"Where'n tarnation is my brother?" Applejack was not relaxed, or calm; the journey to Canterlot on the Friendship Express had been an exercise, by the conductor, in trying to minimize damage. The Royal Guard, unused to any real hostility, tried to put up a good front but many just dropped their spears and fell back from the wrath of an earth pony on a mission. "If'n you don't let me in Ah'm gonna buck down the door."

"Let her in!" The voice was loud, commanding, and came from inside the royal hall. Glad to be out of the line of fire, two guards moved forward and opened the huge double-doors.

Applejack looked in. The room was practically empty, there were only two ponies and she had been looking for both. "Twilight." AJ's eyes narrowed on the purple alicorn, bound in a corset and wearing the silliest pair of stockings ever. "Molestia." Her eyes focused on the white alicorn sitting on a throne, a black leash running down to a collar around Twilight's neck. "Ah knew Ah'd find her here. You just gotta take and take and take, don't ya?"

"Applejack! Delightful, now if you just come over here and put this other collar on-" Molestia quickly put on a happy face, there was no harm in trying for the best scenario, right?

A loud crack was heard as Applejack lanced out with her hooves. One of the huge doors slammed closed, the other broke in half. "Ah'm here for my brother!"

"Big McIntosh?" Molly purred, her hoof reaching down to rub Twilight behind one ear. For her part, Twilight looked a little torn in her allegiance, and Applejack could at least give her the benefit of the doubt. "What of him?"

"Whatever you got him in, Ah want him out." Applejack calmed a little, amazingly enough, Molestia seemed to be level-headed about this. It wouldn't last, AJ knew, but she had to hope.

"Oh, well, I did need the stallion for my guard, but if you were, say, to take his place…" Molly grinned widely, her hoof trailing around Twilight's mane and rubbing her horn. Twilight's legs started to wobble and she went cross-eyed, blushing.

"In yer horse-apples, harem of a guard?" Applejack glared at the white alicorn, her anger and frustration coming to the fore. "An what'd be my 'duties'?"

"You would be in the Royal Guard. You would be strong and, let me tell you, that armor would be wonderful on such a spirited mare. You could even serve in my private guard." Molestia kept rubbing circles around Twilight's horn, keeping her completely subdued.

It was the kind of demand that AJ had expected. "Ah figured it'd be somethin' like this." She closed her eyes, remembering her brother, and how he had stood tall and accepted his fate. "Ah'll do it. Ah'll serve in yer blasted guard for as long as Mac would've. But y'gotta let him go, he is not yer's."

Applejack could swear she heard the alabaster alicorn purr. "This suits me, I accept. Your word and your honor." Molestia grinned as, just then, the single door still clinging to the arch fell down, Luna beaming in. "Oh, perfect timing. Sister, how are you doing?"

Luna saw Applejack and immediately felt avarice. Big Mac was a jewel she would treasure for the duration of his stay with her, but if she could get the stallion's sister too it would tickle her pink. "Applejack," her ignoring of her sister clearly didn't go unnoticed, "before you discuss anything with my sister, I have an important proposition for you."

"Applejack?" Big Mac had been waiting outside with the Royal Guard, but seeing her sister in the throne room made her clop forward on her much more lithe legs. "Good news, I got out of serving in the guard!"

"Mac?" Applejack and Molestia both stared at the night guard who trotted in, the female night guard, that is.

"Exactly what I was here to gloat about, dear sister. Now, before you snare Applejack up in anything, let me… just…" Luna saw the huge grin reform on her rotten sister's snout. "Oh you didn't?" She spun around to Applejack. "Did she?"

"Ah… Ah promised…" Applejack's anger and fury were disarmed completely by her promise. She ran over the words, repeating them again and again in her head. "Ah promised her…"

Mac wrapped her dark, leathery wing around her sister, squeezing Applejack. "Buck her, come and join me in Luna's guard, she… she promised me only four years."

Something hit Applejack, her brother was speaking more, and more eloquently, than she had ever heard him talk before. "My promise was to her."

"Guards! Fetch the finest white unicorn armor we have!" Molly had even surrendered Twilight's horn as she rubbed her forehooves together in glee. "The special one, you know what I mean!"

"I claim her for my guard." Luna glared at her sister. "There, you can't have her."

"Ah promised it to her." Applejack wanted an "out" as much as anypony, but she lived and breathed honesty, and what was more honest than keeping your promise. "Ah'll hold you to my promise, Your Highness. If Mac enters your service during my time here, you'll release him immediately."

"Done and done. The defense of Canterlot is vastly more important than petty squabbles, as long as I have one Apple, I will keep my word." Molestia practically drooled; this wasn't just the regular armor, which wasn't nearly good enough for her private guard, this was the special stuff.

A clanking sound approached and it was clear it wasn't the armor on the guards making it, when they brought in a large ponequin with specially stylized armor hanging off it. "Your Highness!" The unicorn carrying the armor in his magic set the ponequin down and stepped back.

"What's it good fer? Looks heavier than normal armor…" Applejack stepped over to it and heard it rattle a little. A dark form suddenly pushed her back from it. "Mac?"

"Princess Molestia!" Big Mac flared her wings a little, trying to keep her sister from a what could be a worse fate than she herself.

The armor rattled more, Molly noticed. It wants to be worn. "Yes?" She leaned across, to the side of her throne that Twilight was on, tugging the leash and guiding the smaller alicorn up, tugging the mare's head down to the folds of flesh between her back legs.

"No head games. AJ wears it, but no headpiece." Big Mac stomped her dainty-looking hoof, but left a crack in the huge stone under it.

Molestia melted as her pet began her work. "The deal was to wear all the armor, what would you give me to remove that requirement?"

"Mac, Ah can fight my own battle." AJ stepped forward, finding her "big sister" every bit the rock of muscle that her brother had been. "What's it gonna do?"

"For the years after you wear it, you will be my stallion. Body and mind." Molly reached a hoof down and played with Twilight's horn while she worked. "You will want me, you will want to be mine."

"After her time is up," Luna liked Mac enough to want the mare to like her back, so she interceded, "you let me take the armor off her, unlock all the enchantments."

Molestia was annoyed again, and it was only the pliant tongue of her student that kept her at all in the negotiation. "And what, little sister, will make me inclined to do that?"

Luna reached a hoof out to Mac's back, to steady her guard. "It isn't a deal. Her term is five years. I am telling you, sun-butt, that I will free her after that." Both Mac and AJ turned and looked at Luna, seeing a fiery strength in the dark mare.

"Sometimes," Molestia used Twilight's horn to guide her, "you really annoy me, Lulu."

"Is it safe?" Mac looked up at Luna, feeling she could trust her princess more and more. Luna nodded, leading to Mac turning to Applejack. "I will be waiting, I promise."

AJ couldn't and wouldn't hold back. She rushed forward, wrapping her forelegs around Big McIntosh. "Ah love you, big brother. After I put that on…"

"Yeah, I know." Mac wrapped two dark wings around her sister and squeezed. "You hold on to yourself."

Above the two embracing mares, Luna and Molestia had a little staring match. Each got what they wanted in this, and it seemed to gall each that the other did. "When you are ready." Molly held still as Twilight worked on her, it was a hard life, but it had some benefits.

Applejack let go first. "Ah sent Brae a message that the farm needed some help, if'n you could send him another to explain… this."

"Eeyup." Mac put her best "stallion" impression into the word, but it just felt wrong. She watched as her sister stepped around the ponequin, lifting up the heavy body-portion of the armor, lifting it back behind her, it leaped out of her hooves and onto her back.

"What-" was all Applejack managed to get out before the heavy armor grabbed hold of her. Straps and buckles pulled around her body, but oddly, it wasn't tight at all. "Ah think this is the wrong size."

"You will grow into it." Molly watched intently, leaving Twilight to work on her.

The tingling started in Applejack's legs. She looked down and saw her hooves seeming to grow, stretching to be a little bigger than even her brother's had been. Her legs slowly changed as well, muscles rippling and growing, stretching and bulging more and more as the change spread up her legs.

Applejack turned to her brother… sister, "Ah think it is working…" Mac nodded to her, just as the changes flowed up to her body. Her shoulders and hips grew first, suddenly able to support a lot more pony than they were. She fell to her knees, then belly, as she suddenly couldn't keep herself upright. AJ kicked feebly as her body changed, feeling like it was starting at the outside and working in. A part of herself she had never really thought to, before, felt like it was shrinking. Of course she knew what it was, she grew up on a farm. I am going to be a stallion...

A dark, feathered wing, wrapped around Mac and pulled her in closer to Luna. "You have my word I will undo this, my word." The world around Mac shrunk and she suddenly felt safer beside Luna, no matter how the alicorn had tricked her into becoming a mare, she had been the one to agree in the end. Her sister had no such option.

The filling sensation paused for Applejack, hanging on an indefinite precipice, an event horizon. Then something fell down, pushed out. AJ felt his shaft grow, pushing free of his sheath and swelling forward, surging. Rolling to his side and kicking at the strange sensation between his back legs,

Mac's eyes widened, her sister wasn't just growing a little, she… he, was huge. She saw Applejack kick her big back legs as a huge shaft started to jut out from between them and hated the feeling in her body the sight brought on. "Night Reign, please…" Mac's words drew a chill from the spirit that shared her armor, quelling the sensations. "Thank you, Night."

Luna blinked at Mac, her attention dragged away from the big stallion squirming on the floor. Her other guard never talked to the echo in their armor, but here she saw Mac doing just that. Special. She would have to handle this carefully, she did not want to push Mac away.

Feeling most of the changes made, his body calm, Applejack started to turn, to regain his legs. The pressure started on his back and forehead at the same time. Each place was suddenly pushing out a new part of him. A horn on his forehead, a pair of wings on his back. He knew that there were a very few in the guard that resembled this, he had heard rumors.

Molly got up to her hooves, pushing Twilight away. She ignored the purple alicorn's cry of surprise to advance down toward her new guard. "Applejack." Molestia grinned at the big stallion. "Applejack? Put your helmet on, dear." She lifted the helmet up in her own magic, her grip sending it over and dropping it down, just as the sea of white spread out from the armor.

"Yes, Your…" Applejack's eyes went wide as the helmet landed. Like the armor, it grabbed his head, straps pulling it down tight. "Your Majesty…" Fire erupted in his groin and Applejack lifted his head to stare at Molestia. The fire became a burn, the heat rising from his shaft and balls, spreading through him. Applejack gritted his teeth and resisted the urge to just mount Molly right then.

"Five years." Luna held Big Mac to her side.

"Let's go." Mac realized then that she would do whatever Luna asked, if it would mean one less day her sister would be in Princess Molestia's service.

"Ah got this."

Mac was already starting to turn when she heard the deep words. She spun around, seeing Applejack's face, the one she knew was behind her the white stallion's, smile at her. "Eeyup." If anypony was stubborn enough to resist that armor, it was Applejack.

Author's Note

And there we are. No sex (described), but you can be sure there is going to be some in the future.

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.

Awesome ponies who are already helping to keep me in keyboards and rum:
Canary in the coal mine
Daremo
Mary Rowland
Boulder
A.P.O.N.I.

And special thanks to the following, for careful eyes and friendly words:
Daremo
Vutava