little group. One from each tribe. Well, except alicorn.

"I wasn't lying, I do plan to open a boutique here but… I may have been a little creative. I wanted to look for possible locations." Rarity admitted and got a wing thrown over her pristine back.

"Don't you worry, Rarity, after saving us from listening to the princess-sewing-circle back there I think we can keep a little secret." Dash had rebuffed Rarities offer of 'more' earlier, but right now even that seemed preferable to being back inside. Then it hit her, Rarity knew of her 'cleaning'. A blush hit her cheeks and she wished Muffins was with her, one good thing about alicorn wings, they were excellent sources of cover.

"Yupperoonies, hay, let's look together!" Pinkie jumped up on a lamppost and looked off into the distance down the crossroads. "Nope, no suitable shops sighted!"

"Of course not dear, the city is growing, all the new properties will be on the edges." Rarity picked a direction and started trotting. Dash kept up easily at her side but pulled her wing back. Rarity would have spent a moment checking for any dust or dirt, but she knew well how much care the pegasus took of her wings.

"Oh, does this mean we can sing a song on the way?" Pinkie bounced along and Rarity saw the mare open her mouth, nothing could stop it, everypony would be dragged into the show tune and Rarity loved it.

The three sang different parts of the song, Pinkie beginning it of course, then Dash, then Rarity herself lent her voice to the third part and together they sang the chorus. There was no rhyme or reason behind it, but the three were just happy to share their friendship and it passed the time well until they were at the outskirts of the city.

"What about over here?" Rainbow Dash trotted over to a spot where the roads would likely meet in another circular pattern if the growth matched the rest of the city.

"That would be perfect, but it is going to take a little bit for the growth to reach… what was that?" Rarity looked off into the nearby forest. She could have sworn she had seen movement.

No sooner were both looking that Pinkie peeked out from behind a tree over at the tree-line. "Hay, I think I see something!" She bounced off into the forest, leaving Rarity and Rainbow to look at each other then take off after her.

"Pinkie! Darling, do wait up!" Rarity trotted up to where the mare had been and stopped, she could neither hear nor see the pink party pony anywhere. "Pinkie?" Rarity stepped into the trees and was hit with a glob of yellow gunk!

Pinkie, struggling in a whole mess of the goop, was just before her. Rainbow Dash came in next. "Rarity wha-" Another gob of the sticky stuff hit the pegasus. Rarity had had quite enough of this and started charging her horn but the moment she started to it was like the goop stuck to her suddenly got warm and not a single spark came from her horn. Then she spotted them.

About half the size of a pony, the ants were actually quite huge compared to their normal brethren. "Ugh, get off me you bugs!" Rainbow was putting up a fight, she still had her mouth free at least, but another gob of the yellow stuff hit her in the face and she was soon making muffled snarls. The ants advanced on them and Rarity watched as the things pushed more of the goop onto her struggling friends' limbs and yet more picked her up.

Rainbow Dash didn't stop struggling the whole time the things were carrying her. She was indignant, the only reason she had been close enough to the ground to be hit was because of her friends. Then she saw the big hole in the ground ahead and trembled, trying to remember what kinds of ants ate critters.

Pinkie struggled away as well, it was really wrong and silly, she shouldn't have been caught up so easily, normally it was Rainbow who charged in and got caught. When the ants tugged her down underground she tried to blink and adjust her eyes to the light and, slowly, a dull white glow started to permeate the darkness, the crystals in the ground offering a little light.

Rarity watched as her two friends were carried off to a different destination, and she was pulled into a room where she saw nearly a dozen ponies all trussed up in gunk. Shock hit her as she saw ponies who stared blankly at the odd thing in front of them. They were arrayed behind a group of ants, each of the insects looking to have huge bloated abdomens and much smaller bodies. As she watched one pulled itself free of the pony behind it, the poor mare's horn slipping from the ant's back-end. It scurried off into the hive while a new ant positioned itself before her. Easing back, it worked the unicorn's horn into itself and a soft glow started within it.

Carried over beside a blindly staring stallion, Rarity was set down and the ants started adjusting her stance so that her head was pushed up and forward and her legs were planted down firmly. Then they applied more of the sticky gunk to her and patted it dry. Rarity was stuck in place just like the other ponies. Another of the big ants came in, its abdomen small. Rarity trembled as it stopped in the middle and turned around. Thanks to the goop around her neck the mare couldn't shift her horn away as the thing backed up against her, and she felt as her pristine white horn was worked into it.

There was a moment when she thought nothing was happening. Then the thing started to suck. Not physically, Rarity's magic was being drawn at, almost like a giant milking machine. She fought it, struggled and held back her power, but it was a losing battle. The first time she slipped, the first moment a little of her magic was drawn out, the odd fog started to fill her head. She tried to stop more of her essence being drained but the thing's suction remained a constant pulsing pressure and she… she only weakened. The fog got thicker and thicker and Rarity's last thoughts were that there was an odd taste in her mouth, something was pushing past her lips but she wasn't able to focus, to know what it was, her eyes dulled as she watched the pulsing light ahead of her.

Pinkie watched as Dash was carried along with her. The room they ended up in was huge and she soon saw why. It had a huge ant in it! Marching among all the others, its body nearly four times the size of anything around it, what was obviously the queen was doing stuff… stuff to ponies!

Rainbow saw as the huge bug, and not a nice bug like Gel, lowered its huge abdomen down and pressed it against the face of a pony, something seemed to push into the poor stallion because Dash saw their throat work again and again and their belly swelled up. Then it hit her, it was filling them with eggs!

Both ponies struggled harder in their efforts but, ultimately, they were set down on the floor of the cavern, their legs all gooped to their bodies. Their mouths were freed, however.

"Did you see where Rares went? We have to get out of here, there is no telling what they will be doing to her!" Dash was squirming but found it was nearly impossible to get around and, worse, she could see the queen's abdomen swinging around toward her. But before it did, a small ant scurried up and mashed something against her lips. The goop was coming from its butt however it smelled super sweet. "Ugh-Mmmffm!" The first exclamation she gave let the ant shove its tapered abdomen between her lips and suddenly she felt as the sweet goop was forced into her mouth.

Pinkie was faring no better and her eyes started to roll back a little as her belly swelled. The thing stopped, eventually, and pulled back. "…" Her voice didn't work! Pinkie tried to yell and scream but it felt like something was tight in her throat. She saw as a shadow fell over Dash and the queen pressed its much larger abdomen down to her friend's face. There was some kind of tube pushing out from the end and she watched, her own jaw slightly slack, as it pushed into her friend's mouth.

Rainbow was forced to watch as the ovipositor swelled out, the shapes looking to be about half the size of an apple, and each one was pumped down. They began to fill her mouth and she felt a few of them inside, she had to swallow them or they would choke her. Gritting her teeth around that shape in between her lips, as well as the oddly loose muscles, let her begin to swallow, and swallow, and swallow.

The earth pony's eyes widened more, she watched the egg-sized shapes push down her friend's throat again and again, she counted them, getting an odd feeling from her jaw. She couldn't close it properly and realized the goop the thing had pumped into her must have not only messed with her vocal cords but also her jaw muscles. While she figured this out she watched the abdomen pull back from her friend and it came over to her.

Rainbow Dash, her belly feeling so very full, squirmed and managed to roll herself over to her friend. She watched Pinkie's throat work as she swallowed the eggs. There simply wasn't anything else to do. Movement caught her eye and she watched as a pony was… well, pooping out much larger eggs. The queen's bulk moved away from the pair and the silent ponies gathered close and nuzzled each other. This holiday was not going well…

Day wore on to evening and Gel, Shining, and Spike decided to go for a walk. "So, Twilight's little Spike all grown up? Found yourself a good guy I gather?" Shining knew some of the story, he knew it was a stallion the new unicorn pined for.

"The best, Cloud's wings are so soft and… what?" Spike blinked, looking between the other two ponies.

"Nothing, you just grow two inches every time you say his name." Gel reached a hoof up and rubbing his friend's head. "Adorable is what it is."

Shining didn't see the appeal in stallions, but he couldn't deny love when he saw it, being with the Princess of Love had taught him some things, and he saw the former dragon was well bitten by the ageless emotion.

"Hay, what's that?" Gel gestured to the park they were near, it adjoined the forest. "Thought I saw something-" He got no more words out, pink goop slapping against him. The goo changeling felt really odd and, suddenly, he was no longer in that body. Back in Ponyville, a gooplicate lifted its head and swore in a way that good ponies really shouldn't.

Author's Note

Art of one of the scenes in this chapter can be found on derpibooru at 1427960 ( search for ID:1427960 ). This was fan-commissioned art by Dio-Drogynous.

Oops, well I guess Gel could do with a break... now he is a little stuck though.

Support me on Patreon or fuel my writing on Ko-Fi!

Join me on Discord. Warning, said chat may contain NSFW material and should be considered adult in nature.