Sunshower and Cloud Kicker fled the frightening—but strangely arousing—scene as fast as their wings could take them, their earlier intimacy forgotten and hearts pounding in their chests.

Cloud Kicker didn’t know what had suddenly made her—made them all!—so suddenly and deliciously horny, but she hadn’t cared much, enjoying herself and Sunshower’s lemonade-scented marehood greatly for it. She’d also been more than happy to tease the stallions in the process, keeping her hindquarters pointed at them, giving them an eyeful beneath her flagged tail. She was more into mares than stallions as a rule, but once in a while she would indulge them, if always strictly on her terms…

Terms that were decidedly not met when she suddenly heard a sharp rumble of thunder—they weren’t supposed to be making storms, just spooky skies!—and looked up and beheld several shocking sights at once.

“What… the… HAY!?” was all she could immediately think to say, instantly pulling herself up and off a very surprised and disappointed Sunshower, who quickly sobered up as she likewise saw the scene around them. At first, the pair could only gawk at the sights around them—very predatory bat-pony versions of Blossomforth and Rainbow Dash were perched atop Open Skies and Star Hunter, taking them in a mating position even she would rarely consider! And between them was a cloud-bound and sorely aroused Thunderlane, seemingly waiting his turn…

Under any other circumstances, she might have found the scene both interesting and extremely erotic, right out of some of the more kinky Neighponese nangas she’d read, but as she beheld what was happening, she found herself feeling a very real twinge of fear. Those aren’t costumes and this… isn’t… NORMAL! was all her slightly panicked mind could immediately come up with as Rainbow, or whatever she had transformed into, turned towards them and gave them a chillingly toothful grin, looking upon them as if they were little more than… meat?

“Oh, hi there, CK! And how ya doin’, Sunshower?” she called out to them like she was meeting them in the local pub after shift—her voice, at least, sounded normal, if a little more brash and boastful. “Enjoy your time together? So why didn’t you let the boys join in?” she asked with a smirk. “I mean, teasing without letting them touch? That’s not fair to them or us! So we’re gonna have to teach you both a lesson!” She lowered her dark-furred head and narrowed her impossibly slitted eyes in seeming anticipation of a hunt, her smile becoming broader and even more predatory for it.

“CK! Sunshower! Get out of here!” Thunderlane shouted, his voice both excited and quavering as he sensed his fate approaching. “Go for help!Go!” he begged them despite his flushed cheeks and enormous erection.

Cloud Kicker was never one to back down from a threat or fight, and certainly not a potential partner. She had speed and confidence to spare; she knew several martial arts and didn’t mind in the least mixing it up with mares or stallions either in the bedroom or in a barroom, for she often found a good brawl every bit as invigorating and fun as a good tuck. She relished dares and challenges for how good she was at winning them, earning the title of ‘winningest pony’ in the process to Rainbow’s occasional chagrin, and she never, ever lost control of anything...

Until now. Whatever was happening out there, she sensed instantly that she would not be in control of it, and the idea both scared and excited her more than anything else they saw. A trickle of sweat went down her cheek even as a fresh trickle of her own plum-scented nectar—”Juicy and delicious!” she often said to tempt her myriad partners with it—ran down her leg; her still-swollen marehood winking in spite of herself at the very unlikely and strangely enticing sights before her.

But the fear won out; after exchanging a quick glance with Sunshower, who was staring equally frightened and slack-jawed at the scene, she obeyed Thunderlane’s plea. The pair immediately flew off as fast as their wings would carry them through the increasingly stormy skies, trying to lose their nightmarish pursuers in the growing cumulus congestus clouds around them; their static charge accumulating and starting to raise the hairs on their manes.

And yet, for all her speed and skill in the air, she was stunned to see that Blossomforth of all ponies was not only pursuing her but gaining on her, steadily getting closer even as the nightmare version of Rainbow closed on Sunshower, the latter of whom Cloud Kicker had been enjoying the company of not a minute earlier.

“You’re mine, Cloud Kicker!” the now-batpony version of Blossomforth called out over a fresh rumble of a thunder from a building storm in the distance; the neglected clouds bunching up and growing in the absence of the split and sorely distracted weather team tending them. “You’re finally mine, and you’re not getting away this time!”

Any other time, Cloud Kicker would have responded with bravado and innuendo—in the past, Blossomforth had been so fun to tease!—but this time… “St-stay back!” she warned even as she went into a series of sharp maneuvers and dove through a cloud to try to lose her dogged pursuer. “I don’t know what happened to you, but I don’t wanna hurt you, Blossoms!”

“It’s Nymphaea now!” the former pegasus mare corrected from behind her, causing Cloud Kicker to blink. “And don’t worry, fillyfriend, you won’t anymore!” she announced in an intent but gleeful tone Cloud Kicker had never heard from her before, one that both chilled and thrilled her—whatever the creature that was pursuing her now, this was not the Blossomforth she knew!

Her attention was grabbed by a sudden blast of wind from below. Off to her side, Sunshower had tried to escape Rainbow by going into a power dive, attempting to make it to Ponyville, but instead of giving chase, Rainbow had countered that by simply summoning forth a massive updraft beneath a nearby and quickly growing cumulus to yank her back up. Her own wind and weather magic unable to compensate, Sunshower had been caught up in the powerful upwards gale and sent shooting right through the cloud, bursting out the top even as it continued to expand beneath her…

… and right into Rainbow’s waiting grasp, who then threw her back down onto the cloud beneath her and pinned her within it, going to work on her out of sight of the other two mares.

For the first time, Cloud Kicker realized that she was not only not in control, but for the first time in her life, completely out of her league. A feeling that was not helped as her former friend with benefits bore down ever closer upon her, closing in with not just uncanny speed and agility she’d never been capable of as a pegasus, but with a desire and fire she’d never shown before.

“One down…” Blossomforth noted eagerly as she noted the action off to their right. “And one… to… go!” she exclaimed gleefully as she put on a final burst of speed powered by a summoned tailwind. Cloud Kicker was only barely able to keep her airborne balance and dodge her friend’s foreleg swipe, shooting off to the side and aiming herself for a nearby cloud. If I can lose her in there, then I might be able to get AWAY!

She had barely entered when she realized too late that was the last thing she should have done—the waterlogged air around her condensed into something akin to molasses as Blossomforth reached and made contact with the cloud, partially solidifying it around Cloud Kicker, imprisoning her within it.

“What? No!” Cloud Kicker shouted as she realized she was trapped, struggling to get away. In a moment of inspiration, she tried to trigger a lightning bolt to blind her pursuer and dazzle her long enough to disrupt her focus and allow an escape—she’d read somewhere that thestrals were very light-sensitive and vulnerable to being blinded by sudden flashes—but with the cloud firmly under Blossomforth’s thrall instead of her own, she was unable to unleash even a small bolt, and her friend seemed unaffected by the camera-like flashes of more distant bolts anyway, even the ones that left spots in Cloud Kicker’s vision.

She barely had time to consider alternate means of escape before the cloud around her suddenly parted; the two halves above her being pulled apart by diverging winds, leaving her exposed but with her limbs trapped within the cloud’s bottom, her unbound wings clawing frantically at the air around her but unable to pull her free.

An effort that only became all the more frantic as Blossomforth landed in front of her, stalking towards her slowly over the cloud surface, her feline pupils turned into bright orange embers in the moonlight. She gave her bound friend a sinister grin, her fangs gleaming while she studied her quarry with a lustful, hungry gaze. “So, what’s wrong, CK? You never shied away from a good rut before!” she pointed out, deliberately freeing her friend’s forelegs and allowing her to rise up and pinwheel them desperately, trying to ward her off.

“Stay back!” Cloud Kicker ordered again. “I mean it, Blossoms! Don’t come any closer!” she tried again, struggling to keep the quaver from her voice.

“Stay back? Why?” A completely unimpressed Blossomforth asked in amusement, never breaking the stride of her approach, visibly savoring the role reversal she had for so long dreamt of and was now inflicting. “You never minded being with me before, Cloud Kicker! You never minded being with anypony! So why so scared now?” she asked mockingly, licking her muzzle slowly with a lengthened tongue, her newly acquired stallionhood growing quickly beneath her belly, causing Cloud Kicker to gape, feeling her arousal starting to surge again to her great surprise as she started to sense she wasn’t going to be able to escape her predicament.

Abruptly, Blossomforth’s attitude changed, her expression turning much darker, her slitted eyes narrowing and bat-wings flaring in anger, the look in her eyes causing Cloud Kicker’s blood to run cold. “Maybe because it was always on your terms? Because you always got to decide where and when I got to be with you? Because I always ended up with sloppy seconds after all your other partners? Because you never stopped to consider my feelings or how much it hurt me to see you with everypony else?” There was a moment of very real rage in her voice that made Cloud Kicker’s heart nearly stop as the cloud beneath her began crackling with electricity in direct response to the transformed mare’s anger.

“Blossoms…” she tried again, fearful of not just her former friend, but of being struck by a wild bolt of lightning.

“Don’t ‘Blossoms’ me, CK! I told you my name is Nymphaea now! And this time, things are different! This time, you don’t get away! This time... I get you all to myself, and we do things the way I want to!” she announced as she simply knocked the other mare backwards with another great gust of wind, onto her back. She quickly locked Cloud Kicker’s wings and all four legs into the burbling cloud around her, leaving her fully exposed and presented to Nymphaea, who used the cloud to spread her legs even further apart. The summoned breezes that were pulling at the cloud and her legs played over her marehood, making Cloud Kicker shudder and her femininity involuntarily wink again, still overly-sensitive and unsatisfied as it was from her earlier abortive session with Sunshower.

“Well, well…” Nymphaea called out as they both heard Sunshower’s orgasmic cry from the next cloud over. “You really like the tables being turned, don’t you?” she noted in excitement and delight as she slowly approached the bound Cloud Kicker, suppressing the static charge of the cloud beneath her just enough to keep any lightning bolts from erupting in their general area, though that didn’t keep some deeper sparks from lighting up the cloud beneath her. This fact didn’t go unnoticed by Cloud Kicker, either, causing her to whimper, realizing that for the first time since she was a very young filly, she was afraid…

And very aroused as Blossomforth, or Nymphaea as she now claimed she was called, neared her, allowing her to get a very close look at the mare’s altered form—tufted ears, a slightly shaggier coat and large, webbed, bat-pony wings were all evident; when lightning flashed behind her, she could see right through the thin membrane to glimpse not just her prominent thumb talons, but the dexterous finger-like structure that underlaid the wings themselves.

But she had little time to consider the matter as her former friend reached her, staring down at her athletic body quite hungrily, her glowing thestral eyes tracing its outline but focusing, she noted with some fear, on her long neck. Panicked visions of vamponies danced in Cloud Kicker’s head as Blossomforth considered her lazily, licking her lips and appraising her as if she was a great meal, deciding which course came first.

“Hey Nymphy! How you doin’ over there?” Rainbow’s voice called out just before she and a freshly converted Sunshower appeared from over the top of the cloud, the latter now a bat-pony like the rest, if with a much darker hue than her previous bright yellow coat, now turned a much darker golden color to go with her pine green mane and tail. She took in the situation before her and gave Nymphaea an approving nod. “Well, then. Looks like you got everything well in hoof!” She turned her gaze to the bound form of Cloud Kicker and snickered. “So who’s the winningest pony now, Cloud Kicker?” She couldn’t resist adig at her longtime rival. “Looks to me like you’re about to have your title taken!”

“Aw… can’t we join in?” Sunshower studied the scene hungrily, wanting to try out her new abilities and equipment, now sporting a malehood of her own to Cloud Kicker’s shock. “Please, Shadowdash? I mean, I didn’t get to finish with her before…” She licked her lips meaningfully, her new stallion shaft rapidly growing to attention and already drooling on the cloud beneath her.

Cloud Kicker was anything but reassured when Rainbow, or ‘Shadowdash’ as she now apparently called herself, shook her head. “Sorry, Sunny, but fair’s fair—I promised Nymphaea here that Cloud Kicker was all hers!” Rainbow pronounced to a fresh shiver from the bound mare as she finally realized her fate—they were going to make her like them! “And she deserves her! But that doesn’t mean we can’t have fun elsewhere. We’re gonna head over and check on the boys now. Have fun, Nymphy! Give her a tuck for us, but don’t take too long! Our Queen awaits!” she reminded the other mare as a fresh stroke of lightning from the nearby storm lit up the scene.

“You got it, Dash!” Nymphaea answered like she was following orders as part of the weather team again. “Well, you heard her, CK. Can’t keep our Queen waiting!” she noted with a grin as the other two zipped off, leaving them alone again.

“Q-Queen?” Cloud Kicker repeated in a shaky voice as the rumble of thunder reached them quickly, now anticipating and dreading her friend’s touch, seeing the stallionhood hanging beneath her belly, already—and deliberately?—drooling all over her erect and tingling teats, giving them an odd feeling of expansion and fullness, causing their mass and sensitivity to grow.

“Our new sovereign, Queen Eclipse. Don’t worry; you’ll meet her soon enough…” Nymphaea informed her with a long and languid lick of the other mare’s neck, who moaned softly, now immersed in Nymphaea’s scent and pheromones, breathing more in with every inhalation and increasingly in her thrall for it. “But for now…” she stepped forward and reached down to kiss the other mare deeply, full on the lips, and Cloud Kicker responded almost in spite of herself, her excitement only growing at being hunted down, trapped, and in the most unlikely role reversal she could imagine, being placed at Blossomforth’s mercy!

“B-Blossoms...” was all Cloud Kicker could manage as her head swam, both from whatever was in the air around her and the sheer exhilaration of being taken by her suddenly predatory friend, her body responding to the altered mare in spite of herself, keenly aware of every contour of her body as well the brand new equipment she had acquired. “I… I…”

“Sssshhh…” Her reactions did not go unnoticed by her longtime friend. “It’s okay, CK. I promise you’re going to enjoy this as much as I will!” she said huskily between kisses, her long tongue probing deep into the other mare’s muzzle as the tapered head of her dangling thestral malehood left wet trails of hot fluid against her slightly chilled belly, its mass finally settling nicely between Cloud Kicker’s newly engorged teats as Nymphaea sat up off the other mare, leaving only their lower bellies in contact as she began thrusting slowly between her friend’s deliciously swollen mammaries, stimulating them—and herself—with the motion. “So many ways to tuck you, but so little time. So let’s start with this…” she announced as she began thrusting her newly acquired organ between them,

“Wha…?” A badly flushed Cloud Kicker looked down at her belly in disbelief as her friend began performing the unheard-of act, pushing their still-growing mass against her throbbing and thrusting shaft with her hooves, feeling the unfamiliar but anything-but-unpleasant sensations go through her as the sensitive flesh was manipulated; her feminine features used as a very unlikely toy for Blossomforth’s pleasure! “But… that’s…” For one of the few times in her life, Cloud Kicker found herself completely speechless. She was no stranger to kinky stuff, but even she’d never been rutted like that before! And incredibly…

I… I think I LIKE this??? she realized in some shock, starting to wish even more from her friend.

“Fun, huh?” a breathless Nymphaea called out through hissing breaths as she saw her friend’s face flush further, her teats now almost painfully hard, making it a point to grind the veins of her shaft against them to tweak them further, eliciting startled gasps from Cloud Kicker, who bit her bottom lip hard. “Humans call it ‘paizuri’, according to Pinkie Pie! No idea where she learned it, but I heard about it from her and really liked the idea!” she announced as she continued to thrust between the still-growing mass of her friend’s mammaries, now able to encircle half her large organ with them.

After half a minute of such mutual stimulation, she abruptly stiffened and took a sharp intake of breath in an announcement of impending climax Cloud Kicker knew only too well.

“And now… here’s another little item from humans Pinkie mentioned…” she managed to get out just before her back arched and the head of her stallionhood flared hard, pointed right at Cloud Kicker’s head, who suddenly found herself with the same feeling she once had when she looked down the barrel of Pinkie’s party cannon just before it went off in her face, covering her with confetti. “Bukkake!”she announced loudly as it erupted with several times the volume Cloud Kicker was used to, coating her chest, neck, and head, several of the initial streams finding her open muzzle and the hot, creamy liquid all but compelling her to swallow it.

In truth, she was no stranger to that either, having gone against mare norms to go down on a few stallions in her day. But the eagerness she did so with here, gulping down as much as of the strangely sweet and warm liquid as she could, might have given her pause if she didn’t start to feel an odd energy begin to infuse her at that moment, a warm tingle and spreading heat that began in her muzzle and quickly spread throughout her body; even the fluid that sat in broad strokes on her fur and muzzle appeared to be sinking into her, turning the skin beneath warm, then hot… and then exquisitely sensitive, more receptive than ever to what her friend was doing to her.

“Oooooh… “ was all Cloud Kicker managed as her tongue darted out to gather as much of her friend’s impossibly enticing seed from her muzzle and chin as she could, trying to drink down even more of it; get as much of it into her as possible. “Nymphaea…” Cloud Kicker called out to her friend by her desired name for the first time, her marehood now frantically winking beneath her, still feeling the mass of her shaft lying between her still-tingling teats. “Need… more…”

“Sorry… what was that?” the former Blossomforth asked as she collapsed only briefly against the other mare, thestral eyes both glazed and glittering as she recovered from her first-ever male climax, both amazed and delighted by how explosively exquisite the release was. So THIS is how it is for guys? Fun! “Say it again, CK…” she ordered.

“M-more…” Cloud Kicker obeyed instantly. “Please…” She couldn’t help it—it wasn’t just the siren song of Nymphaea’s magical pheromones that saturated the air around her, making her heady with every heaving and very ragged breath she took. It wasn’t her more potent seed that was already going to work on her, its contained magic quickly driving her to even higher heights of desire and lust. It wasn’t even the fact that the curse was already causing her to change form in uncertain ways from the inside out, making her body and mind even more receptive, increasingly compelling her to accept and allow what was happening to her in order to complete the change.

No, it was the very knowledge that for all her speed and strength, for all her self-confidence and previously dominant personality, she’d been captured and even conquered by the other mare; that she was utterly helpless in the face of her transformed state, turned into a toy for her pleasure. It was the unlikeliest of role-reversals that’d she never so much as dreamed was a turn-on for her, but now…?

“More what…?” Nymphaea asked triumphantly, her toothy grin full of pointed thestral teeth only growing along with the organ beneath her belly, which was quickly surging back to full attention in an impressive erection that exceeded average stallion size. It had barely softened after her earlier orgasm, only to quickly re-harden again, her new apples likewise swelling with seed once more. “Who do you belong to, Cloudy? And who do you want?” she challenged as a massive sheet of lightning forked through the more distant thunderhead, illuminating the scene once more.

“I… I…” Cloud Kicker sensed what Nymphaea was asking, sensed that her altered friend was not so far gone in whatever transformation had overtaken her that she’d forgotten the deepest and too-often most forlorn desire of her former self.

“Say it…” Nymphaea ordered her again, stepping slightly backwards off her to dangle her freshly engorged stallionhood between her legs, giving her bound friend’s marehood lips the barest of brushes with its head, causing Cloud Kicker’s hips to buck beneath her, trying but unable to urge the organ inside her.

“I w-want…” despite all that happened to her, the final word caught in her throat as, for the first time in her life, she realized she was ready and willing to surrender herself to somepony else fully. And despite all that had happened to her, and how desperately she wanted to continue, the thought still gave whatever remained of her being pause.

“Say it!”Nymphaea now all but demanded, this time rocking herself slightly forward to draw her hanging head along the length of Cloud Kicker’s marehood, its tip already drooling fresh clear fluid onto her exquisitely swollen clit and lips, causing them to erupt with pleasurable and increasingly insatiable fire. “Say it, and I’ll do it!”

“I…” Cloud Kicker also, somehow, sensed in the deepest part of her overheated being that if she said yes and they proceeded, that there was no turning back—that the changes were irreversible both physically and mentally; that her conquest and conversion would not be complete until she came herself; until she was made to climax by her longtime friend and occasional lover…

Until she was fully claimed by the former Blossomforth, body and soul. And is this… is SHE... what I want to have? What I want to BE? She asked herself as the moment seemed to stretch before them, her very being teetering on the precipice.

Helped along by the mating magic already in her system, the undeniable answer surged up from deep within her soul, and with that epiphany, the final frayed threads of her will broke as she welcomed and embraced not just her longest and dearest friend, but all she offered. Corruption. Conversion. Ascension! “I want… you!” she finally forced the words out, tears in her eyes as she spoke.

“I-I’m yours, N-Nyphmaea! N-Now and forever! T-take me. Remake me!” she desperately begged the other mare, obeying a strange compulsion to bear her throat to Nymphaea like she was surrendering to the vampony her friend at least took the appearance of.

Nymphaea threw back her head and gave a cry that likewise sounded like it’d been pulled from very soul, a thestral-like screech of mingled triumph and sexual hunger as she finally gained her long-suffering heart’s greatest desire, sparing but a moment of thought for the one who had granted her the ability to obtain it.

Shadowdash… she called out with her thoughts, tears in her eyes as she reached down to kiss the other mare, no longer forcibly, but tenderly. I owe this all to you… and Queen Eclipse! She decided as she positioned herself to take Cloud Kicker even in the previously unfamiliar and unconsidered mating position though she was in. For this, you both have my undying loyalty! I’ll thank you both properly later, but for now… !

With her stallionhood now pressed firmly against Cloud Kicker’s entrance, she pushed her head in, causing both mares to take a shuddering breath. Even to one as experienced as Cloud Kicker, Nymphaea was bigger than most stallions she’d taken short of Thunderlane, who she suddenly heard cry out from the other side of the cloud. But whatever was happening to him did not consume her thoughts so much as the mighty and magnificent specimen of malehood now entering her, belonging to her beloved and longtime friend as it did.

“Ooohh….” she called out as she felt it progressively fill her, pushing deeper into her, her entrance clamping down on it repeatedly, grinding her inner ridges against its veins. A fresh wave of warmth and wild magic surged outwards from the intruder, filling her from within, driving her quickly towards climax. At the same time, Nymphaea began to thrust, soon sinking herself up to her medial ridge and beyond, her head soon pressing against the entrance of her very womb, the outline of the shaft leaving a visible bulge on her belly.

Considering the other mare’s size and how deeply she was pressing, it might have hurt, and yet… her body accommodated the intrusion with surprising ease; her inner walls expanding or shifting where needed to perfectly encapsulate her friend’s gorgeous and delicious organ.

Finally sunk to the hilt, Nymphaea found herself far enough forward that she could again reach the other mare’s neck and face, and wasted little time in raining kisses and nips upon them, all but worshiping her. Cloud Kicker sensed the former Blossomforth’s genuine love and affection for her and reciprocated, suddenly wondering why she’d always kept her at a foreleg’s length before when all she ever wanted or needed… was now atop her and inside her, making love to her in a way no other stallion or mare ever had!

But in the new Nymphaea, she now had the best of both worlds, a loving partner who could please her as either a stallion or mare, she realized, marveling at the feel of Nymphaea’s teats rubbing against and tweaking her own as they lower bellies rubbed together. as she felt her climax rise, fueled by both the magic being fed her and genuine desire to have her, become as her. “Blossoms…” she couldn’t help but call out from sheer habit. “I’m going to…”

“Let it happen…” Nymphaea told her as she thrust firmly yet nipped softly at the other mare’s beautiful neck, cradling her with the fingers of a bat-wing behind her head. “I’ve got you…” she repeated the same words she used on an uncertain Open Skies, sparing the barest moment of thought for him, wondering what he and the others were doing to Thunderlane at that moment. “And I won’t ever let you go...” she promised as she willed herself to climax to match the other mare, picking up her pace and slamming her hips forward, her new apples audibly slapping the other mare’s flanks until they suddenly contracted and pulled back into her body.

Their mutual screams of pleasure, one pegasi and one thestral, shattered the night, audible even to Shadowdash and the rest of the nearly-converted weather team on the next cloud over.

Author's Note

Happy Thanksgiving folks! At least to American readers...

As this scene kept growing and expanding, I realized it needed its own chapter—that anything that came after it would be anti-climactic (pun intended), and in the end, I couldn’t put both it and the Thunderlane scene in the same chapter without one detracting from the other. No, both these scenes require their own chapter and focus for as much buildup as they’ve been getting. As such, the next chapter will be the big all-boys scene with Thunderlane; an extended sequence like ths one. It’s already half-written, so it won’t take long this time!

Hope you enjoyed the Cloud Kicker/Nymphaea scene! Not bad for someone who never actually read The Life and Times of a Winning Pony. In my own twisted way, this is supposed to be homage. I really should read it at some point, if only to find out where I went astray in this depiction. Of my prereading crew, only AJ_Aficionado knew much about it. Thanks go to him and to Denim_Blue, Leo Archon, and Silentwoodfire for prereading this, taking time out of their post-Thanksgiving tryptophan comas to review this.

And no, I haven’t forgotten about the other elements of the story. We need to get back to Rarity and finish off things with Spike, and then all the pieces and players will be in place. And then... be very afraid, Starlight!